Christmas no.2 - baked ham and leprosy

So, Christmas is all but over for another year. Our second Christmas in Nuzziland has gone. My second summer Christmas passed. If I've not spoken to you or emailed you or chatted to you in the past few days merry Christmas, eh?

Joanne and I have had a lovely last few days. Starting with Christmas day, we got up early enough to open presents before heading off to church. Among the many wonderful gifts I received I got a couple of Rachel Allen cookbooks, a bundt tin, a digital photo frame loaded with pictures of family and a copy of Football Manager 2009 that I'm scared to install because of the days it will eat. I also got a Billy T. James DVD and an album of Neil Finn, Anika Moa and Dave Dobbyn music. She's trying to educate me about kiwi culture.

The rest of Christmas day, after church was spent with our friend Sarah and her family. It was so lovely of them to invite us to share their day and they all made us feel really welcome, even though we'd never met any of them before bar Sarah's mum, and even then only briefly. Lunch was what was described as a real Kiwi Christmas lunch - baked ham, salad and some meat off the barbecue. Not quite what a typical UK Christmas lunch but very tasty all the same. I do love baked ham. After lunch we headed out for a walk around the beautiful Canterbury University grounds before heading back for the real Christmas action - sing-a-long-a-Mamma Mia. I'd not seen the movie before and I have to tell you, despite my preconceptions, I enjoyed it. Just a fun film. You can tell the cast had loads of fun making it too. And after watching some famous people sing we thought we'd give it a go ourselves. We'd taken the PS2 along and the rest of the evening was spent introducing Sarah's family to Singstar. We persuaded them it would be a good opportunity to practice before they have a bigger audience at our NYE party. It's amazing how people adamant they will never do karaoke soften as an evening progresses.

Yesterday, Boxing Day, was a relaxing day. Neither Joanne or I left the house. Lazing around, not doing anything imparticular was the order of the day, and the order was filled. Perfect.

Today we met up with Mon and Barry and the kids and Mel and their mum. Mel is over from Hong Kong spending Christmas with her family so it was a great opportunity to catch up with everyone all in one go. And it was definitely great to catch up with everyone. Mon had the idea of heading over on the ferry to Quail Island. It's an island in the middle of Lyttelton harbour that has at various times been used for quarantining both animals and humans, including a period spent as a leprosy colony. Now it's a nature reserve and general beauty spot. It's hard to believe that only fifteen minutes out of Lyttelton on the boat, in the middle of an extinct volcano cone there is such a lovely little place.

We met the others in Lyttelton at about midday (after a lovely panini and chocolate banana smoothie in No.6 cafe) and headed down to the ferry. A fifteen minute boat ride, as I say, and we were pulling up alongside the quay at Quail Island. There was plenty of time for a spot of afternoon tea, a fast-paced stroll round the island and some time for lazing in the sun too. So this is what a Kiwi Christmas is all about is it?

So far it looks like we've got about 30 or so people coming along at New Year. It's still not quite as big an event as the London ones where we had over 50 one year, but we're getting there. The word is spreading. The entertainment for the evening is taken care of with Joanne's massive selection of Singstar disks (she's practising in the other room as I type). Now we just have to plan the food side of things.

Getting there

It's amazing what effect a few lengths of tinsel and some ribbon will have on someone's festive sensibilities. All I need is a glass of mulled wine, a bowl of peanuts and a slice of stollen and I'd be almost feeling Christmassy.

So no more work for a week and a half or so. I'm quite looking forward to the time off. January 5th will come soon enough though. And I've got three months' work to do in January too. Everyone wants everything by the end of the month. I will try to forget about it all for the next ten days. We'll see if that works.

Another thing I'm pining for from Christmas past is my mum's Christmas cake. There really was nothing like it. Dense, moist and so tasty. With rock hard icing on top and a thick, bright yellow vein of marzipan. When I was at university she'd make two so that I had one to take back with me after the holidays.

Not quite Christmas

I'm still struggling to feel Christmassy. I need advice. I want to feel Christmassy but I can't. Everything I used to associate with Christmas back in the UK just jars here. The winter imagery, the smells of cinnamon and cloves, fairy lights when it's still daylight outside, shopping for presents without being wrapped up in scarf and gloves. It just feels all wrong.

Help?

Doesn't it feel like Christmas

Grey, miserable, rainy weather. I almost feel like I'm back in the UK for Christmas.

Kiwi germs

I don't know if it's foreign germs I don't have antibodies for, or if it's being too busy combined with not eating enough fresh fruit and veg during the week but either way I've definitely been more ill here than I used to get in the UK. I had another day off work today with a head cold and sinusitus and stuff. I seem to get everything going at the moment. I've had more days off sick over here than I had in the previous ten years in the UK.

Too summery to feel festive

I do like three-day weekends. I think I've said that before sometime. This one was our own doing though, not a public holiday type one. It was my birthday yesterday, so following another hectic weekend Joanne and I decided to spend the day together, just hanging, doing stuff on our own time, with no place to be by a set time.

