Nuzziland news

The rest

2009-06-24T16:14:00.004+12:00

OK, time for more in the way of updates regarding our whirlwind non-stop tour. It's one way to keep me awake, I guess.

Wednesday 17th
Today we got up and left my mum's, bound for Yorkshire, and more specifically, Sheffield. More babies we'd not met followed as Sinead came round to say hi while we were at Mark's with Seamus and Ethan in tow, while Pete and Cloudy came for lunch along with Olly.

In the afternoon Joanne, Pete, Mark and I took a drive out to a nice little village in Derbyshire for a pint of tea (really!) and then in the evening the four of us headed into Sheffield city centre for a top-notch Chinese before Anna joined us at some real English-style pubs. The sort of pubs you just don't find in NZ.

Thursday 18th
We left Pete and Cloudy's this morning and headed off for the longest individual leg of out trip, down to Enfield. The trip was supposed to take 3 hours. We stopped for a bit of lunch for we were looking at 3 1/2 tops. But then we hit the M25. According to the satnav the final two miles was meant to take just under ten minutes. A traffic jam meant it took an hour. And most of that was the first of the two miles.

Once at Chris and Ros's we had a few hours to relax before Richard and Jenny and their two children (one of whom was again new to us) joined us for dinner. Chris and I even had time to go and pick some strawberries while Joanne had a little nanna-nap.

Friday 19th
More driving today, for a change, and more M25 fun. Traffic is always worse on a Friday. And the Dartford bridge/tunnel are especially fun. We got to be part of that fun too. Three times in fact.

We were due for lunch at Joanne's Aunt June and Uncle Ron's place in Basildon. Enfield to Basildon of course does not involve crossing the Thames. Unless you need to first pick up Joanne's Uncle John from Dartford first. And then bring him to lunch. And then take him back. Three times we braved the queues.

We made the most of being on the south bank though by ending the day with an extended saunter around the Bluewater shopping centre. Bluewater, in case you're unfamiliar with it, is like the size of half of Christchurch. It even comes equipped with a Ben & Jerry's vending machine. I wonder what ones of those puppies would cost...

The evening, and the driving part of the trip, ended as we headed back into London and back onto the Isle of Dogs to Chris and Lesley's flat.

Saturday 20th
You might think that us being back in London would mean no more manic days without a minute to breathe. You'd be wrong.

Today started with Joanne and Les, gym-buddies from times-gone-by, making a trip to the Reebok for old times while I took the car back to City Airport.

We rendezvous-ed at the DLR station at Canary Wharf and headed across London to Maida Vale and Richard & Heather's place for a barbecue and a game of kalookie.

Kalookie, in case you are unaware, is a card game, and we play the Jamaican variant. Mainly because we learnt it from and play it with Jamaicans. It probably won't mean anything to you, but I won, with 29 points. Which is a super-low score. Especially with us playing the full nine rounds.

In the evening, after I whooped the Jamaicans at their own game, Joanne and I headed over to Liverpool Street station to meet Mat & Cathryn aswell as Les so that we could wander over to Brick Lane for a much-anticipated curry.

I had been building this curry up for a long, long time, and frankly I blew it. I led us to a restaurant I knew was good (or was two years ago) and was packed, which is a good sign. They found us a table jammed into a far corner. That was a bad start, us being stuck in a tiny spot in a roasting hot restaurant. I then was too busy talking to Mat and Cathryn and not studying the menu enough. When it came to ordering I wasn't fully prepared and thus fell back on an old favourite of lamb pasanda. A good curry, but not the curry I had been anticipating. The onion bhaji, meanwhile, was all that I had expected.

Sunday 21st
Today was our last full day in the UK for some time and again food was central. This time our feeders were Debbie and Paul. And their son we'd not yet met, Joshua. Vaniah & Johan joined us too.

The time we spent there was all too short, and before we knew it it was time to shoot off once more, back to Canary Wharf and the barge again for both the 4pm and 6:30pm services. We were asked up the front at the end of each service to quickly give our old church family some prayer points for us, which was appreciated.

The evening ended, traditionally, in Wetherspoons with a diet coke and a bowl of chips.

Monday 22nd
Our taxi was ordered for 12:30 so the morning was free and we'd arranged to head over to spend a couple of hours with Marcus & Lina, meeting our final new child of the trip. It was great to fill them in on how things are going over here and at St John's specifically while also hearing about developments and progress at the barge.

And then, all too soon, the trip was over. We were at Heathrow. We were aboard the plane. We were over the Atlantic on the way home.

Wednesday 24th
30 hours or so later we were home. It's so nice to be home. The UK already feels like a lifetime away. It really doesn't exist when we're here. And that feeling will be even more evident once we start back at work tomorrow.

So, that was some trip. But so tiring. We had little more that a few hours with people here and there really. But we wouldn't have it any other way. I mean, we could have arranged a more comfortable schedule, but the trip wasn't that sort of holiday really. The aim was to be there for my sister's wedding, and catch up for a few good friends around the sides. Which we did. We could have added more people too, given time. But there wasn't any. 19 pretty much non-stop days. With 971 miles (1563km) driven thrown in. It was so great to see people.

I turned on phone when I got home to find 187 work emails waiting for me. I resolved not to touch them until tomorrow in the office. Another 16 arrived today. 203 emails will take me most of the day to get through, I reckon.

Joanne has her first day in her new secondment tomorrow. I've not mentioned it before as it was all being finalised, but she's got six months with the parent company of her current employer. It's a power company and a bigger office than she's in at the moment. Should present her a new challenge, which is good.

Once more for old times' sake

2009-06-17T07:13:00.003+12:00

Today Joanne and I had the chance to visit a few old haunts, just one more time.

The initial plan was to head out with my mum to Barton for a wander round and a look at the Humber Bridge, which is still quite an impressive feat of engineering, but a incident with a curb and a snapped sandal strap meant a detour from Barton to Grimsby town centre to (unsuccessfully) hunt out Merrell distributers.

One quick trip to a cobbler equipped with superglue meant we were back on track but by now the Humber Bridge was out of the question as it was time to pick Ellie up from school.

We had a plan to go out for tea together, the four of us, but it was way too early for that so we drove to the far end of Cleethorpes for a wander round the boating lake, a real blast from the past, and especially cute given the numerous goslings and ducklings around the place.

We also had time to drive by the pier too, for a quick photo. Who knows when they'll finally demolish it. I wanted a snap for old times' sake.

The tea plan was to appease Jo. One of her favourite places to eat in North East Lincs is a place called Steel's. Steel's Cornerhouse Restaurant to give it it's formal name. It was listed in the Egon Ronay Good Food Guide 1982 I'll have you know. And it serves fish and chips. Good fish and chips. In fact, according to Joanne it's the best fish and chips in the world.

Look at the size of that bit of fish there. Jumbo fish, chips and mushy peas, bread and butter, and a mug of tea. It doesn't get any better than that. Of course, I don't eat fish, but I can recognise quality. And this is quality.

Just don't you dare ask for cod. It's haddock. And only haddock. Cod is blasphemy in this neck of the woods. Really.

On the way home we took a detour via the docks. I wanted to take one more photo of Grimsby before I left. The dock tower is an iconic symbol of the town where I grew up. An image of my childhood.

Just like when we left from here almost two years ago, I don't know when I'll next be here. And it's a strange feeling.

I have enjoyed seeing my family so much and spending time with them. I'll see Dad & Marlene at Christmas and Mum in February hopefully, and those times will come round fast enough, but it's still different when you live on the other side of the world.

Catching up

2009-06-16T08:02:00.013+12:00

I've finally got an evening when I can sit down and relax. It's nice to put my feet up and take a breath. And update the blog of course. I've been keeping notes so I'll flesh them out day by day, just so you can see what we've been up to.

Sunday 7th
Today we had lunch with Euan at Rodizzio Rico, one of our favourite restaurants in London. We love Brazilian barbecue, and it's always good to see Euan. As Joanne says – he’s just such an interesting person to talk to.

In the afternoon we headed off to church at 4pm. The 4pm service is a family service now with Sunday school and crèche, which is a big change since we were last around. We stayed around for the 6:30pm service too to try and catch up with as many people as possible. There were so many people we don’t recognise now. It's kind of good to see life moves on without us. Sometimes it’s easy to think that life pauses while we’re away. But of course it doesn’t.

After church we headed across to Wetherspoons for chat, a couple of drinks and a bowl of chips. Just like old times.

Walking round Islington today and the Isle of Dogs was strange. There are new buildings in places but pretty much it's exactly the same. It's as if the last two years had not happened and we’ve never been away. And the whole feel is so different to Christchurch. We fit here. It'd not that we don't fit in Christchurch, but London still feels comfortable. It's a bizarre feeling to have a holiday in a place you know so well.

Monday 8th
This morning we headed over to City Airport to pick up hire car and then headed out to Tetbury to see Ian and Naomi and meet Cerys for the first time. It was lovely to be out in the Cotswolds – a real feel of England. In the afternoon went for a walk around the nearby arboretum. I love Kiwi countryside but there is something lovely about English countryside too.

I also got to play on a Wii for the first time with Ian. He beat me at tennis, and golf, but the baseball and boxing were mine.

Tuesday 9th
This morning we drove to Coventry but via Stratford. Jo had agreed to do a couple of hours work at her UK office – helping with VAT returns – but wasn’t expected in Coventry until 2pm so we stopped in at Stratford on the way. Joanne had never been and I’d not been since Bints’ 21st birthday which must have been May 1994, I guess. But even then it had involved a boat trip on the Avon rather than the Shakespeare stuff. Actually I do seem to remember going with Sarah (and maybe Jo and Kate) one time in my final year at uni when my sis came to visit but I could be wrong.

So yeah, Shakespeare stuff. It was really interesting and great to do it with Joanne for the first time. I think historical buildings are one of the things I miss most when in NZ. You just don’t get anything older than 100 years pretty much and wandering round Statford there are buildings 400 or 500 years old, easy.

After a spot of lunch we headed off to Cov, where I dropped Joanne at her office and then drove to my old uni for a wander round to see what’s new and what’s changed over there. After I left I used to go back every May bank holiday for the American football team oldboys game so it’s not like I’ve not been back since I left in 1997 but there are still quite a few new buildings and plenty of development work still going on now. Again, wandering round the familiar areas it was just like I’d never been away.

In the evening Joanne’s colleagues took us out for a meal to the Saxon Mill in Warwick. It's a lovely little spot, down by the river, although Gordon Ramsey would have a fit over their extensive and diverse menu. "Pick eight dishes and do them well!"

Wednesday 10th
Joanne’s work on Tuesday that was meant to have taken two hours was going to extend to the Wednesday too so after breakfast I took her to the office again and then went off to do some tourist stuff on my own. [sniff]

I first headed into Cov to find the National Motor Museum. Which I did eventually after going round the ring road a few times more than was needed. It was quite a cool place actually, especially the Thrust SSC, the vehicle that holds the world landspeed record – 763mph or something! – and became the first land vehicle to break the sound barrier, and the simulator where you can sit and experience the world record-breaking run.

I then decided to take a wander around Cov city centre, mainly to find the cathedrals. I love the juxtaposition of the old ruined cathedral next to the new shiny one. The contrast really attracts me, for some reason.

I took a photo of the Lady Godiva statue too, just for old times' sake.

Next up I headed back to the Binley industrial estate to find Joanne only to discover that she’d not finished. Still. We were meant to be spending the afternoon at Warwick castle but I wasn’t going to sit around waiting all afternoon so I drove over myself. Again, it’s history like that I miss, wandering round old buildings imagining the people who lived there hundreds and hundreds of years ago. I didn’t have chance to stay for the falconry display unfortunately, but the working trebuchet was very impressive.

Later we drove to Derby to Heather & Andy’s in time to meet them after they got home from school. It was great to catch up, see the boys, and hear about what they’ve been up as well as other school friends I’ve not been in touch with.

Also Andy introduced me to Guitar Hero. This holiday has been an key introduction to new experiences in games consoles for me.

Thursday 11th
The plan today was to head over to Bakewell for lunch before driving to Grimsby but in the ended we were distracted by a retail park containing Next and Sainsbury’s. It was so much fun wandering round a giant supermarket with so much range and choice. Touristasising a supermarket. Is it sad? If it is, I don’t really care. It was fun.

I counted fifteen different types of Fairy washing-up liquid. In New Zealand I'd struggle to count that many types of washing-up liquid full-stop.

Leaving Derby we drove towards Grimsby and stopped for some lunch at Arties Mill – an old family favourite.

Post-lunch saw us arrive at my dad’s. And then for dinner in the evening we were all at the Harbrough Hotel for a pre-wedding meak for to the families to meet.

It was so great to see my family. Other than when my dad came to visit I’ve not seen any of them for just short of two years. Even though we didn’t see them that often when we lived in London it would still be maybe four times a year. I guess the change is most evident in Ellie, rather than my folks or my sis. She’s nearly eight now, my niece. It's hard to believe sometimes. I still remember walking by St Paul’s in London on the way to meet a friend for a drink when I got the phonecall to say she’d arrived safely, mother and baby doing well. How times flies, eh?

It was the first time I’d met Shayne, my impending brother-in-law, and also Dad’s partner, Marlene. So that was nice.

Friday 12th
Today was the day of the wedding. And it was such a lovely day. I got so emotional. I never have before at a wedding. Maybe it was just the whole thing about my little sister finally finding a really great bloke to look after her and Ellie. Given it was the first time I’d met Shayne I guess I was quite relieved that he seemed such a nice fella really. I don’t know. It's hard to describe really. But it was so special to be there to witness their marriage.

They’d asked me to read a poem they’d found in the ceremony. It was strange that reading it through and practising it it seemed ok but nothing special. However, reading to them, during the ceremony, suddenly the words all made sense and fit and the poem was quite beautiful. I so nearly starting blubbing.

It was a lovely day too, nice early June weather, which was good news since we were all sat outside for the reception and speeches.

It was really nice to spend time with my cousin Pamela, her husband Robert and their four kids as well. They’re all growing up to now, of course.

Saturday 13th
Sarah & Shayne’s plan was to head off to Manchester airport at about 5pm-ish today so as a farewell thing my mum had organised a barbecue round at her and James’s house for them. She also invited a load of her friends who came to the evening part of the wedding but not the main day as well as Pam & Rob and the kids, and me and Jo.

