Deck the hall with boughs of holly.....

Hi blog readers....sorry about the 3 week delay since the last one. Time flies when you're trying to build a business!

So Ashley departed on the Sunday and Maria and I continued the long weekend by tripping up to Hanmer Springs for a day - enjoying a nice walm soak in the sulphur pools. Sarah was away at school camp over at Purau Bay doing interesting stuff like kayaking, rock-climbing and bush-skills - should prove handy when she's a celebrity and facing bush-tucker trials!

I had the pleasure of meeting a guy called Jason Barrell who had an amazing story to tell. A professional Rugby Union player who suffered a broken neck and then a brain tumour to add insult to injury. He's an inspiration to us all.

I also had the pleasure of meeting up with Bill Southgate again and we had another great lunchtime run in the Port Hills. It sounds like he's had a great few weeks travelling around the South Island and will take back some great memories. He's also been to few places I've not visited myself yet and I was interested to hear hie stories and recommendations.

We suffered some serious pool-algae due to me letting the chlorine supply run dry! The water was greener than the lawn and we've had to get the pool experts in to recover the situation! Good news is that we have now discovered that we have an endless pool with water jets at one end which mean we can do all the swimming training we want without having to venture beyond our front gate! I've also been shown how to operate the heat pump so it might become increasingly inticing to go for a dip!
The garden is looking quite nice now - looking forward to hosting some BBQ's when our visitors arrive.

Chris has bought himself a car - a Honda Civic shuttle. It's older than he is. And he's crashed it already!!! Some dendrites are hard to change.

There was a Christmas concert in Hagley Park last weekend - Coca-Cola Christmas in the Park - which Maria, Sarah and i ventured out to. We only joined the festivities for the last quarter of the proceedings but it was quite a good show what we saw of it. Very popular with the locals - which I guess includes us!

The night before, Maria and I had been invited to the Safe and Sound (Maria's employer) Christmas BBQ at the business owner's (Charles) place. I can honestly say that I have never seen a piece of fillet steak quite so large in all of my life that I witnessed on the BBQ. And when my slice was served up and consumed, I was of the opinion that I'd never before tasted such a succulent and tasty steak. It was delicious. And as for the cray fish and Akaroa cod........Yum!

We took a turn at hosting a Xmas party ourselves this week. My BNI group came around for eats and drinks. Everyone brought a plate and their own booze. It's a NZ tradition and it works fantastically. We collectively served up a feast.

Maria was due to do her 3rd triathlon tomorrow (Sunday) but she's not really been doing any training since the last one. She thinks that she had a virus when she competed in the last event and it knocked her back a bit - she felt tired and lethargic for the best part of a fortnight. It could have something to do with the 4-day weeks that she has been putting in, mind you!

She is enjoying walking around the Botanical Gardens though - we sometimes pop across the road after dinner for a brief walk around before they shut up for the evening. It really is a beautiful place.


Maria, Sarah and I ventured out to Bottle Lake Forest and New Brighton today - it was a lovely sunny day. We had a brief stroll through the pine forest before venturing along to the beach - watching the sand artists, the surf school, the kite-buggy racing.

It's also been the day for putting up the Christmas tree - though we're waiting for it to go dark before we can appreciate the full effect of the lights!