Week 1 / Wednesday

Larissa groaned when Tui banged on the door early, before the sun came up, but she dragged herself out of bed – Tui had said it would be worth it. Toilet, wash her face, throw some clothes on ... when they came out, Tui said, “four minutes! Wow!”

Larissa looked around, and the sun was just starting to be visible over the hills to the east of the farm. They hopped on the quadbikes behind Marty and Tui, and sped up the hill, up and up, following an old farm track, through a series of farm gates Julian and Larissa took turns opening. “We’re going all the way to the very back of the farm,” Tui told her, and it was a very long way up indeed. And incredible steep countryside – Larissa couldn’t believe how hilly it was, and shouted something about it to Tui. Tui slowed down a little and said, “There’s a joke, you know, Kiwi farms are bigger than Aussie farms when you count actual surface area. Anyway, it’s a hard place to farm. Even with these bikes, it’s still high energy. Why I hate running.” Larissa laughed for that. Some of the Australian farms in the outback were almost as big as all of New Zealand, but yeah, they got extra land for sure with all these ups and downs.

It didn’t take many minutes, and the sun was just starting to poke out over the hills when Tui turned and drove directly up the side of an impossible hill. At the top, there was a little flat area. Tui and Marty parked just off to the side of it, and Larissa slid off the bike and looked around.

Wow. Really wow. They were on the top of the highest hill for miles around. The sky was clear - hardly a cloud visible, except for a band of clouds far on the horizon to the south. All around them, she could see hills and valleys as far as the eye could see. Mostly lush green farmland, but here and there were patches of darker shade – bush. A chill breeze was blowing gently across the top of the hill. She looked back where they came from, following the farm track until it disappeared into the shade.

Tui showed them the landmarks – the little bit of driveway they couldn’t quite see, and the hill that their house and shepherd’s hut were behind. Then off to the north east, the mountain they’d visited the day before.

“Tui, this is awesome! What an in incredible view! And you own this place?”

“Yep. See that line down there?” Tui pointed it out. “That’s the back edge of our land. Then it’s park and forest on the other side. If we had time, we could walk in there, maybe camp there. Another time, perhaps.” Then Tui pointed out a few herds of sheep on their land. “We’ll check on them later. OK, I think it’s about time. Look due south, on the horizon.” She pointed exactly where to look, but Larissa couldn’t see anything. What on earth should be she looking for, or what was about to happen? Then she realised, maybe a minute later: there was a patch of white on the horizon. It was definitely growing, she could see.

“What’s that? What happened?”

She could hear the pleasure in Tui’s voice. “That’s Mt Ruapehu. We’ll drive past it tomorrow. The sun has just got onto the summit.”

“That’s awesome,” Julian said, and then the sun came over the horizon for them too. Incredible. “Thanks for bringing us here, Tui. This was totally worth getting up early for.”

“Oh, we’re not done yet, but we have to wait a few minutes now.”

We’re not done yet? Larissa sat down and kept a close eye on Mt Ruapehu, but there was nothing more to see – they could only just see it over the hills to the south. She sat there in silence, awed by the view, the stillness. Other than the two quadbikes, and the fence at the back of their land, there was no evidence of technology or society; this was untouched land, pure in its perfection.

A few minutes later, Tui said, “OK. Look to the southeast now,” and she pointed at a new tuft of white visible on the horizon. “The sun has just hit Mt Taranaki.” Gradually, over the next twenty minutes, that little tuft of white turned into a very definite conical mountain top. A perfect cone, poking out over the horizon totally alone. The way the light worked, they couldn’t see the base for the haze, so it really looked like the mountain was just hanging in the sky. Marty told them about the volcanic history that formed it, and then Tui told them a couple of Maori legends about the two mountains. Eventually she said, “OK. That’s all there is to see. Pretty cool huh?” Yes, it certainly was, they enthusiastically said. “Right. Breakfast.”

After breakfast, Tui and Huatare had farm work to do for the morning. Did Julian and Larissa want to tag along and help, or just take it easy? They both wanted to see the farm, so they tagged along behind Tui and Marty on their quadbikes exploring the farm, checking on the fences and their sheep. Huatare had a farm dog sitting behind him, named Tane, who Larissa had been introduced to. Tane waited patiently on the bike until Huatare or Tui called her off, and then she was off like a shot, rounding the sheep up, guided by a whistle that Huatare used. Huatare looked at the awe on their faces, and smiled. “Tane’s family has been part of my family since my grandpa, and I still use the same sounds that he taught her great ... I guess it would be great-grandfather six times over now. She’ll be Tui’s dog from now on.” Wow again, Larissa thought, she rarely encountered such a deep rich tradition.

