The cicadas are still chirping in Hagley Park and it's still great cycling weather - not much rain - which seems to fall mainly at night at the moment - very well organised by the NZ Met office!
One of the benefits of not having a "9-to-5" is that you can go and sit in Robbies Bar in Riccarton at breakfast time and watch Man Utd beat AC Milan in the Champions League! No beer at that time, of course - just good old English Breakfast tea. Plus an 80's throwback on the jukebox - Romeo and Juliet by Dire Straits and Piano Man by Billy Joel to name but a few that had me back there!
However, talking of breakfast beers, I almost did find myself drnking the amber nectar last Sunday morning at the end of the City2Surf 12km race through town. I had been invited to visit the Pratt & Whitney hospitality tent (turncoat?!) at the end of the race - at QE11 stadium - only to find myself being offered a beefburger and Steinlager at 10am. You'll be pleased to hear that I did resist - though this is definitely not normal NZ behaviour to do so! At least Maria did take up the offer of a glass of Bubbly an hour later when she came to pick me up. That offering was from the Canterbury Tourism tent - I'm certainly getting about!
Anyway, should anyone be interested, I completed the race in 49mins and 54secs - 6 seconds inside the time that Coach Guyomar had set for me the previous evening. The previous evening had itself been a very enjoyable occassion as we had been invited around to a pals BBQ - so the 2 bottles of pinot noir and 16oz of beautiful filet steak had obviously been just what I needed as pre-race preparation!!
It was also at this BBQ that I had my first ever taste of "barbequed-beer-chicken" - curtesy of a couple of the aforementioned Pratt & Whitney team.
In addition to the 12km run, Maria and I enjoyed a jog out to Boulder Bay from Taylor's Mistake on one of her Monday's off work. It was a glorious morning down by the sea, running around the cliff tops and finished off with a delicious lunch at Scarborough Fare cafe in Sumner. We also enjoyed an afternoon stroll in the sun around Corsair Bay and Lyttleton on another of Maria's days off.
I was back at Sarah's school a couple of weeks ago - I've volunteered for the PTA - it must have been the wine at the Parent's evening that did it! And needless to say, there was plenty of wine on offer at the PTA AGM - non NZ readers may be starting to see a pattern here associated with any gathering of NZ adults - whether it is a PTA meeting, Parents evening, athletics event, social gathering, etc....! It's not just the pastureland and the West Coast forests that are lush!!
Now that the tourist season is over, Brendan has asked us to re-sell his campervan so I'm in the process of getting it's warrant of fitness (MOT) and Regio (road tax) sorted before we advertise it on Trade Me (Ebay). It'll also need a damn good clean at some point too! So we're taking the last opportunities to get some use before it's gone and are planning a trip to the West Coast over Easter - though the weather forecast is looking as though that might not be the best place to be next weekend. We did take the van up onto the Port Hills last Friday evening to sit and watch the sun go down over the Alps - with a nice bottle of Shiraz and some supper. It was beautiful.
Sarah's school netball team won a schools tournament last week - which she was pretty chuffed about - despite having spent most of the final being barged "off the ball" by a rather physical and large Polynesian opponent. She's also rekindled her piano skills and has started lessons agian, at school. Thanks to Jack and Eve for the fantastic gift of an electric piano when they were over here - it's great to see Sarah enjoying playing all her favourite pieces again as well as adding to her repertoire with new ones. Sarah has also started to bond with a few of her class mates and there have been a few "school dances" that she's been out to on a Friday night! Fortunately no sign of any boys as of yet!!
Chris remains a periferal figure in our lives at the moment, with him continuing to work night shifts at McDonalds, sleeping during the daytime and spending time out with friends on his days/nights off. He has just bought himself another car - this time a Subaru Legacy. I think that the ANZ Bank were stupid enough to lend him the money - at least he was wise enough not to ask me again! He's still paying me back for the last one - so heaven only knows how he will afford to pay for and run this one! We shall see.
It feels a bit like living on a building site at the moment here at Desmond Street. One of our neighbours (No 20) is currently building the biggest house in Christchurch! Actually, it looks like it will be fantastic when it's complete - just hope we get an invite to the house-warming. There's another large place going up across the road plus the council have just moved in today and started digging up the road just outside our place as the start of a street "face-lift". It will all look great when done - but about 12 weeks of chaos is likely to ensue.
Last Saturday, Maria and I went to her boss' 50th birthday party held at the local Christchurch Boys High School. It was a fun night, including - of course - a free bar and enough food to feed the 8th Army. Bizarrely, the fire alarm went off at one stage (due to some cooker smoke in the kitchen), which was duly ignored by 99% of the party goers (mainly due to its inaudability above the live entertainment) then switched off by the caretaker only to result in the local fire service turning up and being seriously upset that "the band had played on"! "She'll be Right".... Also, I've never witnessed a 50 year old being presented a rifle and live ammo for his birthday gift from his pals before - had me on edge for the rest of the evening!!
So next weekend I believe we put the clocks forward, or is it backwards....? I'm getting confused! Answers on a postcard please.
