June 8 
Our bridge friends told us about a Maori custom we hope to try. Its called a hangi (pronounced honey).You dig a hole 2 ft deep and build a cradle out of wood so that it burns slowly and without any smell. Then you fill in the cradle with large stones that are from lakes and won't explode. Then you light the fire and it takes about 1 1/2 hours for the wood to burn through and then the white hot rocks fall through to the bottom. On them you place a basket made of chicken wire or woven flax and this you fill with cabbage leaves then the chicken, corn and yams and more cabbage leaves on top. This goes into the basket which goes into the hole and you put: gunny sacks on top and pour two buckets of water on this and then fill in the hole with earth again. Three hours later you dig up your supper and apparently it’s unbelievably good. They do it here as a special treat for Christmas which of course is in mid-summer.

We seem to have unusual weather wherever we go. Now it’s the first snow and sleet in Chch for the last seven years of so and schools are all closed. The funny thing is that there are only 2-3 inches of snow and it’s crippled the whole oountry. Phil took the car to work because it’s so very slippery it would be dangerous on a bicycle. He said lots of the lecturers and students were outside the building throwing snowballs and making snowmen.

June 25
Happy Christmas from the south. Not really but it should be since Christmas was originally a mid-winter festival . We had a beautiful sunny day with our two days of snow making the international news. It’s the longest period of snow for the last 25 years. It was quite amusing seeming all the chaos it caused.

June 28
I had a coffee party to say goodbye to the neighborhood ladies today. Actually two of the ladies  have been good friends but they aren't actually neighbours. Denise lent me her hair dryer for the rest of our stay which is a big thing for me as my hair is thick and takes hours to dry.

Stephanie went to the dentist today . She has two cavities and maybe two others. So she has to get them filled on Friday. No fluoride in N .Z. waterr and we have been lax about taking the tablets and she eats a lot of sweet stuff. I'm embarrassed to admit I'm a dietitian considering what my kids eat.

On Saturday we drove to Hamner Springs where they have the hot springs swimming pool. We left at 12 and had lunch at a park on the way and built a snowman. Our snow has long since gone but this was on the way into the mountains so they still had a lot. Then we swam for an hour and had a restaurant meal and came home about 8. The water was about 150º, a hot adult bath. It was too hot to want to swim. The air temperature was just above freezing and there was snow on the roofs. I wish it had actually been snowing while we were in the pool. It is a lovely spot and we didn't appreciate it last time as it was rainy and misty. We took some lovely slides.

We went out to a play on Sat. It was amateur - actually there were four short plays and it was enjoyable if not outstanding. The theatre was very cold.

July 7 - We watched some of the 200th celebrations of American Independence on tv today. It looked fabulous. You must have sat in front of the tv all day. It would be gorgeous in color. Both tv stations have mentioned the celebration and at Mass  we prayed for the American people on their special day. There seems to be a pretty good feeling towards American here- more than in England.

I still don't feel at home in the new house. We are having exceptionally cold weather and have a lack of heating equipment. But we now have some coke and coal and have an open fire so that helps a bit. We were actually warmer at the other house despite its being bigger. This house is nice and pretty and furnished much in my taste but its dirty so I've cleaned a lot. The owner obviously wasn't keen on cleaning. And we hear trains about one block away for at least twenty times a day. We were told there were only three or four.

Despite the heavy frosts we have lots of flowers in the garden where they are protected and some of the trees arc starting to flower. The neighbors haven't been overly friendly yet but its early days. I have finished my bridge class so intend to increase my work to another day. The kids seem pretty happy at their new school. I spent all last evening making Stephanie’s school uniform. They seem to have very nice teachers.

July 11 - We seem to spend all out time at the new house trying to keep the fires alight. We were spending too much on electricity so decided to use more fireplaces and have bought a ton of wood and 700 lb. of coke. So we're doing our share of causing the pollution of Chch.

It was nice today so we drove to a frozen lake in the mountains and skated on it- without skates and tobaggoned down some slopes on a piece of wood. It was fun and not very cold. The kids have a day off tomorrow for midterm break. They seem pleased with the new school and all and things seem to be getting back to normal. Stephanie had two old school friends over on Saturday so she was happy.

On that eve we had eight people for bridge and it went pretty well. I tried to make a German chocolate cake but used flour left by the previous owner and think it must have been self-rising flour as it raised all over the floor of the oven. What a mess. So we had bought cakes instead. Fri. night we had our American friends over. They leave on Wed. to go back via Java for three weeks. They've invited us to stay with them in L.A. on our way back, if we want to.

I've not made much contact with this neighborhood yet. Several people have been vaguely friendly. I went to the local church and signed up so I expect the priest will visit. I'll start the kids in CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine) on Wed. at 4:15. They don't want to go. One of my bridge friends is the CCD coordinator for her parish. Their kids don't go to a Catholic school either.

I've redecorated the house and feel more at home now. The sun room is glorious. Between one and three pm on sunny days it gets up to the 60's and considering how cold the rest of the house is, I just drink up the warmth. I expect it will be good for suntans on that part of the house. We have a lovely pink camellia tree just coming into flower and iris in bloom and lots of small winter roses and some water cress flowers

July 13 - I’m sitting here in front of a roaring log fire baking on the front and still cold on the back. We had a delivery of wood today - half a cord. They dumped it on the sidewalk so I had to carry it all into the garage. It took a long time and I'm very stiff. I went to work today for the first time on a. Tues. I expect I'll be pretty tired by Thursday. The kids go to CCD classes starting tomorrow. I hope it will be ok. Phil doesn't like that idea. He thinks they'll get brainwashed. The lady said they would both make their 1st communion in Nov. Phil thinks they are far too young.

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