Muesli and water...

I'm definitely feeling a little nervous in advance of the weekend now. The weather has definitely got colder and wetter now and I'm in that scenario of not wanting to bring too much but also definitely not wanting to bring too little. I'd happily be skanky and not bring other stuff for evenings but to be honest there is a decent risk that I'll just be v wet by Sat evening. Of course the fact that we're sleeping in open, well under a fly, but definitely not in a hut does mean that even if I put on dry clothes I could just get wet again!
I'm looking forward to it and I have bought my group food and I have what appears to be rather a large of amount of snacks for myself but last thing I want is to find myself short of food! The one meal that I really don't like when tramping (the one other time I've done it of course!) is breakfast... muesli with water for me. Oh, and a banana for the Sat morning. Ironically I still have all my food in the fridge and I won't pack it until the morning even though it won't see a fridge again so I'm not sure if it's really necessary to wait until morning. And then there's the logistics of changing/not changing going straight from work. I *think*/hope that as we finish up where we start out (Holdsworth carpark) then I should be able to leave clothes on the bus... I certainly don't want to be carting them around. So maybe wear jeans to work and on minibus and then change at carpark and leave them on bus? Or not. Who knows? :)
Just so you know I did take some photos last night after sorting what I was bringing and placing on the couch... I just can't upload right now as camera is halfway down backpack... next week!!

pizza, bubbles, and painting...

Well it appears that I'll be eating the first, drinking the second and attempting the third next Tues evening! Eh, I suspect I'll be fab at the first, not bad at the second and disastrous at the last :)

So next week now looks like:
Mon: unpack, wash, recover from weekend. Oh, squash too.
Tues: bring out my artistic streak while stuffing my face.
Weds: free. tramping club probably.
Thurs: bowling
Fri: Melbourne :)

Pity about the work part!

The trials and tribulations of Jeans shopping!

Decided that the jeans that i bought on Sat are too small... or at least they don't fall in to the "comfy jeans" category. I appreciate what the sales assistants mean when they say that you should buy jeans a bit tight 'cos the denim does stretch. But... I want comfy jeans and the ones I got just aren't comfy jeans. I tried on a pair which were the same as the ones I bought on Sat but which are one size up. The sales assistant weren't impressed. I agreed to try different style (wide leg) which ended up being the ones I exchanged for. It was quite amusing because the first pair in the wide leg style that I tried on was a hard denim but I thought they looked okay. Both girls just looked at me and asked if I could get my hand between me and waist band and when I said I could two pairs of eyes shot up to heaven. One of them nipped off and came back with a pair in the same style, one size smaller but in softer denim. They felt fine to me and the two girlies were happy that I now had a pair of jeans that fitted me and that I was comfortable in. So, all good :)

Sunday sun

This Sunday was a really lovely sunny day so headed out to Belmont Park for a couple of hours walk. Think the route we took is the Korokoro Stream Track though we walked as far as dam and then returned. Nothing too strenuous as mountain biking trail and no climbing. I wore my boots as I'll wearing them all this weekend and they haven't been worn since my one and only tramp in the Tararuas last November. Going from flat light summer shoes to walking boots? Hard... thick socks and they weigh a bit more needless to say! But guess I'll survive next weekend!

Lovely and sunny out with the sun jumping off the water. The stream was beside the route for the walk... it was gorgeous and just loads of trees and bush around. Much greener than I expected.



The dam wasn't overly exciting but it was so quiet and peaceful up there that it was really very relaxing. There were a number of fantails flying about and even though I really tried to get picture of them in action they're such fast little flyers that I quickly realised that I was never going to be able to get a picture of them... so just stood back and watched them zoom about the place playing!

Half way there!

How exciting is this? I've been reading Sacred Games since February and just recently I've made it past the half way mark! To be fair to myself I did read a number of books when I home in Ireland in March (I didn't bring this one as too heavy) but nonetheless I'm not exactly making rapid progress through this book. The odd thing is that I'm really enjoying it but it's a decent chunk of pages with smallish text...



