(The pictures are from a little cycle ride that we took last Tuesday and I haven't had the chance to show you yet. It was a grand day out.)
Well, it seems to have been a while... Things have been exceedingly manic. Doing three jobs virtually killed me last week but is going much better this week and by this time tomorrow I will have finished one of them. Halleluiah!
Also by this time tomorrow it will be December. Which is right weird. Not that the weather is good here, oh no, don't get me wrong! But it is light. Until almost 9pm. And that just isn't December. I think I shall be exceedingly confused when Christmas arrives. As it is part of my job to plan for Christmas services at church, I can't be taken wholly by surprise but I think that is about the only thing that will stop me from entirely not noticing.
The job that I lose tomorrow is supervising exams. This has been really quite a strange experience. For three hours you are in this room (be it a classroom where you are on your own with up to 25 boys or a gym where you have the support of 2-3 other supervisors but up to 130 boys) and you can't do anything except watch. And let people go to the toilet or leave the exam early. You just have to wait. Which has actually been really good for me just forcing me to have a bit or brain space for a while. Yes, I can think about things or pray but not that indepthly or lengthily. It has actually been incredibly calming. I can now also tell you many interesting facts. Since I've been counting, 7/47 boys have been left handed. Around about 1/5 of the boys is of a non-white background (mostly polynesian, some oriental, few asian, no african). About 1/6 of the boys has curly hair. And so it goes on. I've also played the "if I were fifteen, would you be my friend or would I despise you?" game. This is based purely on haircuts as they are all in uniform so there is no give away in terms of music related clothing etc as to what they might like...
Despite all this, I'm not sure I would recognise a single one of them if I passed them in the street. Or even in the school. One final thought on the oddness of supervising exams. All I want is for the three hours to be up, me to still be awake and vaguely sane. All they want is for the three hours to be up, the exam to be completed and to be vaguely sane. Despite the fact that two out of three wishes are the same, the experience of those three hours is massively different...

Bleugh

I was intending to post a comedy story today about my supreme geek-ness and how I invigilated a GCSE-level maths exam yesterday and got my knickers in a twist not being able to remember the Quadratic Formula (I was doing the exam over their shoulders...)...
But it has been such a naff few hours that I'm no longer in a position to do that. Naff is definitely the word. Nothing drastic has happened but a whole range of stupid little things that are leading to a lot of swearing in my inner monologue (and occasionally external monologue too). Ok, so the car appears to be buggered, I've lost $100 somewhere (that I got out the other day and is now not in my wallet, only the gloating little receipt with my signature there saying yes I did take it), I couldn't find anything decent for the twins birthday (what do you buy 9 year olds?) so have bought them tat and Husbink will tell me off, Husbink is at work, the bag with the tat then split and with the wind the way it is today I had to chase round the garden to retrieve said tat, the peg pot blew off the washing line as I was taking the washing down so I then had to chase round the garden for the pegs...
So like I said, nothing drastic. Nothing at all really. But it has made me miserable. I have to go out again in two hours and I'm not 100% sure I will have pulled myself together again by then.
If only I could blame it on the hormones. But I've been doing that for about six weeks now and someone might notice soon...
Hey ho

Yay Snoo!

In hommage to Snoo's achievement of 50000 words in quite a bit less than a month! She'll be a famous novelist before we know it. Yay Snoo, yay!
So here's a list of Yay things for the Yay Snoo post (though not related to Snoo...)
1) The weather is good today and has been for all of three days
2) We went on a fantastico bike ride today (there was basically no up and down) and played on the beach
3) I've finished reading my first kiwi novel. It was ok. I have also been to the library to pick my second (they handily put little stickers of kiwis on the spine so you know which authors are home grown)
4) I led the church service on Sunday and it was fine
5) We've paddled in the sea for the first time this year (this should have been with point 2...)
6) We had a comedy day yesterday visiting local sites used in Lord of the Rings.
7) We have seen our first pukekos (but didn't have the camera so no more bird pictures for you at present)
8) I laughed a lot last night. It was good.
9) I'm quite healthy at the moment
I think I'll stop there cos otherwise it'll become a mission to achieve 50 yay things to go with the 50000 words...

