CHRISTOPHER'S COMMENT DECEMBER 2010
Today is the last day of 2010.......New Year's Eve. It is also our son-in-law Cliff Beech's birthday. He is 35. He was born four days before James, in the same hospital, Cambridge Maternity. So we have known our son-in-law for all that time not realising of course he would one day be family. He was friends with James all through primary school and somewhere along the line the focus changed for him from the brother to the sister and hello..............the rest, as they say, is history. Happy Birthday Cliff.
For this newsletter, farm activities, I'm afraid, pale into insignificance beside the main item of news. James and Amelia had a baby boy on 15 November. Henry Montfort Gardner arrived safely at Warrnambool Hospital, Victoria, Australia, weighing 7lbs 3oz. He is named after his GG Grandfather who captained a unit of the Lincolnshire Regiment or The Tenth Foot, as they were known. He fought in the Nile Expedition, 1898, in the Battle for Khartoum where he was awarded the Egyptian Medal and Clasp, in the South African War 1899-1900 and was stationed in Secunderabad, India. He was blinded at Ypres, Belgium on 1st July, 1916. He died of his wounds on 28th October, 1918, aged 53 years. He is buried with his wife Cecilia Marion Gardner (nee Edge) in the War Graves (B1/1732) at the Cheltenham Cemetery, Gloucestershire, England. He has big shoes to fill, that little boy.
Chris celebrated his birthday with the Junior Gardners in Aussie.
Oh yes, farm news.
We picked late this year but managed to get 432 prime lambs away in the first draft and then took a week to shear the rest due to much needed rain in the hills. Yes, we wanted the rain so it didn't matter really that the weather was not so conducive to
getting sheep dry. We ran awfully close to Christmas which was spread between the family with the first get-together in Warrnambool (Christmas tree, presents, two little dancing girls Charlotte and Kate, Christmas dinner, crackers) where we spent ten days after the baby was born, then Christmas Eve under our own Christmas tree at the farm with Amy and Cliff, Thomas and Alex and Christmas Day with the Nicholsons in Auckland. It was a great day with recipes from Wayne Good's Christmas Cooking Class at Taruna Farm and the wonderful Annabel Langbein whose Recipe Book and Masonware crockery holds pride of place in our two daughters' homes. Thanks Ellen and Stu, Callum and Harry. Great day.
How lucky are we??
Hugh and Kirsten are away this week and we hope to get eastside for a couple of weeks in January. Still dry in the hills, we could do with another 100mls or so, but anything in the way of rain, is welcome. We are climbing all the local suspects trying to keep fit for the big walks in February - have to keep up with Shona and Rupert. This week we climbed Kenny's Peak (adjacent to the Macdonald farm) 385m and The Mount (Mount Maunganui) 235m prior to friend Jane's 60th Birthday party at their beach house. Tiddlers really compared to what's in store for us....
Happy Birthday Jane, its not so bad being sixty.
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