Home again home again, jiggerty slump.

The foreseen wedding disaster did not occur. The bridge was repaired in time. Thank you for all the helpful suggestions.

We got to have a different wedding disaster instead. It poured with rain and was impossible to hold the ceremony here as intended:


The bride swore a lot and got horribly drunk (to "calm her nerves") and demanded we have the wedding outside anyway, but we compromised and held it under a tree in the garden of the lodge instead. The bride spent the rest of the night throwing up.

Here is a photo of some sheep:



We got back from the wedding exhausted, but just in time to help my mother prepare, hold, and clear up after her "I'm still not dead" party. Then we had four hours sleep and left for the airport at 4:45 this morning, New Zealand time, which equals 2:45am Aussie time. It is now 9:04pm Aussie time and I should have been asleep long ago.

Amusingly, the church hall where my mother held her party consists of two rooms, one of which was in use for an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. A few alcoholics came into our room by mistake, spotted the table laden with champagne and wine, and their eyes widened. I could see them thinking, "This is the best AA meeting EVER."

Here is a random picture of some pretty mountain scenery from up where we had the wedding. You may recognise it from Lord of the Rings, or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.


Things have changed around Arthur's Pass since these movies. It used to be that you could drive out there and hardly see anyone. Now there are buses full of tourists pulled up in various places in the middle of nowhere, earnestly consulting their guidebooks, and taking pictures of grass. There was also a corrugated iron goat shed with "Narnia" graffitied on the side.

But it's still pretty.



In other random weird family news (where "weird" should be taken to modify "family", not "news"), my father has discovered Facebook ("Styleygeek! You have a Facebook! I want one too!). He now needs to learn about privacy settings. I do not need to see the soppy Valentine's messages he sends to the mistress he still pretends does not exist. (She does too! She has "a Facebook" to prove it.)

In weird non-family news, I seem to have returned to a spectacular departmental row. Everyone is sending vicious emails to each other and CCing everyone else in on them. I'm caught in the middle, since it started because my course was clashing with two others (not my fault - I didn't schedule it). I'm torn between horror and amusement.