December was finally upon us and I was quickly starting to realize my time in New Zealand was limited. I had since decided that I wanted to come back for another season but I needed to go off traveling for a bit and have a few months at home. So much to my boss’s dislike, I planned to leave just before scanning season and it is yet to be determined if I can come back for calving season next year. There’s still so much to learn about the New Zealand system and I’ve met so many great people so why not come back for another season if they’ll have me?
The first weekend was the big cd recording with the band so all of Saturday was spent intensely going through each song putting down tracks and then overdubbing solos, and voice tracks. I stayed at Sean’s that night and we continued on Sunday for most of the day. By the end of the day we had gotten just about all that we needed. Almost all the tracks are originals that Sean and Keith wrote and one that Bryz wrote, so I think the cd will come together really well, ready for the tour in July through the US! They guys upon hearing that I’d be back in the states by then went through with their plans to put together a tour from Texas to Tennessee next July! Sean is a machine at planning and pushing and pulling strings, and before I knew it gigs were confirmed and dates set. I couldn’t believe it! So if anyone is going to be in Nashville, TN around the end of July, you can come see the Johnny Possum Band play if want!
Plans for Asia were finally set as well! My friend Matt put in his notice at work, we had our Vietnam and Chinese visas back, and our flights were booked! The plan is to start in NZ so Matt can see it, fly to Sydney for a week, then Bali, Indonesia, from there see Komodo and Borneo, then go up to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, into China, and Hong Kong then make our way up to Beijing to fly back to the US on April 7th. 3 months almost to the day of traveling from the time Matt gets to NZ. My Mom brought me over a travel fiddle so I can take one with me and try to share some music with travelers but I’m still not sure how that’s going to work out as its Asia and not, say, Europe, or the US. Its going to be a GREAT trip regardless and I can’t wait to be traveling again!!! I might be jobless and penniless when I get back to the US but with any luck I’ll get my job back with Vetlife for another seaon or its safe to say I’ll be able to find another job in the south island no problem.
The next weekend was the clinic BBQ! The drug reps had won some money from a drug company and we decided to put a big BBQ together for us and the surrounding Vetlife clinics in our area. Afterwards we decided to make a night of it and our first stop was Jess, our new small animal vet, and her partner Richard’s house. Much wine was drunk, Jess got out her fire poi, and Amy entertained us all with her antics before passing out. The 4 of us remaining were going to make an attempt to go into town but I quickly decided that if I went into town shots were going to be given to me and that was needed so I stayed behind at Jess and Richards place. From the stories I heard on Monday I’d say I probably chose wisely.
Before I knew it Christmas was here and I was still trying to come to grips with it being HOT at Christmas. Decorations were going up, lights were on trees and houses, presents were being wrapped, stores were having sale ads everywhere and to excess, but it still just didn’t really feel like Christmas. It felt more like the 4th of July if anything. I bought myself a battery operated Christmas tree with little lights on it and made a paper start for the top. I needed something to remind of me home! On Christmas Eve, I told Barb I was going to the midnight service at one of the churches I found in town. I hadn’t gone to church the entire time I’d been in New Zealand, its not a very religious country and even with about eight churches in my town, no one really seemed to GO to church. It was more for the sake of tradition that made me want to sing Christmas carols while holding a candle at a church for Christmas Eve to get me in the spirit. Barb, having never been to church except for funerals, said she’d go with me. GREAT! We take our naps and then be ready to get Christmasy by 11pm. The church I had picked had advertized a carol singing service in the paper and they had all the words for the songs in the paper too. I thought, great! This is going to be a great event, full of people and lots of singing. First off when we came through town it looked like a ghost town, no one was out. When we pulled up to the church there were finally some cars out so it wasn’t totally deserted, but when we stepped into the Anglican church there was only about 15 people in the pews. The carols started but they weren’t any that Barb or I knew, and if it was a song we knew it was to a different tune or strange words. We had planned on leaving before the real service started because Barb wasn’t interested in staying so we sat in the very back pew. But the priest and the offering takers all lined up behind us and we were all but trapped. The service continued ina very dark manner, and a screen showing cosmic photos, and religious symbols flashed in the front. The lady priest spoke very slow and with a deep mystic voice, and I felt like I was at a cult ceremony rather than a Christmas service. Right after the offertory, before the offering takers came back to the back of the church, Barb and I managed to slip out and make a run for the car. I didn’t feel Christmasy and I’m pretty sure that Barb will never go to another church service as long as she lives.