Children in Need

Because we still have the BBC website as our homepage (and because my parents are quite comical about things like this) it has been impossible for us not to notice that it is Children in Need this weekend. Which brings on a strange feeling - not really of homesickness but more of nostalgia - nostalgia for being somewhere we'd actually recognise the people on a programme like that! Where we'd know all the names of the news readers doing their Bond tribute (sounds a little less terrifying than some of the previous offerings!). And where we'd get to see Terry and Kaplinkyplonky and understand. A few weeks ago we had an event at church of the week-long-guest-speaker variety. We had never heard of the guy but apparently he's quite famous in a Trevor McDonald sort of way. He was great and really easy to listen to and had amazing stories about people's lives and so on. So we were glad to be there but I think it was a totally different thing for us than for other people. We couldn't even pick him out of the audience before he stood up to speak. When there is so much shared "culture" (like American junk TV and soaps (with regard to Pomgirl's latest post, we don't get Eastenders here either - which surprised me considering we do get Corrie (though they refer to it as Corro...) and Emerdale. Odd)) it feels really noticeable how much isn't shared and how that is actually the more important stuff when it comes to feeling at home. What this has been developing in me is a strange attachment to the adverts on telly here. On the whole, I hate them. Loathe them. Despise the regularity of them (we watched Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban last night...it lasted three hours. It had 11 advert breaks.). But some of them, some of them, are hysterical. Blooming genius advertising! I won't try to explain any here, it just wouldn't work. The point is though, these more genius moments seem to have become my link (in my mind) to local culture. To being able to understand. Which is just a little strange, don't you think?

Earthquake!

Success! There was an earthquake and we felt it and survived!
Well. Sort of. (Sort of felt it, not sort of survived...)
We were in the cinema watching The Departed (at 10am. Kinda weird.) It was a slightly random film and rather longer than it needed to be but probably a good film. So anyway, it was in quite an actiony section so I didn't quite register that the cinema was shaking cos it fitted so well with that bit of the film. But Husbink looked at me in an inquisitive "did you feel that" way and I realised I had indeed just stopped shaking. However, following our "was that an earthquake?" "no, it was just gale force wind..." moment a few weeks ago, I was loathe to believe it. Until at work (this being the original work through the agency that I'm back at now for a few hours a week until Christmas) someone said "oh, there was an earthquake this morning" and the time was about right and I've since googled recent earthquakes and yes! It was there! And we were there! And we weren't asleep...
Well, it is one New Zealand experience we can tick off now any way...

Two for the price of one!

A second wee post for you today...this is because the Taupo post should have happened yesterday but blogger was mean and wouldn't put the pics on.
Anyway, more importantly is the reason for the second post. A Very Exciting Reason. The Reason being that Scouse Dangermouse and her husband Have Booked Flights! We shall have visitors! Very lovely visitors! And I'm very excited and Husbink is at work so I can't tell him so I've told you instead! Yay!

Taupo and around

Well, we are back from our latest adventure. It was indeed rather more adventuresome than the Napier trip as it involved doing several things we hadn't done before. It all started a bit randomly with me being unsure if I'd got over the mystery illness properly (seems I have done...we have theories but that's all) and Husbink being post-nights (in that he finished at 7am on Friday). But considering that, the journey was good. We are still hugely enjoying driving round this country and are amazed by what is round every corner. The journey from here to Taupo includes a section called The Desert Road which was just fantastic - on Friday we drove it in low cold and rain and great atmosphoeric conditions. Today we drove it under clear blue skies and could see all the hills and mountains surrounding us as well as more fully appreciate the bleakness of the scrub land around us.
This was our first stop on the shores of Lake Taupo (note the bird!! Hmm. Maybe you can't see it actually. Ahem.):