The day started with a trip to the immigration office. I won't bore you with talk of residence permits and returning residents' visas. All you really need to know is that I can get back in the country when we leave for the UK trip in June. Following that we wandered round town for a bit, seeking Christmas present inspiration, before dropping a tasty pie for lunch at the crumpet club. Real steak pieces. Yum. The latest James Bond film followed that (had to do it, despite less than rave reviews, just to tick it off) before dropping Joanne at home, heading to the park for a game of touch (last of the year) and then picking up a Chinese on the way home for our tea. What a great day. I think we should hang out every birthday really.

I think we both appreciated the day off too. We had another busy weekend. The sort of one where two days are just not enough to relax and unwind after the week of work.

Friday night was Joanne's work do at the Convention Centre. It was a good evening. Santa goes on Safari was the theme. The buffet counter was full of tasty meat, so no complaints from me.

On Saturday we helped Tim & Christine move into their new house before going to buy a Christmas tree. We'd bought all the decorations a few weeks ago when they were on sale in Farmers so Saturday evening was spent decorating it. It almost made me feel Christmassy. Almost.

I also spent Saturday knocking up a black forest trifle. We had the bible study group round for a barbecue after church on Sunday (the carol service complete with shepherds in shorts like last year) and my part of the deal was a dessert. I do love that trifle and any excuse to make it and share the love is grabbed with both hands. The barbecue was kind of an end of year social thing but also I guess a sort of goodbye to Lisa & Steve for just our group before they head off to Bible College in Sydney in January.

Sunday was also spent carving up the ham from work. In case you missed the explanation last December, every year everyone who works for the company gets a ham as a Christmas present. Last year it was 8kg, which I thought was pretty big. This year's was 10.7kg. That is a big ham.

Christmas - what is it really all about?

Please, please watch this.


That's Christmas! from andy pearce on Vimeo.

Ask me if you want to know more.

Where does the time go?

It's 5pm on a Sunday afternoon and this is the first moment I've had to sit down this weekend. In fact, it's pretty much the first moment I've had to sit down in the past fortnight. Which is why I've been sadly lacking in updates. If you've been sat around waiting for me to write, I am sorry. But also, maybe you should get out more ;)

So two weeks. Two whole weeks as November's morphed into December. There's been musical drama, gingerbread, dining al fresco, animals, bowling, boules, more musical drama and plenty of eating. All of this has been finely balanced around work, church, sport and exercise. The television is feeling neglected.

So, musical drama. Both amateur and professional. The amateur came first, a couple of weeks ago, in the shape of Willy Russell's Blood Brothers. Our good friend Sarah had the lead role in the Riccarton Players' production of the musical and, although I'm biased, I have to say she did an awesome job. In fact pretty much everyone in the show was great. Most accents stayed distinctly in Merseyside (including Sarah's - a great feat given her strong Scottish lilt) which was an admirable achievement. A couple did waver geographically however. Of particular note were the cockney Australian policeman and the Welsh Geordie teacher. But really I shouldn't criticise, they still did a much better job that I could ever have done.

A couple of Wednesday's ago was the St John's gingerbread house event. This is two evenings where women in the church invite along friends. The primary aim of the evening is to build and decorate these hugely impressive gingerbread houses, but the other idea of the evening is evangelistic. There's a ten minute talk each evening you see, and so bringing friends along means they get to hear a very simple gospel presentation, an introductory talk. The events are always heavily subscribed. This year Joanne invited along two of her colleagues (although one had to pull out at the last minute with an injury). Please thank God, if you need something to add to your prayer list for us, that Joanne asked her friends along and that one of them made it, seemed to have a great evening, and most importantly, got to hear the talk. Please pray that it would be the foot in the door for future events and conversations.

Last weekend was another busy one (aren't they all?). On the Saturday we finally got to eat outside at our house, using our new table and chairs and the new barbecue. Very exciting. It was so nice to be able to eat outside at last, enjoying the warm weather and the garden. Most enjoyable. We had Blair & Amy from our bible study group round as well as Andrew & Lydia. They've just returned to NZ from London, and St Helen's, the church we went to before the barge (and where Joanne and I were married!) We didn't know Andrew, although we have common friends, but we met Lydia briefly when she arrived in the UK from here in Christchurch, just before I went to New York and then we left St Helen's for the barge. It was good to have a chance to catch up.

Last Sunday it was Joanne's work's social club's Christmas picnic. (It doesn't seem like a year since the last one.) This year it was held at Orana Wildlife Park. It's a place just past the airport here in Chch with quite a selection of animals. Lions, tigers, rhinos, giraffes, cheetahs, zebras, lemurs and meerkats are just a selection of what they've got on show, all in an open-range zoo kind of environment. I wish we had had more time to spend there as there was even more to see than we managed, but once we'd eaten and Santa had arrived by 'safari train' to give pressies to the kids we kind of ran out of time. I would happily go back though. Definitely a good day out.

Last week was a busy one at work too. Monday and Tuesday were spent off-site with the whole marketing department (of which I am part in geography and function, if not in job description) for a strategy meeting. It was two days away from the office working out how we were going to get done everything we want to get done in the next 18 months, including working out what we want to get done in that period. Phew! Monday evening we all had a bit of social time together too - ten-pin bowling (a disappointing 121 and 116 scored) followed by a meal out in Sumner. It was nice to spend some time with the team. I think in some ways the biggest difference between work here and work in the UK is that in London we'd go out for a quick drink at least once a week. People just seemed a lot more willing to socialise after work. Here, it gets to 5pm, and people are gone. I didn't realise I missed the socialising at first, but having the time with them all this week made me realise what we were missing as a team, if that makes sense.