On Christmas Day, Susan and her family had invited me around to their place for lunch and dinner. I was quite excited to be adopted for the day so I headed over there and after lunch we all sat in the garden sun bathing and reading the newspaper. I managed to get sunburnt on my legs as a matter of fact… on Christmas! Another friend Jenny, who I had stayed with when I first arrived in NZ, asked me over for a drink during the day so I headed over there and met her sister and cousins for a drink. Back at Susan’s for supper, the rest of their family arrived and we had a massive dinner and all kinds of good family chatter. Partners, babies, jobs, parenting, silly jokes they had all played on each other, and I was quite happy to be apart of it. Susan had talked me into bringing my fiddle, and told me she had been telling everyone about my playing! Oh great! I played a few tunes and after while I talked Richard into playing Three Blind Mice that he had learned at Thanksgiving. He said he had been practicing his air fiddle for the last month. I was shocked and amazing when first try, he played it perfectly and in tune! I think there is a budding musician there!
On Boxing day I had planned to meet up with the MacFarlane’s, Chris and his family had looked after me the first weekend I was in NZ. Chris had recently left the clinic so it was really great to catch up with him and his family. I headed off to Christchurch for the MacPac sale, a great outdoor shop that has never let me know for great tramping gear. I then made my way over to Sean’s place, from the Possum band, to pick up a fiddle. Sean is a business consultant that is currently working for the Canterbury school of music and was told about an old man that wanted to donate some violins to the school. The man’s father had been a luthier and violin maker and the son had inherited all the instruments when he died. The son was now in his 80’s and was trying to give them away. After the head violin teacher picked out the ones worthy of the school, Sean went over and grabbed a care load more to find homes for. My friend Eilis the flute player, had been dabbling at the fiddle in Ireland, and so I thought the best gift for a great friend as well as the best place for an old fiddle in need of playing would be at her place. The instruments hadn’t been played in about 20 years so Sean and I pieced together 2 instruments, he kept one to learn and I took the other one.
Finally making it to Aokaroa where I was to be meeting Eilis and camping for the next few days, I gave Eilis her Christmas gift of this little fiddle. She’s heading down to Te Anau for work for 4 mo, secluded out in the sounds with lots of time to learn to play the fiddle so she was elated! I just love getting new instruments as well as sharing music with others so I think I was just as excited as she was!
We spent the next few days walking around the peninsula where we were camping, drinking wine with the other campers, and playing a few tunes for them as well. It was very relaxing and chilled. One day after a walk we were extremely hot and sweaty and since we were on the coast we decided to jump in the sea for a cool off. We found the fishing beach which was just a lot of flat rocks with barnacles but we could jump off easily enough. It was getting back out that was going to be tricky. The edges were covered in massive seaweed plants but quite firmly attached so we thought we could use those to haul ourselves back in. Just before jumping in I suddenly realized I was jumping into salt water… WHAT!!! Having grown up around lakes with freshwater, I was thinking to myself I hadn’t been in an OCEAN for almost 10 years! Then I remembered what lives in the oceans and had another pang of mental warning! It wasn’t fear so much as just cold realization that gee I could get nibbled on, or have a dolphin swim by me. Unlikely this close to the coast but still. Eilis having grown up in Ireland and used to the salty ocean jumped right in and was happy as a fish, while I was flailing about just getting used to the salt and the new buoyancy. My love of the ocean it seems was more of a visual one I think, but now at least I was coming to terms with the actually salt water. After hoisting ourselves out of the water with the seaweed after many attempts and a lot of laughter we dried off on the barnacle covered rocks and headed back to the campground.
It was also time to leave for another friend I had become close to, Laura H. a vet working for one of the competing practices that we had adopted back in March. She was heading off traveling as and as she had no one to send her off properly besides a taxi, I decided to take her to the airport and have a good send off lunch together. I wasn’t working anyway so I picked her up from her house and we made her finally journey north to Christchurch airport. It is so hard to say goodbye to friends that you meet traveling, not just the ones that you know you’ll likely never see again but also the ones that are nomadic like you and seem to make the experience you are living that much more rewarding because of meeting them. All the more reasons why Facebook has become an invaluable tool these days, as much as I hate to admit that.
New Years was pretty low key, Susan invited us all out to her place and we ended up drinking wine and listening to all the farm stories and tales from Richard’s farm as well watching the guys dare each other to eat the giant beetles that were coming in the house… alive. Which they did, multiple times. We rambled back home after midnight I promptly passed out from all the hubbub of the week coming to a close. Welcome 2011, oh what crazy plans I have for you this year!!!!
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