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Checking inPosted on Wednesday 18 February 2009 at 08:34 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - LinkBelieve it or not, I have yet to kill myself with the spear gun! The long absence from a blog entry has simply been busy-ness, absence and laziness - in that order, and not Christmas present calamity.
Wow - so much has gone on since I last stuck something on here! So, it was just before Christmas when we were about to head off to Kaikoura. Well, you'll be pleased to hear that we all had a great time. In the end it was my parents, T and I who headed up there. I got well stuck into the spearfishing, and speared my first ever fish - a blue moki. It went very well with the paua and crayfish that I also caught - and the parents loved it.
What a beautiful sight!
We also did some horse-riding which was a complete first for both mum and dad. They had a great time, as did we all, and overall the trip was a fantastic success.
Christmas itself was brilliant - we all had a wonderful time together as T's mum was here with us. The day itself was held at Kel & Carls, and we had the good old Kiwi BBQ for Christmas dinner. It was pretty good too - and the day itself flew by.
After all of the flat-out business of having family with us, we felt that it was time to do one and head off on a bit of a holiday. In Jan we jumped on board a flight a winged our way to South East Asia for a 3 week tour of Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. I could write forever about the it, as it was an amazing experience. However they say a picture can paint a thousand words, so here's us at one of the Ankhor Watt temples in Cambodia:
Oh, and I ate a spider - yummy!
We got back to NZ just as the great summer weather came to an end (yay - erm, not!) and have been back about a month now. My birthday was a pleasant and quiet affair. T got me Thai cooking lessons and I did the first last Saturday. They are wicked, and I am now a dab hand a Tom Yum (my number one fave!), fried rice, and spring rolls. This coming Sat is Pad Thai, Green Curry and Coconut Cake - shuld be good!
The house has been brilliant. A good friend of ours house sat whilstwe were away, and we returned to an overflowing veggie garden, a healthy cat, and a house in one piece - so thanks Sophie! Littletoe - at long last here's a pic of the house just for you:
All those windows make it great in summer, but now that the cold weather is due we are starting to realise a few of the pitfalls. T has spent all day today getting advice and assistance on heating and energy efficiency. A chap came over and had a butchers, and was impressed by the house, but confirmed our fears that it has absolutely zero insulation anywhere. None under the floor, none in the ceilings, none in the walls. All this = brrrrrrr! Mum and dad - expect a call soon for that loan you mentioned.....
Following our move here, it meant that the house in the city was empty and was up for rent. The bad news right up to Christmas Eve was that it remained un-tennanted and we were looking at paying a hefty mortgage on it come mid-Jan. However it was A1 Property Managers to the rescue, and we got the call right at the last on Christmas Eve that they had leased it for a 12 month period. What a Christmas present! So, for the first time here in NZ we are land-lords. Fingers crossed that we can keep it tennanted for the next few years and that it just ticks over nicely.
Work continues for me - it's all a bit doom and gloom within our business as there have been a couple of redundacies recently, however our office is fighting hard and we are working to keep the beady eye of job cuts well and truly away from the Christchurch branch. Generally speaking manufacturing has taken the biggest hit here in ChCh, with a number of high profile companies - some of them clients of ours - cutting staff numbers due to a drop in demand for their products. Cheers credit crunch!
I mentioned the veggie patch before. Dad helped me clear it of weeds and plant it out before Christmas. We are now enjoying runner beans, green beans, corgettes (or zucchinis if you're Kiwi - whichever way it's a bugger to spell!) radish and baby carrotts. Soon we'll have spuds, leeks and beetroot too - and we love it! We've been so motivated by the success that we are now thinking of adding a couple of chickens into the mix, so are meeting with friends Teamembo over the weekend who have chooks of their own. We're hoping to pick up some tips, check out the stuff we'll need and the cost of it all, ad then we can go from there. Chickens! How River Cottage is that?!
T's business is picking up steam - www.atmosphereplanning.com is getting plenty of attention and now looks a lot more professional. Thanks Kodie! No actual weddings as yet, but some advertising and a forthcoming wedding fair should bring some enquiries. In between times, T is getting to know the local schools in the hope of getting some relieving work whilst the wedding planning business grows - so keep your fingers crossed for us.
Oh, and do you realise that we have now been here over 2 years?! It slipped by prety unnoticed by both T and I. Whether that's a good or bad thing, we've yet to decide, but two whole years?! Where did that go then?
I reckon I'll leave it there.