Hmmm, I love Lincolnshire sausages.

Sunday 14th
Dad cooked a lovely roast pork meal for the four of us today. And while it was cooking we went for a wander round Town’s Holt. When I was growing up we lived on Wybers Wood, and now Dad lives on Laceby Acres. Town’s Holt is a sort of greenbelt area between the two. When we first moved to the Wybers it was all a big cow field and then they converted it to this grassed areas around the river with gravel paths and woods. Now it’s a bit more wild and there’s no area to play football anymore but it’s still nice for a wander. It is strange though to see trees that I would have seen recently planted years ago and now they’re 25 years old and totally established.

Monday 15th
Today we drove to my mum's. We spent a relaxing afternoon with mum and James and then had tea with Ellie (mmmm, lasagne...) once they'd been to pick her up from school. We didn't do a lot today, other than having issues with wireless internet and calling into to Morrison's for a bit more touristasising and drooling over food we miss. We couldn't resist a tub of Ben & Jerry's each - mmmm, chunky monkey for me and phish food for Joanne.

We're kinda toying with the idea of buying a Ben & Jerry's franchise to import it into NZ. Enough people over there have spent time in the UK or the US for it to sell, you know.

London, baby

2009-06-07T18:26:00.003+12:00

So, we've arrived. The flight and stuff was uneventful. And in fact might even be described as smooth. We ended up, rather fortutitously not having to queue to be processed at LAX or when we arrived at Heathrow. The longest wait ended up being at the baggage carousel. We even managed about 12 hours sleep in total between the two legs.

We're laying here in bed at Jez and Winnie's after close to 12 hours sleep last night too, hoping that we're totally over the jetlag already. We've found that staying up as long as possible that first day makes all the difference when trying to get into the timecycle of your destination. That and not constantly working out what time it is back home, of course.

Yesterday afternoon we'd arranged for a load of people from the barge to come across to Jez & Winnie's for an open home. Winnie had so kindly organised food and drinks and stuff for us too. In the end maybe twenty or more people came, with various babies in tow that we'd never met before. It was so brilliant to see all our friends and catch up with them for a while. People came and left between 3pm and 6 and it worked really well.

I think one of the things about moving to the other side of the world is that sometimes you imagine life in the place you leave just goes on pause when you're not there. So it was a great reminder of the falseness of that to see people and talk about how life's changed for them in the past two years for them. And meet their children. There has been a positive baby explosion at the barge since we left. I'm not sure what they're adding to the tea.

It's weird sitting here, in London. I've just been gazing out the window and everything looks exactly the same. Our flat was less than 400m from here, as the crow flies, maybe even less, so we know this area very well. And nothing has changed. Driving through London yesterday from the airport and on to the Isle of Dogs there are some changes, a few new buildings, but everything pretty much looks the same. And feels the same. In some ways it's like we have never been away.

But that's where it's weird. Because we have been away. For almost two years. We've had two years life in Nuzziland and life here has had two years without us. But now we're back, Chch almost seems like a dream. It is so far detached from our previous life here that it doesn't quite seem real. Just like when we are over there that sometimes London seems a lifetime away. It's difficult to explain.

One thing that's not difficult to explain is the London weather. We're led to believe that the last week had seen sunshine and temperatures of 28 degrees. But we landed to 12 degrees and grey drizzle. Ah, London grey. We left Christchurch to beautiful blue skies and 15 degrees. Tell me, which is winter and which is summer? If we'd not woken on Friday in NZ to -2 and a frost we'd be hard-pushed to tell.

Flights and fairy bread

2009-05-30T22:23:00.002+12:00

This time next week we'll have just touched down at Heathrow. It's beginning to feel a little bit real now. We're so looking forward to catching up with people.

At the end of each month at work, on the last Friday, each team in the office gets a turn to organise the end of month drinks. Sometimes there's pizza. Sometimes there's fish and chips. On Friday the HR department organised mini savouries (what little meat pies are called over here), cheerios (small pink sausages like cocktail sausages but pinker, bright pink) and fairy bread.

It's the last of these particular delicacies I want to talk about this evening. I can guarantee that no-one British will be able to guess what fairy bread is. Imagine this - slices of whitebread, buttered, scattered liberally with hundreds and thousands. No really. It's a kids party staple. Whereas I grew up with pineapple and cheese on cocktail sticks stuck in a foil-covered baked potato, kiwi kids grew up with coloured sugar on buttered bread. No really.

I was trying to visualise the process that led to this cullinery extravanganza. Picture this - mum goes out leaving dad at home with the kids. He's told to make them some sarnies for lunch. Bread is all laid out. Bread is buttered. Open cupboard. Hmmm, out of jam. No marmite. Peanut butter is running low. Er, hundreds and thousands? Er yeah, that's it. Just cover the bread in hundreds and thousands. Genius.

Only it's not.

Wet weekend

2009-05-25T18:09:00.002+12:00

It's been raining pretty much non-stop for the past week. The ground is flooded so football was cancelled and it was grey and miserable so a nice weekend cosy at home beckoned.

We'd made plans to see Si & Bek in the evening but when my footy match was cancelled it meant that we were able to see them in the afternoon too. The Tactix were at home this weekend so we decided the four of us would head along and catch some netball. It was quite a good game too, see-sawing this way and that. And the Tactix won aswell, which was a bonus. We're not big fans or anything but you have to support the local team, eh?

The day was wrapped up nicely with a dinner trip to Nandos for four and a movie back at ours in from the cold, sat infront of the nice warm fire. The only thing wrong with the day was the choice of film. Tropic Thunder. Oh dear.

Sunday was another day with friends too, which was nice. Church in the morning, quick bite for lunch, obligatory Sunday supermarket trip and then home in time for Kallie-&-Jo-from-over-the-back-fence to come round for a games afternoon followed by hearty ham and vegetable soup, warm crusty bread and apple crumble.

Ah, winter weekends...

North Island cities

2009-05-17T22:41:00.004+12:00

Has it really been so long since I've had a chance to update anything here? March? Ouch.

Well, in that time we went to Auckland for Easter. Two days with Len & Val and two days with Shirley & Tom. It was great to see everyone. It had been quite a while so it was good to have that time with family, just hanging out and stuff.

And then this weekend just gone Joanne and I had a weekend away together in Wellington.

Joanne's not been to Wellington for at least 20 years and I've never got further than the conference room in the golf club across the road from the airport in four attempts.

In summary, Wellington deserves its reputation - it is windy. But we had fun nonetheless. We wandered round a bit, got a feel for the place, went up the cable car, enjoyed some tasty food, went to Te Papa, and watched Star Trek. I think I like Wellington. I wasn't sure quite what to expect, but I think I liked it. I did like the art deco architecture. Sure, it wasn't to the degree that we'll find in Napier when we eventually go, but there were buildings here and there. I do like art deco.

We also had the opportunity to catch up with Elizabeth (Marvin, Melanie & Monika's mum) as well as Sarah (Anthony's sister) for a cup of coffee and a slice of cake. It was good to get to say hi to family of friends who live in Wellington who we've met a few times.

Flying horses

2009-03-22T17:59:00.008+13:00

This weekend Joanne and I had another weekend away. It was just a coincidence that it followed the weekend in Akaroa last weekend for Hannah's wedding. We wouldn't normally be away every weekend.

This week we headed down to Tekapo, which is about 3 hours south-west of Christchurch in what's called Mackenzie country. We stayed at a B&B called Alpine Vista and we can most heartily recommend it. When we do these weekends away it's sometimes nice to stay at B&Bs rather than in a motel or whatever. You get to meet your hosts and the other guests a whole lot more and for us it's a definite plus to get to talk to both locals and other travellers.

We drove down Friday night so that we'd have the full day on Saturday and got up early to make the most of the blue sky and sunshine. Tekapo is well-known for its lake which is a beautiful milky turquoise colour, due to the glacial rivers flowing into it. Iconic tourist attractions include the lakeside statue of a sheepdog as well as the Church of the Good Shepherd. These are next to each other and right at the start of the township so we went there and got these ticked off first.

Pete, the guy who runs the B&B, recommended a little spot down by Lake Alexandrina for a walk, so this was next port of call. It was a lake just alongside the much larger Lake Tekapo but quite a nice spot with a few typical Kiwi baches. It was lovely to stroll by the still lake basking in the morning sunshine. It's times like that that make me wish I carried a fishing rod with me. I hear the lake is full with brown trout.

Next up, as we headed back into town was the observatory at the top of Mount John. The Lake Tekapo area has been designated a UNESCO starlight reserve, the world's first. We didn't have a chance to look around the observatory unfortunately but its location serves as an excellent spot to view the surrounding countryside - the lake, the Mackenzie basin, the high-country sheep stations and the alps. You get an awesome view of the contrasting geographies and topologies that make up that area from up there.

The one thing we'd booked in advance for the weekend, other than the B&B, was horse-trekking. Now, Joanne's ridden before. As a kid she did it quite a lot and even found time in London at a riding school on the Isle of Dogs. Me, on the other hand, I've ridden a donkey on Cleethorpes beach. As such it was with great trepidation that I climbed aboard Rock, my horse for the two-hour trek, and set about trying not to fall off.

As it turned out, Rock was an experience old pro and knew exactly what to do. He stopped when he needed to, started when he needed to, turned left and right when he needed to - all irrespective of what I wanted him to do. He just followed the lead of the horse in front, plodded along, and mostly ignored the reins I was holding. I didn't fall off, which was a bonus. And didn't ache either, despite everyone warning me I would. Maybe that though is because we spent an hour after dismounting soaking in the nearby alpine springs.

At breakfast on Saturday we had spent a while listening to a couple from Portsmouth tell us all about the one hour flying tour up the lake and over Mount Cook and the glaciers. Sunday was even more beautiful a day than Saturday so we just could not resist the call of the air. It wasn't a cheap experience, but it certainly was an amazing experience. Getting the chance to see the landscape, the lakes, the mountains and the glaciers from that angle was mind-blowing, as we weaved in and out of the valleys and circled the peaks. Sadly the photos don't do it justice.

On landing we jumped in the car and sped as fast as (legally!) possible back into town. Joanne had noticed that there was a service on at 11:30 at the Church of the Good Shepherd. We arrived during the first hymn but were allowed in (they shut the church to tourists for the duration of the service). It is such a tiny little place, there were 23 of us in there, including the minister, and we'd have struggled to get more than 10 more. I think there were maybe 5 or 6 locals there and the rest of us were visitors, from as far afield as Germany, Seattle and Malaysia. The whole thing, including the sermon to some extent, served as a great reminder to us, that although this group of us gathered together for a snapshot in time in worldy terms as a disparate collection, we are all in fact united by Jesus and in spiritual terms are unified and family, even though we'd never met before and probably won't do again while we're here on earth.

Rugby and marriage

2009-03-15T17:48:00.005+13:00

On Wednesday I went along to the first of three monthly events hosted by Brad Thorn. The idea behind the evenings is to hold an event in an unthreatening, non-churchy environment when people can come along (and bring their friends) to hear prominent Christians talk about the difference that having Jesus in their life makes to them. Kind of pre-evangelistic events. At the first one last week Simon Barnett interviewed Brad Thorn. Next time Brad will interview Casey Laulala, while the third one will see Brad interview Simon Barnett.

The event seemed to go really well, with about 60 people there, many of whom were friends of people that they'd brought along. I hear the talk and interview went really well too, although I didn't get to hear them unfortunately. I was on sausage duty and had to make sure the bangers were cooked on the barbecue for everyone for the end of the evening. It was a shame not to hear what Brad had to say but it was great to be able to help to allow others to hear it, plus I have heard a potted version before. It seems Brad is keen to get more involved in things like this and use his exposure as an 'in' in this way and it would be great if we could get him along to give his testimony at the next Exploring Discipleship course.

This weekend Joanne and I have spent a nice, relaxing weekend away in Akaroa. To be honest the relaxing part wasn't the main focus of the weekend, but it sure was a bonus. Hannah, who I work with, was getting married to Luke and we, along with the rest of the Marketing team, had been kindly invited along. The ceremony was at Akaroa Heritage Park, a place with a fantastic view over the bays of the volcanic crater, while the reception was down in the township at the Gaiety Hall. It was a lovely day, the weather was great, and it was so nice to be able to share in their big day with them.

This morning breakfast was kindly put on for the guests that remained in town at Luke's mum's cafe so we headed down there. Also that was when Hannah & Luke opened their wedding pressies. It was such a lovely idea to open them infront of (and with) your guests. Really lovely. After that Joanne and I went for a walk. The sun was shining, the sky and sea were blue, and I remembered just how beautiful Nuzziland can be.

Culture vulture

2009-03-08T21:46:00.002+13:00

This afternoon Joanne and I headed over to Mona Vale. The weather was awesome and the entertainment was an open-air production of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. It's great to be able to do this sort of thing every once in a while, something we wouldn't usually do. And hanging out with friends is always good. We went along with Sarah & Anthony, Pam, Andrew & Lydia, Tim & Melody and also Richard & Heather, friends over from London and in NZ for four days on a bit of a flying world tour.

I'm not the greatest officianado of Shakespeare, but in my amateur opinion, it was really good. I think a lot of the witty wordplay left most of the audience wondering (me included) but the cast was good enough to let us have at least the gist of what was going on. Also the precis, act by act, in the programme was a big help.

To balance today's culture injection, yesterday Al & Naomi came over for lunch with their kids. Barbecue and karaoke ensued.

Assimilated

2009-03-01T19:26:00.002+13:00

I felt a bit more like a kiwi today. For lunch we had lamb chops with salad and fresh bread and potato salad of stuff. The lamb chops needed cooking, so rather than grilling them, or doing them in the oven, I just fired up the barbie. The kiwi way.

Oh yeah, and Julia brought some home-made curried rhubarb chutney. Oh wow!

Singing in the rain

2009-03-01T17:52:00.005+13:00

If you're not of these shores, I would guess that you wouldn't recognise any of the three musicians in the picture above. If you are native to Nuzziland you probably can recognise at least any two of them, and probably all three. You'll definitely have heard of all three.