On Wednesday I had another appointment with the sports physician about my shoulder. It seems he's happy it's improving enough that I don't need to go back to see him, which is positive. It's only taken six months, eh? And it's definitely still less than 100%. How fragile we are that just falling over can do so much damage.

On Friday I flew up to Auckland for the day for a meeting in Pukekohe with the North Island Sales Managers. A very productive meeting it was too. Just a shame I couldn't persuade the South Island Sales Managers that they needed the equivalent meeting. Friday evening is where the professional musical drama comes in. Lisa, who used to work with us in the marketing team, now has her own design business. We still put an awful lot of work her way and so are one of her biggest clients. To say thank you for the support she invited her key clients round to her offices on Friday followed by a trip to the Court Theatre to see La Cage aux Folles. It certainly is an interesting story but it was done brilliantly. I was so impressed with the production and I think everyone enjoyed it.

And then to complete the set of socialising with colleagues (it's like London buses, you wait for ages, and then you get three at once) last night was my work Christmas party. We had been told in advance it was a French theme but hadn't been told where it was or any more details. Some people made a great effort and got dressed up in costumes and everything. When the taxi dropped us off we found ourselves at the petanque club in Hagley Park. It turned out to be a great idea. Everyone seemed to have a go and join in - it was something no-one had really played before so everyone was at the same level - and it was really fun. My team (me, Joanne and Gabi) lost both of our games but it's not about the winning, eh? After the games we all headed into a marquee over to one side for a feed and a boogie. Much fun was had.

And now finally, to wrap things up, today after church Jess & Jimmy came back for lunch. I was a bit adventurous and so tried my hand at a beetroot risotto. It was really rather tasty. I'll definitely do that again. And everyone went back for seconds, so they weren't just saying it to be polite either! Jess & Jimmy are heading over to Bangladesh in February to get involved with some mission work over there so it was great to be able to catch up with them and hear the latest on their plans.

It's the final week of the Exploring Discipleship course this week so we'd appreciate prayer for that - that the social aspect of this week goes well, that we leaders are all able to answer the questions that might come up in the q&a session faithfully and humbly, and that the members would continue to be challenged by what they learn about living life as a follower and learner of Christ Jesus. Thank you :)

Ooh yeah, and congrats Pete & Cloudy on the birth of Oliver, Pete & Melissa on the birth of Emily, and Kris & Angie on the birth of Chloe (at least I think it is Chloe!). Everyone's at it, eh?

Country comes to town

I love three-day weekends. All weekends should be three-day weekends, I reckon. Unless they're four-day weekends, because that's even better. The week just gone was Canterbury Cup and Show week. It's a week full of important horse-racing and trotting race days that are traditionally surrounded by posh frocks and drinking heavily in the scorching sun, which overlaps the National A&P Show in the second half of the week. And then Friday is the provincial anniversary day for Canterbury which means we get a day off. Hence the three-day weekend.

And it's been a busy one. Joanne's not been to the A&P show before (I went last year with work) so I thought it might be nice to take her along on Friday. It gets pretty busy there on the Friday (the day the townies all go - whereas Wednesday and Thursday tend to be the business days when farmers mostly go) so we went along in the morning. We're glad we did too. It got mental around lunchtime. Absolutely heaving. Joanne almost couldn't make it to the strawberries and icecream stall it was that busy. You'll be pleased to hear that she fought her way over though and a potential fruit-and-frozen-dairy-combo catastrophe was averted.

There really is loads that goes on there. As well as the trade tents and carnival rides and food and farming machinery, there are animal competitions (biggest bull; curliest-horned ram; wooliest alpaca etc etc), axemen competitions, show-jumping, stunt horse-riding, sheepdog trials and even souped-up V8 tractor pulls. Dragstar tractors. I was really sorry I missed that. Oh, and OpShop played too.

To be honest, my first thought on seeing the huge bulls at the show was not to go and pat them for a photo opportunity as one Asian kid did. My first thought was also not to fulfill a desire to climb aboard and ride them. No-one at the show was silly enough to do this, at least I didn't witness anyone silly enough. This was saved for Saturday night and the International Rodeo that came to town. I've not been to a rodeo before. Rodeo-related opportunities in Grimsby, Coventry or London save a mechanical bull in the back room of a pub or at a Uni end-of-year ball are quite limited. It seemed like something to be able to tick off.

Arriving at the Westpac Arena yesterday evening the country had definitely come to town. Bus loads of folk adorned in check shirts, cowboy hats, denim and jeans spilled into the venue. You definitely got the feeling that many of them weren't dressed up. I was really looking forward to the whole event while was not so keen. I think she was just humouring me and was more keen to spend an evening with Ruth & Al who we were going along with. In the end though, I think she enjoyed it too, although she won't admit as much ;)

It really was quite a spectacle. It was quite Americanised, unsuprisingly, and Joanne compared it to a WWE event (where only half the competitors realise it's scripted!) but you really had to admire the skills and the courage (or stupidity) of these cowboys. There was bare-back bronc riding, saddled bronc riding and bull-riding for the men, and barrel-racing for the ladies. In the first two of these the cowboys are marked for technique and leg movements in time with the horse's bucking, or something. In the bull-riding you're not expected to display as much finesse and just holding on for eight seconds qualifies you for a score. Bull-riding. What a mental idea. Can you imagine the look on the rest of the cowboys' faces when, sitting round the campfire one night, one bored (and slightly mental) cowboy suggested they might all like to sit on the back of one of those bulls tomorrow and see who could hang on the longest.