Happy anniversary to us Don't throw those bloody spears at me.Posted on Tuesday 16 December 2008 at 04:31 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - LinkApparently Michael Caine never said those words, in Zulu, or any other film. Still love the phrase though!
So what does that have to do with the price of old cheese? Well read on, and all will be revealed!
T gave me my Chrissy present early you see. As we are heading up to Kaikoura shortly, it was deemed suitable to do so as it was related to this adventure. So there's me last night - get home from work and the big old pressie is sat there looking at me expectantly.
I savour the moment for a little longer, and go and change out of my work gear, and then get into the serious work of unwrapping it.
Imagine my absolute suprise to find that T's only gone and got me a f*cking great spear gun! This thing is well over a metre long, and looks pretty handy. It's basically a big elastic band attached to a pole, that fires a metre of pointy steel rod at a great rate of knots at whatever it has been aimed at. The rod is attached to the pole by 4 metres of cable, so it has a range of over 5 metres. After 10 minutes of figuring out how it all works, we head out to the back garden to give it a bash. I
...very nearly put the spear through my leg!!! At this point T realises that the gift - though seemingly a good idea at the time - is now obviously completely inappropriate for someone as incompetent and downright accident prone as myself. You see, on that first firing the spear took milliseconds to come to the end of its tether, and Einstein being right when he said that every action has a reaction, it immediately boinged back at me with the super sharp pointy end ripping a hole in my jeans just inches from my manly bits. Another few mm's the wrong way and it would have gone through my entire leg!
After this shock I did a few, more carefully orchestrated, test shots and have come to the conclusion that this thing is positively lethal. It went through over an inch of plywood with no trouble at all.
So, if I don't update this blog after a weekend of spearfishing in Kaikoura, then you know that what everyone saw coming has happened and I'll be in A&E.
So this thing fires lethal projectiles, has the potential to kill and maim, is legal to use, and is all mine. What a BLOODY FANTASTIC PRESENT! I bloody love my wife. My final Triathlon of the yearPosted on Sunday 14 December 2008 at 08:29 - 2 Comments - Post Comment - Link
I've only gone and bloody done it! 250m swim, 20km cycle and a 5km run, all taken care of in the paltry time of 1 hour, 19minutes and 3 seconds. I came 59th of 79 triathlon racers.
I can't tell you how chuffed I am. In the process of training for, and racing in, these three events I have managed to lose over 7kgs in excess blubber, improve my placings in each race, and throughout it all I've manager to not keel over with a coronary. A real result however you look at it.
The day today was pretty ordinary in the way of weather, with a bitch of an easterly blowing that proved to be a nasty head wind for the second half of the cycle. It kept the temperatures down though, so that was a little consolation. The swim was the longest I've yet done, but all went well and through pacing myself I managed to exit for the cycle without feeling like I was about to cough up a lung. T, along with my mum and dad, was there to cheer me on and passd me my towel on my way to transition for the cycle so thanks guys for fronting up and supporting me!
The cycle went as well as 20kms on a mountainbike can go. The super-racer types blasted past me on their carbon kevlar wonder-machines, but seeing as the great thing about tri's is that you only race yourself, I didn't hate them too much. I didn't get any opportunities to draught anyone - nor anyone me, so all in all it was pretty lonely.
The run was another matter, as I started catching a fair number of the earlier racers and after the first lap of the 2.5km course I still felt pretty strong. Telling myself that this was the last time this year I would have to run around a bloody big field, I really put some effort into that final circuit and ran through the finish feeling tired but elated that I had managed to do this - for me - big thing.
I would never have even considered this in the UK - so thanks NZ for encouraging me to be a part of this great sport. I reckon I'll be doing a few more next year!
My results for the three events were: Race 1: 70th of 76 finishers in 48 mins 58 seconds Race 2: 57th of 68 finishers in 1 hour, 4 minutes and 53 seconds Race 3: 59th of 79 finishers in 1 hour, 19 minutes and 3 seconds
For those who want a laugh, here's some links to pics of me during the event:
Bike: Sprint Finish ChristmasPosted on Friday 12 December 2008 at 02:04 - 0 Comments - Post Comment - Link
New arrivals Wednesday was a day off for me as it was off to the airport to pick up mum and dad from their flight from Still, the parents arrived just fine, getting through the whole process in the usual average of about an hour after landing. We immediately headed for home and got them settled in the new place, and then went of to Salt on the Pier in New House Yes, we made it in! Just over 2 weeks ago now we moved into our new place in Hoon Hay. The move itself went swimmingly thanks to help from loads of friends and family (you know who you are). We picked the keys up on Friday afternoon, and within 6 hours had painted 2.5 rooms, with just one more coat to go onto the lounge walls the following morning on the day of the move iself. T and I did this at 7am (!) and it was dry just as I went to go and get the rental truck. The place looked loads better for it, and I sit here in the dining room now congratulating Toni's foresight to get it done before all of the furniture arrived. Being a lazy arse I ws all for doing it 'in time' but that little bit of effort has really made the difference. On our own the place doesn't really make sense as it is so big, but with mum and dad here now, as well as our mate Olly who is lodging for a few days, it is really feeling homely. Bring on the guests!
