That's why!

I spent the weekend in Christchurch, which was rich with autumnal colours and looked terribly English. Yesterday I swam at the NZ National Masters Swimming Championships - very slowly, compared to what I used to be able to do, but I enjoyed it and came away with three gold medals because I was the only one there in my age group for those events. Oh well. I made the effort!

Today I met up with my friends Jen and Victor and their utterly adorable 14-month old Timmy, and they showed me round. We wandered the Botanic Gardens for a while - Timmy likes trees and birds - and watched while he attempted to scale the things in the playground meant for much larger children. Then lunch, in a nice garden restaurant. Then it was Timmy's nap time, so we drove to see views. Unfortunately it was a bit hazy so we couldn't quite see the Southern Alps properly, but nevertheless nice views across the Canterbury plains. During the drive Victor explained bits of history and so on and threw light on the mysterious Manchester thing: it's because NZ wool used to go to Manchester to be turned into linen and stuff, so when it came back it was known as Manchester goods. Tah-dah! Mystery solved. :)

We finished up at the cathedral, where the choir was rehearsing for Evensong. A nice plain Anglican cathedral with lots of light. I felt some kinship with the place; Christchurch was founded by a group including 18 old members from my college, and the crest was all over. Halfway around the world the House still has some influence.

Before we went to the airport, we plopped Timmy in a pile of autumn leaves and he played happily. His first proper autumn. I threw some leaves at him and suggested he threw some back at me, which resulted in a hilarious few minutes during which he kept giving me handfuls of leaves. I couldn't refuse them, not with his happy little smile. Apparently nobody else can refuse Timmy's smile either; everywhere we went he had admirers, including a group of Chinese tourists at the airport who thought he was fantastic. I wasn't about to disagree.

Lovely day, anyway.

Flew home, collapsed.