Left to right we have the leader from the band OpShop, Anika Moa and Dave Dobbyn. And they were all playing yesterday at the Mud House Winery as part of a summer winery tour. And we went along.

We went with Si & Bek, Al & Naomi, Al & Ruth and Sarah and it rained. Quite a lot. But we knew it would. We have waterproofs. And a tarpaulin or two. So we coped. It wasn't heavy rain, but that constant drizzle that just permeates all but the most waterproof of waterproofs.

On the plus side, I now know that my coat is most definitely waterproof.

It's quite a strange experience going to a gig where almost everyone around you knows most of the songs really, really well. And you're just hearing them for the first time. This is especially true of Dave Dobbyn, who is a real Kiwi legend. He was playing these iconic Kiwi anthems and I was oblivious. I was just glad that four others in our group are Brits too. At least I wasn't alone.

Despite the weather I think we all had a great time. It's just good to hang out, y'know. And I do now feel I understand a bit more of this whole Dave Dobbyn phenomenon. There were a couple of songs that didn't do anything for me, but most I really liked. And he does put on a real show.

OpShop were good too, and given they're relatively new kids on the block I recognised half of their songs. Anika Moa played some good stuff (although she swears too much, especially since it was meant to be a family show) and I really loved the reggae version of one of her songs that she ended with. Sometimes I forget how much I enjoy reggae. Bouncy.

The concert was only one part of what's been a hectic weekend for us. It started on Thursday with dinner out for Jo's birthday (excellent food; small portions; too much garlic in the veg), continued on Saturday morning as we caught up with Marvin & Tianhao and their (relatively) new arrival Eden at Monika's (good news - the PT Cruiser is still running smoothly!) and ended with us having Dave & Julia and John & Joan over for lunch after church (no comment in brackets for this).

Joanne's off playing indoor netball at the moment so I thought I'd take the opportunity to get this all down. It never stops, eh?

Swing a cat

2009-02-27T15:21:00.003+13:00

I just learned this mind-blowing fact. And it's so mind-blowing I just had to share it with you.

If Stewart Island was divided into squares of 50cm by 50cm there would be enough squares for every single person in the world to have one. Put another way, every person in the world could stand on Stewart Island.

See, I told you it was mind-blowing.

For those of you with NE Lincs geogrpahical knowledge, instead of NZ graphical knowledge, that's pretty much like drawing a pentagon where Grimsby, Scunthorpe, Gainsborough, Lincoln and Horncastle are the corners and standing every person in the world in that shape. Market Rasen would be even busier than race day.

Dancing dragons

2009-02-22T16:20:00.007+13:00

Every year Christchurch City Council along with the Asian NZ Foundation organise a Chinese Lantern festival. It started in 2006, I think, so last weekend was the fourth annual running. I think it started originally as a sort of celebration of the Chinese New Year and Chinese culture with a few lanterns down by the Avon in Victoria Park but has grown into a whole cultural experience. As well as the lanterns, some of which are pretty amazing really, there are Asian food stalls and Chinese entertainment, such as dancing, music, singing and traditional puppet and face-changing acts. I think the highlight for me was probably the face-changing thing or maybe the face-changing puppets. That was an impressive combination.

The lanterns were really quite impressive too. I'm not quite sure what I expected but maybe the traditional type lanterns. You know, the sort of pop-out corrogated paper ones, with a candle inside. In the end, they were really amazingly detailed, as you can see from the photos. Well worth a wander round to have a gander. It was pretty busy though. Some of the biggest crowds I've seen in Christchurch.

Another totally original act, the like of which I've never seen, involved this elaborate crane-like contraption and a whole load of ropes, and dancing orange dragons. Hopefully you the video will give you a bit of a taste of what the show involved. I still cannot figure out how they turned the dragons round to make them go back to their house. And I'd hate to imagine the hassle it would be sorting out all the ropes if they got tangled.

This weekend has been quite a social weekend. On Friday night we had those involved with the Exploring Discipleship course over to ours for a bit of a debrief about how the course went last term and how we might tweak it going forward. Then yesterday we had a pot-luck lunch over here for Joanne's indoor netball team and their other halves, while today, after church, Tim & Christine had us and a few others over to their new place for a barbecue to thank us for helping them move back in December.

"While the cat's at home with girlie mates trying on clothes...

2009-02-11T22:41:00.004+13:00

...the mouse goes out taking photos."

On Monday Joanne hosted an Undercoverwear party at our place and had ten girlies over. I was duly banished from the house. So after I finished playing touch rugby at about 8pm I went for a drive and found myself at New Brighton. I had only ever been during the daytime and I'd been told that at night the pier lights up in pretty colours. I wasn't disappointed. It gave me an excuse to play around with some night-time photography and shutter settings and stuff too.

The square of the hypotenuse

2009-02-09T10:44:00.004+13:00

Usually I ignore those T-shirt ads you see in the sponsored bits down the side of websites. Most of the time the designs don't do anything for me, but this one tickled me particularly. You might have to be a bit of a maths geek to get it, mind.

If you don't get it, trust me, it's funny. And clever.

Those magnificent men in their flying machines

2009-02-08T22:39:00.006+13:00

When my dad was here last year one of the things we did was visit the air force museum at Wigram. Today they held their annual open day. Part of the programme involved an air flying display. I've always like planes (wanted to be a pilot in the RAF for a while, until poor eyesight ended that idea) and used to go to air displays with my dad as a kid. As a result I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go along to a display only a couple of kilometres from home.

The display wasn't quite what you'd see at a big European or American air display but it was still good. I was always going to enjoy it, I think. I'm always so impressed with what the pilots can do with their aircraft. You never expect helicopters to fly almost vertical or large planes to perform the tight banks and steep climbs that they do. And the close-quarters synchronised stuff is pretty special. The highlight for today for me though was probably what the pilots of a Boeing 757 and a Hercules managed to pull off. Just amazing.

The best seven

2009-02-07T22:21:00.004+13:00

There are certain moments when it's good to be an Englishman in New Zealand. This is one of those moments. This weekend the IRB Sevens World Series has reached its Wellington leg. New Zealand were at home, favourites and looking to retain the trophy they won last year. 43 games passed. Two teams remained - New Zealand and England. New Zealand led 17-5 at half-time. As the hooter sounded to end the second half New Zealand led 17-12. But unlike football play continues at the end of normal time until the ball goes out of play. So England had one last chance. Which they took. A try under the posts, duly converted. England win 19-17. In the Kiwis backyard. Ouch! :)

Yesterday, making the most of the lovely weather and the public holiday that is Waitangi Day Joanne and I took our bikes up to Bottle Lake Forest Park for a ride around. It's a lovely place on the northern edge of town, with tracks and paths where people ride horses, walk, cycle or run or whatever. It's so nice to get out and do some outdoorsy stuff whenever we can.

Last night we went round to Jona and Jane's, friends from church, for a bit of a party type thing, which was nice, to catch up with a few people. And this morning we went round to Dave & Kylie's for morning tea. Dave is the new assistant minister at St John's and one of his responsibilities is Bible studies and that includes the Christianity Explored and Exploring Discipleship courses. It was really just an introductory thing so we could get to meet them and so that he could hear from us about ED and from Cam & Jo about CE and stuff. If you are after prayer requests by the way, it would be great if you could pray for the Christianity Explored course that starts at church a week on Wednesday, that people would come along and have open hearts and minds to what they'll hear discussed from Mark's gospel. We're not involved in leading at CE any more of course, with our involvement in ED, but it'll still be great to have you joining us in prayer for the course.

Whoops

2009-02-04T23:30:00.003+13:00

I'm not quite sure how I've let over a month slip by since I last wrote something. A bit slack of me, I know. I guess the month's just been a bit full on really and I've not really felt like sitting in front of the laptop of an evening when I've got home from being in front of a PC all day. Poor show, eh?

Well, what's happened since January 2nd? I guess it's worth mentioning the rail trail. The weather this summer has been pretty awesome. One day it wasn't quite so awesome was a Sunday a couple of weeks ago when the middle of the afternoon saw rainfall and thunder and lightning and hail storms and more rainfall. This was the day that Joanne & I and Blair & Amy had decided to try the Motukarara to Little River section of the rail trail. We'd heard forecasts of bad weather coming in but it was sunny when we left home. Even the 'omen' of me blowing a valve on my bike tyre wasn't enough to put us off. We set off and then the heavens opened. We put a brave face on it and cycled probably about 7 or 8km of the 20km section. It wasn't cold or windy. Just wet. Very wet. A little short of halfway we all kind of decided we'd call it a day and save the rest for a nice day. Three of us turned round and headed back to where we started, and the car. Blair carried on. The other car was at the other end you see.

Maybe if it's nice weather this weekend, what with it being a three-day weekend and everything, we might try again. We got a towbar fitted on the big car today and I plan to buy a bike rack tomorrow so at least it means we don't have to mess around taking off the front wheels to load them into the car anymore.

The main reason for the towbar and bike rack is so that we can take our bikes when we have weekends away. We've not really taken many weekends away since we've been here but we've recently planned a few for the coming months. First up, next month, we've got a weekend in Tekapo planned. April sees us head up to Auckland for Easter to catch up with Jo's family. And then in May we've got a weekend in Wellington booked. Air New Zealand recently had a sale on internal flights too. $49 one way to Wellington. Can't go wrong, eh?

This Sunday just gone saw the annual church family sausage sizzle. As I mentioned last year the sausage sizzle Sunday always takes me back to our first ever experience of St John's four years ago now, when Joanne and I visited Chch for a weekend. This time Joanne and I were in charge of cooking the sausages. We had 420 to cook. They were the pre-cooked variety you can buy over here though so at least there was no risk of giving anyone food poisoning.

It still amazes me sometimes how Nuzziland cannot quite let go of the reins that keep it tied to the motherland. News over here quite often picks up something news-worthy from the UK, you see. Like the recent snow over there. Sure it's some heavy snowfall and stuff but if we'd had similar record dumps over here I don't think it'd make the BBC news would it?

I am so looking forward to the football season starting again this year. The first game is at the start of April. I really enjoyed playing last year and as fun as the summer league has been, it will be good to play teams a similar level and not come up against teams from divisions way above ours. I want to reach my twenty goal target this year. I'm determined to do it but the matches missed due to the Wellington weekend away and the UK trip in June will mean less matches in which to achieve it. We'll see.

Parties, beaches, pipi and visitors

2009-01-02T19:03:00.006+13:00

Happy New Year. A little belated, but heart-felt all the same.

So, another New Year's Eve another New Year's Eve party. Our fifth in a row and the tradition seems to be catching on in New Zealand. Most of our guests even turned up without eating first too. I think we had about 35 over this time so well up on the 10 or so we had for our first Nuzziland one. It seemed to all go well, I think. Enough people that karaoke wasn't compulsory, good enough weather to use the garden too, and enoough food for everyone, despite Jo's panics all afternoon prior to the party. Four chickens, a roast pork loin (with tremendous crackling might I add), some of Auntie Doreen's stuffing, a big dish of bobotie, and plenty of bread and salad seemed to satisfy everyone. I do love the way that people who swear they'll never sing in public weaken by the end of the evening though. It never ceases to amaze me.

Next week it's time for YLC again. Quite a few of the strand group leaders come over from Australia and often they need a place to stay while they're here. On New Year's Day a couple, Andrew & Jess, arrived. The conference starts on Monday but they arrived a little early so need a place to stay. We've got our spare room of course, so were happy to be able to open our home to them for a few days when we were asked. They're currently cooking us dinner and it smells pretty good, I have to say. It's always nice to meet Christian brothers and sisters you've not met before. Just having that one big important thing in common breaks down so many barriers. You might have nothing else in common but there is always a starting point with Christian family.

Today Joanne and I decided to have a day out. The weather for the past week has been lovely, right since Boxing Day, so we thought we'd head to the beach. Someone Jo works with recommended Tumbledown Bay, over on the south side of Banks Peninsula so we thought we'd give it a go, not knowing anywhere better. It was a lovely place. A long shallow beach protected by hills with clear water. We had a bit of a picnic, sat reading our books, went for a paddle and also 'caught' some pipi. I won't eat them of course but Jo loves seafood and catching them took her back to her childhood summers on the beaches.

Christmas no.2 - baked ham and leprosy

2008-12-27T21:50:00.007+13:00

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

2008-12-24T18:11:00.004+13:00

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

2008-12-24T12:15:00.000+13:00

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

2008-12-20T12:02:00.001+13:00

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

Kiwi germs

2008-12-18T22:47:00.005+13:00

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

2008-12-16T22:51:00.005+13:00

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?

2008-12-10T22:49:00.005+13:00

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?

2008-12-07T17:03:00.007+13:00

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

2008-11-16T23:43:00.013+13:00

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

2008-11-10T22:09:00.020+13:00

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

2008-11-02T17:42:00.009+13:00

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

2008-10-30T19:14:00.005+13:00

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

2008-10-12T20:36:00.008+13:00

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

2008-09-29T10:34:00.003+13:00

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

2008-09-28T22:13:00.005+13:00

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

2008-09-21T22:54:00.006+12:00

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

2008-09-17T23:23:00.002+12:00

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

2008-09-08T18:36:00.003+12:00

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

2008-09-08T11:35:00.005+12:00

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

2008-09-03T21:56:00.005+12:00

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

2008-08-30T12:07:00.004+12:00

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

2008-08-18T14:43:00.009+12:00

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

2008-08-10T17:39:00.008+12:00

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.

Snowy fun

2008-07-29T23:23:00.006+12:00

Spectacular, eh?

On Monday the weather was a bit hit and miss. We woke up in Methven to fog but headed out to Mt Hutt regardless. Halfway up the mountain road the cloud lifted a little and by the time we reached the top we were out of the fog but still below high cloud cover. The snow was lovely though. Great skiing was to be had, and we did indeed have it. All day. Until the light got a bit flat mid-afternoon-ish, at which point we headed back to Methven to recover from the day's exertions.

We spoke up this morning to find Methven again shrouded in fog. The snow report lifted our spirits though as it was scattered with phrases like "fantastic skiing" and "above the cloud". Once again we headed up the misty moutain road and today when we popped our heads about the clouds conditions were definitely not overcast. Beautiful blue skies highlighted fresh powdery snow. Oh boy, what a day.