Larissa watched Julian holding tightly to Marty as she held tightly onto Tui when they went through a steep patch: he was really good pals with Marty now, very comfortable. Sweet. And she was with Tui as well. She leaned forward and rested her chin on Tui’s shoulder. Tui stopped quickly and turned her head to look at her in surprise. She smiled and kissed Tui on the cheek. “I love it here, and I’m so happy I’ve met you. Is it OK that I kissed you?”

Tui gave her a lovely smile. “Sure. I like that you kissed me.” She turned and offered, so Larissa gently kissed her on the lips. Sweet. “But if you want to do that properly, we have to do it the Maori way too.” So Tui taught her hongi: how to rub noses properly, interesting.

“At some stage, Julian and I should swap so you can teach him that too,” Larissa told her.

A few minutes later, Tui suddenly pulled up, looking at a herd of sheep they had disturbed. Huatare stopped as well, and called out, “What’s up?”

Tui pointed to the ram in the middle of the herd. “He doesn’t look right?” Huatare frowned, and agreed. Good sight, he said. They agreed that they’d check him out. Tui hopped off the bike and said to Larissa, “Wanna help?” Sure, Larissa was in, but how? “Oh, just follow me.” She called Tane off the Huatare’s bike, produced her own whistle, and sent Tane around the back of the herd. Then she just ran straight into the herd of sheep at the ram. What, was she crazy? Up close, the sheep were bigger then they looked, heavier and fatter than the ones she was used to in Australia. The sheep panicked – a dog on one side, and humans running at them from the other? The herd split, baaing their fear and distress. While she was running Tui used the whistle to move Tane back and forward so that the ram, her target, couldn’t decide which way to run. Larissa was amazed: how could she do that while running fast? Finally, the ram decided and went one way. Tui stepped up a gear, sprinting very quickly now, and then threw herself at the ram, rugby tackling it to the ground, and jumping on top of it. Fuck, that was damned impressive; Larissa had never seen anything like that and her grandpa had had some sheep. He’d have used a holding pen to do what Tui had just casually done by hand.

She arrived in time to help Tui hold the thing down. And it was damn strong – she could only just help. And Tui had been doing it by herself! Tui produced some twine from a pocket and managed to get it around the ram’s front legs and then she had it; she tied its back legs up, and then it was stuck. She stood up and stretched, smiling at the look on Larissa’s face.

“Well, that was fun!” Larissa’s eyes boggled. That was ‘fun’? Fuck ... she knew Tui was strong, but that ... she was a superwoman! No wonder Huatare was proud of his girl. She glanced at him, and yeah, he had a big smile for his girl. Larissa looked around the back of Tui, and Tui said, “what?”

“Oh, just looking for your cape!”

Tui laughed appreciatively and then said, “Well, now that we have it, what do you think of the ram? Got a professional opinion?”

Larissa frowned. It had been limping, true, but that didn’t seem to slow it down. She had a close look at its feet. Not something she’d seen before, or learnt about; one foot was definitely not good ... some kind of infection? It was only one foot though, which argued against infection? She asked Tui if there were likely infections around, and Tui told her about footrot, a common problem, but it wasn’t usually just one foot. Larissa decided to have a closer look, and felt around the yucky infected area, knowing that Tui had some disinfectant on the bike. She found a more sensitive area – nearly got thrown off the ram there – which turned out to be a thorn, but it was only little, and the infection was more widespread than that. Huatare was watching, and produced some industrial looking tweezers, so Larissa carefully removed the thorn. “But that’s not it, I think,” she said, and both Tui and Huatare agreed. She declined to offer any more opinion – she didn’t know this stuff. Huatare brought his bike over, and Tui lifted the ram onto the platform on the back that Tane had been on. Fuck, that was even more impressive, and this time she could see that Tui was showing off, but hell, she deserved to. She carefully tied the ram on so it couldn’t move, and then sent Tane off to run the sheep around so that they could watch the rest of the herd and see if it was a wider problem.

