Sing me a song

South Canterbury had a holiday today - only our province, as each one gets their own at some point in the year. I was thrilled to have a day at home. First thing was to do some highlight touch-ups (of course I'm a natural blonde, I just dye my roots dark); got a stew going in the slow cooker, made a batch of chocolate oats cookies, did half the ironing, cleaned the house, and can't even remember what other productive stuff happened. The boys did a spot of weeding, although it amounted to little more than pulling the tops off the plants.

At lunch time we collected Nick from the church where his work day had gone on as usual, and headed to the Camerons for lunch. It's been absolutely far too long since we've hung out together, and we always say this - we're all too busy! Had a superb midday meal together. We left the boys at their house, I dropped Nick back off at the church, and went home alone to an empty house - bliss!!

Justus came to share our stew for tea (which would have been a chore for a non-vegetable eater to pick out those pesky legumes and carrots) and discuss the forthcoming Holiday Bible Club which will be at our church during the second week of the holidays. The meeting was a little rushed as we wanted to get to a concert at the Basilica in town - a high school orchestra from Christchurch was giving a free performance and just needed an audience. When we arrived at the church there was just a handful of people, mostly older ladies, and none of what one would expect to be happening pre-concert - tuning of instruments, some sort of buzz of nerves, whispered anticipation of a show to watch...just hushed silence and not a single string or whistle to be seen. We wondered if we'd accidentally stumbled into an evening mass service which would have been very awkward indeed. As it happened the school group had been delayed over pudding and arrived too late to set up their orchestra. Thus, we were treated to a choral performance and a single flute solo (both of which were very good, but disappointing not to have the rest - perhaps some lessons in professionalism would not be wasted!)