It was a strange sight to look out over Canterbury and have it completely hidden by cloud, having a grey and miserable day when we were basking in sunlight. It was also rather a bizarre sensation to be skiing on a mountain we can see from our living room window.

We definitely timed the ski-trip right, I think. Tomorrow they expect 50cm of snow and winds topping 100kph. Such a contrast to today's utterly fantastic conditions. As you can probably tell, I'm still on a bit of a high. I think Joanne and Jason enjoyed themselves too. They were both certainly shattered by the end of the day, enjoying a kip in the car on the drive back home. A sure sign of a good day's snow fun.

I'm not sure I'll get used to see kea in the snow though. I didn't realise alpine parrots even existed.

One year down

2008-07-27T23:03:00.011+12:00

I've just realised that somehow I managed to miss our one year anniversary. On Friday Joanne and I had been in Nuzziland a whole year. 12 whole months away from the motherland. It really has flown by. It's been good though. We've done some great stuff while we've been here and God has blessed us richly with our house and jobs and mostly with the friends we've made at St John's. The hardest thing about leaving the UK was leaving friends and family behind. It still is difficult and I miss so many people so much, but we're building lasting friendships here now and it helps.

I think having Jason here this weekend has brought it all back to the surface again too, in some ways. Having a friend visit from back on the Barge has reminded me of everyone we left behind. It was the same when Caroline was here and when Ruth and Keith were in NZ too. I wouldn't want not to see old friends though, and have them not visit, don't get me wrong.

So yeah, Jason arrived on Saturday. My football match was cancelled due to excessive rainfall during the week which means that our moat/impromptu duck pond is back across the road and more significantly that I was able to take Jason on a bit of a drive around Christchurch to show him a bit of the place. It ended up being quite a tour.

We started up Dyers Pass Road stopping at the lookout point near the Sign of the Takahe for a couple of photos before the clouds came in. Then came the drive over the back of the Porthills round to Lyttelton, round the corner and over to Sumner before heading back into town to take in the cathedral, a shop or two, the Art Gallery, the Arts Centre, the Botanic Gardens and a quick cup of bubble tea. We then met up with Joanne in town (who had, incidentally, just won her first netball match of the season - a real cause for celebration!) for some dinner at the Tap Room. Mmmm, stonegrill.... you can't go wrong.

Today, after church we had Ryan, Bek & Si and Chris back for lunch. We wanted to introduce Jason to some of our friends from St John's. Scotch broth with home-baked rosemary bread followed by banana rum nut crumble and hokey-pokey icecream. Lush.

And now, presently and at the moment, I'm sat up in bed in a hotel in Methven. Tomorrow, assuming the mountain's open, we go skiing! My first time in the southern hemisphere too.

Winter wonderland

2008-07-24T18:48:00.003+12:00

In the words of Hubert J. Farnsworth - good news, everyone! 88cm of snow fell at Mt Hutt today which will be great for next week. Not sure if I mentioned but Jason is arriving here for a few days on Saturday (on the way back home after almost a year in Chile doing missionary stuff) and Monday and Tuesday next week we plan to take him skiing, reliving the Bulgarian snow adventure we shared back in early 2007. The bad news is that unless the weather clears a bit and they have time to perform what they call 'extensive work' on the mountain it is unlikely to be open by Monday. Fingers crossed, eh?

I just got back this evening from Hanmer where I've been for a work meeting. it was pretty full-on really but it is so nice up there, and it's good to get away from the desk for a while. Last night before dinner we had time to head to the hot springs too. There really is nothing like lazing back in an outdoor hot pool at night when it's cold out. So exhilerating. It brought back happy memories of all those February half-terms at Center Parcs we had growing up.

Flying around

2008-07-16T21:12:00.003+12:00

I flew up to Auckland today for a meeting. The week before last I flew to Wellington for a meeting. It all seems a bit strange, flying to Auckland and Wellington for meetings. I guess it's no different from flying to Zuerich or Antwerp for meetings like I used to when I was back in London though. It just sounds more exotic or something.

When I was in Auckland today the company we met work in an office in an area called Highland Park. It's near where Jo's mum used to live in Howick when Jo half lived there growing up. The office is also across the road from a Denny's restaurant. The same Denny's restaurant that Joanne used to work in when she was at Uni. It just seems totally weird to me that today I was at a place where almost 20 years ago Joanne worked opposite flipping burgers and pouring coffee. I'm not sure why it seems weird. Maybe it's just because that part of her life is so far away (in time and geographically) from the Joanne I now know. We grew up on opposite sides of the world. I guess I always thought I'd never have a link to that part of her life. And yet today I got a little bit closer.

Oh wow, it's just got even freakier. We've just discovered, by Joanne going through her old job references (why she has references from 20 years ago, I really don't know) that the first chartered accountancy company she worked for after graduating was also on the same street. Not only that, but it was actually in the same building as my meeting today. And that company still exists and is still in the same building. That's just spooky. In the whole of Auckland the only business meeting I've ever been to ended up being in the same building as Joanne's first professional job! Is it just me that's freaked out by that?

Chocolate custard

2008-07-12T11:27:00.004+12:00

I've just been knocking together a jug full of thick chocolate custard. We're going to a dessert party tonight so I've been making a blackforest trifle to take along (although it could be a desert party and I've misread a typo when it wasn't a typo which would mean I'm going to feel pretty silly taking along a bowl of cake, cherries, jelly, custard and cream). It's one of my favourites. And what we had for the pud at our wedding reception too.

The sun's shining today. One of the first Saturday's for a while that we've woken up to sunshine. Which is nice. It'll be good playing football again after last week's cancellations. I really miss it when I don't play. The pitch is likely to be sodden though. We still have that impromptu duck pond across the road from us.

Oh, and before I forget, we had some great news from the UK this week. My sister's got engaged. (Congratulations, Sarah!). The wedding's going to be mid-June next year so it looks like we might be planning a trip back up to the northern hemisphere in a little less than a year.

Chilly

2008-07-05T21:30:00.003+12:00

On days like today it's not hard to remember that I don't live too far away from Antartica. It started out just cold. And then it snowed. And then it rained. Then it poured down and was cold. And then the wind started too. And now the rain is horizontal and it's blowing a gale. I now know how the three little pigs felt. We were going to head out to the cinema this evening but we decided against it in the end. Watching TV in front of the fire with maccaroni cheese sounded like a lot better idea.

Earlier today, before the snow and rain and wind but not before the bitter cold, I went to watch Joanne play netball. Footy was cancelled this week because all the water from last week is still to drain away and all the pitches are still waterlogged so I thought it might be nice to go and watch Joanne. Well, actually Si & Bek fancied going and I thought it might be rude to let them go to support Jo while I stayed tucked up all warm in bed. I'm glad I went though. It was good to see her play. They didn't win this week. That's 0-8 for the season, I think. Just one win. That'll make it all worthwhile. Next week maybe.

More rain

2008-06-29T18:36:00.007+12:00

'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).

Shouldn't have bothered

2008-06-28T19:52:00.003+12:00

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.

Jasmine and bergamot

2008-06-26T22:19:00.001+12:00

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

2008-06-26T21:13:00.003+12:00

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?

Shakespeare, pasta bakes and crumble

2008-06-15T17:21:00.008+12:00

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.

Feeling cheated

2008-06-12T19:31:00.004+12:00

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!

Shoulder update

2008-06-10T10:10:00.003+12:00

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.

It's strange where life takes you

2008-06-09T22:48:00.003+12:00

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

2008-06-09T21:52:00.006+12:00

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.

Where does the time go?

2008-06-03T22:33:00.002+12:00

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.

A pig of a weekend

2008-05-25T22:21:00.004+12:00

Supposedly pork is the most widely eaten meat in the world, providing about 38% of daily meat protein intake worldwide. We've certainly done our bit this weekend - bangers and mash with pork sausages on Friday night; bacon, brie and cranberry panini for Saturday lunch; pork loin out at dinner last night; pea and ham soup for lunch today; roast pork and all the trimmings for dinner tonight. It wasn't even on purpose or anything. Just bad planning, I guess. No-one seemed to complain though.

I have to admit though, my crackling does rock.

Invaders from the north

2008-05-24T22:37:00.004+12:00

Shirley and Tom (Joanne's mum and step-dad, in case you've forgotten) are down for the weekend. They're taking a month to drive around NZ a bit visiting friends and family and this weekend they're down in Chch. It's nice to have them down here again and Tom hasn't seen the house since we bought it, of course, so he's enjoyed seeing what we've done with it.

This week's been another busy one. As well as the usual bible study group on Tuesday and week two of Exploring Discipleship on Wednesday it's been a totally mental week work-wise. Very stressful and full-on. People seem appreciative of what I'm doing and getting done though, which is good, and I've been told on numerous occasions that they wouldn't have been able to do the analysis I've been doing before I got here, which is good too.

To update you on the weekend's sport, Joanne's netball didn't go so well - 51-16, I think. Ouch. It sounds like the team they played shouldn't be in their division. Football-wise, we had a bit of a battle today. We went 1-0 up but then a silly back-pass allowed them to equalise. Then a flukey deflection off a knee in the box that could have gone anywhere meant we were 2-1 down at half-time. We got one back but then conceded again immediately. We fought back and equalised again before I had a chance with about five minutes to go to win it (would have meant a second successive hatrick too!) but it just dipped the wrong side of the crossbar. Gutted. Still, we fought back twice, have been living on our luck a little bit in the past few weeks, and so have to be happy with a draw. It does mean we'll probably drop to second from first (on goal difference) though.

Tonight we'd been out for dinner, to a place called Coyote on The Strip in town. It's a really nice place, great food. I'd recommend it to anyone. It was somewhere we went for food when we first Chch back in March 2005 actually, and incidentally where I first heard any tunes by the John Butler Trio. Not important or significant information really, but a fact all the same.

After dinner Shirley, Tom and I headed back home to watch the Crusaders in the Super 14 semi-final while Joanne headed out to Ruth's hen-night. She said she was just going to show her face. The plan was to end the night with karaoke. I knew she'd be out a while ;)

It's weird to think I've been writing on here over a year now. I guess looking back at what was happening this time last year is one of the reasons I started with blog.

Mmmmm, pie....

2008-05-18T17:20:00.008+12:00

Gabi from work came over for dinner last night. It was great to see her socially and try to forget about work for a bit. I cooked lamb curry (which was perhaps a little too hot, in hindsight) with turmeric rice and cucumber and mint raita. This was followed by a totally yummy plum and boysenberry pie with icecream or custard. Or both. We have leftovers for dinner tonight and I'm really quite excited by the prospect. Mmmmm, boysenberries....

The first night of the Exploring Discipleship course Joanne and I are helping lead went well on Wednesday. We had a great turn out with almost everyone who signed up making it along, which was a real answer to prayer. We spent some time looking at assurance and how we can be sure of our salvation from Romans 5:8-9 before studying Philippians 1:1-11 together looking at how God is transforming his people to the likeness of Jesus more and more and that we can be assured "that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus". A great topic to look at at the start of the course. This week is 'Trusting in God' (Ephesians 2:8-9) and 'Living in Christ' (Philippians 1:12-26).

On Friday we went out with a few people to a comedy night at a theatre in town. It was a really good evening, a couple of the comics we very funny. But it does baffle me why some comedians feel the need to just be extremely crude and cross the line so completely that if there was a line its now in a different postcode and they were going so fast when they crossed it that they didn't even know it was there. The first guy on stage, the only Kiwi comic on the bill incidentally, was hilarious. He had everyone in stitches and stayed the right side of the line. For me that's real comedy. Comedy that says "I can be funny without being crude and getting cheap laughs". Maybe that's it. Cheap, low-grade humour is easier. It was a strange evening though, in that we were out with people we didn't know. A colleague of mine had organised the tickets. She'd invited her mates but then asked people at work in our team if anyone fancied it. Joanne and I did so went along. Only the colleague who organised it left earlier this week on a business trip to Germany at late notice. So we still went along, but with her husband and her friends, and without her. They made us feel welcome though, which was nice.

And today after church we got invited out to lunch over at Sarah's with a couple called Matt & Tina and a girl called Pam. Sarah's so great for that, having people over, and getting people to meet each other who might not know each other from church. Plus the food was tasty too.

Oh and I can't go without mentioning yesterday's football match. Given the team we were playing contained five guys who work in the same office as me, whether I could walk into work tomorrow with my head held high depended on the result. All in all, it went better than expected. We won 6-2, which was a great start, but the fact I scored three and set up another two really added to a grand afternoon all round. Now I can go into work tomorrow, head held high, a slight smile on my face and don't need to say a word.

Joanne's netball didn't go quite so well. They lost 30-44. Joanne said that last week the girl she was marking was a bit shorter than her so her height advantage made up to some degree for her lack of experience. This week the girl she was marking was the same height as her, negating last week's advantage. She's still enjoying playing though, and that's what it's all about, eh?

More sport

2008-05-11T15:28:00.002+12:00

Joanne had her first netball match of the season yesterday. She seemed rather pleased with how it went. They lost 23-21 but given it was the first time many of her team have played together in a match and they were 12-7 down at half time Jo said they all seemed pleased with the overall performance, especially in the second half. As for her personal performance, Joanne thought she played well, really enjoyed herself and is looking forward to next week.

As for my football, we won 4-2. It was a pleasing performance against the team that was previously top of our league. We went 2-0 up (the first was an own goal - the defender nodded it into his own net from a cross as I challenged him for the ball, and the second was a powerful header from our central midfielder after I'd whipped in a left wing cross) before the opposition pulled it back to 2-2 on the stroke of half-time. In the second half it was fairly even, and the difference between us was that we took our chances while they hit the post twice, if not three times. It got a bit tasty at times with a couple of bad tackles and a bit of niggle and even quite a lot of blood split, although that was due to a total accident when two players went for the same ball and clashed heads. Pretty nasty stuff, although they both cleaned up, bandaged up and played on. No thought of a concussion risk or anything.

For those that do, please pray that Joanne and I can stand out as different among our team-mates and that that would be a great witness for Jesus. Obviously comptetive sport is an arena where aggression, anger, frustration and a lack of sportsmanship (ironically) can come to the fore. Please pray that our words and actions on the sports field would reflect our identities in Christ.

