my kind of time

With Catherine, travel has been rich in time. We sleep until we wake up. We stop for the coffees I need, and to visit the aunties and friends of hers we're passing by. Both of us struggle in other parts of our lives with feeling slow and disorganized. Together, it's relaxing to be ourselves, to go about the day without worrying about efficiency.

Church of the Good Shepherd on Lake Tepako

When I flew into Christchurch, Catherine picked me up at the airport and we made our way slowly through the center of the South Island and around to Dunedin on the Southern part of the East Coast. We covered a total of perhaps 600 kilometers. It took us three days. I made this list of why it was so good.

we accepted hospitality 

we changed our plans

we made space for food

we did not overeat

we let time get away from us

we talked with strangers

we stopped the car to take walks

 This morning we finished our packing for the hike and, on our way out of town, dropped off Cynthia's cat Ivan at the cattery as a favor to Cynthia (Catherine's flatmate) who was leaving for the weekend before the cattery opened at nine. She mentioned that we should be there before 10:30, but not being time-oriented people, we forgot. We showed up around 11:30. We pulled up the gravel lane into a circular drive with a large house to the right, a long shed (which we assumed was the cattery) in front of us up a little hill, and an open larger shed to the left. Three small dogs flew from the house and bounced alongside the car, barking furiously. A strange welcome to a cattery, we remarked. We were in fine spirits, as the day was beautiful, and we were off on a drive to the mountains. Just the cat to drop off and we'd be on our way. But we weren't quite sure what to do. There were no signs, and no one but the dogs about. Catherine tried pulling up the little lane that led to the long shed, but stopped just in front of it when she realized that it was not wide enough for a car.

Then suddenly a woman came from the house, screaming obscenities at us. She hadn't lost a bit of her fury or indignation when she'd rounded up the dogs and marched over to our car. By this time we'd gotten out of the car and were waiting awkwardly with the cat.

Our humility-filled apologies did nothing to dissuade her anger. “I have to lay some ground rules! Those are the hours and people have to respect them! And then coming in here and trying to drive over my footbridge! I have to lay some ground rules!” She repeated these key points (we were dumbfounded and silent) over and over as she took Ivan and then marched him up the hill, ignoring us completely. We stood awkwardly for another minute, not sure if we were done, before climbing in the car and driving away. We were both a bit shaken, but for me disdain weighed stronger. Some businesswoman. We figured there must have been previous incidents that had built to a breaking point for this poor woman. We shook our heads, reminded ourselves we'd never see her again, and drove on.