Xmas Day!

Xmas Day - sunny and hot yet again whilst it rains in the North Island - a slow start to the day as there is nothing that needs doing apart from driving up the little hill into the village to get phone and internet connection so we can skype our NZ family in the morning and our UK family at night to keep in touch with how their Christmas's are going.
We arrived in good time for a pew at the 11.00am service of the Church of the Good Shepherd which, if you haven't been here and you live in NZ, you have probably seen on a postcard. It's a tiny stone church built in 1935 and with a large window behind the altar looking out over the picturesque lake and with bus loads of visiting tourists. It only seats 44 so the Church was full (plus some extras outside) with a third of the congregation being a lovely extended family of Christians visiting from Singapore who we also met up with again at lunch. The vicar asked everyone where they were from and amongst the handful of locals and the Singaporeans the others were from the US, UK, Switzerland, Christchurch and Wanaka with just us from the North Island.
Luckily everyone sang the carols with gusto as the organist was so wanting that I almost felt like stepping in - we sang "While Shepherds Watched" unaccompanied as she couldn't seem to find the page and it was the best carol of all! But good on her for being so brave and giving it a go.

Then off to Christmas dinner!!
We enjoyed our tempura bento at the Kohan Japanese restaurant immensely with the other, mainly Asian diners, a window view of the Lake and a bottle of bubbly. It was the first time we have ever felt full when eating Japanese food and even then we just had to order a dessert each - 3 scoops of their delicious homemade icecream for Len and one of the best desserts I have ever had which was totally unexpected as I don't normally associate Japanese restaurants with great desserts. Tempura banana with both caramel and berry sauce, icecream, a lattice of caramelised sugar and spun sugar that disappeared in the mouth - delicious!

Xmas Dinner 2013

Xmas Pudding!

Afterwards we knew we had eaten too much but because there were no dishes we had the luxury of having a nice little nap in Debussy before driving back to the camp ground where we have had a bit of a chat with neighbours from Timaru and Nelson.

We have both missed our families and seeing all the grandchildren opening their presents but it was still an idyllic, lazy day.