In domestic matters, we finally bought a table and chairs set for the garden on Friday and I finally, finally put our barbeque together. If only the nor-wester would stop blowing we could actually make use of the garden. I still can't get used to a very strong wind with temperatures in the high twenties.

Completely out of my comfort zone

Last week I got to travel with work a bit again. Around this time of year, around the country, we organise lots of shareholder meetings where the farmers who are shareholders can come for a feed and a presentation from the CEO and the chairman about how the co-operative is going, what's happening in the global market, how the last year went and plans for going forward. Kind of a state of the union address. It is felt that us in the marketing department at head office (which I kind of am, as well as being kind of not) should go along to one of these shareholder meetings each each year to meet the farmers and see what goes on and stuff. This year I chose Oamaru.


Oamaru is about 3 hours south of Christchurch and is famous, at least in post-European settlement times, for its many heavily-carved and ornate limestone buildings. There's also a penguin colony just near the town but I didn't get time to go and check out the little fellas. I did get an hour or so of tourist-time though and I took the opportunity to head about 25 minutes south on State Highway 1 to see the Moeraki Boulders.

The boulders are mostly spherical, large stone boulders which lie partly submerged along a beach. Totally out of place, there are all sorts of weird and wonderful tales about how they got there. Of course there are the geological explanations but I think I prefer the one told to me by a farmer called Brod a few hours later over dinner at the shareholders meeting. His idea, completely without evidence, is that a Chinese junk, pre-European settlers, was wrecked on the coast at Moeraki and the boulders were the ship's ballast rocks that split into the sea.


The weekend just gone was definitely memorable. Joanne and I along with three other couples from church (Chris & Jacqui, Mark & Hannah and Dan & Katherine) went on a tramping weekend. To clarify, a tramping weekend is a walking weekend, rather than one spent hunting hobos. The plan was to drive about three hours or so north west of Christchurch, past Hanmer where we were last weekend to a little spot called Marble Hill, between Springs Junction and Maruia Springs. We'd then leave the cars and wander off into the woods to a little DOC hut on the edge of Lake Daniells. Which we did.

We were led to believe it was going to be an easy walk in, about 9km, about two or three hours or so, and for the first half this was true. But then it got a bit swampy and progress slowed. Then it got really muddy and progress definitely slowed.


But, after about about two and a half hours and a couple of scroggin stops we arrived at the hut, at the lake. And what a beautiful spot it was. A still lake reflecting the wooded mountains that surrounded it. Words cannot describe it.

I think it was shortly after arriving at the hut, while I sat dangling my feet in the icy cool water below the pontoon, that reality hit home. Here we were, in the middle of the wilderness, in a little wooden hut with no electricity. The closest I came to camping as a kid was spending a night in a tent in Mark or Darren's gardens where we could run indoors if the weather got too inclement. And I've not camped since then really. I am not sure three nights at Reading festival count, especially since we went back to Kate's mum's every morning for a shower and a fry-up. So, the bottom line is that this was all kind of new to me. I was just grateful that the others we were with were a lot more seasoned than me, the tramping virgin.

They took care of the food, knocking up a really substantial meal of couscous with salami, mushrooms and rehydrated veg in a tomato sauce over the little gas burners they'd taken along. These huts, you see, and the one we stayed in was supposedly a nice new one, don't have anything really. There are bunks, cold running water and a roof. And that's pretty much it. You take everything you need in, and everything you need back out again. Some people do four or five day tramps walking from hut to hut to hut, carrying all their food and clothing for five days with them. So one night in the comparative luxury of the Lake Daniells hut was nothing really. But it didn't feel like it to me. It was meant to be quite a popular track and hut, quite busy most weekends we'd heard, but we had the place to ourselves. Perhaps it was because it was election weekend. It was just so peaceful. The lake was so still and so inviting, but so cold following the unseasonal snowfall last week. I definitely wasn't brave enough to join Dan and Chris in the lake, fishing, up to their waists. Especially after I'd seen a gigantic eel swim on by.

And almost as soon as it began it was over. We woke Sunday morning, had a bit of brekkie, packed up, cleaned the hut of what mess we'd made, and headed back to the cars. A whole weekend in the bush and I only got bitten once by sandflies. Maybe there is something in the marmite myth after all.

On the way back to town we tret outselves. We stopped at Maruia Springs and had a good long soak in the thermal pools. Just what was needed. Even if the 'medicinal' black algae floating in the water looked like a cross between Harry Potter's dementers and the Nazgul. There truly is nothing like sitting neck-deep in a hot natural spring, surrounded by tree-covered misty mountains. I most heartily recommend it.

All in all, the weekend was brilliant. We got to know the others a whole lot better, in beautiful surroundings, and it's not a bad thing to be pushed beyond your comfort zone once in a while.

