December in NZ

December is my birthday month and I was looking forward to a sunny one for the first time. It didnt quite work out like that as it rained in the morning, so we postponed our picnic trip to rabbit island. Early December is apparently alwys an unsettled time. By the afternoon it was sunny, but by that time we were dismantling the fence of the old chicken run .....fun birthday, but we did go out for tea to a thai restaurant.
Christmas is similar and yet so different to a winter christmas. There is the same music being played in the shops(I'm dreaming of a white christmas etc etc). The shops sell winter orientated christmas decorations. You see real trees tied to the top of cars, on their way home to be decorated. There are christmas carols(outdoors), theatre productions (eg Menopause....the musical !). There the similarity ends. There is no panic buying, nobody sends cards to people they never see, or to people they see all the time. It is all low key and is a day off that comes in the middle or start of most people's summer holidays.
As we are now in the tourist and recreation business, we work this time of the year. Today was the first time I had ever worked on Christmas eve (although I think I probably did work then as a new teacher). Most of the bars and restaurants closed early today. The kiwis seem to get together as we would, although meeting for breakfast and then all going your own way also seems to happen.
The weather has now settled and it is in the low 20s each day. Last week was a different story. Nelson suffered the worst urban flooding ever in  NZ !! 3 months of rain fell in 30 hours. Landslides were quite serious in some areas. We watched the rain fall for a week and our water tanks were full to over-flowing. We were happy as that is our only supply of water and it may not rain again for months. Our land and immediate area was unaffected by landslides or flooding.

All the rain has helped the grass to grow. Our fields needed some animals to eat it. The fencing had been done, but because the ground was so wet they couldn't tighten the wire as the posts moved when they tried. It was enough of a fence to get the walking lawnmowers in.....a guy brought us some Llamas two days ago.
Our Llamas, 5 in total.
 We have called them Dali Llama, Osama bin Llama, Barrack O'Llama, Smoke allama and Fire allama !!

This one is the Dali Llama, she is the boss

All the rain has helped the vege plot which is starting to get triphid-like.

Hopefully the necks of the llamas are not that long, so they wont help themselves to our produce.
Llamas are ( according to the internet), placid and rarely spit at humans. My short experience with Llamas has shown this is not always the case. They are docile and they hum and make quite noises. They are inquisitive and they like to look you in the eye (they are taller than us !) However Dali looked me in the eye, put her ears back, hissed and then green, smelly, half-digested grass was spat out of her mouth, all over me! Lisa, who seems to be the Llama whisperer, told me to take my sun glasses off my head and stare her out. I did and it may have worked; I will see how well we get on.

Vineyard View B&B has got its first (paying) guests. The room got a makeover and was finished the day before they were due to arrive. We have some more arriving  a few days after Christmas.

Tomorrow is christmas day, the second time we have been here at this time of the year. Two years ago we were tourists having a good time. Now we are residents having a great time. We will cook breakfast for our B&B guests then get them dispatched. We then plan to go for a cycle, bbq some food, relax in the garden and then have some of the neighbours round for a drink in the evening. I'm not dreaming of a white Christmas.