Abridged version of my week (in no particular order)

• Work.
• Kristen Hirsh gig with some of the guys after work. The warm up band (two-thirds of duo) were pretty good actually though I was informed that by liking them I was only one step away from liking auth country! Kristen Hirsh in a totally different game though. Angry/harsh but great guitar playing!
• Work.
• Booked Four Seasons for Sydney visit in a few weeks. Then cancelled and rebooked on hotel site itself as cheaper than intermediary site.
• Worked on making friends jealous by sending on link to accommodation on Aitutaki (Cook Islands) for Dec/Jan holiday.
• Some more work.
• Watched Pride & Prejudice the movie (again). No, Keira Knightly is not a more spirited Lizzie than Jennifer Ehle in my view though Jane is definitely less insipid!
• Meeting.
• Went to first tango lesson... apparently the bloke's job is to totally take over the woman's space and her job is to move her feet fast enough. Eh... right!
• Another meeting.
• Got bit stressed at work. See above.
• Got sent on article that says that swearing at work can help reduce stress... http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/norfolk/7047536.stm Personally, all I can is that I've been trying it for years and it *doesn't* work!
• Skipped moutaineering club as needed night off to do my ironing (exciting stuff I know!)
• Booked return flight from Christchurch after Christmas to allow enough time back in Wellington for washing and sorting of summer clothing before heading off to The Cook Islands.
• Didn't bother with second pilates class as first was pretty rubbish.

Some music

Off to a performance off French choral music this evening to be performed by The Tudor Consort. I recently bought one of their CDs where they performed some early music pieces and it's quite beautiful. Details on this CD at http://www.tudor-consort.org.nz/recordings/pro/cube003/

Concert this evening will of course be quite different but if nothing else it should be beautifully sung... lovely way to start the weekend :-)

Still alive!

Just a quick one to reassure people that I am in fact alive and have not yet frozen to death! A number of people have dropped me emails/txts in the last day or two commenting on quietness of the blog so thought I'd better put a quick post here. As yet I still have no internet at home and kinda busy at work so not been writing much. All is good with me; generally having lazy fun weekends that involve yummy coffee, brunches, food, and friends. Hoping to start pilates next Tues as well which I'm looking forward to. It is introductory course but as i've been away from it for so long now I don't think that will be a problem.

I'm off to Sydney in November for a long weekend and can't wait. Fly Fri afternoon and not leaving there until the Mon evening so that's 3 full days there :-) I've lived there so not a new city to me but looking forward to visiting again, and going to a concert in the Sydney Opera House on the Sat evening which should be fab! Hope it's warmer there than it is here at the moment!

Right folks have to go and get on with some work!!! Keep me updated with your news :-)

Roll on 7pm...

So looking forward to 7pm this evening. Because at that point I'm off for the first treatment listed on this page... http://www.bodyscape.co.nz/body-treatments.html
New place still going okay. Will go better once my body realises that it is okay to sleep longer than 4 hrs a night! Well I am sleeping longer than that but I wake up after 4 hrs and then doze for rest of the time. Pillows too big so need to get some decent ones this weekend.

Been very cold the last few days - there's a southerly. Holding out for improvement in next day or two :-)

Nutrition...

Okay that's it... no more chocolate brownies (scrumptious or otherwise) before 10:30am. Just gone midday and feel awful... too much. God, my diet has gone to the dogs since I got here (and it was never good to start with!). A salad for lunch I think... or at least something with some vitamins and maybe the odd mineral or two :-)

And quickly...

not a peep from downstairs yest afternoon or last night. 'twas great :-)
it's raining again... unlike Ireland we get lovely weekend and rain during work day, how cool is that?!

The Stock Market and Renting Down Under

Some of you may be aware of the fact that the only advice that I would ever give to anybody considering investing money in the stock market is something along the lines of "If it's something that I've invested in or am considering investing in then my advice would be to steer clear!". It would now appear that I may be about to start giving similar advice to anybody considering renting a flat by themselves in Australia or New Zealand… if I'd consider taking lease on it then, it's probably not going to be a good move. I think the proviso here is only if you're going to rent it by yourself - housesharing is fine. In 2000 & 2001 I lived in Sydney in 3 different houses/flats. The first two I shared with others and it was all fine. The third time I decided to get my own place and it was not good. It was very bad. I'll not repeat the story here as many of you already know but it in short I developed a less than healthy nervous reaction to hearing music late at night and after 3 months of minimal sleep I left. It's now 2007 and I'm back in the Antipodes and I started moving my stuff in to flat on Friday though Sat was my first night here. I chose this slightly over priced building as apparently it has the better "well-heeled" resident so I figured that it should be a relatively quiet kind of building (I also really just needed to find somewhere to live of course). I checked with agent on phone that the reason current tenant was breaking their lease was nothing to do with noisy residents or problems with building etc. No no all fine. Now, there is a pub beside the front of the building that I'm in but I reckoned that at worst I might get a bit of noise from people leaving at closing time. On Fri morning when my air freighted belongings were being delivered we used the side entrance to the building and lo and behold it turns out that the back of the bar has an outdoor area at the back. And this outdoor area is directly, literally, underneath my flat. There's apartment with little balcony and underneath we have back of pub. I decided not to think about this further (well lease is already signed for 11 months).

Yesterday I arrived down here just after 9am, do a bit of unpacking and head out. Arrive back for a short while sometime after 1pm, walk into apartment and immediately wrinkle up nose. What is that smell… smells like, well, bacon. Did I mention the gas BBQ underneath my balcony/apartment yet? For a vegetarian (even if I do cheat with some fish sometimes), walking into your new home and smelling cooking meat is not pleasant :-( But decided not to worry about it and I headed out again. Back later in afternoon and turned up music to drown out sound of very noisy drinkers downstairs. That went on for a few hours, then disappeared for a few hours and then reappeared. Probably about 11:30am or 11:45am they all headed home (I'm really hoping it won't be like this every night or even every weekend and that it was just down to fact that there was some match on!). Oh and the pubs big bin of empty bottles gets collected at 7am… even on a Sun morning! Of course it's probably bloody earlier during the week :-\

So, I'm a little anxious about how this is going to progress if I'm stuck here for 11 months. But I'm also a bit pissed off with agent - I specifically asked about noise. And even when I was signing the lease she mentioned about residents and no parties and I actually said that I chose this building because I like quiet and don't want any noise. I mean, maybe she genuinely hasn't had anybody say anything to her about downstairs but I don't know. I'm not despairing/desperate yet but I am on orange alert - I can not and will not go through, albeit in a different manner, what I went through in Sydney again. Guess this could be great incentive to start doing those weekend tramps asap!