It’s taken six months, but I finally feel like I’m settling back in to New Zealand life. It’s taken a while, and a lot of careful averting of the eyes every time I walk past a travel agent, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.
Two things have helped: One is that summer is here, with a scorching weekend in Auckland. Long warm evenings, then getting up early to go for a bike ride with friends in the forest, just dappled sunlight through the trees, cicadas chirping and birds singing – hard to beat. Second is that my social calendar has been unusually packed the last couple of weeks, and things don’t show any signs of abating between now and Christmas. A combination of catching up with friends, various parties, and vendors putting on Christmas functions. All good, if a little tiring.
The ears have been better with diving too – I went out again to the Poor Knights, on a day trip with Tara. Just the two dives, and not too deep. The water was two degrees warmer, and I can assure you, it made all the difference. Was a bit annoyed to just miss seeing a sunfish – Michelle could have only been a few metres away when she took a picture of one. Didn’t see any rays there either – but then saw one right up in the Tutukaka marina, next to the shore, in about a foot of water. Still, there were heaps of interesting fish there, especially around Cleanerfish bay.
One of the great things about living in Auckland is that I was able to tie that trip in with seeing my parents in Whangarei. It is a bit strange when you get home on a Friday night and your parents are out, and you go to bed before they get home. Something not quite right there.
So now I need to decide just how much I should get into diving – a friend of a friend is selling a dive computer at a very good price, and I can get that, and then a wetsuit, and a BCD, and regs, and…where am I going to put it all? Need to get a bigger flat. Not to mention the question of how will I pay for it all.
Sunday was a rather nice garden party celebrating Tara’s birthday. Made a change to the standard evening pub drinks thing. Plus it was a good excuse to get out my suit and bowtie. Drinking a couple of glasses of wine in the sun seems to give me a bit of a headache though.
So it’s busy busy for the next few weeks. Just put my leave application in, I’ll take a few days off around Christmas/New Years – perhaps I should make it the full two weeks, then I can go on the liveaboard dive trip the weekend before Christmas?