Good Friday

Yesterday was Good Friday here, an actual holiday; in contrast to non-events like Halloween and Valentine's Day, Easter is big here, and is always associated with at least a four-day weekend, from Good Friday through Easter Monday. Both Good Friday and Easter Sunday are enforced as holidays--most stores are not allowed to be open (or they pay a fine), so the grocery store and mall were closed yesterday, and we had a quiet day at home with no appointments, no school, no running around, and it was Good.

Especially good because Manford seems to be doing better, having added one medicine and subtracted two (we had a house call from a very nice Canadian doctor who actually believes in discontinuing meds, rather than just piling them on), so that his blood pressure is higher and he is able to walk around without getting lightheaded. He walked around the house freestyle (without walker or cane) and walked outside for the first time in two weeks without wheelchair, to inspect my rearrangement of the mailbox, which is now at a rakish angle...

Joseph flew off to Christchurch Thursday night; actually, his camp is on the Banks Penninsula, which is about an hour outside Christchurch and is supposed to be beautiful, with rare dolphins and penguins and nice hills and bush. Not sure Joseph will appreciate all that, but we hope he is enjoying being with other Young Friends, being perhaps the youngest of them...

I guess I was thinking of Joseph on Thursday night as I was reading to Emily (Harry Potter, of course) and I fell asleep while reading, and kept on talking, much to Emily's surprise and confusion, because it had something to do with Joseph's breakfast at camp and safety precautions and didn't make a whole lot of sense...I came around to her saying "what are you talking about?!"...

And today Emily and I have been making Easter eggs, of the blown kind, and hardboiled, and sugar eggs. None of which they do here--they do Easter big time, but mainly this means lots of chocolate--huge, rugby-ball sized chocolate eggs and larger-than-life-sized bunnies, but no jelly beans, no egg dying kits, and I haven't been able to find any white eggs, so ours are all rather rich, dark colours, based on brown.

Monday we leave for the beach--we settled on going to Mount Maunganui (known to the locals as just "the Mount"), just an hour and a bit East of here, more of a beach town than the rugged New Zealand shore, but handier for eating, and doing things that are not dependent on good weather (which it might or might not be)--they have hot pools, and shops, and we are renting a two-bedroom apartment with two balconies with views of the ocean where Manford can take his sun and salt air.

We will be back on Thursday to meet Joseph, who will probably need several days of sleep and long showers to recover from his week of camp, but both kids have another week off school after that, as it is the break between term 1 (of 4) and term 2. Last year, this time, we were in Topeka, and still thinking of all Topeka (wait, is it still Google?) friends and others around the country and world...