On Saturday we did the first of two things that we've not done before and hired a sailing boat for an hour. We got a lesson from the guy running the place for about ten minutes and then we were away. It was good fun and Husbink has visions of cocktails on our yacht in the future but I'm not so sure now...I'm still in complete agony and haven't been able to walk normally since we did it! So very sore in my legs... But here is our little boat:

Saturday afternoon included a walk to the Huka Falls. Kinda more like rapids than falls but very cool and a very enjoyable walk. Near the beginning it crosses a natural hot stream that feeds the Waikato River and there were a number of people sitting in the mouth of the stream - it seemed to only take a matter of inches to move from roasty-toasty thermal spring to bloomin' freezin' Waikato River...a precarious balancing act necessary! The river itself was phenomenally clear, very beautiful. So here's a shot of the falls. It's not necessarily the most exciting picture but I think gives the best idea of what it is actually like:

We walked back via a different route which was rather harder and longer but a good walk (would have been a better cycle!) and it afforded us the only new bird spot of the weekend, a fantail. It posed for us extremely well but hidden behind a few branches so this is the best shot we have:

Sunday morning was the Craters of the Moon. Having been somewhere called Craters of the Moon previously, I was a little surprised at the un-bleakness of this place. But it was much fun anyway wandering through all the steaming craters.

Fortunately, the thermal activity around Taupo is not blessed with an abundance of sulpher so this steam was relatively fresh smelling! From one of the lookout stations, we spied Mount Doom. It wasn't actually the place used for filming Lord of the Rings but...

Mount Doom and much of Mordor was filmed in the area (yes, we have a book from last time we were here...) of the Desert Road.

Sunday afternoon was time for second not-previously-done activity and this one was much more relaxing! We went to Taupo Hot Springs and used hot pools of various temperatures and generally eased our aching legs! Very relaxing. Sadly we had seen the bank balance and didn't splash out on a massage to complete the experience. We then decided to prove to ourselves that we really can't draw by going to a scenic lookout and attempting to sketch...hmm. Can't do everything... And that was our weekend. Lovely.

Funny sort of day...

Today I have been mostly lying on the sofa watching DVDs (with a startling lack of eye candy following all the discussions here of late!). This wasn't my intended way to spend the day but a ridiculous amount of belly pain dictated otherwise. (As did Husbink and for once I listened to his doctorly advice.) We have now ruled out appendicitis (I was nearly dragged to hospital this morning) but not a lot else. It could be the usual monster of IBS but if it is it has changed shape. It could be something to do with having parted companies with the pill (no, this is not a subtle way of hinting about babies - the parting company was due to the IBS and there are no babies planned!). It could just be one of those things. We don't know. I just know it is a weird pain and I don't like it! And I know I want to go away for the weekend tomorrow as we have a four day weekend all sorted. And Husbink has decided that as it isn't appendicitis, it won't kill me so we might as well go away. Hey ho. Well, I guess it is time to go back to the sofa as it is starting to stab again. After Shrek, three episodes of Randall & Hopkirk, two episodes of Home & Away, one episode of Neighbours and starting to make my acquitance with my first Kiwi author courtesy of the library during the day, I'm not sure what I'm going to find to fill my evening!

Interesting?

