Strays of Christchurch

The pictures are of Andersons mostly - the family into which Hartley Ferrar married after the "Discovery" expedition. In the top picture he's at the left-hand end of the back row. His wife, my granny, is at the front with her two daughters. Her son Nick is on his grandfather's knee to the right of the picture and the other baby might be my dad, possibly. Strays in Christchurch have often found themselves with the Andersons. I've found a delightful billet with a second cousin of that lineage. My little room is lovely - 2 windows, both onto garden, so sun all day when it's out.

Yesterday when my cousin and I set out to go to the University he went back into the house for something, leaving me waiting in the car. I saw a small child on the pavement on the other side of the road, walking along, hesitating occasionally and looking over his shoulder, then trotting on. Much too far down the road, eventually I spotted a man with another couple of children, so thought, "Ok". When my cousin came out of his house we started off, but when we drew level with the man he waved us down and said he'd called the police and they should've come by now, but could we catch that child because he "won't listen to me". My cousin turned the car round and we overtook the little boy. I got out and scooped him up, at which point he flung himself onto me with a sob! The man had said the children were from a particular house and when we again drew level with him he pointed out that the police had arrived. He said he had to go to work, so handed over the two he had to the policemen and left. I went inside with the police, finding a bit of a shambles with nobody home. The telly was on, the kids weren't perturbed and were helping themselves to cold chips from a tray in the oven. They were also still running out of the yard if anyone took their eyes off them for an instant! The police explained that they had to look through papers to find out who to call and I offered to stay as this task was not really compatible with caring for the children and stopping them escaping again. They were pleased to accept my offer. The children were as nice as pie - clean, well-nourished, calm... but so very much too young to be left! Practically pre-verbal, only about 3, 2 and 1 years of age - with minimal vocabulary... They were very sweet with me, coming up for hugs and reassurance, bringing me books and showing me their toys. The youngest was a girl, the others boys, but I couldn't glean their names. Once it was decided that I'd stay I went outside to tell my cousin and he went back to the house (only 5 minutes walk away). I'm not sure how long we were all there - long enough for the policeman who wasn't trying to track parents to ask me all about who I was and what I was doing there - but eventually the mother turned up and I left.

We went to the Uni where everything I had to do was accomplished very quickly, then had a lovely roast dinner lunch in a local shopping mall before coming home and having universal siestas. Mine was longer and deeper than theirs, I think, still having the character of jet-lag coma, but eventually I woke up and there was another lovely meal. I don't see how this situation could be better for me: sharing a house with 3 chaps, one of whom likes to grow food and cook it. They are all also sociable enough, but busy enough doing their own thing, for a balance of conversation and shared activity to be achieved with solitary study and so on.

Today I got up and had a cup of real tea, just to mark out the day as a time I should be awake, then went for a walk. I asked if there was anything needed from a shop and was asked to fetch some milk from the supermarket about 10 minutes walk away, so this made the perfect outing. Going there was fine, shopping done, no bother, but then on the way home there was a dog off its leash which was running into the main road... I was on the central reservation of a big street and saw the dog running up to people on the other side at the lights. Again I thought, "Ok" because I assumed it belonged to the people and they had its measure, but the next thing, it was in the road! The outside lane stopped, but the inner looked as if it was still coming on, so I stepped out with my best traffic-stopping gesture and a girl who was with some other people who had arrived by then scooped up the dog and held onto it. I finished crossing the road and spoke with the new people. They didn't know whose dog it was, but they'd deal with it, taking it home if they couldn't locate the owner at the store!

When I got in I asked the chaps what they thought I'd find tomorrow: day 1, stray children, day 2, stray dog.... they said I wasn't to bring a penguin home... I'll keep you posted.