Carrying on

2008-05-06T11:55:00.002+12:00

Joanne and I went round to Cam & Jo's last night to discuss the Exploring Discipleship course we're going to be helping to run. It's a kind of follow-up to the Christianity Explored course we ran for people that want to continue or for anyone else within the church who wants to go over (as a recap or for the first time) the basics of living like a Christian. I'm really excited about the course. It covers thing like church and prayer and the Holy Spirit and evangelism and assurance and other stuff too. It will have short talk and then a short Bible study each week working through Philippians. It's kind of cobbled together at the moment from a few other similar courses but it really is a great idea. So often people come to Christ and make a commitment but what next? Theiy're left with questions. What difference will this make in my everyday life? How do I tell people? How do I read the Bible and pray? Quite often they're not ready to be thrown in to an established Bible study group and so this eight-week course aims to bridge that gap and answer those questions.

If it's what you do, we'd really appreciate your prayers for the course. Please pray for us, and Cam and Tim and Ryan as we lead the course; that we can find another female leader; that people who've expressed an interest would commit to coming along; and that people who are just toying with the idea of coming after hearing about it in the service last Sunday do something about it.

Also I'd personally like prayer regarding a men's event that St John's is helping put on in a week or so. Brad Thorn, the pretty well-known rugby player (played for All Blacks in rugby union and Australia in rugby league), is part of St John's too and there's been a guest event organised in the corporate lounge at the AMI stadium where he will "talk about his life, the sport he loves and his faith that pushes him to be the best he can be". It promises to be an interesting evening and what I'd like prayer for particularly is wisdom in knowing who to invite along and boldness to ask them. Thank you.

Oh, and just quickly, congratulations Sun and Naomi on the safe arrival of Joshua! Very exciting :)

Missed opportunity

2008-05-06T11:37:00.002+12:00

Sometimes I wish I had my camera with me everywhere I go. I'd look like one of those people who always have their camera with them but then I wouldn't miss those shots I want to keep or share. Take this morning as an example. I was driving in to work and just saw a scene that I would have loved to share. There was a heavy frost last night that remained this morning, accompanied by hazy, low clouds sitting just above the ground. As I drove past one of the fields on the edge of town cows stood around lazily on the hard, white field. Their breath caused small clouds of condensation in the cold air, and they disappeared off into the misty distance, shadowy, ghostly forms, while the low, winter sun tried in vain to shine through a leafless row of windbreak trees. It was a beautiful scene. And now it's gone. Forever.

One day we'll be able to download snapshots of our memory as jpegs. When that happens we'll be able to share the moments of beauty only we experience.

May the force be with you

2008-05-03T14:40:00.003+12:00

Last night Joanne and I went round with Anthony to Sarah's. She'd borrowed the Star Wars videos (the original three only, of course) for us to watch. One mammoth marathon evening of film watching, home-made curry, crisps, chocolate and diet coke followed. Accompanied by much laughing as is usual round Sarah's. I think I amused/startled the others with my knowledge of the Star Wars universe. I prefer the word 'fan' to 'geek', thankyervurrymuch. I think it's the first time I've watched all three right through in a row, you know.

Football's been cancelled today. It's basically rained for almost 24 hours now. There are ponds where there used to be dips in the ground and the road outside our house more closely resembles a river. It's definitely a day to be wrapped up nice and warm in front of the fire.

Bunch of big girls

2008-04-30T22:32:00.002+12:00

Football training was cancelled tonight. It was raining. A bit of rain and everyone stays indoors. Pfff.

False sense of achievement?

2008-04-28T09:47:00.004+12:00

I've been checking the league table for my footy team following the weekend's results. It's a little out because our result from last week and the result of one game from this weekend just gone haven't been entered yet, but even with that taken into account it shows something that is perhaps a little worrying. We should be either 1st or 2nd (depending on whether the unentered result from Saturday was a draw or not), which is good, but of the four teams we've played, we lost to the team actually in 2nd or 3rd and the three teams we beat are all in the bottom four. We're playing the other team in the bottom four this Saturday so hopefully we can continue our run, but after that I guess we have to play the other teams that have been winning a bit. Then we'll really see how good we are.

Fructose-loaded

2008-04-27T12:40:00.002+12:00

Fruit here is so much tasty than back in the UK. It's weird but the difference is amazing. We had a pineapple last night and it was just the best pineapple ever. Maybe it's because here fruit can be harvested when it's ripe, rather than being harvested before it's ripe somewhere else in the world and then being shipped to the UK. No time for the fructose to fully develop, I guess.

On a roll

2008-04-26T23:38:00.004+12:00

My football team won again today. The final result was 5-0. I scored one, breaking from the halfway line and passing it past the keeper stood firmly on his line, so that's four in three matches for the season now for me. That's three wins out of four now and we only lost that game (the one I missed, incidentally) 4-3. The other three matches have ended 4-0, 9-0 and now 5-0. It's going well, it's fair to say. I was told today that last year the team scored 22 goals in the whole season. We've scored 21 in four matches so far.

It's good to get to know the guys in the team a bit better too. I think, when Joanne was out with a few of her colleagues on Thursday night, I realised that one of the things I'm missing a bit about life back in London is just having mates at work to go out for a drink with or dinner sometimes or stuff. The people in my team at work are all nice enough, don't get me wrong, but it's not the same. Something's different. Maybe it's just a time thing, and will get better. Maybe it's a male friend thing. True, I have friends at church, some great guys, but I guess I am missing have guys around me at work. Although it's not purely a bloke thing, because Kirsty and Debs back in London kind of filled that role too. Either way, maybe, given time, the guys in the footy team will fill a gap. I don't know. We'll see.

On Friday night Joanne and I went to the rugby with Si and Bek. The Crusaders were playing the Blues. They're from Auckland and historically the rivalry would be equated to maybe Man Utd v Liverpool or something. That's where the similarity ends though. It was a Super 14 game, so we're talking one level down from international rugby. Both teams are littered with All Blacks. The stadium was full to the brim (albeit with one side stand non-existent while the ground is being developed) so there were maybe 20,000 people there. Yet you could hear the players talking on the pitch. At Blundell Park watching Grimsby play with a crowd of 4 1/2 thousand there was regularly more noise. I really couldn't get over how quiet it was. Watching rugby over here is such a different experience to footy back home.

A different sport altogether

2008-04-21T21:39:00.005+12:00

So what have we been up to since Friday then? Well, Saturday saw my second football match of the season and it went rather well. We were playing an away match down in Ashburton which is about an hour south of Chch. 4-0 up at half-time the match finished with us winning 9-0. Not too shabby. I scored two, which was pleasing, including a diving header I was rather proud of. For the second I played a one-two just inside their half and broke away from the defence before rounding the keeper. That's 3 in 2 matches for me now. It could be worse, for sure. Checking the fixtures today the big match is 17th May. That day we play the team that contains four of my work-mates. That's a must-win game if I am to show my face on the Monday following.

Saturday evening we went over to Joan and John's for dinner. They're a lovely retired couple we first met on the church weekend away back in November. They were part of our quiz team. It was a fascinating evening. They have just got so many interesting stories. We could have stayed all night. There were another couple there from church too, Ronnie and Nigel, an English couple, and their friends visiting from Hampshire.

This evening we've been out. And the experience was quite a first for me. Joanne and met for a quick dinner after work, but that's not the new experience. What came after was though. Just recently a new trans-Tasman (semi-professional?) netball league has started up which has five Nuzziland teams and five Aussies teams. One of the teams is based in Christchurch. And with Joanne just getting into playing netball again I thought it would be an idea to go along to watch a game. Dan & Fizz fancied it too so joined us. It certainly was an experience. Unfortunately the Tactix, the Canterbury team, lost and to be honest were never really in the game, always chasing both the scoreline and the Southern Steel players. What really stood out for me though (as well as the agility and ball-handling skills of the players) was the attendance. The Westpac Arena (where we saw Jack Johnson as well as where the Food Show was held and the Home Design show thing we went to ages back), in the laid out as it was tonight could probably hold 7 or 8,000. And it was full. A sell-out. For a netball match. True, it's the school holidays and the average age of the spectators was perhaps 12, but it is still an impressive turnout. My ear-drums are still recovering though. Do you know how much noise an arena full of teenage girls can make? The dogs in the neighbourhood are still howling.

Nice start to the weekend

2008-04-18T21:05:00.002+12:00

There was a great sunset on view as I arrived home tonight. It was so lovely I just had to share it.

Driving, kayaking and marine mammals

2008-04-17T20:57:00.021+12:00

5 days, 962 kilometres driven, 25 kilometres paddled, countryside, food, company and marine life. A short summary of the weekend away Joanne and I enjoyed. I would have written more sooner but we only got back Tuesday teatime and then had our bible study group and then last night we had the final week of the Christianity Explored course.

On Friday when we set off it was grey and drizzly. Given we had about 450km to drive we were a bit worried that the weather would ruin it. But we needn't have worried. Just north of Christchurch the clouds broke and we were treated to blue skies for the rest of the day.

We drove up north via Lewis Pass, via the centre of the country, rather the coastal road. Again I was blown away by the stunning views and scenery changes, how one minute you're surrounded by mountains or forests and the next farmed plains or rolling hills and scrubland. It was a lovely time of year for driving, with the sunshine but also the odd golden tree scattered among the green, the odd tree that's decided autumn's here already. And then as the afternoons get shorter and the shadows longer the mountains and hills create extra layers of atmosphere.

We stopped for lunch at Maruia Springs Thermal 'Resort'. It's a strange little place, stuck pretty much in the middle of nowhere. But after driving mile after mile of farm, sheep station and scenery, it was just about perfect.

The motel in Motueka was beyond expectations, well above what their website lead us to expect. Although we almost didn't make it. Just driving into town, passing the small field that passed for an airport a plane suddenly appeared overhead. And when I say overhead, I mean that if we had a sunroof in the car we could have reached out and adjusted the plane's flaps. It was that close. And it was fair to say it startled us a wee bit.

If you ever find yourself in Motueka around a meal time you have to try the Gothic Gourmet, what once was a church is not a restaurant. It is a shame that the old church is no longer a church and could be turned into a restaurant but it was tastefully done, even with paint splatters added to make the pristine plasterwork of the walls looked cracked and chipped. Very authentic-effect. And the food was great. Steak served raw on a hot volcanic stone so that you cook it how you like it yourself was the specialty. It was a lovely steak but there was definitely garlic hhiden somewhere in the meal. It meant a fitful, overheated night's sleep for me. I swear this garlic intolerance is getting worse.

Over Saturday and Sunday we kayaked probably 25km in total, which meant maybe four hours of paddling each day. The first day we had really smooth conditions but there was more of a swell on day two. The sun shone both days throughout though, which was a definite bonus. Joanne, sat in the front, made a good navigator. We missed all the rocks, unlike Howard and Dorothy, an American couple kayaking with us, who managed to get themselves balanced perfectly on top of a lone rock in the middle of the water. It took some pretty fancy navigation, I reckon, to get it so perfectly spot on.

We saw seals while paddling around, lazing about on the rocks in the sun. That's all they seem to do. The guide we had, Bruce, was great, filling us in on the history of the National Park and some of the more colourful characters of it's past. Kayaking is such a peaceful thing to do. Just moving and drifting with the waves, or paddling gently disturbed only by the occasional drone of a taxi boat.

The only downside of the National Park were the sandflies. Cheeky little bitey things. They look totally inocuous but their bites itch like crazy and come up in big welts. I missed my legs the first day with the insect repellant and they liked the taste of me. I also got bitten on my finger and half my hand swelled up. Supposedly sandflies are a big problem on the west coast. I'm not sure I want to go there in warm weather now.

Sunday evening, once we were returned to Kaiteriteri, was spent 40 minutes down the coast in Nelson. It seems a nice little town, a combination of a seaside town just off the hills and a port. Trying to find somewhere for dinner on Sunday evening proved difficult though. The place we ended up was just about to close and only just let us in. It was only 7:30. The food was lovely though. I had roast duck followed by an awesome chilli chocolate creme brulee.

On Monday we spent a few hours wandering around Nelson and having a bit of brunch. As I say, it's a nice little town, but a downside is that we got bitten some more. I'm not sure how the sandflies got through jeans but they managed somehow. After that we drove down through Blenheim and on to Kaikoura (well, just outside really, at Hapuku Lodge. On the way along the coast we stopped and saw some more seals but the main point to take away from the trip for me was the miles and miles of vineyards. I knew the Marlborough region was big on wine production, just I didn't expect it to that extent for some reason. The coastline north of Kaikoura is simply stunning. Rugged like the west coast but with added seals. We made the moast of it by stopping for afternoon tea at a lovely little place called The Store at Kekerengu. I recommend it.

We arrived at the hotel (a pretty special place, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and the raw ocean) about four-ish and decided to go for a walk along the beach. A storm was coming and the wind was getting up but it all added to the atmosphere. It did make us worry about whether we'd get out on the boat for the whale-watching the next day though. An exquisite dinner in the hotel (Joanne had to have crayfish, given we were in Kaikoura (translation - kai = 'food', or 'to eat', koura = 'crayfish') took our mind off the weather.

We needn't have worried though as when we woke up the sky was sapphire blue, the air was still and the sea, after we went and saw some more seals, was a little calmer than the night before. There was still a decent swell out on the water but nothing unbearable. Joanne still managed a kip while we were 'between whales'. I can't believe Joanne had never seen a whale before. I though it was something all Kiwis did as a rite of passage or something. We ended up seeing three, and as a bonus we saw plenty of birds (including wandering albatrosses) and Dusky dolphins and Hector's dolphins. I love wild dolphins, me. They just seem to have so much fun.

And then, that's it. We drove home. It was great to have time away with Joanne, just the two of us. It was great just to chat, to catch up with one another, to enjoy each other's company. Life can get so busy sometimes that it's nice to stop and say hello, y'know.

As expected I took loads of photos while we were way. A selection of them can be seen here and here. You shouldn't need a Facebook account or anything, if you haven't got one.

Oh, and while I was away, the 5-a-side team had the final to play. It didn't turn out so good. 5-4 up at half-time, 8-5 down at full-time. Ah well, at least we made it to the final, eh?