After a skype chat with Snoo and The Hub this morning, one of The Hub's questions (What's on the front page of the newspaper there?) prompted me to think this might be an interesting post...it might not be...mostly, it will only be if you all join in!
So today, on the front page of the Dominion Post, Wellington's newspaper is: A banner across the top telling you to go to Sports Extra for "Is this the Kiwi cup hope? They're calling Efficient a champion" with a pic of a horse - I somehow feel Efficient is rather an insulting name for a horse. A kind of "gets the job done, nothing special" sort of name. Then there is another banner to go to World News for "Saddam Death by hanging" - I'm guessing this will be front page news most places...
We then get to the articles..."Fireworks madness: Attacks, robbery, drunken revelry" - main gist of article is all the trouble caused over the weekend by fireworks and people apparently going loopy because of the fireworks. Thus should the sale of fireworks to the public be banned before Guy Fawkes next year (yes, they have Guy Fawkes night here. Which maybe isn't soooo bizarre...) Generally it seems that fireworks get majorly out of control here and cause generally insane behaviour.
"NZ cops branded mercenaries in Fiji" around the whole Fiji threatened coup and why NZ has sent four extra policemen to support the NZ high commission in Suva.
There are then ads for various other parts of the paper with headlines such as "100 days of hell"; "Brethren's blackmail"; "The Royalist and the UFO"; "Fun with Pumpkins". Oh and there is a weather summary. For eight different cities regions it goes: rain; cloudy; rain; showers; rain; rain; rain; showers. Oh goody!
So that's my front page today. You? (Internet versions are allowed if they are what you read)

Hurrah!

There are many things I could write about today...work is good; I feel healthy today after thinking I was coming down with a lurgy yesterday; after much deliberation, I think I have finally come up with my "3" (see Pom's post here) and discovered Husbink's at the same time; the sun is shining and it feels like spring here; fluff is everywhere...but all these possible topics for your entertainment pale into insignificance compared to one: slippers. Oh yes, marvellous, wonderful, multi-coloured (though they don't have to be), comfy, cosy slippers.
Today when I got home from work, the long awaited posted-by-sea parcel from my mum was on the doorstep. This means that I have two more pairs of trousers, an extra skirt, an extra top, a book and...slippers!
These are the slippers that I bought in Thailand following a number of sleepless nights... We (myself and Kathleen) had been in Thailand for four nights I believe at this point. We'd arrived from Sydney and my last few nights there had involved very bad sleep for one reason or another (the snoring person in the hostel room, the accidental leaving of wallet at brother's house the night before we were due to fly...). So following a long flight that made it some ridiculous time in the morning and arriving to a proper hotel in Bangkok with air conditioning and no one in the room other than us to disturb our sleep I thought great! Sleep ahoy! But no. And this trend continued for the next few nights in the next hotel (on a wee island, was lovely!) with me getting more and more tired and less and less coherent... We moved on and arrived in Pattaya, a strange place of tourist nature and weirdness (but we had a lot of fun there). We were staying in a lovely hotel and across from it was a mall. A big shiny air conditioned mall (with the lack of sleep, the heat was also not going so well for me). And in that mall they sold, amongst many other things, lovely, lovely slippers. As soon as I saw them I knew they were what I needed to give me a good night full of sleep. And indeed that night, with the slippers on the floor next to my bed, I did indeed have a marvellous sleep for the first time in days! And today, I have been reunited with said slippers and feel almost the same sense of joy. I know many of you will be distressed to hear that it is not my giant pink slippers that I have arrived but I want to reassure you that it is ok! These slippers will do just fine for now!
Time to go and try one of Mad Medea's ginger nuts that I've just made for the first time (thank you thank you)

We Have a Date. Which is Weird.

Just realised when responding to Mad Medea's last comment that I haven't actually mentioned that we have sorted our flights out and actually have a return date to the UK now. I don't 100% promise quite that it will turn out as it is now but just for your info, our current plan involves arriving back at Heathrow at 5.30am on July 15th. We expect to see you all there! ;) Does feel kind of weird to have an "end" date now. Which is why I don't promise it will remain such!

