…our dance card

...back to Friday for a moment…after we arrived at Otoitu (the Petersen moniker for their domicile) a major tea was enjoyed by arrivees and greeters—both joined by Anna, Chloe and Christina, Tessa’s elder sister and her two daughters. Savory meat pies, sausage rolls and at least three different biscuits, snaps and lemon squares were enjoyed with an ocean of tea. As late afternoon morphed into evening, all and sundry sat down to a roast dinner with potatoes and kumara. A joyous and festive time for kept us all from any hint of jet lag.

‘Saturday in NZ’ cut out with the arrival of the Hamilton’s, the ‘new’ American string players from the U of Otago. Kate and Greg are each easy to talk to, savvy and pleasant. If our musical collaborations go as well as our introduction to each other, it will be great.

Sunday, I went to church with George. Mainly the Sunday School students took the service. This seemed especially ironic since Tess—to whom this service should have been of vast interest happened to NOT attend…George and I did some car shopping; Tess went to the concert of the Sinfonia; Wim and Lily went off to play with their cousins. Christina telephones at every opportunity to converse with Lily.

Today, Monday, we had an appointment with the headmaster of Wim’s new school. It is a large school—500 boys—and was very impressive. We picked up a few more bits of school uniforms. (This is a pricey business.) In every classroom we viewed, it was quiet with the appearance of concentration and serious application. The library was completely silent…boys looked up briefly from their books and quickly resumed what they were doing. (As we were leaving George and I agreed that we wished we could trade places with Willem and start over at that school.)

Off to open a new bank account, lunch, a meeting with the mortgage broker (very encouraging!) and lastly more car shopping (we transferred our allegiances from the Mitsubishi ‘Colt’ to the Suzuki ‘Liana’). We are looking at very small cars…the sort that have small engines, large interiors and mpg’s in the 40-45 per range. George has computed the price of petrol here to be about $5 per gallon (American style)

When we returned to Otoito, Lily had set up a special dinner for Wim—in preparation for his first day of school tomorrow. It was sweetly endearing…

we now (eagerly) anticipate Tuesday…