Richard Pearse

Sunday 14th June: Today there was thick fog outside while we ate our breakfast. It was also very cold outside. The boys and I waked to Sunday School, and while we were there the fog lifted to give a sunny day.
After lunch we drove to Timaru. At the airport there is an aviation heritage centre so the boys and I had a look around it. The exhibition is mostly about Richard Pearse (after whom the airport is named) who was a pioneer of powered flight. In fact he might even have made his maiden flight (which was 12 seconds (the record for a chicken is 11 seconds!)) some months before Orville Wright did. The photos are of the weather vane at the airport, a small model of Richard Pearse in his aircraft, a painting showing his flight (before he landed on his own gorse fence!) and a poem about Richard Pearse written for a school project. One guide book told us that he "had a wallaby loose in his top paddock" which is presumably explained by the fact he died in a psychiatric hospital.
After all that excitement we saw Steve's plane land and drove home with him. Our neighbour Jeanette came in to babysit and Steve and I went out to a farewell dinner for one of the other doctors at his surgery.