Beginning to say our goodbyes

This week has been very different from last week's sightseeing fest.  Not so much about seeing new sights as about beginning to say our goodbyes to familiar places and people we have come to know and care for here in Wellington.

John's last day at work was Thursday.  It's been a week of rain and wind (surprise!), so we've been cheering ourselves up by going to the movies.  We've been trying to eat all the food in the cupboards (the combinations are getting pretty interesting--hmm, what can I do with peanut butter and olives?) and planning how to divest ourselves of our temporary worldly goods (guitar, GPS, etc.) we'd acquired just to use while we've been here.  John has become very skilled at putting ads on Trade Me, the NZ version of Craigslist, so we'll see.

Friday was the last meeting of my writer's group.  We met at Tessa's for cake and our last face-to-face session of critique.   Friday night was John's farewell "do" at a Cambodian restaurant (kind of like Thai with different spices).  He received some lovely koru cufflinks, and we enjoyed our evening with the work mates, several of whom had become quite dear to us.

Afterwards, we stopped by a neighborhood get-together to say goodbye to Vanaja, the pathologist who lives next door and our landlady and her husband.  Tonight we'll cook dinner for our other next door neighbors, Jacqui and Tony, who were so helpful to look after Claire for a weekend when she was laid up here.   Tony is a sound engineer on "The Hobbit," and will quite likely be late as they work all hours.  Saturday night we went over to our Australian friends' to say goodbye to Hannah and Chris, their daughter and her partner who were visiting from "Palmie."  I made a pie out of our various fruit bits (see above).

Yesterday was likely our last time at Wellington Friends Meeting.  A beautiful sunny day, a long, deep silence, a message about a tuatara, a picture shared by 8 year old Stella in her feather headdress, a cup of tea among F(f)riends.  After, we went to the market for one last roti to eat by the water and afterwards had a last coffee at the Te Papa cafe and looked for one last souvenir.  In the evening we took our good friends from Australia out for fish 'n' chips.  They are off to Bangkok, then Kenya, for the Friends World Committee meeting, so they will be gone when we return from our trip to the South Island.  Ronis and I do plan to swim today and to take a splash in the whirlpool at the Freyburg and have one more cappuccino as a last celebration of our time together.

We're excited about the upcoming trip to the South Island.  We'll be covering lots of miles and plan to see some amazing places, so stay tuned.