Sunday 29 June 2008

More rain

'Christchurch - the garden city'? 'Christchurch - the pond city' more like.

The ducks are loving the rain. The plants are loving the rain. The farmers are loving the rain. Me? No, I'm not loving the rain. I'm bored of the rain now. It is kind of cool that our house has a moat though.

The rain didn't stop Joanne and I heading out in the countryside after church for a bit of lunch though. We drove out to Methven. In theory we headed towards the mountains. In reality, the clouds meant that someone could have nicked them for all we knew. We took a different route home and passed over the Rakaia gorge. Despite the greyness it's still a stunning spot. Especially the colour of the water coming down off the mountains (assuming they're still there, of course).

Saturday 28 June 2008

Shouldn't have bothered

It's rained for pretty much the last 24 hours. It rained all afternoon, and particularly it rained while I was playing football. The beautifully folded and elegantly scented football kit ended up brown. It pretty much ended up with us playing swamp football. But we won. We were cold and wet. And muddy. But the 6-1 win sort of made it all worthwhile. The beautiful game? Pah! Not today it wasn't.

It rained while Joanne was playing netball too. It must make it hard to catch the ball when you can't feel your fingers. They lost. 23-22. Their closest game yet. Next week they'll win. Next week.

The ceilidh was loads of fun last night. Some people even got into the spirit of things and wore kilts. Sadly mine doesn't fit me any more. It was from a previous life, a skinnier life. So Jo wore it. I've not often had the opportunity to tell people I'd lent my skirt to my wife. I doubt I'll often have the opportunity again.

Oh, and I passed my theory driving test thing. 35 correct out of 35. It's good and it means I'll still be allowed to drive over here next month. And I didn't have to surrender my UK license, which was a bonus.

Thursday 26 June 2008

Jasmine and bergamot

It was my turn to take the footy team's kit home to wash it this week. In a moment of madness I added fabric conditioner to the load. We'll be the nice smelling team this weekend, that's for sure.

Wearing white

As opposed to last week's cultural Saturday evening of Hamlet, last weekend saw Bek & Si and Blair & Amy come over to watch the second rugby match between England and the All-Blacks. I thought I'd make the effort and wear my England. I was trumped by Bek & Si though. They painted their faces! And yes, England were given another kicking, the score being England's second worse result against the Kiwis ever. Not a good time to be English in rugby-loving Canterbury. If, as an outsider looking in reading this, you think that New Zealand is mad about rugby, consider the fact that Cantabrians pretty much put the rest of the country to shame with their rugby madness.

Add that to the fact that the Black Caps have started winning ODIs in England and you can see why I'm pretty much keeping my head down right now.

I had my mid-year appraisal today. Or I had most of it, at least. It wasn't finished in the allocated two hour slot my boss had between meetings so we've arranged another hour tomorrow to polish it off. It seems that I'm being appreciated though, which is nice, and that people feel I'm making a significant impact. It's always nice to get positive feedback, eh? There's stuff I need to work on too, like being more pro-active about some stuff and taking the lead with some stuff when my particular skills warrant it, but that sort of thing will come with time. It's difficult to step into a team and a company where people have been there years and suddenly start taking over meetings and projects and throwing suggestions around and stuff. But I'll get there.

Tomorrow night we're meant to be going to a ceilidh. It's an event being organised by St Saviours church, a plant from St John's. I'm sure you all know how Joanne likes a good dance. Any sort of dancing. And to be honest, I don't mind a bit of the old Scottish twirling and jigging too.

I think tomorrow I'm going to finally get around to getting my NZ driving license. I was able to drive on my UK license for a year but before the year's up I have to do the theory part of the NZ driving test to transfer to a NZ license. I've been putting it off and putting it off, but now, suddenly, I've realised it is less than a month until our one year anniversary of arriving over here. How has 11 months past already?

Sunday 15 June 2008

Shakespeare, pasta bakes and crumble

Take one Saturday evening. Add a chilli bean pasta bake and a tomato, mozzarella, chicken and chorizo pasta bake. Meanwhile prepare a logaberry and banana crumble and a black forest crumble. Serve on a winter's evening with liberally sprinkled friends and accompany with a DVD of Hamlet.

This was the recipe we followed last night.

Oh, and England got beaten by the All Blacks in Auckland last night. But at times like these I remember I'm a cricket fan too. Plus the try at the start of the second half that effectively sealed the game had a forward pass from Nonu to Muliaina, but I'm not one to cry over spilt sour grapes.

Thursday 12 June 2008

Feeling cheated

At least in the UK during winter there are bright spots like bonfire night and Christmas to illuminate the dark and cold months. Here winter is just cold and dark but without the fireworks and fairy lights.

I guess there's skiing though. Mt Hutt's season opens this weekend. Yay!

Tuesday 10 June 2008

Shoulder update

I've just been to see the physio about my shoulder. He reckons that the AC joint sprain is recovering nicely so has cancelled the cortisone injection I had scheduled for next week. Hurray! I'd heard worryingly painful things about cortisone injections. It hadn't filled me with confidence last week when the physio said that there was probably a 60% chance of getting the needle straight in first time between the bones, which is why they intended to do it with an x-ray and fluoroscope or something. I'm sure that means something to those of you with medical training.