Japanese macaques

One of Joanne's colleagues, Kirsten, had a birthday last week and to celebrate she booked two holiday homes up in Hanmer and invited loads of people along. We were some of those people. In total I think there were about 16 or so of us between the two houses.

The weekend began on Friday evening with a nice tapas meal in a little cafe place in Hanmer and then continued with a brunch of pancakes on Saturday morning. A couple of hours spent relaxing in the thermal pools followed. There's something quite enjoyable about sitting in warm water with only your head exposed while cold winds blow around you and raindrops splash down onto the pool.

The weather cleared a bit in the afternoon and while Jo went back for a nanna-nap and the others lazed around a bit I decided to take a ride out into the country with my camera to see what I could find. I wish a photo could do justice of the scale of the Nuzziland countryside. I really don't think you can fully understand just how BIG everything is unless you're stood there, soaking it all up. It's just on a different scale. I remember when my dad was here earlier this year and was about to go on his South Island bus tour that I told him about this, that however many postcards you see, or shots on TV or shots in books, unless you're actually there, you cannot understand the sheer hugeness of it all. Once he stood at the foot of Mount Cook and floated along the Sounds he understood. Everytime I head out into the Nuzziland countryside I understand again.

Round every corner was a new photo to take, a new angle, a new way or seeing things lit. But driving along means you're limited to when you can stop. Especially when there is a police car behind you, as I had for a few kms yesterday! But when I could stop I did, and I headed along a few side roads to see what I could find too and got a few interesting photos, I think. I need time to look over them some more to work out if everything's worth keeping.

In the evening yesterday we all headed over to the other house for a big barbecue. It was one of those barbecues where there's way too much food and way too much alcohol. It was all going well until two of the women decided to take a kayak they found in the garage of the house down to the pond at the bottom of the garden. Bear in mind it was around 10-ish at that time. And they'd been drinking since way earlier. How no-one ended up going for a swim I could not tell you.

This morning began with a spot of brunch after cleaning the house up. We all headed into the town to a cafe for some food. I was sorely tempted by eggs benedict but the Highland FLing could my eye in the end. And what a good choice it was. A healthly bowlful of porridge sitting over a rhubarb compote, topped with bananas, brown sugar given the blowtorch treatment and a dollop of cream. That is how to eat porridge.

Next up, while some of the ladies went for a wander round the shops, the rest of us headed to the crazy golf course, or mini-golf as they call it here. The weather today was pretty spectacular and I don't think I've played crazy golf in a more spectacular setting - beautiful blue skies and snow-capped mountains in the background. It even beats that one in Great Yarmouth I played on during the boating holiday with the lads. But unlike Great Yarmouth, I didn't win. I didn't come second or third. I was definitely last. Well and truly last. It was embarrassing. At least I could claim a Holt victory though, supporting my wife's magnificent performance, ignoring the fact that she put me to shame.

Playing catch-up

Isn't it amazing how there is no time to write anything when you're busy? You're either doing something or are too tired after doing something to write about the something you've been doing.

Since I last wrote:

• The summer football league has started. In the three games we've played so far I think we've scored 2 and conceded 25 or more. I told you it was going to be difficult. I don't approve of ungraded football leagues.


• I've figured out I can access the company network from home via my work laptop and our wireless network meaning I can work from home when I need a day of peace and quiet to get on with something particular. It was my boss's idea too!


• I had another meeting to go to in Wellington and yet again didn't get further than the conference room of the golf club across the road from the airport. At least this time our plane took off and circled over the city so that Gabi could point out the sights for me.


• The new Exploring Discipleship course started. It was a great night and all seemed to go well. I was going to say it went smoothly but that would ignore the fact that Ryan was meant to do the talk, was ill and so I had to step in at late notice. Apart from that it all went smoothly. And was very encouraging.


• We had Kirsten who is one of Joanne's workmates over for dinner along with her husband the other Saturday along with Lisa & Steve and Lisa's brother who is in town from Sydney. (Roast pork, roast potato and kumara mix, broccoli & cauliflower cheese followed by chilli chocolate self-saucing pudding and icecream)



• I spent two days (getting back today actually) in Akaroa on a work conference. It was the same head office work conference that we had in Hanmer around the same time last year. It was the first time I've been to Akaroa and the sun's shone so it was good to get a bit of a sense of what everyone raves about. Sure, it's a nice little town (in the middle of an exploded volcano) with some French street names in line with its history but I still don't quite get why everyone thinks it's so amazing. The accommodation was better than sufficient, the conference venue was impressive, and the winery we went to for dinner last night was a lovely little spot.

This weekend we're going to Hanmer for the weekend. Kirsten (see above) has organised a whole group of us to go up there. I'm not sure the weather's going to be spectacular enough to do much outside but even in the rain the idea of relaxing in the thermal pools seems inviting right about now.

Black fingers

It's been one of those weekends where we didn't get to sit down for long. We bought some stain for our fence, some paint for the pergola, a lawnmower and a strimmer. I stained the wood on the pergola while Joanne finished the undercoat yesterday and then today we gave it a first coat of paint while I put together the lawnmover and strimmer. Oh and I took the ski racks off the car and rearranged the shed and garage a bit. I took a photo of Joanne painting this afternoon in her overalls but she won't let me post it. We still have to give the pergola another coat of paint sometime and give the wood bits another coat of stain too. And do something about staining the fence - all 175m² of it.