While she was doing that, Larissa cleaned her hands very thoroughly indeed, and chatted to Marty and Julian. “Damn, that really was very impressive,” Julian said. “Imagine if she took up a martial art!”

Marty shuddered, and said, “Oh no, that’d be terrifying. She can already break me in half!”

Julian laughed and said, “Mine too, I like having a strong woman.” He looked approvingly at Larissa, who just blew him a raspberry. He did really like that she was strong, but break him in half? As if.

But Marty said, “I do too. She’s the strongest woman I’ve met in so many ways and I love her for it. My brothers are scared of her!” Larissa looked at her in surprise. “They threatened to jump her one day at home, fight her for control of the TV remote, so she challenged them to an arm wrestle. Never again!”

Down at the shed, Huatare picked up the ram like he was a toy lamb, and moved him into a hay filled enclosure. Then they got a tour of the shed – it was half shearing shed, and half general purpose farm shed, with the sheep pens on the back of it. Really interesting for Larissa.

Then they were going back out to a different part of the farm, Huatare one way, and the rest of them the other. When they went to get on the bikes, Larissa said, “Well, shall we swap?”

Tui blinked, thought for a second, and said, “Sure. Julian, you’re with me this time.”

Marty was already on the bike, so Larissa hopped on behind him and cuddled up to him. “OK, let’s have fun!” she said to him. He was about to start the bike, so Larissa said, “Hey wait,” and nudged him to look at Tui.

Tui grinned at Larissa and said, “Julian, Larissa says I have to introduce you to a custom of my people. So, first, we kiss.” She offered him her lips, and Julian gave her a nice firm kiss. Larissa could see Tui liked that a lot, actually. “Thanks. Now, we rub our noses together, a Maori welcome.” She showed him how to do that. When they were done, she said, “Thanks!” and glanced at Larissa.

Her queue then. “Well, Marty, do you follow that custom too?” He looked at her in surprise, and then nodded, a grin on his face. She gave him a good kiss, and then they did the hongi.

“Not that I’m complaining, but what led to that?” Marty asked.

Larissa shrugged. “I was sitting there behind Tui thinking how happy I am, and how much I love it here, and how I really like being friends with Tui, and I just kissed her without thinking. So she showed me the nose thing, and I thought Julian would like trying that out.”

“Oh, cool!”

For the rest of that trip round the farm, one of Julian or Larissa opened the gate, and the other swapped bikes, until they found a fallen tree, a very big Macrocarpa that was blocking the path. Tui dug out a chain and tried to drag the tree off the track, but it was too big for the quadbike – it just churned. “Well, we kind of expected it was coming down soon. I’ll come back later with the tractor. Anyway, we’ve gone far enough. Everything looks fine out here.” Though they’d stopped twice to do fence repairs. Tui turned off the track and headed along a ridge looking down into the stream they were following, and then she stopped to inspect a dead lamb, eaten by something. What would do that here in New Zealand, Larissa wondered. “Keas,” Tui said. “They land on its back and pick at it, and it can’t get rid of them. We lose a few every year.” She put the chain around the lamb and dragged it away from the stream catchment. “I’ll pick it up later this afternoon too.”

When they got back to the house, Tui said, “It’s time for lunch. We’re going to do a picnic at our favourite spot on the farm. Go get changed, and bring a towel. Ready in fifteen?”

Larissa and Julian were back on schedule, and they watched Huatare tie a picnic basket on the back of his quadbike, and then Tui said, “Julian, come help me with the Chulli Bun.” What the heck was a Chulli Bun, Larissa wondered? To her surprise, Julian walked out with an Esky, and Tui started tying it to the back of her bike.

“What did you call that?” Larissa said to her in surprise, and then found out that eskys were call “Chilli bins” in New Zealand – a more practical name, she agreed – and that word was famous for drawing out the kiwi accents to Australian ears.

Then they piled onto the quadbikes, and followed Huatare and Anne along a different track that followed the river. Suddenly, they turned into a dell that was beautiful. It was like a circular cauldron in shape, with the river sweeping around two sides of it, and forest around the walls. In the middle, a lovely lush green lawn. What a spot! Larissa looked at Julian in surprise and he felt the same way – this was the most beautiful thing they’d seen yet.

