I am soooo not negative, Liz you're completely wrong...

If you're happy and you know it...

I have been told that in general my blog posts are angry expletive-riddled rants by my friend Liz, in whose own blog on family the entry on her children learning the word vagina had me helpless with mirth to the extent that I may have weed a bit. In this post that boils with the irony of me negatively declaring that I am not negative, I say to you Liz, you're wrong. Wrong wrong wrong: I do like things; I can enjoy the sunshine without saying "We'll pay for that later"; I can feel contented; and I can live and let live. Here's why. My beloved Attila the Wife and I went away for the weekend and it was bliss... bliss interrupted only by her forcing us to go for a bike ride in gale-force winds for "a half hour tootle."¹

I don't offer recommendations lightly, but this one is
worth your left one.

A week ago Attila the Wife explained deliberately and slowly, so that even I could understand, that we were due some time away together as normal husbands and wives do. I couldn't help but agree because in this Attila has a point. If it were left to me, a trip away would be as far down the road as The Twisted Hop, maybe The Brewery, Mitre 10 Ferrymead if we are feeling expansive. When it comes to going out to places other than the pub, I am "...hopeless"² We wouldn't have stood a show of going to other places mentioned in this blog were it not for the careful planning and forethought of my beloved. So with this in mind, Attila took the proverbial by the other proverbial and booked us accommodation for a weekend away in tropical Little River. Now Little River isn't the most exotic location you could think of for a weekend away. As a town it is mostly unremarkable but for the art gallery. It is rightly seen as a stop for a pie before the rigours of the drive over hills that sit between it and equally tropical Akaroa, or as a place where those who enjoy recreational riding (not me) begin their odyssey on the rail trail back toward Christchurch. But then Little River now boasts remarkable accommodation that had Attila literally squealing with delight. SiloStay appeared on television to an enraptured wife who vowed then and there that we would sample the delights of temporary living in a purpose-converted grain silo, and so we did. We pottered half an hour out of town on Friday night, arriving to a literal warm welcome. The conversion from steel silo to living quarters was remarkable and we were delighted with our find. The photos here do the place a bit of justice and we found that Little River was a grand wee base for a tourist-incursion into Banks Peninsula without feeling too far from town. We really cannot recommend it highly enough.

Saturday saw our venturing take us to Barry's Bay to buy cheese and for a three course dinner at The Trading Rooms in tropical Akaroa. Students of this blog understand that I have a longstanding ambition to be one of those peculiar old men you see in a gentleman's club beside a fire in a wingback chair, gibbering incomprehensibly to themselves. When I have reached that vintage and I have a balloon of brandy in one hand and a cigar or a pipe in the other, amid the waffling about "...extraordinary thighs she had on her, looked like someone had filled a latex condom with sausage meat...", I shall be reminiscing about the pork terrine, the duo of roast lamb and a crème brûlée that left me speechless. The matched wines completed the picture (dry riesling, Cotes du Rhone and Beaumes de Venise)³ and as Attila and I walked arm in arm along the Akaroa waterfront in blissful, full-stomached satisfaction, I wouldn't have swapped positions with anyone, anywhere. It was that good and made better by the excellent company of Her Majesty the Wife.

So there, you see? All good positive stuff.

¹ Bullshit. It was closer to an hour of wind-blown misery, but I thoroughly enjoyed having a bloody good moan about it.
² The word hopeless is usually preceded by "You're fucking..." and applies only from the perspective that there is no hope for me.
³ Our grateful thanks to our wonderfully talented hosts Kathryn Curtis and Stephen Gilchrist.