Category: Uncategorized

I know, I haven’t been posting much here, but it’s because I’ve been working hard. Honest.

Unfortunately Anna is a student these days, so I had to go out and find work. Find it I did, a little different to my usual line of work, with a small-medium sized New Zealand business. It’s been quite interesting so far, and with some fairly serious growth plans, it could be an interesting ride over the next few years.

It does mean commuting to work by car, something I’ve never done before. All the previous jobs I’ve had, I’ve walked (mostly), rode a bike, taken the bus, or maybe the train. But for once, I’m driving a car. Very strange. Everyone else is going the faux-eco-hippy route, I seem to be regressing.

But the other work that has been going on is, at long last, completing my PADI Divemaster certification. I did most of the work for this last year, but didn’t quite finish it before going on the road. But, at long last, after far too many dives in Lake Pupuke, and way too much time in the pool, I’ve finished!

Will be quite nice to go diving purely for the sake of diving, and not have to worry about passing this or that task, and only have to worry about cleaning and storing my gear, not rinsing out 15 wetsuits…

Last weekend, things got a bit busy around here. My older brother was competing in the Cure Kids Adventure Race. This coincided with a weekend featuring both my 3 year old niece’s and my father’s birthdays. Somehow this morphed into a family gathering, and next thing most of my family were descending on St Marys Bay.

Because my brothers, sister, and parents all live in different cities (and countries), it’s not often that we are all in the same place at the same time. Weddings and funerals it seems. Last time was not under the best of circumstances, but this time things were a fair sight better. More laughs this time:

With some people staying with Anna and I, and others staying nearby, we ended up with a full house on Saturday night – brothers and sister, with their partners and children, in-laws and out-laws, plus a few hangers-on. Rather good times, eating some good food, having a few drinks, etc. Turns out that having a game involving putting out candles with the palm of your hand is not the best idea, as one contestant can attest. But it was a good time, catching up with family.

The following morning, Anzac Day, we weren’t in the best shape for getting up to go to Dawn Parade. There’s always next year for that. But Nic and Dave put together a nice breakfast, followed by one proper photo of the lot of us:

House felt a bit empty by the time we finally got rid of the last of them…Oh and Nic got us a great present, which I’ll send photos of once we get it mounted and displayed – a destination roll from a 1980’s bus, showing various locations around the upper North Island. Very fashionable it turns out (I had no idea).

Oh and there will be some changes before the next blog post – I need to change to WordPress, will take a bit of mucking around to get things working. Hopefully all links will keep working.

I can’t say I’ve been overly stressing myself since I returned to New Zealand. Things have been very low key, no rushing around trying to find work, no running around the country, just taking it easy. The routine last week was something like: Get up, take dog for long leisurely walk, pick up paper on the way back along Ponsonby Rd, have a late breakfast, read the paper in the sunshine, ooh look it’s time for lunch…you get the idea. It does make it easy that I’ve got a fully set up house here, and it’s not like other times between trips, when I would be moving around, sleeping on couches.

It’s been nice to be home. One of the problems of moving around is that no matter where you are, you always seem to be missing somewhere else that you’ve been. But as I said before, this time I feel ready to be in New Zealand. Sunshine for the first week, along with catching up with friends and family certainly helped. Most importantly, I now have a steady supply of Vogels bread and peanut butter, not to mention wide distribution of superb meat pies.

Savings won’t last forever, so I will start actively seeking employment soon. Truly. Really. I will.

Oh and a special mention of Cascade Designs, the makers of Therm-a-Rest sleeping mats. My Prolite 4 had started delaminating, after hundreds of uses. But they have a lifetime warranty, and the local distributor honoured it. Sent it in, and they quickly sent out a replacement. New model too, same size and weight, but 20% warmer. Nice. The only thing that I’m annoyed about is that these are listed as $100USD on the US website, but locally sell for closer to $300NZD. Should be more like half that – dunno if it’s the distributor or the local retailers jacking up the prices.