Great comeback

2008-04-10T23:00:00.002+12:00

So, we made Sunday 5-a-side final. The semi was tonight. We went 2-0 down and then pulled one back. Then went 4-1 down. It was all looking a bit bleak with about 5 minutes to play in the second half. And then suddenly it all clicked together and before we knew it there were two minutes to play and we were 6-4 up. It was a bit harsh on the other team as they all played well but I guess we probably deserved it in the end. Fingers crossed that the boys all do me proud on Sunday then and we play to the best of our ability. I'm gutted I won't be able to make it but I'm sure a weekend away with Joanne will more than make up for it, eh?

Coming to the end

2008-04-09T23:10:00.005+12:00

Tonight we had the penultimate week of the Christianity Explored course we've been helping with at church. The numbers are definitely thinner on the ground than at the start but there's still a decent number who've perservered to the end. If you've been praying for the guys attending (and us helping lead) over the past eight weeks thank you for your support and encouragement. If you wanted to continue praying over the next week can I ask that you pray that those people who are coming along would be challenged by what they're hearing about Jesus and would recognise the truth evident in it about his identity as God's promised King who died so that we might be reconciled to God. If they've not yet made a commitment to accept Jesus as their saviour and Lord please pray that God would open their eyes and hearts and they would make that commitment, and if they have made that commitment and are just attending to learn more and remind themselves of the gospel please pray that their passion and love for Jesus and desire to live for him would be refreshed and renewed. Thank you.

If praying is not what you, you can ignore that whole stuff.

Joanne and I have got our long weekend holiday thing up north (of the south island, at least) this weekend. We're so hanging out for a break. We've both been pretty full-on at work recently (at least I've not had to work weekends though) but one good thing has come out of that. My boss called me into her office the other day to say that she and her boss (who I do most of my work for) are really pleased with the work I've been doing lately and they recognise the effort I've been putting in and so I should take Joanne out for dinner this weekend while I'm away and recharge it to the company. Nice, eh? It's very pleasant to get positive feedback and feel appreciated for your efforts, I guess.

Joanne had her first netball training session last night. Actually I don't think I've mentioned that before have I? Just as I've decided to start playing competitive (social) football this season, Joanne's decided to start playing for a netball team. It's been 15 or so years since I've played for a team on a regular basis. It's been more like 20 years since Jo has. She really enjoyed it though and at least has a month before her games start so she can refresh her knowledge of the rules of netball. Time has definitely left gaps.

Not a bad debut

2008-04-05T21:38:00.004+13:00

That was fun. I enjoyed the run-out and the rest of the guys on the team seem like good lads. And it wasn't a bad start to the season either. We won 4-0. By the sounds of the reactions from the rest of the team though, that isn't as typical performance. I think they're used to finishing nearer the bottom of the league than the top. I thought we did ok though, for the first game of the season, and considering that there were three or four new players.

I was quite pleased with how I did too. I'm definitely not the most unfit on the team (far from it actually - think stereotypical pub team in many cases) and I scored as well as setting one up. I scored the first actually, after ten or fifteen minutes (a little chipped flick from a cross that I hit on the half volley ten yards out or so in front of the near post that looped up and curved over the diving keeper, if you're bothered.) Good way to make an impression on my new team mates, eh?

After today's match I'm a lot more confident about coping with playing footy again this season. It's gonna be ok. Also, it's amazing but my goal was captured on Google Earth...

On the go

2008-04-04T19:30:00.004+13:00

Tuesday - the gym and then Bible study group; Wednesday - the gym followed by week seven of the Christianity Explored course; Thursday - 5-a-side football followed a Young Adults group evening on Fleeing Sexual Immorality. It's been a long week at work as well and so I certainly think I've earned a quiet night in. Just a shame I'm all alone - Joanne's still at work. She's got so much on at the moment :(

Football was a little disappointing yesterday. A few guys were away helping on a kids camp thing and a few didn't turn up so we ended up with four players. It was our semi too. We had to borrow a keeper from another team but we still got battered. We have another chance next week though. The way they arranged the semis is that we, who finished second, played the first place team. The winner went straight to the final but the loser, which is us, gets to play the winner of the third v fourth match next week. Hopefully we'll have more players there next week and be able to get revenge in the final. Even if we do make the final, I won't be there unfortunately. It's on Sunday 13th, the weekend Joanne and I are up in Abel Tasman.

In a way I'm glad I won't be around for the final. That way I won't have decide, should the final be on in the morning, whether to play or to go to church. It's a tricky decision. On one hand, it's important for the non-Christians in the team to know where our priorities lie regarding church stuff. On the other hand, what kind of witness is it to let down our team-mates by not playing with them in the final after playing with them all season?

ooh, Joanne's home...

Food and friends

2008-03-31T21:08:00.005+13:00

On Saturday night we had our Bible study group round here. The plan was to have a pub-themed evening. We all brought pub-type food, like chilli beef nachos and chips and chicken bits followed by icecream. I'm not sure icecream is particularly pub food but I cannot refuse any opportunity to eat icecream, especially this Deep South Boysenberry & Apple stuff I've come across. It was Blair's birthday too so that provided a good excuse for a Divine chocolate mud cake. To complete the evening we all joined in for a pub quiz thing. To be honest I can't remember idea which came first, the food or the quiz. Our team won though (Steve, Anthony, Bek and I) although the other teams reckon that it was only 'cos we had four people to their three. Sounds like sour grapes to me ;)

Yesterday, after church, Joanne and I met Gabi at the Westpac Arena, the same place we saw Jack Johnson the other week. It was the Christchurch version of the Food Show that we went to with Len back in August in Auckland. Gabi is as much a foody as I am and she's not been along before so I knew she'd be keen. It was great. As good as I remember it. Plenty of wines and breads and jams and chocolates and meat and curds and cheese and stuff to try. And dips and pestos and licquorice allsorts and sauces and all stuff like that. Yum.

The clocks go back on Saturday so tonight was the last night we get to play touch before next spring. (Still can't get used to the seasons being in the wrong place down here). I'm going to miss playing touch on Monday nights. I've quite enjoyed it, learning to play a new game. I am looking forward to starting playing football in a couple of weeks though. Is three weeks enough time to get fit, I wonder. Maybe it'll be best if I finish the icecream in the freezer sooner rather than later, eh?

Almost a taste of home

2008-03-27T22:49:00.005+13:00

I went to the butcher's today to pick up our custom-made, specially-ordered Lincolnshire sausages. 52 sage and pepper pork sausages. The best $42 I've spent for a long while. I tried a couple tonight, practically the minute I walked through the door (after cooking them, of course!) I approve. I've had better, it is true, but not in this country. Given the pepper and sage proportions were guestimated from a range of online recipes I've found I couldn't really expect them to compare to Birketts' or Petitts' or Boston Sausage's but they're a really good step in the right direction. Maybe I'll get them to add a touch more sage next time.

I was speaking to a guy at work the other day about playing football. During the winter he runs a team, a proper 11-a-side team. He's recruited a couple of other people from the office. I mentioned I might be interested but unfortunately he's got a full quota of players. The good news though, is that one of the IT consultants we have around the office also runs a team in the same league and he's looking for players. I gave him a call and am ready to sign up. It's been quite a while since I've played full outside footy competitively. We had the fortnightly Barge footy back in London but it was still pretty much friendly stuff. The most recent regular stuff would probably be back at uni when I played for Ian's team sometimes, once the American football season was over. So Saturday afternoons from April onwards (except the 5th because the team has a bye and the 12th becuase we'll be up in Abel Tasman) I'll hopefully be playing a bit of footy. Training is on Wednesdays unfortunately, so given our current commitment to helping run the Christianity Explored course at church I won't be able to go along, at least for now. The guy who runs the team doesn't seem to think that'll be a problem though. I'm a bit worried about my fitness levels and my ability to last 90 minutes but with the rolling subs I've heard about I'll manage. And it'll get easier over time. And it's not like I'm doing no exercise at all or anything. I just need to ration the sausages.

Connections

2008-03-23T14:45:00.005+13:00

Yesterday, while wandering round Lyttelton, I spotted this sticker in a car parked by the side of the road. I must admit, it wasn't something I expected to read in the window of a car parked by the side of the road in a small port town in New Zealand, to be honest. For those of you less familiar with the term, a Yellowbelly is a term to refer to someone from Lincolnshire, the county I was born and grew up in. I'm impressed someone bothered to bring a BBC Radio Lincolnshire sticker all the way over from the UK to stick in their car. Although is it any different to me having a Grimsby Town car window mini-kit in our car? I guess not.

Also yesterday in Lyttelton Tim & Christine introduced us to to another couple from St John's. They're from the UK too and have been here a couple of years now I think. It's a small world though, eh? Julie was at St Helens for some of the time we were there and knows some of the same people such as Vaniah and Juliette, and David was at Warwick doing maths (although it he was the year above me). It's just weird to think that we've probably been at the same parties as Julie back in London and at least have sat in the same church services, while it's conceivable that David and I walked past each other at uni, him coming out of a lecture theatre as I walked into it or something similar. And now we cross paths with them again on the other side of the world.

Last night Si & Bek came over for dinner (chicken fajitas followed by chocolate and banana filo parcels) and then we headed out to the theatre. They'd had some vouchers as a wedding gift and my sister had got me and Joanne vouchers for Christmas so we'd decided to go together. I was especially keen to go now because currently playing is Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas. I studied it at school when I was 15 or 16 I guess and I seemed to remember I really enjoyed it. I wasn't disappointed last night. I think a small cast playing so many parts (only six actors played everyone in the play) made it difficult for people who didn't know what to expect to work out quite what was going on but by the second half it became clearer. The bonus though was the delivery by the actors. The play is such a lyrical, poetic piece with beautiful and innovative use of language. It would have been easily been spoiled with poor delivery but the cast did it proud, although the attempts at Welsh accents warbling between Indian and South African did make my toes curl a little. I actually found a copy of the play on-line so if you're interested you can see what I mean about Thomas's use of language. The way he uses nouns as both adjectives and verbs is like nothing else I've read.

Christchurch Idol

2008-03-22T15:15:00.004+13:00

Last night was so much fun. Caroline, a friend from back on the Barge in London is a good mate of Sarah's, the women's worker at St John's. She's over here at the moment coming to the end of a one month sabbatical thing with a bit of holiday thrown in. With my dad being here and Jo going over to Oz and stuff last night was the first time we'd been able to all get together. It was worth the wait.

It started with dinner at Sarah's. Tasty food (balsamic chicken with couscous followed by chocolate brownies and fresh pineapple - actually the pineapple would have worked really well in the balsamic chicken dish, but that's another matter). It was just loads of fun. We laughed so much. It was great to catch up with Caroline properly and hear how she's going and how everyone back on the Barge is doing and stuff as well as being great to spend some time getting to know Sarah better. What I really liked was getting to see another side of them both, a side of them that only exists when they're together. As I say, we laughed so much.

The evening climaxed with a trip into town to the gloriously titled 'Christchurch Idol', a real Japanese-style karaoke bar. One of those ones where you hire a private room to do it rather than embarassing yourself (in my case) in public. An hour and a half later we were all sung out. Solos, duets, a group effort on 'The End of the Road', the evening had it all. A particular highlight was the emotion Caroline poured into 'Sorry seem to be the hardest word'. I was almost quite choked and nearly rather moved. Again, we all laughed so much and were more than a little hoarse by the end of the night. I am glad the machine seemed to reward effort and enthusiasm rather than talent though. At least I think it did. It's the only way I can explain my scores in the high nineties for my Bon Jovi cameo.

This morning Joanne and I got up and headed over to Lyttelton. We'd arranged to meet Tim and Christine over there for a wander around the farmers market and a coffee. It was a nice little place, lots of fresh produce and locally grown and made stuff. Sure it was no Borough Market, but taken for what it is, it did it well. Plus, as a real bonus, we met a butcher there who is willing to make me some Lincolnshire sausages! I have a recipe I found online so all I have to do is phone him on Tuesday to let him know sage and pepper proportions and he'll knock up a 10kg batch, 5kg for us (we had to take 5kg to make it worth his while) and 5kg that he'll take to the market next week to see how they sell. Mmmm, Lincolnshire sausages. I'm drooling just thinking about them.

Such a tough enchilada filled up with nada

2008-03-21T16:31:00.003+13:00

We went to see Jack Johnson last night. The mellowest gig ever. Definitely a different vibe to the Bon Jovi concert. It was awesome though. He was on for two hours and there can't have been that many songs from his four albums that he didn't play. A great way to spend an evening, even if it did mean missing football. He's definitely the coolest Hawaian around.

Listening to him play took me back to the time I spent living in New York. Three months in May through July 2004. It was there I first heard his music, you see. Way before anyone else in the UK had ever heard of him. I have Ian to thank for that. He introduced me to Jack Johnson and I got together with him once a week to read through Ephesians. It always amazes me how God works to put us in places we can be useful to him causing us to cross paths with people when they're in need. We just need to be ready to fill that need.

Joanne and I went to church this morning. I always really get a lot out of Good Friday services. As a Christian sometimes we can become blase about Easter and what it really is about. Yes, we can trot out the right answers but it's good to think and meditate and reflect on it. On the surface, an innocent man was punished with death. Underneath that though, his death and resurrection achieved so much more than that. Jesus really did die on a cross all those years ago and the Bible makes it clear that it was for us so we can come back into relationship with the God who created us. If you're interested about why Jesus had to die you can read more about it here. (Thanks, Gavin!)

I got an big A4 envelope in the post this week. When Dad I went hot air ballooning there was an opportunity to buy a photo taken while we were up in the balloon, thousands of feet off the ground. I think it looks rather groovy. What do you reckon?

Smooth, round and shiny

2008-03-13T13:42:00.006+13:00

Autumn has definitely arrived here. It's a bit cooler than it was (although there are still times when the temperature gets above 20 degrees) and the leaves are slowly filling the city with a golden sheen. One thing Autumn also brings is conker season. And there are millions of the things around. Each morning and evening between the car and my office my short walk takes me past a row of horse chestnut trees. And each morning and evening I cannot walk past without stopping to pick a few up. Well, I say a few. My desk is littered with them and I hate to think what Joanne's going to make of the ones filling the slots and boxes and compartments in the car when she gets back from Oz at the weekend.