Success & Failure

Success first: I have started working at church! I am very excited about this, even if it is technically only for 10 hours a week. I will be coordinating the 10.30am service from now until April 30th by which point the aim is that I will have given it direction and the job will no longer be needed. Kinda crazy cos it is the first time since uni (for definite, possibly longer) where I've actually been doing something that I care about, want to do and think is important! There were points in PCT-land when I thought what I was doing needed to be done but that didn't necessarily mean I wanted to do it! There were other points when I cared about it (usually individual patients) but didn't necessarily think it important! So. There we are. I'm not sure I could really explain what the job involves yet as it seems to differ with every person I speak to as to what they feel it involves. However, I have put out a request for EVERYONE to come and talk to me and tell me what they think of the service so after that it should become apparent what needs doing.
Failure then: For the first time ever yesterday I felt moved enough to send a comment to the BBC website after reading an article. There were already many, many comments and I read them all and still felt I had something to write. So write I did. But to no avail! My comment has not appeared and the story has gone from the front pages. *Sigh* There have been many times in the past, on many different subjects, that I have almost written to the BBC website but never before have I been tipped over the edge and compelled to write. So what was the topic? War? Religion? Education? Health? Oh no, far more important than any of those things...Dirty Dancing! The article was about the West End stage show of Dirty Dancing that opens next week and what is so wonderful about the story anyway? The article cited lines such as "Nobody puts Baby in the corner" and "I carried a watermelon" as reasons for the greatness of the film. Lots of people had written comments from both sides of the argument. But no one, it seems, had my experience of Dirty Dancing as a child. You see, it came out when I was 7 and was first on telly around a year later. And we were *desperate* to see it! We couldn't possibly wait any longer or be any older before we saw it! So the mums in the neighbourhood got together and agreed a censored version of the film for us all. So there they sat the night it was first on TV with all of us banished to our bedrooms for the evening and cut out every bit of abortion story line and most hints of sex leaving us with a film that was basically pretty songs and dances. And we loved it! I watched it sooooo much (though not quite as much as The Sound of Music). I knew it had been censored (not all my friends did) and there were bits that didn't make sense but it really didn't matter. And then we left America and returned to the UK and my video didn't work anymore. I was bereft for five years until it next came on TV when I was 14. This time I was allowed to record it uncensored. I was shocked! I had had NO IDEA what the rest of the film was about! It made a whole lot more sense now but was no longer the purely happy go lucky song and dance fest I'd watched for two years. It didn't take long to get over it and I remember clearly in the weeks that followed walking round and round Parkside at lunch time (as we did) reciting various scenes with people I no longer know..."I scared of who I am, of what I saw, of what I did...but most of all, I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you!"

Work, Walks, Waffle

I thought as well as the hair update, you might care for a little more news. I finished the boring job on Wednesday but with the possibility of going back for a few days at various points in the future. Despite the not-so-exciting nature of the job I'm quite keen on this idea as it will be reasonably easy to go back again and they would, seemingly, be quite happy for me to be there a bit more on my terms (i.e. less hours a week) and so I think I could hack the boredom to assist in the funding of exciting trips round the country. I have also this week had an interview for a far more interesting, ten hours a week job at church. Very excited about this but things are not 100% definite yet so I will write in more detail when they are.
So, with the finishing of the job (in a slightly random fashion - I worked Monday, knew there was about 4 hours more work to do but that they needed time to reach the point where I could work, said I'd go in again on Wednesday afternoon (when Husbink was at work). So I suddenly had Tuesday, Thursday and Friday to do as I wish. Which was great. :) But a little disorientating at first! So the week included furniture shopping (so we now use more than two rooms in our house!), a walk on the beach with lovely people, lots of time on the sofa with a hot water bottle (oh yes, twas the time of the agonies...) and book, and a grand walk on Friday afternoon that was rather more adventurous than we'd been expecting and a lot of fun. And gave way to some more pics for you!
The walk went rather like this:
It involved LOTS of expeditions back and forth across a stream (I was going to say a wee stream but there were points when it wasn't so wee!). Many of the crossings were straightforward (though not as straightforward as the stepping stones at Dovedale in Derbyshire for those that know it!!) but a few involved careful planning and leaping! We've decided the best way to do this walk is probably in summer with flip flops and shorts and just walk up the stream rather than all this pretence at crossing it again and again! It was mightily good fun though. Unfortunately, Hubink took one leap a bit too cavalierly and has dinked his knee quite badly. He sat and did the doctory thing of giving himself a full knee exam there and then and established there were no real problems, it was just owy. At the top of the walk was the little waterfall that you can see at the top of this picture. And indeed we did get closer to it than this by climbing all the rocks in the way. Great stuff! Of course, no outing would be complete for me without the compulsory bird pics so here you go:
The mum was rather distressed by any human presence so it was a few quick snaps and then out of the way - before we were deafened by her honking (she wanted to be a goose!). They were extremely cute - especially when travelling down stream on one of the mini water falls along the stream - looked so much fun slipping down the rocks into the next pool! Hurrah!
So, to summarise for you...things are pretty good at the moment! As well as getting a few more bits of furniture, we have printed out various pictures and so have decorated our walls a bit, some big pictures and then a notice board covered in pictures people, places, silliness. While it has made the house a bit more homely, that last bit, the photo board, did cause a bit of homesickness...when we printed out pictures of the pigs...!

