We're getting good at throwing an accent without much effort

Naya's lovely photography

(view out of our bedroom to the garden, and to a large city park & lake beyond that, and to farms & hills beyond that)

It seems to me we are in a town of three thousand so far...just not seeing the other 130,000 people from our neck of the woods.  Our neighborhood seems to be in the country...with Christchurch surrounded by vast parks and meadows, including their own college cows.  Feeling abundantly lucky!

One of the entrances to Christchurch.  We were both compelled to giggling at the magnitude and prettiness of this place matched with the ridiculously absurd notion that we would get to go inside.  That I would get to go inside one of the very old doors and smile mischievously at the tourists on my way to some room, some particular room to talk to some particular person about a particular book.  (More pics to come as this one hardly does it.)

The way back to our house from town centre, one inch of Christchurch lit in the backdrop.

I learned last night of this thing called the Oxford comma--which turns out I have been rigidly & naturally drawn to since I was a child (without knowing it had a name)--it is the use of the comma before the 'and' in a list such as:  scones, teas, and cakes.  Much prettier to me & more consistent than the alternative:  one could say scones, teas and cakes...but why forego it?  Especially now that it has a name.

Our visit to the grocery.

Afternoon tea, teacakes with butter (aka clotted cream), & scones with jam--Christchurch in the background out a steamy window--& the lovely Naya.

So far we're very good at anything with the letter 'r' in it.  Give us another week & we'll be able to use it to other people besides just ourselves--followed by much giggling.  We're really having a great time & no longer regret that Paris didn't work out.  This surely is where it feels we should be.

Enjoy the lovely heaps of snow we've heard about!