Christmas under canvas?

Well, okay, we wussed out.

We woke up on Friday morning, the morning we were supposed to be moving on from here to our Christmas campsite, and it was peeing it down.

The forecast is 'dry' for Christmas day, but we decided not to risk it and, luckily, we were able to stay on in the room we have here until 27th. Of course, since then the weather has improved vastly - it was a beautiful day today - but I have avery comfy bed so I don't care.

Various people have sent us money for Christmas, some saying to have a nice meal or a Christmas drink with it, but we're using this money for our Christmas accomodation at the hostel instead. Hope that's okay with you guys. Priorities change when you're on the road and we'd prefer to cook for ourselves and pay someone else for a comfy bed!

Having decided we were going to stay here we set about getting festive and, with the help of some Ingrams chicken boxes, coloured paper, sticky tape, some jelly beans and a needle and thread we made our own Christmas tree to put our pressies under. Ahh - those years of watching Blue Peter paid off!

I was going to use tinsel to make the tree, but Napier is devoid of tinsel. It's all very strange really. There are hardly any Christmas decorations on sale, even in the Warehouse, which sells anything.

Apparently there is a Christmas rush on in the shops, but we haven't found much evidence yet. Alec was in one of the supermarkets last night and there were a whole 5 other people in there! These kiwis don't know how laid back they are.

2 of our 7 Christmas parcels from home have arrived. No idea where the other ones are, or if / when we'll actually receive them as we move on from here on the 27th, but we still have a respectable enought pile of pressies inder the tree.

The hostel isn't that Christmassey - no decorations up or anything. Other hostels do a big Christmas BBQ and everything but the manager here got married on Friday so Christmas is pretty low-key. But we don't mind We've got Christmas tunes playing in our room and 6 cheapo crackers to pull with our BBQ steak tomorrow!

Anyhow - better go and make some tea. Heading off to the midnight service at the Cathedral later and then to the beach tomorrow.

Have a great Christmas!