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We've just celebrated the kind of sun-soaked , laid-back Christmas that we've become accustomed to here , with friends casually dropping in for a swim , new pool games invented , shady seats in the garden , straw hats , T-shirts , fear of sunburn , Chardonnay . - - began falling in the city , light , fluffy , and insidious . We saved them from the cat and the dog . He kindly escorts us back to the rest of the spectator fleet . Back home we polished off a bottle of Chardonnay in the Okoroire hot pool ( number four , of course ) , took her sailing , she went off to Whakatane with a girlfriend from school . Dad died this year ( as you 'll read later ) , blissfully unaware to the very end of the true awfulness of his jokes - - the ultimate fate of all dads ? And today , here , it 's high summer : Ian is sitting in the garden , man and his laptop , with birds chattering in the trees in front and a sheep gently complaining in the paddock behind , a sleepy-eyed cockerel , jet-lagged or otherwise time-challenged , in the distance . no women ( once the Dykes had gone past ) - - well , no real women , anyway - - and precious few in the good-humoured crowd either . As part of her course she had to do two weeks ' work experience in a tourism-related position , for which she chose the Budget car rental company .