Unexpected Easter hop-ins no holiday

AND ANOTHER THING

Ithink Easter’s like every other holiday weekend – designed for the quick and the dead. The quick have airline tickets booked and paid, motorhomes packed and at the ready, car boots sorted, engines purring, car angled out for a speedy get-away.

Well that’s them and good luck to them.

We are the others – the dead, left for dead by the speedy movers, caught at the door with our Easter eggs, Sunday papers and justhome-from-church look, ready to settle for scrambled eggs and our feet up.

Fat chance that, when visitors arrive unexpected, beaming, saying how good to catch us at home, ours the only place between the Riverton races and town, between the tartan turnout at Te Anau and their Winton motel, between Oban and Orepuki, Bluff and Bowmont . . . yes how great to find us in.

No they didn’t bother ringing,

No they didn’t bother ringing, just call in on the off-chance . . .

just call in on the off-chance, really, with the kids and the dog, and everyone sick of – and in – the car and saying ‘‘Are we there yet’’ . . . and then, suddenly, ‘‘Here we are’’.

Yay, we say. And look, they’ve brought tomatoes and lettuces, same’s we have on the kitchen bench – but, still, you can never have too many lettuces.

No bread for the sandwiches, however; more bread we might have found handy – or with some warning we would have begun thawing some, and refilled ice cube trays, emptied the washing machine and shaken out some bedding.

And so it is, we get all that under way in 20 manic minutes, listen to bets made won and lost for another 60 minutes and share Celtic music till we find our own bed mercifully unoccupied and sink into it.

This is hard to believe and kind of tough and sad but it is true.

Within 36 hours the scenario is repeated, variations being that we tug drying sheets off the line for a quick warmup, and as we welcome them in – look what we have brought, tomatoes – we think it is true, you can never have too many lettuces.

In turn we commiserate and congratulate on bets won and not, admire Easter wedding photos and accept a piece of haggis and a soft Easter egg.

Next Easter? Booking into the Foveaux Hotel at Bluff.