The latest diagnosis now is that I may have a small fracture in my shoulder somewhere but the physio's not sure. I have an x-ray and ultrasound booked in for next Monday now so that they can see exactly what's going on.

Monday 9 June 2008

It's strange where life takes you

I forgot to mention that in the course of preparing the talk on prayer I was going through the files on my laptop and I came across some documents containing prayer requests and updates from the people were praying for four or five years ago when I was running the Kiwis For Christ prayer group back at St Helen's. One of the churches were prayed for particularly was St John's, of course.

It was amazing to look back and see what we were praying for then and then realise how the Lord has worked at St John's. It was great to recognise names in the prayer lists of people we now know, people serving in the youth group, or on snow camp, or at the uni or polytech, or running the Christianity Explored course, who are still serving and striving to make Jesus known in Christchurch. And now, five years on, we're serving alongside the same people we used to pray for. God, as they say, moves in mysterious ways. Praise him!

Finally, half an hour free

I'm not sure I can do the missing period justice in half an hour, but I'll try.

I guess one pretty big thing was last Saturday. It was Joanne and my fifth wedding anniversary. Five years. Time flies, eh? I can't believe it was five years since we were stood at the front of the church in St Helen's making the promises to each other and God. It's been a wonderful five years.

Also on Saturday, and a very nice way to celebrate our anniversary, was Ruth & Al's wedding. What better way to remember our vows to each other than to see two friends make the same commitment to each other. It was a lovely day too, complete with bagpipes and a Ceilidh and everything. My first Kiwi wedding was a decidedly Scottish affair.

What else have I got to mention? Oh yes, thanks to those that asked, I appreciate the concern but the shoulder I mentioned last time that was hurt was mine (I was fouled at footy the other week and took all my weight on it as I landed). It wasn't dislocated after all, but the physio reckons it's an acute sprain of the AC joint, supposedly. I reckon there's rotator cuff damage too, but I think he probably knows more than me. I'm booked in a cortisone injection in it next Wednesday which I'm really not looking forward to. They have to use an x-ray or an ultrasound to guide the needle between bones and joints and stuff. Ouch.

It snowed here at the weekend. My first Christchurch snowfall. I saw some Kiwi snow when Dad I ventured halfway up Mt Hutt in March but it's the first snowfall down here, at home. It didn't last though, but it was pretty waking up on Sunday morning to snow on the Porthills out the back of our house. Ski season starts next week, I think. Although I guess my shoulder needs to get better first, eh?

Given the cold weather we've had recently last week wasn't a good time to run out of gas. In Christchurch most houses aren't on reticulated gas and so you have a couple of bottles stuck round the back of your house. We're still trying to figure out how the gauge works and exactly when we need to replace a bottle. In theory you can run out one bottle and then order a new one while using the other one. We know now that when it goes completely pink you've run out of gas in both bottles. Last week was very cold down the front of the house where we have the gas fire. We lived in the bedroom where the heatpump is pretty much and luckily got some gas delivered on Friday before the snow.

The other big thing to happen recently was the St John's Young Adults' Camp. About 80 of the younger people from church all went out the weekend before last to a place called Glentui(e?) which is about 45 minutes or so north-west of Chch. Friday night through Monday lunchtime (Monday was a bank holiday for the Queen's birthday - no really!). It was a great time with some great teaching on Colossians and plenty of time to hang out and get to know people better. It was really good for that actually. There were some people we kind of knew but hadn't really had much of a conversation with and spending time with them over the weekend was great. I have missed the weekends away with our friends and Christian family on St Peter's Barge since we've been here so it was really good to have that time of teaching and encouragement and hanging out. We ran a pub quiz on the Saturday evening too, which seemed to go well, although a few people commented that the questions were a bit hard. I guess that my cultural experience is so different so most people's there that it's difficult to judge what people would know and what they wouldn't.

In one of the sessions Joanne and I were asked to stand up and answer some questions on how we became Christians, what brought us to Chch and what we'd say to people considering moving overseas, either temporarily or permanently. It was great to be able to share with our new Christian family the same things we shared at St Peter's before we left about why Chch and also what we'd learned about Christian priorities regarding finding a good Bible-teaching church. Afterwards some people came and thanked us and said that it was really encouraging to hear what we had to say. I still find it surprising and pretty amazing that God uses us to encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ. It's incredibly humbling to be used by him.

Speaking of serving God, we're up to week five of the Exploring Discipleship course now. This week I am giving the fifteen minute talk. I'd really appreciate your prayers, if you are able to. I am speaking on the topic of prayer - who we pray to (the Sovereign Lord of the universe and our Father in heaven), and why we pray (to deepen our relationship with him, not as a last resort in a crisis), remembering that God answers prayer but not necessarily in the way we'd like or expect but always with the power and the will to do what is best for those that love him. Please pray I speak clearly and faithfully. Thank you.

OK, so it took closer to an hour than half an hour.

Tuesday 3 June 2008

Where does the time go?

One of these days I will write about what's happened in the last week or so (Exploring Discipleship course, St John's Young Adults Camp, football, netball, (possible) dislocated shoulders, friends, food, running out of gas, the garden, ...) but at the moment there's just so little time.