Sing with me now... 'Santa Claus is coming to town'...

That's right, I have been Christmas spirit-ized! Today was the annual Christchurch Santa Claus parade! We all donned normal Christmas parade attire - shorts, sandals, sunscreen - and watched the hour long parade! It was fantastic! One of the many things I love about NZ is how not everything is commercialised. So many of the floats were of story book characters or just something fun for the kids with no obvious company logo or 'sponsored by' sign visible. It's just about the day, not maximizing marketing potential. Kiwi's seem to have their priorities right - pleasure always comes first.

Another reason I love NZ? Last night Roz, Paul, Tam & I went to see Dido in concert. There were about 4000 people there, yet there was no traffic delays going to or from, no parking problems, no queues in or out, orderly lines at the bar, no one rushing the stage, minimal security and absolutely no problems. We all commented on how that one night summed up the lifestyle here. People are just laid back, and always have fun but not at the expense of someone else. There is a real respect here and almost a communal effort to ensure that everyone has a good time. It's a difficult element of the lifestyle to explain but it was so obvious last night. That's what I'll miss here.

So my time is winding down and I'm beginning to reflect on it... only 1 week left in the garden city... never expected to make a home so easily here. But as the weather gets warmer and both jobs get busier, I look more & more forward to holidaying again... being the eternal slacker. Returning to the filth of backpacker scum-dum. Ahh... I love it!

I'll be travelling alone this time, without even my beauty Lucy to protect me... that's right, I sold her off. It was time she had a new adventure and some lovely Swiss boys looked like they would treat her right (don't worry, I wouldn't just sell her to anyone). And selling her at a profit was easy - don't know why my father has so much trouble making money off cars... ;)

So tomorrow I start my last run at Foley, then finish the week off at Doorways. A couple of staff do's on the weekend and a last go in Christchurch and I'm off... destination undecided.

Oh - has anyone heard of Donovan Frankenright yet? He's fantastic! Man with guitar - right up my alley!