Not much to report, but as usual work has flared up like eczema; more welcome than that, but no more pleasant. I would like to be a person of leisure.
We went into Blenheim’s high street for lunch yesterday. It was a very nice walk; down a quiet street then through a park through which an ice-cold spring flows. We spotted a small crayfish working its way through bright green grasses like an explorer in the undergrowth and another man, an American, told us excitedly that a huge eel had swum past just before us. The pond weed was very pretty under the clear swift-flowing water and I wanted to dip my hand in and fun my fingers over them.
Past flowerbeds shaped like the hungry caterpillar is a wall painted with New Zealand’s other animal mascot, the sheep, which led across a road to the river. Crossing the river took one straight into a shopping cluster but we walked along it for a bit before looping around. The shopping area around the high street was not the nicest. I think it’s because NZ is so quiet and clean and well-maintained, it felt like being on a set, an impression heightened by the bland cardboard construction on this street. We had lunch at a ‘wholefood’ type place which was just ok of course, but at least it largely used local produce instead of acai and quinoa which is a recipe for making me grumpy. Coffee afterwards was at the poorly named Watery Mouth Cafe.