Maaike made me a Dutch Apple pie for my birthday. It was delicious as ever

We’ve had miserable weather of late, which put a slight dampener on some of the buskers festival (but only for a few days). Anna totally enjoyed getting on stage and doing her pukana.

A couple of trips to willowbank where we had “El Gregore”‘s magic show. Always a firm favourite.

I’ve started reading “Swallows and Amazons” to Anna, and she’s totally enjoying it. My Aunt Mary who works in a bookstore keeps an eagle eye out for any in the series I don’t have. This one – “We didn’t mean to go to sea”, well, it so happens that the boat in that was Arthur Ransome’s own boat, and it’s still available to be sailed on, and it’s close to where the family gathering is in the UK later on this year. I’m hoping to get to sail on it (nothing set in stone yet however). There’s a really lovely video if you have ten minutes to spare. For some reason brought a tear to my eye (but I’m a terrible softy)

p.s. I’ve migrated to a new server, let me know if you notice anything weird.

There was an exhibit of Banksy in town.  I love his stuff.  No idea if this was “sanctioned” or not, I suspect not but it’s hard to know.  Anyway, it was very cool seeing a bunch of his stuff in one place.  I particularly liked some of the quotes, including:

To not realise you have power is the first step to losing it

My colleague Janet (our principle engineer) was in town visiting. She stayed at ours for a week, we did some walks, went to Banksy, played a bunch of games (she loves games). We played wingspan a couple of times. She won with the best score I’ve ever seen (on her second play!). Probably a reason she’s the principle engineer and worked at Facebook (and many other places) as an engineer. We also went to Hinewai Reserve which is this lovely spot where the guy just basically bought a bunch of land and just let it regenerate (i.e. just left it alone!). It’s lovely now and free to visit. There’s a video here if you want to learn more.

My friend Dave Aubrey & partner Jess were over visiting from Canada. One thing Dave had really wanted to do was to go for a trip down the Hurunui. The original plan had been to pack-raft. I’ve never been in one of these before. The Hurunui was running pretty high (it’s usually 30 cumecs, it was running at 145 or something). So, much faster and pushier than it normally is. I’d borrowed a single from my friend Hamish, but, on the day they asked me to go down in the double with Jess (Dave and Warick were safety-boating, and Neil wanted to go in a single).

So, Jess and I gave it a go, almost capsized on the first turn into the river (I’m just nervous and leaning “into” the turn doesn’t come naturally). Anyway, after a couple of very tenuous crossings I decided that this really wasn’t for me. I almost never give up on an adventure, but, yeah, while I don’t think it would have been massively dangerous, it would have meant some long unpleasant swims, and quite possibly putting a hole in the raft. Jess quite agreed with me that stopping was a good idea.

It did give a bunch of time for chatting and taking pics, so, that was nice!

Short Christmas holiday this year for me, have plans for holiday later in the year :) Anna in holiday programmes a bunch. We try to do no more than 3 days a week as otherwise it’s a bit tiring. It’s pretty cool all the things you can try as a kid these days. I think from next year she’ll be able to try bouldering, and in a few years sailing possibly? Very jealous!

I got out for a few rides while we had some half decent weather (it really has been quite the rainy summer. Again.). Also very nice to be back with a decent coffee machine at work!

We headed up to Palmy for Christmas to see my Aunt and cousins. It’s lovely for Anna to see her cousins, it’s a special kind of relationship I think. Lots of games were played (Carcassonne our current favourite, packs up nicely into a box too).

We also went on a quick walk around the new bridge. Pretty cool to see the earthquake-responsive suspension in the system.

Then it was on down to Paraparaumu to see my cousin Jon & Amelia and spend time with them. It’s a lovely setup they have, living close to the grandparents and just in a pretty idyllic spot.

So, a lovely time there, exploring their backyard a bit. Anna definitely enjoyed being the older cousin. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of them over the years! Lovely to have more cousins in NZ.

After that it was down to Wellington to spend a few nights with Glynn and Jayne and their kids. It’s always such a lovely time there, we really feel like family. They’re also incredibly good cooks which doesn’t hurt ;) , oh, and Glynn’s an excellent brewer. Unfortunately there wasn’t anything on tap while we were there. Next time.

We went to The Breathe Exhibition at Te Papa. It was good, but it was unfortunate that the VR goggles were all booked out, as I suspect that would have been next-level!

Lots of wingspan was played. The oceania expansion is worth getting if you own the game.

Finally, it was time to fly back to ChCh. Anna was brave and asked the stewardess if she could give out the sweets…