Tis Done

Well, I have been and had the overly-fretted chop. I did not, as Welshy rightly commanded, say "do whatever you think" but neither did I have the lengthy discussion that might have been useful. However, I think I'm happy with the outcome though not 100% sure about the styling currently - she was slightly more in Louise-who-wants-it-to-be-the-80s-still's camp (my last Leeds hairdresser) than the Naomi-who-can-make-my-hair-beautiful-and-sleek camp (the lovely Harrogate hairdresser who did my hair for Mad Medea's hen night & wedding). Thus I exited the salon a teeny weeny bit more puffy than I might have liked but it is settling down happily. However, I don't think I'll be returning to that salon as it HURT. Really. Not as much as getting my hair put up for my brother's wedding (for those that don't know that story, I actually couldn't speak she was pulling my hair so hard!) but still more pain than I want from a meant-to-be-relaxing hair cut. Hey ho. So. Here it is.

Apologies for the quality...Husbink is at work so it involved setting the camera to timer...waving my knee about where I thought I'd be sitting to give it something to focus on...and speedily scooching across the floor, hoping to be in the right spot...The things I do for you!

I am highly contented this evening despite the storm outside. (I don't think Husbink will be contented if it is still like this when he has to cycle home at midnight...) I've almost finished my temp job; on the way home from work I met up with a chap from church about the possible job there (all very exciting and no doubt blog-worthy in its own right soon); I get tomorrow and Wednesday morning off due to almost having finished job (so get to see Husbink despite unpleasant 2pm-midnight shifts); best of all, I found a present in the kitchen when I got home...a brand new mug...a brand new New Zealand mug...a brand new New Zealand mug with sheep on! And my teapot sitting next to it all ready to help in the christening ceremony. So I'm sitting here happily with a lovely mug of darjeeling (as the "champagne of teas" it seemed the most appropriate) ready to attempt a picture-ful post as requested. (I also had lengthy problems with which biscuits to celebrate new mug with...ultimately the caramel tim tams won...)
So pictures.
This weekend, we went to Napier. It was lovely. Very windy on Friday night and Saturday morning but actually warm! And Sunday we would have become very sunburnt very quickly if we had not maintained some semblance of sanity!!

This was our first evening in Napier (you can almost tell it is me in the pink t-shirt can't you?!!) and we'd just had a cheeky pint in an Irish pub (the closest thing to a proper pub we've found here) so all was well with the world.

On Saturday morning (in slightly less delightful weather) we made our way to an estuary/wildlife reserve and watched many a birdy (birds are just so cool here, maybe it is just because they are different but they seem so much more interesting!) Many of you have been subjected to my wildlife pictures in the past (like the infamous "seal colony" picture...) but here's perhaps a slightly better one for you. We have bought a bird book and think we know what this is...but the bird book is in the car and Husbink has the garage keys at work...

Well, at least you can tell it is a bird! Telephoto lens here we come!

Saturday afternoon was spent in a very friendly winery where we tasted about eight wines on the house and purchased five of them. Fortunately there are no pictures of how very much my cheeks matched the pink t-shirt...

