Visiting Wellingtonians
Sherlockfan and discoverylover are in Christchurch this weekend, taking advantage of cheap flights for a quick South Island adventure. They arrived at lunchtime yesterday, so lytteltonwitch and I went out to the airport to pick them up, and after a stop back here for a quick lunch, we decided to take them out on an adventure.
First stop, after battling the traffic delays caused by the Coast to Coast race, was the kidnapping of rarsberry, then we somehow all managed to squeeze back in the car (lytteltonwitch’s back seat really isn’t designed for three people, and every stop involved a lot of groping of poor discoverylover as we searched for seatbelt connectors) and headed up to the Port Hills to show off the views (or what views there were, seeing as it was pretty overcast – normally you can see as far as Kaikoura, and have a magnificent view of the Southern Alps, but yesterday even the far edges of the city were lost in the haze) and of course release a few books. An ice-cream stop at the Sign of the Kiwi had books sprouting from all sorts of unlikely nooks and crannies (Whitefire by Glover Wright and The Beautiful Mrs Seidenman by Andrzej Szczypiorski), and I think every other viewpoint we stopped at ended up with at least one book left behind. The shelter at the top of the Bridle Path was positively overflowing with books (Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard). Then we descended into Lyttelton, so lytteltonwitch could show us where she grew up (and demonstrate her prowess at hill starts when the car stalled).
By this time it was starting to get late, so we headed back through the tunnel, managed to avoid most of the Coast to Coast route, and found a supermarket to stock up on wine and nibbles (and so I could release Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe, which lytteltonwitch insisted had to be a themed release in the meat section), then back to my place to eat, drink, and chat about 2009 – a very pleasant evening, made even better by managing to get through to otakuu via Skype. The connection wasn’t the best, but it was great to be able to talk to her like that – the next best thing to actually having her there (even if she did get jealous every time she heard a wineglass being filled :-))
Eventually tiredness got the better of everyone, so I set up a bed for discoverylover and the others headed home (Sherlockfan is staying at lytteltonwitch’s)… and then the idiots across the road started letting off very loud fireworks! They eventually stopped sometime after midnight. So I’m not feeling all that awake this morning.
And now, I must sort out some books for today’s adventures (a breakfast meetup, then off exploring whatever parts of Christchurch the visitors want to see). Ah well, this is all good practice for April 😉
59 sleeps to go!