Firstly – yet another picture of the tree in the houses’ courtyard. I *love* this tree.

So yes, Dave Aubrey was in town, here to visit the lovely Maria.. the hope was, that having Maria here would entice Dave back. Unfortunately it seems the opposite has happened.

Had a really fun time orienteering up at Castle Hill on Sunday.. It was a pretty tricksy map as it was literally boulders everywhere. Fortunately I had a secret weapon – in the form of a 10?! year old boy who I realised was doing the same course as me.. so, while I obviously didn’t just follow him… I did… how would you say.. double check that I was going in the right direction. Perfectly acceptable.

And crushed Maaike’s (all girls) team by 50 minutes or something. Crushed. Destroye… heh… kidding. Possibly proving that women can’t read maps? ;) hehehe, ehem… think I will have to turn comments off on this one ;) Hehehe.

Mind you – speaking of getting lost.. Maaike, Steve, Michelle and I have been doing a midweek rogaine series – and with daylight savings, and Steve in the North Island, and a Southerly coming through tomorrow night.. it could be a disaster. Or fun. More likely a disaster though.

Well, hope ya’ll have a fun Easter.. I’ll be shooting goats on the North Island… more to come..

Winter beckons with a large index finger. While there is something to be said for conserving energy by heating less and simply wearing a jumper, sometimes it is nice to not be completely frozen going to bed (and wearing a hat).

If you’re very very lucky, I’ll put up a picture of my mid-winter bedroom attire. Maybe it’s time for a pop-survey. Maybe it’s time I moved to wordpress. Maybe pigs can fly. Who knows? It’s a big multiverse out there.

Anyways – yes, made the most of last weekend with a wee picnic in the park. Park of Maaike’s Christmas present.

Mind you, today I discovered the Mediterranean Food Warehouse, and that really was a find. Dangerous place. Good place. Yummy place. Expensiveish place. Emporium of Italian Ice-Cream. mmmmmm.

Other than that, buying a new computer, not rreeeaaallllly needed. At all, but sure what the hey.. what with the end of the world coming best to enjoy it while we can eh? (no I have no idea when that’s coming – but it sounded sinister and exciting). Oh – and need to get ski-passes too, and hoping to go up to Auckland to see Cirque du Soleil in July.

This weekend it was up to the Marlborough Sounds for Glynn & Jayne’s wedding. Maaike and I left on Wednesday evening and went the very long (but enjoyable) way through lewis pass. This meant we could stop at Syliva Flats on the way up (natural hot pools just close to a rest stop where you can park for the night). There’s something very nice about soaking in your own earth heated bath looking up at a crystal night sky.

The next day we left there and passed via the Riverside Cafe for lunch. Ok, so it took us a good 8 hours to get to Picton going that route, but well worth it.

To get to Furneaux you have to get a water taxi from Picton – and it’s an hour to get to the lodge. I really liked the way all the family were there already. It’s definitely the way to go I think.. that way everyone gets to meet for a few days (rather than just the one). Furneaux is a great place to chill out though. Even has a bar – perfect.

Glynn was ridiculously calm. I tried to do my job as best man by making up for it by trying to be extra stressed for both of us ;) Didn’t work though, it’s just a relaxed place.

I’m afraid I didn’t take any pictures this trip – was too busy enjoying myself, and I have *no idea* who’s any of these are.. so sorry about that.

There is a ridiculous amount of preparation in a wedding.. honestly, I urge anyone thinking of undertaking this event, to think about the seriousness of it.

There’s glasses, and tables, and shoes, and flowers…

And then the big day arrived… two pods (20?) dolphins arrived into the bay (first time in 4 months), and after eating the fish they had herded in, proceeded to play – doing jumps and flips. If you believe in omens (they can be good!), this would have to be a great one. (more pictures to hopefully come on this).