It'll be so good when we're able to sit and enjoy the garden, but at least if we get all this stuff in the spring it will all be ready for the summer. Oh, and we have a barbecue now too. I'm still not convinced of the benefits of a gas grill oven thing outside but I guess I'll learn. I've been brought up on charcoal and it's hard to get the smoke out of my eyes.

My talk seemed to go well the other week by the way. I got some encouraging feedback and people did seem challenged by what I had to say. Thank you for your prayers.

I had a full-year appraisal on Friday at work. It seemd to go well too. Lots of encouraging words and appreciative words about my work in the past fourteen months. It's nice to be valued, I guess.

The summer football league starts on Tuesday. It's going to be interesting to see how we do. The summer league is not graded so you get players from all levels playing. I don't expect to score quite as many as I did in the winter league.

Jetlag - kind of

I really dislike the first working day following the change to daylight savings. The whole week, in fact, is pretty disagreeable. Your body thinks 10:30pm is really only 9:30pm so it's not ready for sleep, but then you have to get up at 5:30am because the clock says it's 6:30am. So you spend the whole week yawning and don't properly adjust until the weekend. I think it's getting worse as I get older too.

It's kind of like when I was back in London and had meetings in over in Europe. I'd fly the night before and then struggle to get to sleep as my body would think it was an hour earlier than the clock did. And then getting up in the morning would seem extra early too. I spent a few too many days yawning my way through meetings in Europe.

Another trophy

Not me this time, but Joanne. She had her club end of season dinner and awards night last night and managed to pick up the 'Most Improved Player' award for her team. I am most proud. She gets to keep her trophy for the year, and it's engraved on the back with her name and everything.

After church today we went round to Mark and Renee's for lunch. I can't believe it's been ten months since we had them over to ours. Ten months! Time passes so fast, eh? The afternoon ended with a game of football in their garden. Me, Zack (their eldest) and Ethan (their youngest) vs Mark, Josh (no.2) and Jessie (no.3). There were better skills on show than in the some of the games I've played this season. While our garden has been being done over the past five months I've been taking regular photos from (pretty much) the same spot to record how progress has been made. As the garden is now (pretty much) finished (apart from staining the fence and pergola slats, and painting the block bits of the pergola) I thought I'd share this with you. Step-by-step progress. Hopefully it will work...

Sat still

It feels like I haven't moved from this seat all weekend. I must have because I've managed to fit in going out to a Teppanyaki restaurant for Anthony's birthday last night, going to church this morning and joining Bek & Si in the Botanic Gardens for lunch after church and for a wander. Other than that though, I've not moved from my desk.

The reason is that I've been writing a talk. At St John's there's this monthly thing called the Gym. To quote the Facebook page "The Gym is by Young Adults and is for Young Adults. Each night there are two talks from the bible on a topic, supper, time for questions, and a great chance to chat with other christian YA's". It's called the Gym because "it's a spritual workout!" Well this time around, on October 2nd I've been asked to give one of the talks. Last weekend I did a whole load of prep on the passage (2 Corinthians 8 and 9 if you're interested - it's on providing generously) and this weekend I had to turn all those notes into a talk. My main issue is that that's two whole chapters. And my talk is meant to only be 15 minutes long. I've heard someone preach two whole forty minute sermons on those two passages. How am I meant to condense all that down to 15 minutes? Working out what to leave is quite tricky. At the moment I'm about 700 words over, I reckon. Will anyone mind a 20 minute talk instead of a 15 minute one do you think? I would be very grateful for prayer please. Both for my prep and for when I give the talk a week on Thursday. Much appreciated, thank you :)

So yeah, other than that, as I say, last night we joined Anthony in a Teppanyaki restaurant in town for his birthday. Just in case you don't know Teppanyaki is it's where you sit around a hot griddle thing and the chef cooks your food infront of you, together with all the showy entertaining bits, flairing his implements and spice shakers and chucking egg around and stuff. It's a whole cullinary-visual extravanganza. I've not been to one before so it was a great experience.

And then today after church Si & Bek and Joanne & I bought a nice fresh bagel to eat in the Botanic Gardens and then went for a wander. I do like that place. Every time I go it changes with the seasonal plants and flowers and stuff. The daffodils are fully out now and the tulips are just beginning to come out. There's colour pansies everywhere and in a few months the roses will be in full bloom. I'm not big on flowers and plants and stuff but they put so much effort and hard work in to the Botanic Gardens that it's hard not to enjoy what there is to see and enjoy as you wander through it all by the river.

Not just for the glory

On Saturday Joanne and I went my football club's end of season awards dinner. Well, I say dinner. In the end, when we left at 10 the aroma of savouries was just beginning to fill the air but by then we'd committed to finding something to eat elsewhere. But that's not why I'm telling you about the evening.

There was ten or thirteen or so senior teams that are part of our club (as well as innumerable kids teams) and so there were a good number of players and their partners present. The main part of the night was made up of each team's results being read out and then the awards being presented to each team's player of the year and players' player of the year. Then we got around to the golden boot awards for the top scorers of the season. There was one award for the women's teams, one for the men's upper grades and one for the men's lower grades. And it turns out that I'd won the last of these. My 17 goals this season was the most scored for our club by anyone else in the lower grades (whatever they comprise). Which was a nice surprise.