I just can't resist them. Maybe it's something to do with them being so smooth and nice to play with in your hands, or maybe it's something to do with them being so shiny and mottled like an antique walnut dresser. Or maybe it's just a hang up from when I was twelve and the walk on Sunday mornings from church to my nan's through People's Park in town that involved stopping and hunting under trees for conkers all autumn and relishing the feeling when you found one and finding a suitable stick to lob up into the tree to try and knock down that elusive conker not wanting to leave the safety of its bough. Conkers were rare in those days. Everyone wanted them, everyone at school played with them, and they were a commodity. Today, especially here it seems, you can quite pocketfuls lying around on the grass each morning and then again each evening. It seems such a waste to walk past and leave them there, all smooth and brown and shiny nestled among the green green grass. So I don't. I can't. I don't know what I'm going to do with them all though.

With Joanne being away at the moment, the rare evenings I've been in have led to me watching some stuff on TV that I might not normally watch. Like an English dramatisation of the Mayor of Casterbridge. Or the first half at least. I presume the second half is on next week. I remember studying the book at school and not really enjoying it. It could have been the fact that we had to write essays on it every few chapters discussing the characterisation and interplay between key characters and such like. But after we left school I always remembered the novel fondly. I even bought a copy a few years later but never got around to rereading it. So when the chance came up to watch it on TV it seemed like a good idea. At least, it will have been a good idea if I find out when the second half is on.

But yeah, it's been a pretty busy week really. No busier than usual I guess, just what I've done has taken more time. Like on Monday at touch, perhaps as there's only a few weeks of playing left, we played half an hour or so longer than usual so that it was past half eight by the time I got home. On Tuesday I rushed out of work to the gym for the boxing circuits class thing before making my way to Lisa & Steve's for our bible study group via the supermarket and then ended up staying till 11 chatting to Ruth and Lisa and Anthony. And then last night, again a rush to the gym followed work before I arrived at church for week four of the Christianity Explored course. After setting up, the discussion times, the talk and clearing up afterwards Joel, Ryan, Tim and I headed out with a quick drink and again it was after 11 by the time I got home. It's been a non-stop week.

Oh, and yes, I am missing Joanne. The house is empty without her.

A bad sporting weekend

2008-03-09T15:38:00.003+13:00

England lost to NZ in the cricket, England lost to Scotland in the rugby, Man Utd lost to Portsmouth in the FA Cup and Grimsby lost too. Could it get any worse?

On the plus side, I've just watched Napolean Dynamite. I'm not sure what I was expecting but it wasn't quite that. A bizarrely charming film. Or perhaps a charmingly bizarre film. Or maybe both.

Nacho Libre next. Thank you Si & Bek for the loan of the DVDs :)

And then there were two again, then three, and then one

2008-03-08T12:37:00.005+13:00

So Dad's gone now. I can't believe how fast his time here passed. It was so great to see him though. I think he had a great time. So many first time experiences (for me as well as him). His time here has reminded me about my family back home though, my mum, my sister and Ellie, as well as my Dad. And then there's Pamela and Rob and the kids too. I know we didn't see them that often with us living down in London and them all being up north but we could see them you know, two or three times a year. But now we can't. I'm not going to see my dad again for a year and a half probably, my mum not until maybe Feb 2010 I think it was, and I have no idea when I'll next see Sarah and Ellie. It's hard.

Joanne and Shirley left for Oz this morning. Shirley arrived yesterday down here from Auckland only to find that their flight to Brisbane was cancelled and they had been put on a flight to Auckland to catch a flight over the ditch from there. At least Shirley got to see what we've done to the house since she was last down here, eh?

Joanne's really looking forward to seeing her sister and her family. It's been three years since she's seen them and she's not even met one of her nephews. She's ready for a holiday too. She's been working hard recently and could definitely do with a week off.

So now there's just me sat at home, wondering what to do with myself, recovering from a bit of a cold and sinusitis that kept me off work yesterday. At least the cricket's on. I just wish England were doing a bit better.

Up, up and away

2008-03-04T18:02:00.008+13:00

Wow. That's all I can say. After last month's disappointing trip round Canterbury with a hot air balloon trying to take off only to be foiled by wind, today we got up. And it was so fantastic. I cannot recommend it strongly enough. It's such a shame that the photos I took really don't do it justice. It was just so calm up there, and peaceful. Just floating around in the wind, not knowing where we're going to end up. Quite an experience.

I woke at 4:30am and phoned the ballooning hotline to know whether we were going ahead. The weather forecast for today was mixed and so, going to bed, I was unsure what the message would say. It was quite exciting to hear the words "the flight is going ahead". An hour later we were parked up in the dark in the carpark of a suburban mall. It still felt very clandestine.

A further hour later we were at Darfield helping the pilot and ground crew unwrap the balloon (the technical term is 'envelope', you know) and inflate it. Less than an hour later and we were lifting off, rising above the tree-tops, the ground getting further and further away, heading up towards the clouds. We stopped ascending at around five thousand feet. The view was just spectacular. It would have been awesome if there had been no clouds and everything had been in plain view but it also made it more special when light broke through the clouds in places highlighting patch of the plains or a snow-capped mountain top.

An hour later and we were skipping over rooftops, knocking through treetops before we came down to earth in the middle of a field with a bump. The landing I didn't enjoy. Not the best part of the flight. But I'd go through the landing again to have the flight again. We'd travelled about 60km, I think.

We all chipped in to help put away the basket and envelope and then the champagne was dished out. The pilot related a story telling how the post-balloon flight champagne tradition came about. If he's to believed it is to do with the Montgolfier brothers and them wanting to prove they were actually French when landing in their early balloons in the French countryside to stop farmers attacking them with pitchforks. Supposedly.

If you get the chance, do this. Despite the very unsociable morning it was so worthwhile. I wish you'd all been there.

Rivers, valleys and mountains

2008-03-03T19:59:00.008+13:00

Yesterday was a quiet day involving church, shopping for perfume and Joanne singing with the music group at church for the first time in New Zealand. She was rostered on for the evening service and we haven't been to an evening service here since we visited Chch and St John's three years ago so that made a nice change. It definitely has a different feel to the 10am service. Joanne definitely enjoyed singing at the front though. It's great that there's a way she can serve that she loves so much.

Today was a little busier though. My dad and I were booked on a jetboat-4WD drive tour thing. We headed out to Springfield to meet the tour bus and got dressed up for the jetboat along the Waimakariri river. It was great actually, very exciting shooting along the rocky river at the bottom of the gorge dodging in and out of boulders and scraping the paintwork of the boat on the rock walls. The driver looked a lot more relaxed than the passengers, especially when he threw the boat into a 360.

After the boat they loaded us all into a Unimog. I was expecting a 4WD vehicle like a Landrover or something, not an ex-military vehicle. It really was quite impressive. Unfortunately we could head up into the hills too much due to the volume of rain that's fallen in the past few days but we still had a great trip along the floor of the valley. I've never seen so much gorse. And I have no idea how three of the four Taiwanese girls on the trip fells asleep as we bounced over the beautiful scenery.

After lunch, which we had in a nice little cafe place back in Springfield, the sky started to clear a bit so I thought we'd take advantage and go on a little tour. Mount Hutt, a ski resort, was reasonably close to where we were so I thought we'd head there. I wasn't really sure quite what to expect as we sped along the Canterbury Plains. Even if it was rubbish when we got there the drive was still worthwhile, especially when we stopped by the Rakaia river for some photos.

What we found, as we turned off the main road, was an unsealed road heading straight up the mountain. We thought the view would be better further up so carried on going. It got steeper and steeper and a little narrow and a tiny bit slippery driving over the shale. When the car behind us turned back I remembered why we'd bought a 4x4. The view was pretty spectacular.

The view stopped being so spectacular once we headed into the clouds. The road kept going though. Up above the snowline we slowly made our way. Eventually it got too much. The clouds were getting thicker, the snow on the road was freezing and someone heading the other way said that 4WD was essential a bit further on. We decided to admit defeat and turn back rather than being brave/stupid and press on. No-one knew we were up there and it wasn't worth the risk getting stuck or something. In the winter when the ski season is open we'll have snowchains on and the road will be better manned. I'll feel safer then. Hopefully the clouds won't be so low too. Driving over snow-covered shale in the fog wasn't something I'd like to repeat too often. It was exhilerating but just a little scary too. It was a long way down off the edge of the road.

Canterbury is such a place of contrasts. Less than an hour after being up a mountain surrounded by snow we were back on the plains surrounded by sheep, cattle and crops. And a giant salmon.

Dolphins, seals and penguins again

2008-03-01T21:34:00.008+13:00

You can't go anywhere down here without bumping into wild life. It's really quite cool.

Dad got back from the North Island today. It sounds like Shirley & Tom and Len & Val really looked after him. Joanne and I both really appreciate how welcome they made him. He went fishing, saw the sun rise, had dinner at the top of the Sky Tower, went to the glow worm caves at Waitomo and saw some kiwis (the birds, not the people - well, the people too, I guess). And that's just the stuff he's had time to tell us.

We picked Dad up from the airport this morning and headed into town. We'd promised him breakfast at Drexels, Joanne's favourite breakfast place in the whole world. He wasn't disappointed. The waitresses were impressed he managed all three banana pancakes.

After breakfast we headed on over Banks Peninsula to Akaroa. It's the first time we'd been back since we took the Hyundai for a test drive back in August. It rained that day too. I'm struggling to believe Akaroa exists when it's not raining, you know. I've heard it's a lovely place when the sun's out, but I reckon it's all a local conspiracy. Still, it's not a bad place to visit, even when it's grey and wet. Atmospheric, they call it.

We'd booked ourselves on the BlackCat harbour cruise. I still get blown away by the Nuzziland scenery. It's just stunning, even when the sky's gloomy. Add in dolphins, seals and the occasional penguins and the two hour boat trip was well worth the money. I just love seeing the creatures in their natural environments.

We definitely have to go back to Akaroa when it's sunny. Maybe take a kayak out or something.

Yesterday was a fun evening. It was Sarah's 30th birthday party. A pop star fancy dress party with added lip-sync performances from a plucky few. We had Abba, the Village People, Elvis, a memorable Flashdance number and a bit of Madness. And more than a bit of madness. Joanne and I didn't perform but we did get dressed up. Joanne went as the blonde one from Abba (Agnetha is it?) and I put a cowboy hat on to complete my transformation into Garth Brooks. Bit of a cop-out, I know, but lots of people guessed who I was, which was surprising. Si and Bek went as Justin Timberlake and Amy Winehouse. Other people were Pink or Posh Spice or Bob Dylan or JK or many others. I was well impressed with people's effort.

I so hope the weather clears up soon. We need good weather for Monday and Tuesday for Dad's last week.

All the more for us

2008-02-26T22:25:00.003+13:00

Tonight our bible study group was due to meet around at our house given Lisa & Steve are still away. It was just one of those weeks though where everyone had something on or had something come up. In the end there was only me and Joanne and Anthony who made it. Still, it meant more of Joanne's birthday cake to go around, eh? It was very tasty.

Happy Birthday, sweetie! ;)

In summary

2008-02-24T16:53:00.007+13:00

Ok, only time for a quick summary of the week since I wrote on Tuesday, I'm afraid, but I thought I better write something to fill in the blanks before anyone else tells me off.

On Wednesday afternoon we had the disputes tribunal thing regarding the payment for the wall we had built across our garden. I probably can't write too much about the details here (and it would take too long) but in summary, the dispute was resolved ammicably and we don't feel hard done by, so that's good. We paid half of the amount the builder considered due and he had to take the other half on the nose. Feels about right really, but a big relief to have it all dealt with now. It was just a shame that it had to come to that.

On Wednesday evening we had the first Christianity Explored session, as I've mentioned before. There were perhaps not as many people there as we'd hoped (some people who had signed up didn't make it) but the bottom line is that there were some people there, and if one person gets to hear the gospel faithfully explained then it's worth running the course.

Thursday evening saw us lose 9-8 at footy, but I so enjoyed this week's game compared to last week's game when we won 16-3. It was a real battle right up to the final whistle. Last week our opponents gave up at half time effectively, and then the game isn't enjoyable for anyone.

On Friday evening Joanne and I went to the cinema to see Jumper. It was ok, I guess, fairly enjoyable but I wouldn't advise anyone to rush out to the cinema to watch it. I couldn't help think of Hayden Christensen as anyone other than Anakin Skywalker and the film really felt more like a pilot for a TV series than a proper movie.

On Saturday my dad got back from his coach trip and was understandably full of stories of the places he'd been and the sights he'd seen. I think it's fair to say that he rather likes Nuzziland. Tomorrow he heads up north to spend a few days each with both of Jo's parents. I know he'll have a great time up there and that Shirley & Tom and Len & Val will take good care of him and give him opportunity to take lots more photos.

Last night Dad took us out for dinner, which was nice. I'd booked us a table at Stromboli which Lisa at work (or at least, she used to work with us) had recommended. The food was tasty, it was a nice place, but somehow I got given a kid's portion of the pasta I ordered.

And then finally we arrive at today. We had Wally & Rosemary (our vicar and his wife) over for lunch after church. We've been trying to arrange something with them for a while and we finally got a date in the diary. It was nice for them to be able to come over and meet Dad while he was here too. It was good to hear a bit more about them and their history and what brought them here and stuff. And also to be able to share a little of our history with them too. At Joanne's request, we ate bobotie. I have a great recipe for the Cape Malay dish (thank you, Helen) that always goes down well. I not sure me having it with HP Sauce is necessarily authentic (and I'm sure my South African friends would tut in disapproval, eh, Ruth?) but I'm not a fan of fruit chutney and it achieves the same end really.

Finally a bit of blue sky

2008-02-17T18:06:00.008+13:00

Christchurch finally rolled out the welcome mat for my dad today with beautiful, cloudless blue skies. You wouldn't believe it rained for the past 48 hours or so and that makeshift ponds had formed where once there had been only been a hollow. The ducks seemed to be loving these new aquatic playparks.

