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OK, Sorry about that

I’m not dead. Not yet, anyway. In spite of what you may think, engagement has not led to me completely dropping off the face of the earth. Admittedly, it has meant a precipitous decline in the travel opportunities, but there’s a time for everything, and at the moment it’s a time for working and saving money. Getting married is expensive you know.

This being New Zealand, everything more or less shuts down around Christmas/New Years, and with the office closed, I’ve just had a bit of time off. This year has broken my run of 5 Christmases in 5 different countries – I’ve now spent 2 of the last 3 Christmases in New Zealand. So it was a good chance to catch up with family. This used to be a simple exercise, but now my own family is spread around, and I have a whole new branch to account for. Rather than have the whole lot in one hit, you see different branches at different times, spreading things out over several weeks.

Starting a week before Christmas, we had Anna’s brother visiting, with his wife and children. 3 lovely kids, but all under 10, and when it rained the whole day on Sunday, and we were all stuck in the house…let’s just say I don’t know how mothers cope.

We then spent time with my parents, and my brothers family, before heading further north to Anna’s father’s orchard. More family connections there too. We’ve seen plenty of nieces and nephews over the last few weeks, and as much as people talk about how lovely children are, Anna and I are OK with not having kids right now…

Over at the Met Service, they have been predicting all kinds of doom, but they do seem to be scare-mongering. I can’t understand why they can’t just stick to having the forecast in the paper. Instead they have “Weather ambassadors” and “Head analysts” giving interviews and writing columns in the paper. So we’ve had generally hot fine weather, a far cry from anything going on in Europe right now.

We even managed to get in a bit of pleasure diving, picking up a few scallops, and seeing heaps of fish. It’s nice to be able to dive in just a wetsuit, without hoods, or extra layers under the wetsuit, or a drysuit. Other divers go on about wearing drysuits all the time, so they never feel any cold, but there’s something nice about being in the water, feeling it next to your skin, and feeling so much more free in just a wetsuit. I think I should head up to Thailand again, so I can dive in just a shorty wetsuit. Perhaps next summer?

A date has been set for our wedding, early next summer. Naturally, as the man, my responsibilities are limited. One thing I do have complete free reign over is the honeymoon. Obviously since it’s southern hemisphere summer, my choices are a little restricted, but with two months holiday, where do I go? And do I try and get Anna on the bike? Have to think about it.