We landed a little early in Auckland at 5am (midnight my time) and I shot through customs with barely a glance from the friendly NZ officials. I wheeled my case the 1km from the Auckland international to the Auckland domestic aiport by following the blue and white lines (where were the scarecrow and tin man when I needed them?) in the pre-dawn darkness and after a squashy microwaved ham and cheese croissant, onto the tarmac to climb into the little Fokker tubro-prop to Nelson. We were off at 7am in the early light and miracle of miracles I slept most of the one hour flight to Nelson, landing at that familiar old airport at 8am. Mason the friendly hire car man got off to a bad start by being late to pick me up but extra friendliness earned him brownie points and I was finally driving out to Richmond at about 9.30 for breakfast with Mum. We went down the street for a spot of shopping at the Richmond Mall and had chicken and salad for lunch. Mum showed me the funeral notice for Owen Dunn and I duly made contact with Chris Satherley, and we went out to St Peter and Paul's Catholic church at Waimea West for the service. It's like I had seen Chris days ago, not years ago. Great to see him again. Ivor seemed extremely glad to see me and after the interment in the very charming churchyard, we went back to the new Dunn residence on the inlet for the wake. I had a good chat to Ivor and several old Waimea Intermediate teachers such as Gary Askew and John Goodman. Barbara Dunn was there looking very slim and elegant, and her daughters Tess and Claudia, teenagers now God help us. Peter Dunn, on the other hand, looked like the eldest son, not the youngest. I brought Chris back home and went back to Mum's, where I had a bit of a snooze after lunch to catch up on some of the missing sleep. I woke up for delicious NZ sausages for dinner but I didn't last long and was back in bed by 6pm. But being a bit chronologically confused, I woke up again at 10pm and had to read for a couple of hours before going back to sleep.
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