Anyway.. basically chilled out until 3 (managed to get to have one small sandwich) and then went to get changed. I am ashamed to admit, that I had to have Glynn’s brother in law show me how to tie a Windsor knot. Must learn that one. Anyway.. we came out looking like this:

These next two are Alan and Caroline – Glynn’s parents.

Ok, so Glynn did get a little nervous.. but then we’d put holes in all the boats and placed sentries along the Queen Charlotte track – so Jayne would have to swim to safety. She didn’t – and preceded by Mia & Lilly, her two beautiful nieces, was walked down the aisle by her father (John).

And then there were the vows – quite simple, but very loving. Sam, Jayne’s nephew arrived with the rings – and shortly after (or has it happened already by then?!) it was time to kiss the bride :)

Then it was time for photographs, champagne and speeches. I was quite nervous about giving the best man’s speech.. mainly because of the quality of Alan and John’s speeches, and Brett’s MCing.. But it seemed to go down well enough.. I did manage to work in the title pun (love at first byte) so it wasn’t completely bad ;)

Then cake, drinking’ laughter and dancing. I did have a chat with John (Jayne’s Dad) about careers etc. The exchange went something like “You should workout where you want to be in 3 years and how you’re going to get there” And I said “No one on their death bed ever wishes they’d spent more time at work”. I think there’s space for a little compromise on both sides :)

Big thanks to Maaike too – it was great to be able to go off under a tree for 3 hours and work out the speech (and very kindly be brought sandwiches) and to know that she was perfectly happy mingling on her own. We didn’t quite get through our agreed?! no arguing / slagging / heated discussion / raised debate / screaming fighting clawing no-holds-barred weekend completely unscathed, but that’s ok – no ones perfect. Well, almost.

Still – mission accomplished, Glynn & Jayne Foster – happily married. Good work.

Off to the West Coast this weekend to walk the inland pack track. The Inland Pack Track was created in the mid 1800’s for gold miners to move through the area. Unfortunately the didn’t seem to have left any massive nuggets lying about to be picked up.

Unfortunately for us, it also happened to be the Wildfoods weekend, so the traffic was pretty thick getting out of town. Mikkel, our fast (but safe) driver decided that it would be more fun to cut back across to the Lewis Pass. I suppose it added an extra hour and a half to our drive (even averaging about 120 all the way!) – but there were certainly less cars. The other car in the group opted to sit back an extra 2 seconds from the boy racers in front and go through Arthurs Pass – and arrived that hour and a half ahead of us.

We stayed at the excellent Te Nikau Retreat. Definitely the best backpackers to stay in if you’re in Punakaiki. No pictures (bit slow this weekend!)

So, some pictures (yay)

There were lots of river crossings – it’s definitely not the tramp to do after there has been a lot of rain. We also went into Cave Creek Cave? There was an accident about 15 years ago where a group of students were on a platform which collapsed, killing quite a lot of them – and led to a review of all the DOC platforms and bridges around the country.

It is amazing the difference between the West and East coasts. It’s a lot more tropical / rainforesty on the West – it gets many buckets more rain than the East. Still, when we run our of water in ChCh after drinking our aquifers dry – we’ll all be off over there. Note – in ChCh the water is filtered not treated – comes straight from the aquifers and is really lovely to drink.

Come to New Zealand. Come to Christchurch. Today! ;)

ehem.

We also had Dave Aubrey’s girlfriend Maria along for the trip. I suspect it was all a little cruisey (if fun)… she has now taken off with tougher friends off into Arthurs Pass.. but I suspect she is looking forward to when Dave arrives for some adventures in a few weeks time. His blog is well worth checking out – the latest pictures from *way* up in Northy North Northern Canada are pretty amazing. Ice roads ‘n the like.

Thanks to Volker for organising an excellent weekend.

Not that I have a plan to move back to Ireland… but this is just scary…

Bank of Ireland tumbled more than 30 per cent yesterday to €0.125. Its share price 12 months earlier stood at €9.15. AIB slid 21 per cent to €0.27, compared to €13.29 a year ago.