Tui pulled the bike to a stop and said, “Well, what do you think?” and then nodded when Larissa couldn’t find the right words to describe how she felt. “It’s our favourite spot too, where we come for peace. See over there,” and Tui pointed at a big rock in the river, “there’s a great swimming hole, which we’ll try out after lunch.” She untied the Chilli Bin while Larissa looked around and tried to take it all in. She wondered down to the river with Julian and dipped her toe in the water – cool, but not as cold as she expected. She turned and kissed Julian. Just something about this spot made her want to do that, and she could see he was feeling it too.

The Tui called them up, and lunch was spread. Anne showed them what they should do to make their own lunch, and then they sat in the sun and ate, and they had great drinks, and then Larissa just wanted to chill – she’d woken up early.

She was just starting to drift off to sleep when Marty said, “All right, time for a swim!” Larissa looked around in interest to see what would be appropriate to wear – she had a decent bikini on under her shorts, and a not-so decent bikini under that, in case that was appropriate. But she straight away saw that none of that was necessary, Anne and Hautare were stripping. Great, so she pulled her clothes straight off, and in a moment, they were all naked. Hautare led them into the water, showing Larissa and Julian where to step on the way in.

The water was cool, cooler than the bay at home, but not unbearably cool. The bottom of the swimming hole was soft sand and a little mud, just up to chest height, and then there was a deeper part, up over her head. You could swim across that, climb up the rock, and jump in safely, so they amused themselves doing that for a little while Hautare and Anne watched.

Then Hautare said they should play chicken. Larissa laughed and said that she’d be in, she was looking forward to sparring with Tui. Julian smiled and said yes, so Tui laughed. “All right!” Suddenly Larissa was pushed up out of the water on Julian’s shoulders. She pumped her arms, “Yeah!”

But then Tui caught her by surprise: it was Tui who pushed Marty up on her shoulders. Straight away she knew that she was going down. Julian was awesome strong, more than Tui would believe, and her own core was awesome, she knew, but in general, most guys would wipe the floor with her at this – she just couldn’t compete with all those testosterone fueled muscles.

Still, they gave it their best. Both of them trash talked Marty and Tui, and got it back in exchange, and then Julian jinked in close to Tui. Larissa put her feet out, trying to get Tui in the shoulder and she got a glancing blow, but not enough to unseat Marty. Marty and Larissa waved their arms around trying to get the advantage. Eventually Larissa got what she thought was an advantage and her hands on Marty’s forearms.

Nup, his shoulder strength was way too much and he twisted her around and she knew she was gone. She made as much splash as she could and came up laughing. “That’s not going work! Marty’s just too strong for me.”

Julian said, “Want to try the other way up?” Sure, Larissa was game, but her lifting Julian? She was strong, but ... what the hell. She got down and under Julian and lifted him up. Carumba, he was heavy! She felt that settle on her shoulders and saw the surprise on Tui’s face that she had even done that. Right, she wanted to at least make a contest out of this. She slowly moved forward – this was like with Lacey in her arms, but at least she could fall at any time, unlike then. Julian swayed on her shoulders, and she nearly lost her footing – what a huge weight shift ... she could feel her core working for this one. Julian got a good push on Tui, and that nearly pushed Larissa over. Wow, it was hard work on the bottom! Julian got a good grip on Marty, and they pushed at each other. Larissa could not believe how much Marty was forcing her around, and then Tui suddenly pushed forward, and big step, and Larissa was gone, unable to stop Julian disappearing over the back of her head, but she did her get leg around Tui’s leg and took her down at the same time.

They came up laughing again. Tui looked at Larissa, and said, “Well done! I’m impressed. I wouldn’t want to lift Julian!”

“All right,” Julian said, “if we’re going to keep playing doomed games of chicken, let’s play guys vs girls.”

Tui and Marty froze, and looked at him in disbelief. “Umm,” Marty said. “You ... you’ll lift me?” Because it would have to be that way around, Larissa knew, just on size and strength alone. But Marty was clearly taken completely by surprise. “Sure,” Julian shrugged. “I’ve got no problem with you on my shoulders. Just don’t get a boner, and we’ll be right.” Tui laughed hysterically for that one, and said, “OK, Let’s do this.”

Larissa prepared, and then Tui lifted her out of the water. She settled on Tui’s shoulders, and Tui got a good grip on her. Then Marty lifted out of the water in front of them, and he settled on Julian’s shoulders. “Right!” Marty said, “you girls are going down.”