Last Friday we had the Xmas work do here as things on the budget side were pretty tight. Of course it was dress up - this time the theme was 'what I want to be when I grow up'. Here's T and I - can you guess what we wanted to be....?
Christmas I truly can't believe it is Christmas again already! We have just this evening, as a family, put up the (real) Christmas tree that Toni bought on the way home, all whilst listening to Christmas songs. It was very festive and has given me my first real twinge that in just a couple of weeks it is really going to be Christmas! NZ is SO not Christmassy when compared to the Toni Next week is Toni's last week in 'real' employment as her term ends and she leaves her class. This is a sad but exciting time for us both, and the New Year will bring challenges and rewards I am sure to the Atmosphere Planning enterprise. 'What's that?' I hear the new readers ask! click ye on www.atmosphereplanning.com and feast your eyes on the ever improving web site. Ton got her first enquiry this week, for a wedding next year - I told her to frame it as it is right there from that small seed that her wedding planning empire will grow! The next few weeks Are going to be flat out for us as this coming weekend Toni's mum arrives, then the weekend after we all head to Kaikoura for a long weekend, then it's Christmas, then we go to Hanmer for another long weekend, then everyone buggers off home and the next day T and I head off to South East Asia! Full on. Just the way we like it then :-) I leave you with a pic of T and her sis Kelly. It's about the first time ever that both have 'approved' of a picture taken of them both. A miracle in itself!
Busy little beesPosted on Thursday 13 November 2008 at 07:27 - 1 Comments - Post Comment - Link
Canterbury Show Day today, so it's a day off for all in Canterbury - hooray! I tell you what, we are both in need of one as life is pretty full on right now. T's on the phone to folks in the UK so I figured I'd quickly sling some drivel up on here.
As today is a day off we are going to actually have a day off and go to the Cantebury Show this morning. This is driven by me, as I want to see the animals (how much of a child am I?!) and just have a nose around. Then we're going to head to the Addington Raceway for an afternoon of horse racing with friends Kathy and Brent. Should be good!
Last night was a mission. 'The Big Red Shed', commonly known as The Warehouse is a large 'sell everything, and sell it cheap' NZ store full to the rafters of cheap imported Chinese tat. Toni adores the place, and a week seldom goes by without a trip there to see what's bargain-tastic. Well yesterday we got a flyer for half price and reduced deals on loads of their homewares and hardwares stuff. With the move coming up I was told that this was not to be missed! We headed down, and got involved in the carnage. Well worth it though - we got a full size patio heater with a ticket price of $250 for $100 which will be great for getting outside this Christmas, $200 of paint for $140 - be great for painting the new place next weekend, along with some other bits and pieces. I got an angle grinder - I love tools, me.
I always have a problem with these sales, as I see it as spending money on stuff we don't really need *right now*. However I seem to have come around to Toni's way of thinking after having said 'no' to some bargain stuff before, then 2 months later had to buy the same thing full price. You lives and you learns eh?
As I mentioned, we complete on our new house next Friday, so that's good news. We have STILL yet to get someone to rent our current city pad - GRRRRR - but apparently once it's empty it'll give viewers a much better feel of the place so if it's not rented by this time next week we'll just have to leave it looking clean, tidy and empty and cross our fingers!
Packing of the house seems to have stalled at the study, and so there is still SOOOOO much to do. We'll be putting effort into that on Sunday and so the bedrooms shoud be cleared by the end of the weekend. When did we collect so much stuff? I don't recall shipping this much over here?! T's arranged a hire van so we can move it all ourselves, and that should work out fine as a whole bunch of mates have offered to help out. How cool is that? I must say that it made me feel as if we have really finally settled when I saw that we have really established a network of people so willing to help out. A good feeling.
Off to the show now - so behave until I get back! |
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