The weekend

I was pretty exhausted by the time I got Friday evening. It was a fairly intense week at the office though not necessarily a bad week. Just busy. Our company has a new office in Wellington so we had our monthly meeting there seeing it furnished for the first time and having a little drink before I left by 5:30.

I viewed a couple more apartments on Fri but thinking that I might just stay where I am for another 6 months. It's a good location and I do like my kitchen here :) Fri evening after dinner (with some gorgeous French Comte cheese :) ) we watched Borat. Admittedly Borat is not a movie I've been jumping up and down with excitement to watch but I felt I should watch 10 or so mins before continuing to diss it. Sort of ended up watching it all (bar the last 10 mins or so) but it was more in a state of "is this for real?", "surely it gets better", before I realised that, well, I just don't get it. I smiled in one or two places but I can't say that I find it particularly funny but I know that it's because, as I said, I just don't get it!

Sat morning I checked out a 2 bed house but as I'd been warned, Aro Street just doesn't really get winter sun because of the hills (well it is in Aro Valley) and it was cold in there! It looked nice in the photos which is why I went for a nose but I guess after hearing from my climbing partner that mould grew on her clothes while she lived there as the house was so damp, that I was somewhat wary going to view! Watched another couple of episodes of the Long Wary Around (while enjoying a rather delicious bottle of Ata Rangi Crimson Pinot Noir). It really is a fantastic series and the journey through Mongolia and along the Road of Bones in far Eastern Europe looks so so difficult! The bikes are holding up great as well!!

Nice chilled slow start to the day today which was lovely. Horrible forecast for the day so I made arrangements to go climbing at 4pm with Amanda in Fergs. We headed out to Jackson St in Petone and found a whole bunch of great looking cafes. Definitely heading back there. We drove out to the coast and it was lovely out there. Definitely picnic in spring/summer location. Don't get me wrong, this was not a sandy attractive beach at all (no golden sand or the likes) but the water is just beautiful there and we could see the Sth Island in the distance. Anyway the forecast was so wrong as it turned out to be a beautiful day! Not hot but relatively mild and very sunny. Could have headed off early for a walk this morning if we'd know that! But not to worry.. I headed down to Fergs a little early as I decided to buy my own climbing shoes. It's only $3 a time to rent them but as they're rented I always had to wear socks and they were a little wide. So I now own my own shoes... and didn't need to wear socks. Have to admit that they're bloody uncomfortable except for when I'm climbing. Walking between climbs not nice and I was well happy to take them off at the end of it all :)

And with them I did 5 climbs (only completed 3 of them) but one of those was a grade 15... haven't done a 15 before! Had a go on my challenge wall but it was my last climb and while I got further than before my arms, me, was just too tired to manage it (remember I haven't completed this wall before).

And now I'm having a lazy chilled Sunday evening :)

Is it the weekend yet?

Oh it's not. It's still only Wednesday. It's been a busy week and it's going to keep staying busy for a while yet I reckon.

On a good note my new macbook arrived on Monday and today I got a phone call from travel agent about my flight home at Christmas. I'm currently waitlisted for an upgrade on three of the four long haul legs there and back (I don't have enough air miles to upgrade for all four legs). Anyway turns out that I hit the top of the list for the Kuala Lumpur - Amsterdam leg which is good news indeed... especially as I didn't expect any of the upgrades to come through!

In the meantime I'm also looking for somewhere new to live as I'm not renewing the lease on this place. I want some sun. Have seen 3 places so far and none is runner. One was sort of a runner for a few hours but on further consideration it's not.

Unfortunately I don't really have anything of interest to say right now so I think I'll head off and read my book (Dracula if anyone's interested!)

Briefly...

Whoops, it's been a few weeks since my last post. Mixture of being busy at work, busy outside of work and missing my Mac Book :( It's definitely winter here; cold today and it was very very very very wet last Saturday when I was tramping. Absalutely everything I was wearing was totally wet after 3 hours and there we were heading to a hut with no heat of any sort. Anyway, as someone hurt their knee we were actually back at the van a little after 4 hrs walking.

Climbing this evening. I'm quite disgusted to find out that my current "challenge" wall is only a grade 14! I mean it seems so much harder than the other grade 14 which I use as my warm up climb now. It was so busy in there this evening that i didn't even get a chance to get to my challenge. Anyway, it'll probably be Sun week before I get to climb again and I'm telling you, I'm gonna get to the top... no matter how many attempts it takes!! And by that time I should have got my act together and bought my own climbing shoes.

Still haven't found a tenant for my apartment in Ireland. Bit depressing really so I try not to think about it. Will have to start viewing some places here too as I'm moving out on 24th Aug so need to find somewhere new to live. On a positive note, the insurance company have placed a purchase order with one of their suppliers to replace my Macbook as it's totally kaput after that water spill.

So, after a week of running around non stop at work (which I'm enjoying in a way) I'm glad that tomorrow is Friday... I'm ready for the weekend!

The weekend...

was cold and wet but at least I spent it in the company of good friends in Christchurch.
There was lots of rain. There was lots of wind. There was in fact lots of snow... though that disappeared as fast as it appeared.
Generally chilled lazy weekend while inside and cold wet weekend while outside :)

Oh Yeah!!!