Plenty of laughter for that double entendre, and Tui said, “Oh, no, it’s you guys who need to go down.” Huatare, in particular, found that one funny. Then Tui said, “Larissa, you just need to pull Marty around the front, and we’ll win easy!”

Larissa laughed at the expression on Marty’s face, and said, “Tui, if we can try for that, then they can try for that. Are you OK with that?”

“Urgh,” Tui said, thinking, but Larissa could see that wasn’t OK with her, even for a win. She looked at Marty and they instantly agreed they weren’t going to do that. No words needed, even. Ok, time to do this.

This one lasted a bit longer, mainly because Julian and Marty were a bit tentative. As they should be, sparring with their women. They pushed at each other, and grabbed at each other’s arms about, and then Marty let Larissa get a good grip on him, but there was no way she could pull them over. She was just considering some kind of suicide move – jumping over onto Julian, when Marty grabbed her arms and pulled her over to the side, and down they went. She came up to the surface to find Marty still up there, pumping his fists and doing a victory dance on top of Julian. Tui caught her eyes and they agreed silently, and they both attacked Marty. And Tui saw no need to play nice either – she went for his bum, and slid her hand up Julian’s back, while Larissa went for one of his feet and pushed. Marty shrieked and went down as fast as he could.

“No fair!” he shouted when he came up. When they stopped laughing, Tui said, “Time for some sun?” and they all agreed.

Larissa lay in Julian’s arms while she relaxed after that. Laying in his arms in this beautiful place ... lovely. She was probably going to go to sleep, and decided that she was fine with that, after getting up so early. She had earned it, and she snuggled her head into Julian’s neck, listening to the others talking. But she could check out of that, and she did.

When Larissa awoke, she was still lying against Julian, her head on his shoulder. She looked at his face and saw that he was asleep too. Carefully she looked around and saw that they were alone: Tui and the others were gone, and they’d left a quadbike parked further down the river. The sun was out, but not that hot, and it was perfectly still, just the noise of the river in the background. The magic of this place had only seemed to increase while they were asleep. She almost expected to see Tom Bombadil come striding along the riverbank. She just enjoyed the perfection for a few minutes, but then Julian shifted in this sleep, and her attention was diverted back to Julian. She looked along his naked body with pleasure. All hers, woo. Clearly, Tui and family expected Julian and her to have sex here. How could they not? She should wake Julian up and get into it right away.

But then she thought, why wake him up? Well, more like, how to wake him up? A poke in the shoulder, or a blow job? Yeah, she knew what to do. Her hand drifted down and started stroking him. She wondered how long it would take for him to wake up. In the meantime, she could play with his magnificent body to her heart’s content. He’d said she could do whatever she wanted often enough ... time to play.

It didn’t take long for his dick to get hard. She loved the feeling of it growing in her hand, feeling it fill up with blood. This was fun, but no hurry ... she let go of his dick and spent a little while playing with her clit. Yeah, she was nicely wet and ready now. And, hey, what if instead of a blowjob she just mounted him? A shiver of pleasure ran through her body, and oh how she’d love for him to wake up with her riding him. He’d love it too. What if he woke up while she was coming? That’d be just super.

She went back to his dick, stroking it gently to its full glory. Was he awake? No evidence of it right now, not even a twitch. Well, he was fully hard now. She rolled over and onto her knees, and got herself even more wet. Then she held Julian upright and lowered herself onto him, looking down at this face. Still asleep, awesome. She grinned, what a wonderful thing this was, to do this, in this place. She ground a little on him, her eyes closed, feeling a shiver of pleasure run up her spine as she moved around on him. This was awesome, amazing. Sooooo good. Too good, really, and she just needed to share this with Julian. She opened her eyes, ready to wake him up, and he was looking up at her with a dreamy grin on his face.

“Oh, I didn’t want to wait for...” but Julian put his finger on her lips. Then he moved his hands down to her hips, and thrust up into her. Oh fuck yes that was the thing. One finger on her clit, and another snaked around, his middle finger almost in her butt, holding her tight and he thrust again and lifted her, slamming her down, the message clear: go for it.

She did, totally in the moment. Something about this place, how she felt, and Julian’s expression ... she just lost herself and really went for it. Wow, it didn’t take long and then Julian was coming and that pushed her over, a big one, she really felt that one.

