Friday 23 April 2010

Tree of Beliefs

Wow, 4 weeks since the last blog...I must be getting busy!

During which Utd have exited the Champions' League, thrown away the Premiership and then got themselves back into the race again (Paul Scholes - he scores goals!) and Europe has become a no-fly zone! Plus my HCI laptop died. :-(

Easter weekend saw Maria, Sarah and I venture up to Hanmer Springs in Brendan's campervan for an overnight adventure. We spent the afternoon in the hot springs - which was great.

We found a site to pitch for the night in a nearby Forest Camp and experienced life inside the tin home for the first time. Cosy to say the least - Maria and I snuggled on the fold-down bed and Sarah tucked into the over-head space above us! It was a bit on the cool side too at 3am. But once the sun came up and we had the first cup of tea of the day brewed, we were soon warm again. In fact it was another gloriously sunny warm day.

We decided to venture along the "Waterfall Track" to seek out Dog Stream Waterfall. It was a reasonable climb and Sarah needed some focused motivation (!) at times - but we did make it to the destination eventually.

We returned to Christchurch and the rest of the Easter break was pretty uneventful - albeit very warm.

Sarah was on a 2 week school holiday and the middle weekend saw us host 5 of her new pals for a sleep-over - an oxymoron if ever there was one! They were pretty self-sufficient so at least Maria and I got some sleep that night!

The following evening we headed out to Lincoln "Township" to a small soiree hosted by one of Maria's Solid Energy colleagues - Tony McInally. A fellow Manc, he invited us around to meet some of his "Pommy Pals" - a nice bunch and a pleasant time had by all (apart from Sarah who was tired from the previous day's lack of sleep!).

Maria and I have continued to try and keep up the exercising and we did manage to have a pleasant morning walking/running up the Rapaki Track. It was another beautiful day, with great views from the top of the Port Hills over towards Bank's Peninsula once we had reached the top. The legs took a bit of a pounding on the run back down!

I've had a busy week this week - running a 2 day i2i course on Monday and Tuesday (only a few people in attendance but it went well nonetheless) and a Day 3 event on Friday. I have also had some "Leadership Training" this week for the role that I am picking up in my BNI group starting next month. It was also the first lecture of term at the Asia Pacific Football Academy this weekend - "Tree of Beliefs" - teaching them about positive attitude with stories of people like Steve Cunningham and Cliff Young - they seemed to like them!

The weather has remained un-seasonally warm and very dry - there's a serious drought up in the north of the north island. The first rain of any note finally arrived yesterday - just as I went off to compete in a cross-country relay with the Port Hill Runners....kinda reminded me of the UK! I've been trying to up my running a bit more recently as I have targetted the Christchurch half-marathon on June 6th and set myself a goal of doing it in around 1 hour 35 mins. So need to get some miles in between now and then.