The last time I opened my laptop was exactly one week ago, on a plane, while we were flying to New Zealand for our Christmas holiday. I had to quickly open it this morning once I realised that it was friday again and I needed to write my blog. I nearly missed the first blog in seven years!
The last week has been a blast. It hasn't been the warmest summer on record but that didn’t stop the kids from jumping into every body of water we’ve passed on our adventures. The highlight for water activities would have to be the inflatable obstacle course they have on Lake Dunstan down the road from Mum and Dads. It looks like fun from the shore but once you're out there it’s a life or death situation as you try not to fall into the freezing water. I was grateful I’d been working on my upper body strength this year so I could at least drag myself back up onto the course when I did fall off. Which happened a lot.
Another highlight of the trip was the afternoon that Matt and I got to ourselves when we left the kids with Mum and Dad for a few hours. We headed down to old Cromwell which is a small strip of old buildings from the gold mining days. There is a cafe and bar with some tourist shops and a few galleries. It’s very quaint and quite beautiful sitting on the shores of Lake Dunstan. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky so we just meandered along taking advantage of going into shops that the kids wouldn’t last 2 seconds in.
We found a beautiful stone carving studio, Darryn Rae Carving, that has the most amazing Pounamu (greenstone) earrings. Earlier this year I had lost one of the Pounamu earrings that I got for my 21st. I was devastated. It felt like I had lost a bit of my soul somehow. My greenstone earrings are my connection to country and anyone who has seen me at any sort of event will confirm that I wear them all the time. It's how I bring my family with me.
Turns out it was no coincidence that we were chatting away to Darryn because Matt had planned to come here and get me a new pair of earrings. There were so many beautiful pieces of jewellery and learning about where the stone comes from and the significance of each piece was quite moving. You can’t buy pounami for yourself, it has to be gifted and there were so many beautiful pairs that Matt could've chosen but as we were talking, Darryn showed us a beautiful pair that he’d been working on that just need to have the holes carved out and to be polished if we were happy to wait.
Of course we waited. We had a couple of mocktails (well, I did) and soaked in the beautiful surroundings. The earrings Darryn made me were stunning. The whole experience with Darryn, with Matt, without the kids, on a beautiful day, make the earrings even more meaningful. They have this wonderful story attached to them now which contributes to the mana and history the stones have carried from the West Coast of the South Island where they came from.
Receiving these earrings on Christmas day was really special. So was spending the day with my family. My parents, my sister and her husband, plus his parents and all the cousins! Watching my kids hit it off with my sisters is the best part of coming to New Zealand. Its chaos in the best possible way and sharing it with whanau is the best gift of all!!