She stilled, looking down at Julian. Slowly an incredulous smile formed across his face. Larissa understood. That one really was magic. She gave him a gentle smile and fell forward against him, nuzzling up to his face. Her wonderful man, she just felt so close to him.

He was crying, she realised, she felt the tears on her forehead. “Sweetie, what’s up? Are you ok?” She lifted her head and looked him in the eye.

“Oh, yes, that was ... amazing. Overwhelming, so perfect.” He paused, and she could see he was searching for words. “Babe, I think that you don’t really know what the difference is between great sex for you, and great sex for us.” He paused again, and Larissa nodded. Of course she didn’t – how could she? She went to say something and changed her mind. Let her man talk, she thought to herself. “And sometimes I think, that’s just so amazing for you, that you don’t see a difference. And that it’s amazing for me.” He kissed her forehead. “And then a few times, I worry. What if you’re not really paying attention to yourself, you’re just so determined that my sex is going to be amazing? So waking up to that, looking up at your face, your bliss, and knowing that you did that, used me as your toy, just because you wanted to? Babe, that meant just so much to me. I’ll remember that smile forever.”

Wow, Larissa was touched by that. She just felt so close to him right now, and she squeezed him gently, and grinned to herself when his eyes closed.

“Waking up like that ... it was different somehow. Like it was my heart inside you, not my dick. And it was like my heart exploded in you. Babe, I don’t know how to say, what happened. It just ... I don’t know. You can do that absolutely any time you like.” His voice was gentle, reverential. Julian wasn’t much for talking about his feelings, she sometimes had to pry them out of him; he preferred his actions to speak louder than his words, so this ... it was really special. She held him tight, and they kissed gently. Wow wow wow, and she got married to this?

She had thought he was finished, but he went on quietly. “Babe, how did I get to marry you? I did nothing to deserve this, and I worry sometimes that I won’t be...” He stopped, and then smiled at her. “I know you feel the same sometimes. But if ever we doubt, we can look back on this day, because this ... it was perfect. Love couldn’t be better than that.”

Larissa sure agreed, and she kissed him passionately. Her amazing man, he’d never said that so explicitly to her, though she knew he felt like that. And he was totally right – what just happened was perfection. They kissed for a while, and then she amused herself by squeezing on him, and suddenly they were going for it again. She sat up straight and just danced on top of him, enjoying herself. She could tell that she wasn’t going to come, but she didn’t care, she just felt so good – it was his words that had really done it for her.

After he came again, and she calmed down and settled, he said, “Babe, what happened anyway? Where is everyone?”

“Well, I woke up and no one was around. They left us a quadbike. Obviously we were meant to make love, and I sure didn’t want to disappoint them.” ‘Make love’ really was the right words for what just happened. “I was going to wake you up the normal way but decided to have some fun instead.” Loved loved loved it, Julian said, nearly the most fun I’ve ever had. “Anyway, it’s probably time to go back. You can drive the quadbike?”

No, he never had, though he’d said something to Marty that might’ve been interpreted to mean he had. They took a selfie to remember their sensational sex by, and then hopped back into the river for a quick swim, and then Julian said that his awesome wife was going to drive the quadbike while he held onto her from behind. Her tits, of course, Larissa grinned to herself, but she didn’t want to stop touching him right now, so that was just fine. But what about their clothes? They couldn’t see them anywhere, just the one towel they’d been asleep on. Larissa folded it up with their phones inside it, and they sat on it, and then between them they figured out how to work the quadbike, and they drove back slowly, stopping to kiss fairly often.

They came up the sweeping driveway, and then around the back of the house, where Tui was waiting for them. “You didn’t find your clothes?” she asked, laughing at them. No, they said with surprise, sure didn’t. Well, duh, they were in the front boot of the quadbike. It had a boot? She showed them where. “Anyway, get dressed, and come inside when you’re ready, and we have guests. Oh – do you need showers?” No, Larissa grinned, we used the river – but what do we need to wear for our guests? “Oh, just what you were wearing on the way to the river. They’ve already seen you ride up the driveway naked,” she said, laughing at them again. Huh, Larissa thought, but she didn’t really mind. Not that they’d seen too much, Julian had been firmly attached to his favourite handles.