I went up and collected my trophy and medal and had my photo taken and everything. I had to then hand the trophy back (something to do with it being really difficult each year tracking them down from previous winners) but got to keep the medal. For my first season back playing competitive football for over 15 years I'm quite happy with how it all ended, especially since I'm not as fit as I could be. Pre-season training starts now.

My mum would be proud

Given the season has probably finished I came home tonight and cleaned my football boots. I guess what my mum told me growing up must have gone in. Too often as a kid I'd dig my boots out of the back of the cupboard in September, at the start of the season, and find it hard to tell when boot ended and where mould began.

Strike! - or not

We had quite the hectic weekend. It seemed quite non-stop to be honest so it was nice to have a sit down yesterday evening (for me at least - Joanne was out and had her rest time in the afternoon).

It started on Friday evening when we joined some of Joanne's workmates for dinner in La Porchetta before heading across the road to the cinema to watch Hellboy II (my review: big red; good special effects; not as good as the first one).

Saturday saw a big bowl of chocolate porridge for breakfast followed by football in the afternoon. Supposedly it was our last game of the season and was a bit of an anti-climax as we got beaten 3-1. We scored first as well but pretty much petered out after that. I say that it's supposedly our last game as we still have one of our eighteen games left to play that was washed out earlier in the year, but the season's officially ended so I'm unsure whether we'll get it organised. We might but then again we might not.

Assuming we don't play the make-up match it means we played 17 games in total (I missed two though) and I scored 17 goals. Not a bad return for a mid-table team (we finished 6th out of 10) given I've not played competitively for something like 15 years but I was kind of hoping to reach 20 for the season. Maybe next year, if I manage to get fit in the off-season.

In the evening on Saturday Joanne and I headed out into town for dinner. We went to the Bismarck, a German place with proper German food. Bratwuerste, fried potatoes with bacon and sauerkraut. Proper German.

After that we met up with a whole bunch of friends from church at the bowling alley. Another Kiwi first for me, we've not had any ten-pin action since moving over here. And it showed unfortunately. I broke 100 in both games, but failed to get over 120. A long time with little practice has passed since the times Joanne would go weekly on 'date-night' and I'd regularly score 150 plus and once even made it over the 200 mark.

Yesterday we had church in the morning as usual and then headed back home for lunch. It was a bit of triumph actually. I turned some of our wannabe-Lincolnshire sausages into pork patties and then served them with a poached egg atop each one and some sage and onion bread on the side. It was so good that Joanne had to have a kip for the rest of the afternoon to sleep it off. Joanne having a kip is always a sign that she's had a good meal ;)

While Joanne snoozed I spent the afternoon filling our shed. As part of the new garden we've had a shed put up and it's been there for weeks now, empty. We bought a shelf unit to go in to it a few weeks back too. It's been in it's box for weeks now. I finally decided to get around to it all so built the shelf-unit and then set about moving bikes, tools, ladders, chairs and buckets into the shed. The garage is quite empty now. Empty enough to be obvious that it needs a sweep, Joanne pointed out.

After all that physical exhaustion I spent the evening on my backside in front of the telly while Joanne went round to a friend's for a bit of flute and piano 'jamming'.

So there you have it, a taste of one of our fuller weekends. Next week should be quieter I think, other than my football club's end-of-season dinner and awards night on Saturday.

Not sure if I mentioned but I've got an MRI booked on my shoulder for Thursday. I finally, three months after injuring it, got referred to someone by the physio the other week. One appointment with a sports physican and he seemed to have a better idea of what was going on, thinks that it was actually disloacted after all and has referred me for the MRI to get right to the bottom of the issue. Just a shame it took three months to get to this stage though, eh?

Spring sprung

Monday marked the first day of spring, and to celebrate the sun came out. It got up to 19 degrees today so at lunchtime I took a walk around the Botanic Gardens. It was something I really enjoyed last year, getting away from the desk, getting some fresh air and stretching my legs.

There's a bit in the Botanic Gardens where they plant hundreds and hundreds of daffodils. The daffodil lawn they call it. Well, in keeping with the season they've started to come out. It's still early days and there's plenty more to come out yet but the early birds are jumping around waving their yellow heads in the air. And there are snow drops to keep them company until all their mates arrive.

I had to cut the walk shorter than I would have liked today. My ankle started playing up. I trod on someone's hand (accidentally!) playing football at the weekend and went over on it, twisting it or spraining it or something. I was going to stick a picture of it on here for you to see, but I decided against it, figuring that no-one would really want to see my purple, swollen ankle. I came to the conclusion that a shot across the Avon to the Daffodil Lawn would be generally more appealing.

Whizzing by

When things come around again that have happened before, that's when it reminds me how long we've been here. This morning I attended another men's breakfast at St Stephen's church in Shirley. Admittedly it was held in September last year but it's still the second annual men's breakfast I've been to.

This morning Cam was speaking on living as a Christian in the workplace - how the workplace is a place for evangelism, how evangelism is something we should be not something we should do, and how we should be prepared. A very challenging talk with some great tips to take away too. Why is it that when someone asks on a Monday "What did you do yesterday?" it's easier to say "Hmm, not much. How about you?" rather than "I went to church yesterday morning and heard a great talk about Jesus before having some friends from church back for lunch" or whatever?

