It's looking good!

I did a good climb this evening and I'm happy :) It was one of those days where I didn't even know if I'd go as I hadn't been feeling the best but I reckoned I could do at least one climb and if nothing else I was fine for belaying for Amanda. My warm up climb was not good; ended up on the easy climb that i haven't done for ages and well I got nervous! I didn't quite know where to go or how to do the climb. It was awful! For my next climb I did that yellow grade 15 that I've only managed once before and I got it. It was hard but I got there so I felt much better when I got down. And the big news is that I completed my challenge wall this evening. For weeks and weeks I've been getting closer and closer and today I managed it. At one point my hand was about half a foot away from ceiling beam but I just couldn't reach it. I nearly cried 'cos I realised i was just going to have to get higher to touch it... but managed it in the end. So all good.

Planning to go tramping this weekend with Amanda and for my first weekend away in months the forecast is *not* rain. There's definitely a spring feeling in the air this week... it's all good :)

Colours...

I'm struggling with colours these days:( Chances are nobody's noticed but I've changed the colours on my blog about 4 times in the last 2 or 3 days and I'm still not convinced with what I've got. But I do have to thank COLOURlovers for the different colour palates that I have been experimenting with. Current palate is Terra?. For anybody interested in colours then I recommend you go have a nose at this site :)

Guess it had to happen

I went climbing last Thurs with Amanda. It turns out that what with me canceling a few weeks back after no sleep the night before and Amanda having to cancel the following after hurting her feet, it had been almost 3 weeks since we'd climbed. And my God did it show! The place was very busy so my warm up climb was on my challenge wall; admittedly I did get further than I've got before but it totally took it out out of my arms! From my elbows to tips of my fingers I felt like every little bit of strength which had been there (and that wasn't much to begin with :) ) had been sapped on that climb. For my second climb I got about 80% of the way up and couldn't get any further. I tried three times falling on each attempt so gave up at that point. For my third climb I started on that grade 15 I managed for the first time on my previous climb. I didn't get very far... on either attempt. So last Thursday I didn't manage to complete a single climb!!! Here's hoping I'm more successful next Thursday :)

You learn something new every day!

Okay, so I don't know if this is literally true but it certainly was true yesterday. What we learnt yesterday (actually we learnt a few things!) is that when your 4WD gets bogged down in sand and decides it ain't going anywhere, then letting the air out of your tyres should be enough to allow you get back in to car and drive it back to solid ground! Seriously! {well obviously a little digging of sand away from wheels helps too}

Yesterday we headed out to Owhiro Bay and did a little 4 wheel driving. On the way back there were a fair few pedestrians so we drove down on to sand (well there were plenty of other tyre marks there indicating other cars had done the same) and at one point I thought we were going to get stuck but then we started to make progress but unfortunatley not for long. Within a few minutes you could rev the engine all you wanted but the car sure as hell wasn't going anywhere! We got out of the car and I have to admit I was surprised to see how bogged down in the sand we were. We started to walk back in the hope of getting help. My biggest concern was that the car was only about 3 metres away from the water so we didn't really have much time. But totally no need to fret as as we stopped a red 4wd to ask them if they could help and it was this guy who came out with the tip about letting the air out of the tyres. We started to walk back to car and before I knew it this complete stranger was down helping us. Then I realised that other guys were walking towards us with tow ropes. There was no "hi, what's up?" (well that bit was obvious actually) or even asking if they could help, nope they just started hooking up the tow rope to tow us out. But we got air out of tyres first and then red jeep stranger jumps in and drives the Bighorn back up to hard ground. The other two take off their tow rope, jump in to their jeep and drive off... as does our helper. I couldn't get over how, within half an hour of us being stranded we were back on solid ground all thanks to three complete strangers who start helping us without actually being asked.

So there we were, safe from the water. With 4 flat tyres. Luckily there was a bicycle pump in back of jeep so, eh, well, that's how we got enough air back in the tyres to allow us to drive out and off to a service station. Certainly made for an interesting afternoon... the glass of wine with yummy mushroom gnocci in The Lido was much needed by time we got back to Wellington :)

We could always walk...

Yesterday was a lovely day with lots of sunshine and a nice little bite in the air. We were planning on going to see 4 - Vivaldi Four Seasons at 3:30pm in the Penthouse in Brooklyn. I'm thinking that I'd love to get a bit of a walk in at some that day. About 1:30 it's suggested that we could maybe walk up to the cinema. My initial reaction something along the lines of, "Oh, right, isn't that quite a long walk?" I'm informed that it's probably 30-40 mins which I have no problem with but I'm reckoning it's actually closer to an hour. So after a bit of toing and froing we check timing for the walk on google. This indicates walk is about 32 minutes so I'm cool with that.

So, we head off at 2 to allow time for some food in the Cafe there. Before long I'm down to a t-shirt as the sun was so lovely. And turns out that I'm so so wrong with the timing... we were at the cinema within 25 minutes! So that left lots of time for our lunch. During lunch there's a bit of a joke made about "imagine if all the tickets were sold out when we went to buy ours". Ha ha, like that's going to happen with a 3:30pm showing of a non-mainstream movie. As we have some time to spare we fill it by eating some seriously rich chocolate brownie and then we head out to counter to buy our tickets. Unbelievably there are only four seats left... for the front row!! I hesitate as I really don't want to sit in the front row and while that's happening some guy goes up and buys three tickets. So, there you go, you never can tell what'll sell out, can you?!

We are not happy...

I like Lyric FM. I particularly like listening to Sunday's edition of Gloria at work on a Mon morning. Unfortunately I will not be doing this for the next few weeks (how long do these Olympics go on for??) http://www.rte.ie/lyricfm/pressreleases/1220688.html

Em.. six unusual things...

Well I've been tagged by the circus controller to list six unusual facts about myself. So...

1. I find it really hard to this "write X things about me" stuff!
2. I find it quite difficult to make decisions...
3. I've been put on too much weight since moving to New Zealand
4. Most of the time I can only drink one coffee per day as any more makes my eyes sore... oh and I have to eat within hour or two if drinking caffeine (even diet coke)
5. I'm actually enjoying doing my indoor wall climbing :)
6. It's quite normal for me to be wearing 2 or 3 layers of clothing when everybody else in the room is only wearing 1.

Oh and I'll tag Sonya in the Sun now...