Sunday was glorious weather and we spent a while on the beach taking pics, skimming stones and "running away" (very flat good stones for skimming and really quite a flat sea but I'm USELESS at the whole thang... excellent beach for running away though...the seagulls were even joining in) So a couple more pics...one mine, one Husbink's. I'm SURE you can guess whose is whose...

And then it was time to head on home. A beautiful drive with just one picture to give you a tiny idea (really couldn't believe it when we were driving up on Friday. Amazing)

So there we have it. A picture-tastic blog for you that I hope has kept the need for pictures at bay for a little while!

Ten Things I Miss About Britain

1. Ginger Nuts
2. Squash. Apple & Blackcurrant particularly.
3. Surly People (especially behind supermarket check outs)
4. Having a "local"
5. People thinking the way I do things is "normal" (like what I want to buy from supermarkets)
6. Understanding the weather...
7. Our Friends (clearly this should really be number one)
8. Radio 2
9. Music (though the counter to that is that there are some AMAZING 90s classics stations...we've been enjoying Ace of Base...)
10. Reasonably priced books (no really, in comparison to here...)

Outdoorsy Types

On Wednesday, we bought a car. It is green and has a CD player. It is also almost as old as the 16 year old Bluebird which Welshy is currently taking care of for us. It means that now we can go places and do exciting things without them taking four hours longer than they should due to public transport.
So yesterday we went to Karori Wildlife Sanctuary. Was great! So many birds (guess who forgot binoculars AND camera...) and so much loveliness. Trees and reservoirs and geckos and tuatara (they're dinosaurs. No, really!) Oh and for those of you, Snoo, who don't believe, please look at Tuis on the website! ;) (Don't worry, we are getting evidence together for you...) So yes, was grand.
We then drove on to Porirua just to find out what it was and went shopping. After much wailing in one shop about how I clearly wasn't Kiwi shaped, I finally found a pair of jeans that fit perfectly (but were way too boring to buy) and a lovely pair of brown trousers with a blue pin-stripy-ness going on that *almost* fit. Close enough anyway! So I'm happy. :) Husbink is a little unconvinced that they go with the *new shoes*...but he will see!
Today has been the first proper nice weather in about ten days, maybe longer so we had to continue our oudoorsy thang and get on them there mountain bikes. Which was all well and good in theory but we really are lunatics when it comes to these things. Somehow, we seem to have this belief that we are not, in fact, beginners. Yes, I have spent most of my life commuting to school or work on a bike but that was in Cambridge. And the defining feature of Cambridge? That's right, ONE hill... (No, the cycle bridge and Hills Road/Mill Road bridges DO NOT count!) And Husbink apparently spent his life cycling up and down wee hills as a child but he hasn't done any since I've known him. And that's seven years. We did, three years ago, when last in the southern hemisphere, have three little adventures on mountain bikes. But really, nothing to fully take us out of the beginner category. So today when faced with a range of options, why did we decide "Medium" was the way to go? I at least had the sanity to not allow Husbink to be aware of the medium/hard tracks...but really. We need "Easy". Little climbs where you then have the satisfaction of a long gentle down. NOT six kilometres of basically uphill with a couple of terrifying downs to give you a break followed by three kilometres of DOWN. (ok, so actually, that last bit of down was mostly fun, my kind of mountain biking until the scree at the end when I panicked and nearly died...ahem). Besides the stupidity of doing far too hard a track for our first outing, we also nearly lost our marriage over it too. You see, my chain fell off. After I'd followed Husbink's advice on how to deal with ups and downs and the best way to change gears. Now I'm tempted to go into all the details but perhaps having both forgiven each other it would be unfair of me to rake over the details here, however comical they might be. Suffice to say, there was much male bravado on one side and much untrusting, whingey wiffle on the other. (Ultimately Husbink did fix chain and I did swoon at his wonderfullness)
So I'm hoping it rains for a couple of days now...Any more of this outdoorsy stuff may well kill either me or my marriage!