Thinking earlier about being here for over a year and stuff got me thinking again to what we were doing this time last year and where we were with stuff. This Wednesday marked my one year anniversary of having this job (we went out for coffee and cake to celebrate) and tomorrow is the one year anniversary of getting the keys to our house before next weekend marks the one year anniversary of living here.

Things happening again reminds us of so much that has happened in the past year, but also of the things we're missing. This weekend, if we were still back in the UK we would be heading up north to Grimsby. It's my niece Ellie's birthday this weekend (Happy Birthday, Ellie!) and we always used to go home for it. And we're missing her 7th birthday now, after missing her 6th birthday too. Things like that make it hard to be here sometimes.

Sporting frustration and sickness

I didn't realise how frustrating it would be watching the Olympics over here. Great Britain are have a great Games. They're currently third in the medal table. Third! That's quite honestly an amazing achievement. But the frustrating part comes in the fact that unless there's Kiwi interest in an event there's limited coverage of it. I guess it's understandable, and is probably much the same in the UK, but it is very frustrating. We topped the rowing medal table, have won 4 out of 5 track cycling golds (and 8 out the 15 medals presented so far) and have won both the sailing golds presented to date but I've had to follow pretty much everything on the BBC Sport live text feed thing. I guess it's a downside to put up with every four years that comes with living on the other side of the world.

The weekend just gone was a bit rubbish. Last week was one of those when I didn't get home before ten any night (taking Jo's uncle out for dinner on Monday, Bible study group on Tuesday, standing in leading at CE on Wednesday and Joel's stag-do on Thursday) and slowly over the week I felt my health gradually on the slide. By Friday lunchtime I felt pretty terrible and so had to go home. I've been in bed (or crashed on the sofa) ever since. A sore throat that led to a rasping, chesty cough followed by a streaming nose and eyes and finally headaches and throbbing sinuses weren't much fun. I think I'm on the mend now and will probably be good for work tomorrow. Maybe. I lost my appetite and hardly ate anything at all over the weekend. I think that shows quite how ill I was. I did scrape myself out of bed on Saturday to go along to Joel and Liz's wedding though. It was great to be able to make it. I just hoping my wheezing and coughing weren't picked up by the video camera.

Joanne's old stomping ground

This week I've been up north. I attended the Sales & Store Conference (North Island) with work which was held in Palmerston North. 'Palmy', as it's known, is one of the places Joanne grew up. I think she was there from when she was 7 till 13, or something like that.

The conference was an internal work thing where the sales team and the stores team all get together to meet up and hang out and learn to work together and stuff like that. It has a work side to it, definitely, but there was time for fun and time-building stuff too.

The work aspect involved presentations, like the one from the CEO breaking down the company's strategy and plan for the coming 18 months, and workshops and discussions and such. I am really impressed with how the senior management let people know that it's 'our' company. If we have ideas and thoughts and suggestions, if they're good and worthwhile, they'll be considered and even implemented. It's great that people feel their ideas and opinions are valued. It means they're willing to speak up and volunteer stuff.

The fun aspect of the conference had two sides to it. The first involved team-building events. The conference had a topically Olympic theme to it and so the delegates were all divided into teams and throughout the conference there were games and tasks we all had to participate in, scoring points for our team. Some of the events were fun, some were silly, but I guess it was all about breaking down barriers and making people step outside of their comfort zone and stuff. It certainly helped people to get to know each other, which was a good thing. Workshops and break-out groups function so much better when you've just been cheering each other on in gumboot (wellies, in English) throwing contests. Add in the banana race (passing said fruit along a row of team members using only your knees), the fertiliser and spoon race (think egg and spoon race but themed for our company), tying knots in human ropes, selling a bag full of random products around the city centre and turning up on the last morning wearing pyjamas or dressed as Fred Dagg and you'll get a sense of the sort of thing the 'Olympics' involved. Our team didn't win, but my nail polish (don't ask!) matched our team hat (we all wore team beanies; each team wearing a different colour).

We also had off-site entertainment which involved a trip to the Te Apiti wind farm, a tour of the Tui brewery at Mangatainoka and an evening of bull-riding and line-dancing at the Woodville racecourse. The wind farm was quite impressive really with these huge turbines scattered along the side and crest of a gorge. The brewery tour was interesting but didn't have the same appeal to me as it did to those colleagues of mine who could enjoy the three free beers. The evening event was all a bit 'rural' for me but it was a coupled with a casino event so I enjoyed some Texas Hold 'em while others line-danced and rode mechanical bulls. The evening climaxed with the 'Sheriff's session' - a kind of kangaroo court where amusing events from the past year were retold, sometimes with photographic evidence, with 'offenders' being fined (all proceeds donated to charity). Somehow I managed to avoid any fines at all.

All in all the conference was a good, if tiring few days. It was good to meet a few colleagues that I've only previously emailed or spoken on the phone to. It was good for them to meet the face behind the spreadsheets too!

I arrived back at Christchurch airport on Friday remembering that exactly a year previously I had arrived at the same airport. A year in Christchurch now. I've said it before, but I'll say it again, it really has flown by.