I'm on such a high after climbing this evening! For anybody who's been climbing for any period of time what I did is no big thing but I'm sure nonetheless they'll remember that wonderful feeling when they did their first single colour climb... two of them. So tonight I climbed a grade 13 and a grade 14. And Amanda persuaded me to try this seriously hard looking climb - it's actually the wall overhangs, ledges, straight vertical, that makes this particular climb difficult. First attempt I get as far as the overhang (horizontal, no sloping here) and I just couldn't reach over. We did some other climbs and then she persuaded me to try again. This I thought was a total waste of time as this climb requires alot of strength in upper body (or at least alot more than i have) but I gave it a go and actually got further. I got over the horizontal overhang and carried on up to the ledge. And then I fell. But I feel so thrilled with tonight. Yup there were toe/foot cramps like last week but fewer and I just have to keep relaxing and try to avoid the really small footholds where I need to put all my body weight to move on until my feet are stronger. V pleased :)

Windy out there...

Oh... maybe I won't be taking the camera out for a walk today. Admittedly listening to the wind howling outside at 4am this morning I did wonder what I should expect when I woke up again this morning. Well, not a lot of anything good it seems! Rain and lots of wind out there so I thought I'd check forecast to see if it was going to clear up later. Nope. In fact severe weather warnings have been issued:

SEVERE GALE SOUTHERLIES AND FURTHER HEAVY RAIN FOR WELLINGTON AND
WAIRARAPA UNTIL EVENING

STRONG WIND WARNING WELLINGTON AND COASTAL WAIRARAPA : Southerly gales are expected through to this evening, before easing. The winds are likely to reach severe gale between 8am and 6pm today, with gusts of 130 km/h, especially about exposed hill tops.

Nice he? Guess I'll watch some more Prime Suspect then! And combine that with some more lazing...

Weeks rundown....

I feel that I should post something just to say hello if nothing else but I'm not sure that I really have anything interesting to say! It's not that I've been sitting around on my arse doing nothing... that's not the case at all but just don't feel as motivated to post. I think actually that the problem might have been that I was back to using web interface for blogging until it was pointed out that as I'm using an Apple notebook I could just install Mars Edit on it (which is the application I use on my Mac Book for web posting). And then I noticed today that it's already on it :)

So update on the Mac Book is that I got an email last Monday from the insurance company saying I have to send it to XYZ company for inspection that will determine whether it can be repaired or needs to be replaced. I actually phoned this company to make sure that they have some experience with Apple products... not that I'm fussing or anything you understand :) So I haven't actually had opportunity to courier it off yet but will do so on Monday!

So my week consisted of:
Last Weekend: chilled brunch, enjoying the sun on the bridge in early afternoon, party on Sat evening. On Sun we drove out to Greytown and then to Waiarapa coast towards Cape Palliser. A long drive for some coffee and a walk on the beach but it was wonderfully relaxing and enjoyable :)
Monday: penultimate practical psychology course on Mon evening. Home about 9:20pm so some food, and then off to bed with my current read - The People of the Book.
Tuesday: Three, yes three, episodes of BBC adaptation of Pride & Prejudice (I think that DVD purchase 4 or 5 years ago may be the best purchase I've ever made... I have watched these soooo many times!!!) while munching on some yummy mushroom and spinach pizza from Pizza Pomodoro.
Wednesday: Finally confirm that I have place in pilates class starting next Weds evening (while my back is so much better than it was I have minimal core strength which is why I can't sit on a couch for any length of time without getting uncomfortable). Met a friend after work for some wine.. oh and food! Then headed down to tramping club to sign up for tramp in a few weekends time (I'm trying to avoid actually thinking about this until I have to :) ) and day walk in a fortnight.
Thursday: What did I do Thursday...? Em.. Oh yes. Booked on to Beginners Photography course starting at the end of July! Climbing after work. Dear God but my toes cramped on each of the three climbs that I did! It's the fear of cramping rather than anything else that gets to me with climbing at the moment. I seriously need to get some good foot exercises to get over this as it was horrific... though not as bad as it could have been I guess. I nearly managed a grade 13 (they don't really get any easier than that)... just twice I had to use non green hand hold. Then back for quick shower and change and off out for a quite tasty dinner in Floriditas. I even had dessert which I had not intended on having and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed my hazelnut and someothernut meringue with poached rhubarb. I rolled home :)
Friday: Out for dinner (nowhere near as fancy as Floriditas) for fineos 15th birthday dinner. Was pleasant and fun.
Saturday: Woke with a jump (literally) when alarm went off at 7:15am this morning! Out to airport to see Dave off back to Ireland and then I headed back home to have a shower and try to wake up! Out for some breakfast, cup cake (dark chocolate and raspberry) purchasing, Bivouac visit (a few purchases) and some veggies from organic store (not that impressed with the place and I think it was a tad pricey... farmers markets much better!). Oh and visit to library to rent copy of Prime Suspect 3 and part I of Prime Suspect 4 (don't like the way they split it over two separate DVDs!). So for afternoon I lazed and watch part 1 of series 3. Then fell asleep on floor for an hour. When I woke up I was totally disoriented having no idea what day or time of day it was or if I should actually be somewhere!! Then I ate cup cake. And made some soup with my expensive veggies. Later my mate Va from UK phoned and we had a good natter which was fantastic as we haven't spoken since the day she got married in March!!

And eh.. that's it! Tomorrow if weather holds up I'll head out with camera and see if I can get any nice photos :)