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 :)

Still here...

Well just a quick note to indicate that I am still alive and kicking!  As you may have noticed I've got a little bit quieter on the posting front as I was sans Mac Book since the water spill... and in fact I still am.  I currently have, on loan, provided I let no water near it, a 4 year dinky little Mac laptop (I've given up trying to remember what it's official name is!) .  Needless to say I'm well confused as the keyboard is the Irish keyboard unlike my Mac Book which has the antipodean keyboard with some keys in the wrong place... but which I'd got used to  nonetheless!  

Nothing exciting to report really.  Last week was busy - bookcrossing, psychology class, Sex and the City movie (disappointing shoes to say the least!).  Weekend was a day of viewing Pride & Prejudice with  some of the girls.  Poor Deirdre, she has never read the book let alone seen the BBC adaptation so Jill and myself had to make special effort to stop reacting in anticipation on oncoming scenes and I had to stop myself quoting lines from it!!

Work is different.  I've moved on to a new project and hence have had to move floors.  Not overly excited by that as i've lost my desk with lovely view.  And this floor is what I call the overfloor... doesn't really have the same buzz or atmosphere that I've got used to over the last 10 months.  Hopefully it'll improve...

Hmm... I'm sure that I did have lots to say but eh, well, can't think of anything.  So I'll just go with hello and hope you're all keeping good :)