 |
..and there's more...Posted on Saturday 19 June 2010 at 01:37 - Post CommentYou thought I'd just forgotten all about blogging didn't you? Well today I have decided to be a little more active in sharing than I have over the past 12 months. So here goes for the latest Great Gallumphings installment.
So the big news first. Rapidly on the back of getting her job, T is pregnant. I kid you not - I am going to be a dad, and T is going to be a mum. Excited? You had better be!!! In a far too much information kind of way, I was looking forward to a good 6 months of 'practice' before the amazing event occurred, however it seemed that destiny had other plans and the first attempt yealded immediate results! Of course, I am overwhelmed with happiness.
But another 3 months would have been even better yeah?!
So, big news a-side, the UK trip was predicably brilliant. Saw family, friends, drank lots, ate lots, and it was all-over a fantastic way to spend 4 weeks. Apart from one thing...
...that bloody Icelandic Volcano!!!!
Why they cannot keep it on a leash I don't know, but that bugger cost us 1 week's wages each plus an additional week in blighty. 'Fun and games for you - no more work for a week!!' you might think. Well, yes - of course you would - but then you full-timers will know that unpaid leave is an expensive mistress and we had to pay the price for our extended stay. In addition, we landed ourselves on some quite marvellously tolerant friends who would not say they detested us if their lives depended on it. So overall, we survived - a little poorer but emotionally much richer for the experience.
Back to Christchurch and it appears that we had missed 4 weeks of quite marvellous late autumn weather. NZ showed this to us by shitting it down for the subsequent 2 weeks, resulting in a miserable Wiz'n'Ton due to a leaking lounge roof.
Still, every cloud right? We decided that our silver lining would be to order a brand new lounge suite on which the leaky roof could drip - carpet really not being de rigeur for a leaky roof in our neck of the woods. Nice woolen lining and a sponge filler is much more 'up with the joneses'. Only it will be another few weeks yet till it arrives. Guess the carpet will just have to do till then.
To add to the fun, Environment Canterbury (the nice folks that decide who pollutes - oh, I mean *uses* our water - and who like to regulate various other environmental things) insisted that this year would be the year of the 'rip off local folks who happen to heat their home with an old wood burner' and decided they would change the rules on aforementioned woodburners. Anything 16yrs old or more had to go, and only brand new 'ECan approved' fires could replace them.
Well, I could bore you shitless with the palava we have gone through to completely avoid any help - financial or otherwise - supposedly offered by Ecan to get our previously adequate fire replaced by a seemingly identical one only it is 'approved', but believe me - $4000 can equate to an awfully long diatribe so let's just summarise with 'I'm not chuffed'. It'll probably allow this blog to get past your office/ computer/ network's sweary filters too ;)
Apart from the future baby, I have made some achievements of my own. Amazing,I know! On returning from our trip to the UK, I had gained 5kgs in weight and decided that a great way to shift it would be to run the marathon in Christchurch in only 7 weeks time.
I hadn't run in close to a year. Marathon training websites will tell you that you need 3 months minimum to train for a marathon. Well I showed them that 7 weeks of Bloody Minded me is enough to get you through 42 and a bit kilometres of pain in under 4 hours, Chuffed? Me? You betcha!
My sister said to me after this feat 'Andy, look what you can achieve if you put your mind to it!'. Maybe I should start doing that. You know, stop floating and start putting my mind to things. Who knows what I can achieve...
|
|