We decided to take advantage of the great weather and headed out straight after we'd finished at church. Our first stop was for a spot of lunch at the Watershed pub where we'd helped Bek celebrate her birthday earlier in the month. It really is a great location by the estuary. We sat and enjoyed our food while watching kite surfers out on the water.

After lunch we drove over to the gondola. It was a perfect day for it as the whole of the Canterbury plains lay spread out before us, the glistening blue Pacific over to the right and the Southern Alps over in the distance, the sunlight reflecting off their snowy peaks. We could see right up the coast to the Kaikoura ranges, close to where we were just yesterday.

Back down at the car we loaded up and headed for Sumner and the beach. It was a little manic over there, what with the sunshining after a week or so without much of a break in the clouds, so we just kept on driving. Through the back of Sumner we headed and up onto the Summit Road into the Porthills. I know Joanne hates the tight, winding roads smothered with weekend cyclists but it really is a spectacular little trip. The views are something else. Round each corner you focus on something new.

By now it was mid-afternoon, and time for afternoon tea, natch. We headed off down Dyers Pass Road and pulled in at the Sign of the Takahe. High teas all round sat in the sunshine overlooking the city. I think I've found a new spot in Christchurch to add to my favourites list. Plus, a little stroll away is an awesome look-out spot where you can fully appreciate the view.

I think it was good Dad got to see Christchurch in all its glory before he heads out on his South Island tour tomorrow.

"Thar he blows!"

2008-02-16T17:46:00.021+13:00

I'm going to start by taking you back to Thursday. So much has been happening in the past few days, new experiences for both me and my dad, and I don't want to miss getting any of it down.

After the disappointment of the cancelled hot air ballooning (I have re-booked us for early March, just before Dad goes home) and a bit of a nap our first port of call on Thursday was the Air Force Museum just down the road in Wigram. Sure, it's not quite Duxford but it was never going to be was it? Nevertheless the museum does a great job of telling the story of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. From its inception when the government began assisting two private flying schools for Kiwi training pilots to fight in WWI as part of British Royal Flying Corp, through Henry Wigram's efforts to form the New Zealand Permanent Air Force in the Twenties, through the Kiwi squadrons that fought for the Allied Forces in WWII in both the European and Pacific theatres, to the current RNZAF, it's all covered. Plus they have some awesome restored planes too. They have both a Spitfire and a P-51 Mustang, two of my favourite WWII planes, so I was more than happy.

Next on our agenda was the International Antarctic Centre, which was where we had my work Christmas party. It's one of the essential things to do in Christchurch really. To be honest, it's a little disappointing. There's a room when the temperature gets down to minus 18 or so (my Dad works with refrigerated lorries and cold-stores so that's not a big deal for him really) and a room where it "snows" bubbles and the light changes to reflect an Antarctic Year. The whole experience is saved, however, by the combination of the Hagglund ride (that is one amazing vehicle!) and of course, the penguins. Everyone loves penguins. Even if they do smell of fish.

The final thing on the agenda for Thursday was the usual 5-a-side footy game. Joanne and Dad both came to watch. It was Joanne's first time seeing me play competitively and Dad brought his camera. It was weird having them there. I never usually get nervous before the game each week but suddenly I was wracked with butterflies. The pressure to perform was overwhelming. I needn't have worried, luckily. We played some great football as a team, scoring 16 to our opponents' 3.

And so now we come to Friday and waking up to torrential rain. Knowing how changeable the weather can be and given our hotel in Kaikoura was booked and paid for we loaded up the car and drove off regardless.

Our first stop north was even before we exited the city. Dad loves everything aviational and spends hours playing flight sims, especially flying commercial liners. So for his joint Christmas and birthday Joanne and I bought him a Flight Experience package. Basically it was half an hour in a state of the art flight simulator fully controlling a Boeing 737 as it took off from Christchurch circled over the Banks Peninsula and landed back at Christchurch airport. At least that was the theory. The pilot giving Dad instructions told us that a few pilots don't survive the trip, with some even failing to get off the ground. Dad's flight sim hours paid off though with a near impecable flight coupled with lots of positive noises from the instructor. It was all very impressive. Dad was easily in the top 20% of people making their first flight with the machine, we were told.

As we got to the outskirts of Christchurch the rain began to let up and the two-hour drive north on highway 1 was not as wet as we might have expected. Still, clouds hung around and we only got rare glimpses of blue sky. It didn't spoil the drive though, the scenery is stunning whether the sky is grey or blue, especially so given it was Dad's first experience of the sheer variability of the Kiwi landscape. Kilometre by kilometre it changes and you never know whether the next stretch will be flat fertile plains, barren moors, alpine forests or craggy mountain passes. It is certainly a lot more interesting that driving mile after mile along UK motorways.

We arrived in Kaikoura and decided to go for a bit of a wander first. Our first excursion was not for a couple of hours so we had time to grab some lunch and check the place out before we checked in to our hotel. As we drove round a bit we accidentally stumbled across a seal colony at the end of the peninsula. We got quite a shock. There were just twenty of so fur seals just lazing around on the rocks, quite oblivious to the crazy tourists snapping away with their cameras. I guess the seals have seen it all before.

The first thing I had planned for us was a kayaking trip. We were a bit worried as the wind was pretty strong and there were some mighty big waves we could see. We had heard that all the whale-watching trips that day had been cancelled and also the rain was on and off. Rather fortuitously the weather cleared a bit when it came to kayaking time. Also, due to the nature of the peninsula and its bays and coves, the swell didn't effect all of the sea, if you see what I mean, so where we went out was pretty smooth.

It was great to kayak up to the seals on the rocks and get a whole different vantage point. We were able to get so close to them. The seals kind of reminded me of a cross between dogs and bears. But with flippers, obviously. I felt so spoiled being able to see them in their natural environment. It is a completely different experience from seeing them in a zoo or somewhere.

Another highlight during the kayaking for us was when the ugly grey clouds that had been enveloping the mountain range to the north of Kaikoura lifted to reveal a dusting of snow. It really completed the vista. It was a little strange to see snow in February, what with it supposedly being summer and all, but mountains look better when they're snow-capped.

We had dinner in one of the oldest hotels in Kaikoura, one that dates right to the whaling-days of the town. Beautiful food, as with most places in Nuzziland, and Dad was introduced to Monteiths while England finally won an ODI in NZ.

And so finally, we arrive at today. We were booked on the 7:15 whale-watching boat and were more than a little nervous given all Friday's boats were cancelled and the forecast was for more SW-erly wind. My alarm went off at 6am (after less sleep than I would have liked due to Dad's snoring) and I decided the best thing to do first would be to phone the whale-watch people. There would be no point getting up if it was rough our there and the boats were cancelled. My "can you tell me what it's like out there?" was met with a "dark". It is no time for humour when I've only been awake two minutes. After I'd sewn my sides back up I managed to extract the fact that at the present the boats were still on schedule but they were expecting high winds at any time. Surely we couldn't have another ballooning experience with an early morning get-up followed by hope and then disappointment could we?

Well, no, we couldn't. Not this time, at least. The wind stayed off, we checked in, got on the boat and headed out into the greyness, although the threat of the wind hung around like a bad smell.

It didn't take us long to sight our first sperm whale. The boat before ours had reported seeing one dive about half an hour before and so we headed out to the same spot, expecting him to surface soon. We weren't disappointed. However much you look at pictures and watch videos of whales, to actually be there, only fifty metres away from this colossal majestic beast, is something else. And it's all very exciting seeing the whale on the surface, seeing the spray spurt from the blowhole, but the real excitement comes when they dive, with that trademark shot, tail in the air as they head back down to the feeding ground.

We were really quite spoiled this morning in the end. We didn't see just one whale, but two, as another surfaced a little later not too far way from us. And then, just to complete the experience, the first one resurfaced and we got to see him do it all again.

Running out of time, the boat headed inland. As well as resident sperm whales, Kairkoura is also home to dusky dolphins. It wasn't long before we came across a pod of two hundred or so of the playful little fellas. Just like the seals, it really is such a different experience to see them out in the wild, in their own environment. Joanne and I swam with dolphins in Mexico but to see this many, all together, swimming and jumping alongside the boat, just having fun for the sake of it rather than because they were trained to do so, was just awesome. I wish I had the words to do the whole experience justice.

It was only when we got back to the marina did we realise just how lucky we'd been. All of the boats following ours had been cancelled. The high winds had arrived.

For the return drive to Christchurch we took a different route, the inland route. It was a bit longer but I thought it would be nice to go a different way. Once again, the scenery was breath-taking, ever-changing, and although the cloud and rain spoiled the views it added to the atmosphere.

It's all backwards

2008-02-15T07:42:00.002+13:00

Why is it that when I had to sit in the office working all day every day in January the weather was fantastic, and now that my Dad's arrived and we need good weather to the all manner of outdoory stuff I had planned it's bucketing down?

Having wind

2008-02-14T11:07:00.003+13:00

My alarm went off at 4am and after the initial "what on earth is that?" confusion I got up to phone the hot air ballooning hotline. A recorded message with a Bristolian accent told me the flight was on. We were a go.

A rush job of getting ready was followed by the drive to the carpark of a suburban mall where a stream of cars arrived and parked up. It was still very dark. It all felt very clandestine.

A few minutes later two busses, each towing a trailer carrying a big basket, turned up. At least we were in the right place.

What followed reminded me of that American film about people chasing tornados starring that bloke who played the president in that other film. We would drive twenty minutes or so and then pull over to let the drivers and balloon pilots inflate and let fly a small yellow balloon to judge wind direction. The company has ten sites spread over Canterbury so that they can get everything right and cover all eventualities.

One eventuality that they couldn't cover was the southerly front coming in earlier than expected and making wind conditions incredibly eratic. So two and a half hours after being told the flight was on, the same Bristolian accent informed us that we wouldn't be flying after all. Safety has to come first. I can understand that. It's still disappointing though.

Now, where's that phone number for re-booking?

Fresh eyes

2008-02-13T18:53:00.005+13:00

It's been really fun wandering around Christchurch today with tourist's eyes again. The day started quite grey, but by lunchtime, after we'd done a few jobs I needed to get done around town, the sky cleared and the sun came out and Nuzziland welcomed by Dad properly after being a little shy for the first twenty hours or so.

We drove round a little to try and get him some bearings, went shopping for some clothes he'll need but didn't bring, wandered into town to get him a camera case, did the essential tourist thing of going on the city tram tour and then drove out to New Brighton for a coffee. Have I mentioned I love that pier before?

Tomorrow we've got a hot air balloon ride scheduled (although the weather forecast makes it look like it's unlikely to proceed unfortunately, despite the brilliant blue sky I am currently sitting under). I just phoned the company for instructions on where we have to meet and when. It appears that I have to phone them at 4am for the recorded message about whether we get to fly or not before meeting up in a carpark behind a mall somewhere in town if it's all going ahead. 4am! That's quarter to stupid o'clock. 4am.

First aid parcels

2008-02-12T22:59:00.000+13:00

My dad came bearing gifts - Douwe Egberts coffee and milky ways for Joanne and chewing gum for me. The black cherry pie filling wouldn't fit in his suitcase.

Delayed

2008-02-12T14:08:00.000+13:00

My dad's flight from Sydney to Christchurch has been delayed. I guess that means I've a free afternoon.

Blue-sky lunchtimes

2008-02-12T09:22:00.000+13:00

I really love working so close to the Botanic Gardens, being able to go for a wander at lunchtimes, to sit by the river and watch the punts glide by. Definitely a nice way to spend an hour. When it's nice weather, that is. Like yesterday. Today, on the other hand, is not so nice. When Dad arrives this afternoon he's going to wonder if this is summer after all. The weird thing is that it's still warm, probably nigh on 20 degrees, but just grey. So grey. It's almost enough to make me feel homesick, clamouring for the grey Februarys of my youth. Almost.

I do hope the weather improves while my dad's here though. January has been such a great month, weather-wise while February so far's been a bit rubbish. And typically, I've been told, February is the better, more stable month. There's so much I've got planned that's weather-dependent.

I relaised yesterday that our six months of being in Christchurch has been and gone. Last Friday marked the six month point since our arrival down here. I've said it before, but time really does fly doesn't it? I've spent a bit of time recently looking over all the old posts from our first few weeks in Christchurch. It's so weird how the words can evoke the feelings from back then as well as the memory of the events. I am so glad I did this whole blog thing. It will definitely be something I look back over in the future. Like reading an old diary, I guess.

This Sunday just gone at church, after the service, a sausage sizzle was organised. Basically a barbecue was fired up and hundreds of sausages were cooked (while the barbecue worked, that is) while the church family and visitors (it was a guest-focussed service this week) can stand around chatting and stuff. A very good idea, I think. The reason I mention it particularly though is that the first time Jo and I visited St John's, three years ago pretty much to the day I guess, was the same sausage sizzle event. Back then we were just visiting Christian family we had been regularly praying for. And now we're part of that Christian family. Three years ago we never would have imagined that would be the case in three years' time. We never know what God has in store for us, eh?

Last night Jo and I met up with Cam and Ryan to discuss the plan and the format and stuff for the Christianity Explored course we're helping lead that starts next week. If you want to pray for us and for the course please pray we'll have time to do the prep we need to thoroughly despite my dad being around, that people who have signed up would come through the door next Wednesday evening, that people would continue to invite their friends and family along to the course, and that ultimately people would come to know Jesus through the course as their eyes are opened and the Holy Spirit works in their hearts. Thank you. If you don't want to pray for us, you can ignore that whole last bit.

Mellow yellow

2008-02-09T17:14:00.000+13:00

The manager of the shop where we bought most of our furniture gave us a voucher for lunch for two at the Clearwater resort the other week. Today we made use of it. Clearwater is where the PGA Championship of New Zealand will be held this coming week. It's a lovely place and the restaurant overlooking the lake and the 18th hole was gorgeous.

It was such a mellow, relaxed lunch. A couple of hours in a virtually empty restaurant with superb food and a great view. We'd have happily paid to go there so the fact it was effectively free was a bonus. The hot chocolate pudding (with melting centre, natch) with coconut sorbet was delicious.

It's all been go in Christchurch this week. The airport was closed when a woman on an internal flight tried to hijack the plane and then attacked the pilot and co-pilot with a knife. Not your usual Canterbury tale.