So the above pictures shows thickness and the following should give some indication of print size (not that I feel I need to make excuses for the rate that I'm getting through this book or anything!) Oddly, text doesn't look that small in this photo does it? Oh well...

Saturday...

This is my third Sat back in Wellington since my return from Ireland and it's such a relief for it not to be raining! It's not that it's been raining consistently since I got back, not at all. But it has rained for the last two Saturdays so it's quite pleasant to have experienced a bright, sunny and relatively warm day :)

It's been a very lazy day that after a few work drinks last night as we have quite a few new folk on the team now. There's over 40 of us on-site these days which is pretty impressive considering we're on a customer site all doing work for that customer project! After drinks we just had a quiet meal in an Asian restaurant with very noisy crowd at the table beside us. A large meal wasn't required as fish and chips had appeared during team update meeting earlier in the afternoon (I'd passed on the fish but did eat a few chips and have some crackers and cheese), and then spent rest of evening relaxing to some lovely music before I kind of just fell asleep!

I did have plans of maybe doing my tax return today but instead had leisurely brunch in interesting cafe... instead of getting number to put on your table after you've ordered, a large plastic lizard was handed over! Odd... A few purchases were made - I needed new "comfy" jeans that I can wear with flat shoes as my other pair of comfy jeans got left behind in Ireland due to them getting slightly worn out (i.e. a hold developed in the ass of them!). The ironic thing is that the jeans that I bought aren't even one of the three pairs that I brought in to the changing room myself! While showing me to the changing room the sales assistant said he'd grab another pair that he thought might work. When I was paying I was just commenting on the irony of me buying pair that I didn't pick out myself and a shading of denim that I probably wouldn't have picked up either. He asked if I was okay with the colour and I said I really liked them on actually. His response was that his girlfriend is a red head too (that is second time this week that I've been referred to as a red head!) and same build so he reckoned he knew what he was doing! Though apparently he's useless at rock, paper, scissors... interesting the things you learn on a Saturday afternoon :) And I got some rather nice boots. And eh, oh just a ground sheet for bushcraft course next weekend. Nothing too exciting. Leisurely stroll home in the sun stopping for a yummy passionfruit ice cream from my fave ice cream shop in Wellington.

After that hectic day I'm totally shattered! Been a busy week and I'm a sleepy girl so early night tonight I think.

BCNZ

I went along (finally!) to a Wellington BC meetup this evening. Very different to the Irish setup. For a start these guys are organised (sorry Dublin) and instead of having discussions on which date to meet up they go with the BC standard - second Tues of every month. I didn't even know that this concept existed until I got here! They meet at 5:30 so no hanging around town until 8pm as was the case for me in Dublin (in fairness nobody's fault that I lived in Wicklow, worked in town and so didn't have time or inclination to head back to Bray after work and then back in to town for 8pm). Actually a slightly later start wouldn't bother me here as I live in town :) But I can do 5:30 too. Unlike the Dublin meetings we eat dinner, have a glass of wine, have a few chats and then head home. I was home before 8pm this evening! Oh... and we have name badges with real name and screen name on them which definitely helps! I believe that alot of this organisation is down to Sherlockfan - thanks Sherlockfan!

Obviously as I'm not exactly zooming through books here, am only in to 382 out of 947 of my current read (Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra) and have about 9 books in my TBR list I obviously was not allowed take any books off table this evening. Em... I think that Sherlockfan, no matter how she denies, has secretly worked in sales in the past. I left with The Restraint of Beasts... we'll see how it goes :)

Now... back to House!

Oh, just one disclaimer... I know that I haven't been to Dublin BC meet up in yonks so I apologise (duck/hide) in advance if I've insulted any Irish BCers by indicating certain lack of organization on part of those meetings :)