Hair Issues

Help!
I don't know what to do...I had a plan to grow my hair again but it is at the yucjy stage now and I'm not so sure (Welshy I'm sure can empathise! ;) ). So I have for your enjoyment some pictures...
Long Hair... (about two and a half years ago)











Short Hair... (last December, the red fluff is Mad Medea's feather boa...it was her hen night...)












And Now hair (well, it was May but it is pretty similar...)
So...not the best pics in the world ever but the best I can find to demonstrate the hair options...silly me not to take more "hair shots" on a more frequent basis...
So help!
Please!
I have about ten days til Husbink next works the weekend and my intention to so have whatever form of chop I'm having then...your challenge is set!

Mwah, mwah!

Shoes...

Well, I've had a lousy day trying on clothes here in the Hutt. It appears I'm either a size 9 or a size 11 here...which means nothing fits! EXCEPT in one shop where they actually do mid sizes...but I didn't like any of their stuff. I have also come to the conclusion that actually jeans don't suit me... Will have to drag poor Husbink back with me next week and see if we can get somewhere!
So because of that and because the lovely Pomgirl demanded, here is a picture of the *new shoes*.
I hope you like... :) and please don't tell me if you don't! I'm not up to rejection today! ;)
Ciao
xxx

Some good, some bad...

What ho me hearties! (Having accidentally missed mentioning International Talk Like a Pirate day at the right time...)
It's the weekend, hurrah, huzzah!
It has been a mightily manic week with a few nights in Queenstown seeing my bro, sister-in-law, her best friend and the best friend's boyfriend. Was a great time with even a day of skiing thrown in! (I still can...and didn't fall at all, was mightiliy chuffed at that! Husbink did fall but none too bad and one extremely hysterical! It happened to be on a rather steep, rather icy section which meant although the fall was quite small, he was about 100m further down the slope before he was able to stand up! My brother was watching from the bottom and said it looked rather elegant and that he appeared to be swimming through the snow...Husbink did say he was thinking of Bananaman at the time!) However, getting to Queenstown was not such a bundle of laughs. The last section, from Christchurch to Queenstown, was on a propeller plane. On a day when several of the ski fields were closed due to high winds. To land in Queenstown, you have to come in over a ring of mountains (some of which were used for the Dimrill Dale in LotR, The Two Towers) and then get down pretty fast to be able to land. It was the most turbulence I've ever experienced (admittedly, I've been lucky) and the angle the plane was pointing was rather alarming! I know I'm sounding a bit of a wimp here - Husbink enjoyed it - but my main problem was the afore-mentioned issues with vomit...the number of people turning green and starting to hack was not so good for me! Fortunately we all made it down intact and the efficiency of the ground crew made up for everything - we were at our hotel in less than half an hour from landing!
The return journey was less eventful but sadly the flight from Christchurch to Wellington was delayed by an hour and a half. Not much in the grand scheme of things I know but when the flight is only 30 minutes... So we got home at 9.30 after a shuttle bus, two planes and two buses to find that the power company had made a bit of a gaff. Somehow, when I rang them and registered for gas AND electricity, they decided to only do the electricity bit so while we were off sunning ourselves in Queenstown, our gas was disconnected. As the power company shuts at 9pm, there was nothing I could do about it until the next morning. I was not happy. (A brief aside: Things are really not 24hr here, even most restaurants shut around 9.30. On the whole, I approve of not 24hr-ness, not being able to internet shop, generally having to be more chilled out and have more contact with real people etc etc etc...but now that I can't have these things, I'm finding it a little frustrating...help! Say soothing things!!!)
So at 7am the next morning I was straight on the phone to said power co, all ready to read the riot act...and they sorted it and gave us a credit of $25 and generally made things good. And we have heat and hot water again and everything is well. Without me having to shout. Though I was a little sarcastic...
And now the working week is over again and I can sit back, relax and enjoy the beautiful country.
My love of NZ has taken a little knock this week, mostly through the gas issue, but I'm sure it will be back again soon.
Got to go, time for Home and Away (has totally stolen my affection away from any other soap!)