It's Tuesday 29th June 2010. We arrived here in Christchurch on Tuesday 30th June 2009. So kind of an anniversary, or maybe that's tomorrow? And what a year of adventure!
Chris has managed to obtain and hold down a job at McDonalds for most of the year. He doesn't have much to show for his efforts, mind you, with the exception of an old Subaru that is currently sitting in Hammonds Panelbeaters waiting to have a new rear drivers side door fitted after yet another demonstration of Newton's 3rd Law. His alternative transport at the moment is an old BMX bike - you can no doubt imagine how he looks on that - all 6ft 4in of him! He's been getting a bit wet going to and from work this last week or so! I think he's keen to get up to the snow fields quite soon for some snowbaording - there's lots of snow on those mountains - but I'm not sure that he has the means with which to fund that particular hobby.
He has talked about making some enquiries at the Christchurch Polytechnic again - to resume some sort of study next February - but we will see.
Sarah has settled into Christchurch life like a duck takes to water. She has a great group of school friends and actually reckons that the best thing about the year so far has been her new school - Christchurch Girls High School - great praise indeed! She continues to take part in a number of sporting activities, including cycling, basketball, indoor-football and dance/acrobatics. Her main pastime, however, seems to be developing into visiting the Westfield Mall with her pals! She also has a boyfriend - which we are obviously monitoring closely!! It's winter school holidays next week - so 2 weeks off - time to recharge the batteries - which have showed signs of running a bit low with a few days under the weather recently.
Maria continues to plug away at making the places of work in Christchurch a safer place to be. She's still doing a day and a half at Solid Energy (The NZ Coal Board) and recently helped them relocate their HQ into some rather swish premises. She's off to the West Coast - Hokitiki - in a week or so to a Solid Energy Occ Health Nursing meeting which she's looking forward to.
I've had a busy few weeks culminating in a week's consultancy down in Dunedin at Hillside Engineering with Simply Lean. It was an interesting week looking at the Foundry operations and it reminded me back to some of the places that I had experienced during my time at R-R - in particular some of the forging suppliers I visited as an auditor. My big news is that I have been offered the position of Quality Manager with Fulton Hogan here in Christchurch - starting tomorrow! So there's going to be a bit of change around here. I'm hoping to keep up the work with the Football Academy - as that's mostly weekend stuff anyway, plus I've recently piloted the i2i course in a single day - which seemed to work well - so hopefully they will continue to run on selected weekends throughout the year. I'm really looking forward to starting at Fulton Hogan - they have a really wide product/service mix which should keep me on my toes for quite some time!
I guess that one of the main benefits of taking on the Fulton Hogan role will be that it should help us to get some finance for purchasing a house if we spot somewhere that we like. Desmond Street has been a great place for us - particularly during Summer when we were hosting family - but it's probably too large for us in the longer term. It's been particularly noticeable during winter when we've found it difficult to heat the place up! No immediate plans to move out, but we'll be keeping an eye open for suitable places coming on to the market.
We'd been contemplating a trip over to Sydney at the start of July but a combination of no cheap flights left plus Maria's work commitments meant that we have shelved those plans for now. We'll probably look to get something planned for a future school break and book the flights in good time to get the good deal. We are discussing the possibilities of a long weekend down at Mount Cook and Lake Tekapo instead - which will be a lot different to sunny Oz! Though hopefully we might be able to hit one of the local ski-fields whilst we are there.
The FIFA World Cup has been interesting from the point of view of seeing the reaction in NZ of the 'success' of the All Whites. Despite not qualifying to the knock-out stages, they are being heralded as heros and a parade in Wellington has been mentioned. Quite a difference to what has been going on back in the UK, no doubt! We still have not subscribed to Sky, so have been at the mercy of TVNZ 1 & 7's schedules regarding which matches were on live, etc. The time difference also meant that we had to get up at 2am last Monday morning to watch England get thumped by the Germans! Fortunately neither Maria nor I had any work commitments that day so we did at least get a lie-in. England exiting also means that I am no longer likely to have to get up at that time again! I may just need to negotiate a late arrival at work should I want to watch the semi's and final.
That's about it for now. Quite a year. Not sure if it's gone fast or slow?! A lot of water under the bridge, to be sure, and a lot of personal development for all of us. Looking forward to the next chapter and what milestones that will bring.
Monday 28 June 2010
Thursday 10 June 2010
Waterlogged!
Well, what a wet and cold few weeks! Winter arrived just after my last blog with six days of more-or-less continual rain! Plus it was quite chilly too. But hey, it's great news for the skiiers down here as the local skifields now have a great base covering.
It was great to be working at Business Mentors in the Canterbury Development Corporation's offices - nice and warm compared to a cold home-office! And being part of a team of people was very pleasant again - someone to speak to over tea-break! There also seemed to be even more 'training course/board meeting lunch leftovers' than at R-R - so I didn't go hungry whilst I was there!
The role with Business Mentors has now finished as Jill has returned from her Northern Hemisphere trip. She found it a bit of a shock landing back here in the midst of a cold snap having just spent a few days in Dubai on route back home! I've got to say that the thought of getting somewhere warmer for a few days had been playing on my mind over the last week or so and I'm still mulling over a trip to Oz over the winter school holidays. (The sun is out today and it's suddenly gone quite warm again - bizarre).
I also closed out my lecturing at the University last week. It seemed to go OK, though my last session was not the best attended. I think I suffered from a big clash with a project hand-in deadline!
