I was almost on a diet today – it’s Christmas, and for the traveller this means everything is closed and there is nothing to eat, nowhere. I had started my day planning to have breakfast in a caf’e on the road, which was marked as “homemade, really yummy food” on my map. So I was looking forward to just that – really yummy homemade food. But not at Christmas, nope. When I knocked on their door, it took a while until a very old man shuffled towards the main door, heavily leaning on his walking stick. He opened the screeching dor, just a little, to tell me they were closed, as any restaurant around, by the way. Hey, it’s Christmas… Travellers don’t eat at Christmas, I reckon.

But then the magic happened, he opened the door a little further and said: “But let’s see whether I can get you something.” And he got me something, a really yummy, homemade veggie pie, heated in the microwave, though, but as good as new anyway. That was good, and thinking about how good it even would have been had it come directly from the oven – unbearably good, I assume.

Thanks, old man from the Yellow Shack Cafe on Arthur’s Pass highway, some 50 km in from the Christchurch side. May you have a very merry Christmas and may you get served yummy food wherever you might travel, be it Christmas or not.

P.S.: When he showed me the selection of pies, he said with a beaming smile: ‘They are really good, I can tell you. Sometimes I pinch one for my lunch…!’ Isn’t he very sweet?

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