Joanne's old stomping ground

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Snowy fun

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

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

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

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

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

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.