Maria and I went to The Loons (theatre) in Lyttelton a couple of weeks ago to see The Butler. It was a good evening out - interesting show - described in the notes as 'Cirque du Soleil meets Pinter'. Lots of action, witty and quite risquee in places - it's coming to a theatre in Islington, London next month if you're in the area!
I also ventured out into Christchurch last weekend for a few beers with the Asia Pacific Football Academy crowd at the Twisted Hop in Lichfield Lanes. It was a bank holiday weekend - Queens Birthday! - and on Friday at 5.30 the place was already buzzing! Apparently it's the closest you will get to an English pint of beer in Christchurch - and it was very good - in fact they all were! Despite being advised differently, this was the start of my carbo-loading for the Christchurch Half Marathon on the Sunday. It seemed to work, as I managed to get around in just under 1 hour 28 minutes - marginally slower than my previous PB set at the Great North Run back in 2002! Maria dipped in just under the hour mark for her 10k. It was a great event - over 6ooo competitors across the full, half and 10K events - the weather was a bit of a spoiler - wet and cold - but we enjoyed our efforts.
It was also Sarah's 14th birthday that day. She had invited a crowd of her friends over for a sleepover the night before. They seemed to have a good time - got on with things themselves - watched a few DVDs and ate sweets and crisps all evening!
It's quite strange witnessing a winter birthday for her - usually it's been an outdoor affair back in the UK - bouncy castles and camping out in the back garden.
I'm off to Dunedin in a week or so to do some work with Simply Lean which has been scheduled for some time. I'm looking forward to that. There was also an outside chance of being required on a contract out in Sydney at the start of July - though that seems to have gone quiet. I've also been discussing the opportunity of doing some Quality/Business Improvement work with Fulton Hogan in and around Canmterbury. Again, this looks as though it would be interesting stuff to be doing - they're a growing company with a presence in OZ as well as here in NZ. Hopefully that one could turn into something quite substantial.
And with just over 24 hours before the start of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, I'm starting to map out my TV time for the next 4 weeks around all of these work commitments! We still haven't installed SKY, so I'm limited to whatever is on TVNZ 1 or 7 - unless I want to be in a local pub between 2am and 8am each night! England vs USA is live on Sunday morning - so I guess my world cup will start then!
It was great to be working at Business Mentors in the Canterbury Development Corporation's offices - nice and warm compared to a cold home-office! And being part of a team of people was very pleasant again - someone to speak to over tea-break! There also seemed to be even more 'training course/board meeting lunch leftovers' than at R-R - so I didn't go hungry whilst I was there!
The role with Business Mentors has now finished as Jill has returned from her Northern Hemisphere trip. She found it a bit of a shock landing back here in the midst of a cold snap having just spent a few days in Dubai on route back home! I've got to say that the thought of getting somewhere warmer for a few days had been playing on my mind over the last week or so and I'm still mulling over a trip to Oz over the winter school holidays. (The sun is out today and it's suddenly gone quite warm again - bizarre).
I also closed out my lecturing at the University last week. It seemed to go OK, though my last session was not the best attended. I think I suffered from a big clash with a project hand-in deadline!
Maria and I went to The Loons (theatre) in Lyttelton a couple of weeks ago to see The Butler. It was a good evening out - interesting show - described in the notes as 'Cirque du Soleil meets Pinter'. Lots of action, witty and quite risquee in places - it's coming to a theatre in Islington, London next month if you're in the area!
I also ventured out into Christchurch last weekend for a few beers with the Asia Pacific Football Academy crowd at the Twisted Hop in Lichfield Lanes. It was a bank holiday weekend - Queens Birthday! - and on Friday at 5.30 the place was already buzzing! Apparently it's the closest you will get to an English pint of beer in Christchurch - and it was very good - in fact they all were! Despite being advised differently, this was the start of my carbo-loading for the Christchurch Half Marathon on the Sunday. It seemed to work, as I managed to get around in just under 1 hour 28 minutes - marginally slower than my previous PB set at the Great North Run back in 2002! Maria dipped in just under the hour mark for her 10k. It was a great event - over 6ooo competitors across the full, half and 10K events - the weather was a bit of a spoiler - wet and cold - but we enjoyed our efforts.
It was also Sarah's 14th birthday that day. She had invited a crowd of her friends over for a sleepover the night before. They seemed to have a good time - got on with things themselves - watched a few DVDs and ate sweets and crisps all evening!
It's quite strange witnessing a winter birthday for her - usually it's been an outdoor affair back in the UK - bouncy castles and camping out in the back garden.
I'm off to Dunedin in a week or so to do some work with Simply Lean which has been scheduled for some time. I'm looking forward to that. There was also an outside chance of being required on a contract out in Sydney at the start of July - though that seems to have gone quiet. I've also been discussing the opportunity of doing some Quality/Business Improvement work with Fulton Hogan in and around Canmterbury. Again, this looks as though it would be interesting stuff to be doing - they're a growing company with a presence in OZ as well as here in NZ. Hopefully that one could turn into something quite substantial.
And with just over 24 hours before the start of the FIFA World Cup in South Africa, I'm starting to map out my TV time for the next 4 weeks around all of these work commitments! We still haven't installed SKY, so I'm limited to whatever is on TVNZ 1 or 7 - unless I want to be in a local pub between 2am and 8am each night! England vs USA is live on Sunday morning - so I guess my world cup will start then!
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