Well I think this would have to go down as one of my favourite parties to date. The theme was ‘formalish garden party’ – and it was a joint celebration of my friend Michelle and I (we both share January 21st as our birthday).

I had absolutely no backup plan if the weather turned bad, and it was thunder and lightning about 10 days before so I was a tad nervous.

It was just so great having lots of friends over, and everyone got into the spirit of things – playing croquet and pétanque and hoop-la.

Thanks to Andreas Baumgaertner for most of these pictures!

My cousin Thomas brought over 2 bottles of Pimms for me, and Maaike too on her way back from Australia. This was a good basis for a garden party I thought!. Steve had 2 brilliant ideas which were to plonk a spare fridge in the garden and fill it with ice. In effect a giant cool box. Brilliant. The other great idea was to hook up some lights so that we could go on playing volleyball and chatting into the night. Brilliantly brilliant.

And now, in no particular order, pictures from the party.

And on into the night it went… it was a really warm evening so the tough people amongst us were able to stay in t-shirts ;) Croquet also seemed to get more interesting for some people after a few drinks and Magnus’ excellent instruction earlier in the day! Glynn and Jayne were also down for the party which was really kind of them. Mhairi was over from Melbourne where she had been attending a conference at the Australian Open. I get the feeling she is more than a little tempted to move back to this hemisphere – if career opportunities allow.

So yes, a really lovely party – had so much fun.. if I’m lucky enough to be still in this house (Mrs. Bennett – our 83 year old landlady also came out for a glass of Pimms (and stayed for two))… then I think this might have to be done again.

Just before Christmas DOC bought a large tract of land North of Hamner Springs – for NZ$60m I think? Something like that… adding a lot more land onto what is the St. James Walkway National Parky-ish Area. Anyway.. we thought we’d head in there for a tramp.

Maaike had a visiting Dutch friend – super fun and sporty – Veronique, who came along with us.

It was quite an interesting area really.. seemed like steep valleys all over the place (which I completely forgot to take pictures of ;)

Along the way Steve would periodically look under rocks, as in an entomologists want, and we did see this quite cool transition of a centipede? shedding its old skin (the orange) and coming out blue.

Along the way we introduced Veronique to river crossings. I have pretty much given up on even bothering to think about hoping to have a chance of maybe keeping my feet try on tramps. I would imagine that the number of tramps I have been on where my feet haven’t got wet is a lot less than a quite small number.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-4334415523266204539]

After much merrymaking we got to Lake Guyon hut. It is a 4 bunk hut, and as we’d not seen anyone (but a few mountain bikers) for the day we hoped it would be ours. But no, the Belgians had invaded. Nice people though… they had taken 2 1/2 years off. 2 1/2 years. Nice… (though I would go… mental?! ;) ehem, and were spending a lot of their time tramping through the South Island. Also there is a picture of Steve with our cheesecake desert!, and a poem.

And a video of the hut.

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=9204198569098935457]

So had a fun evening there, and the next day started the same tramp back out. We thought about heading back over a different saddle but unfortunately, as we were crossing over a small (but quite slippery) stream, Veronique fell awkwardly.. and my 3rd trip involving a helicopter was about to start.

We all stopped, and while Maaike was quite heroic bandaging up her ankle – Steve showed me these really cool active-predator spiders. They can swim, and don’t make webs (except as a nursery). Should have made a video. Anyway… we started walking out (for about 20m) before it became obvious that even if we could get out – it wouldn’t be until 3am.

So Steve and I hiked back to the car, drove into Hamner, called the police on the way, and quite soon after that a helicopter was organised. So Maaike ended up with a free $2.5K helicopter ride as she got to accompany Veronique back in it.

If you are ever unfortunate enough to get into an accident in New Zealand.. then ACC is the free state accident insurance cover, and it will look after you. The heli trip, A&E;, etc. etc. is *all free*. For New Zealanders (not sure about the rest) your salary is also paid (up to 80%). It also means, basically, that there is very little personal litigation – though unfortunately it is trying to creep in.

So, if you walk down the street / across my garden / in the hills, trip, break your leg you can’t sue anyone! ACC will pick you up, dust you off, and put you back together. It’s a magic system. And it works for anyone who is on NZ soil *regardless of nationality or reciprocity. So there. Another great reason to move / live here. No lawyers.. or few. Deadly.

Oh, and before any Kiwi’s think we were frivolous calling the helicopter.. it turned out to be a compound fracture of the ankle – and really was just an unlucky accident. The doctors said it was a really good thing we stopped and called a heli as if she’d walked far on it, it definitely would have been far more serious to fix.

Also, Sylvia is back visiting from Scotland, she was given a bottle of wine with her family name on it.. and looks quite happy about it :)

Hopefully she and Mark move back soon.

Ok, so stole this (again) from Marcel (thanks Marcel).. A couple of countdowns.. one.. to when I turn ancient. Get a zero in my age. Yes, I know most of you are thinking this is pathetic… but you try turning 30 if you haven’t already. I think you’ll find it’s very hard to either

• Turn 30 again
• Turn 30 any quicker

.

So leave the commentary to me. Please. Actually don’t ;)

Anyway… in [countdown will appear here] amount of time I will turn 30.. (roughly – always find timezones a bit tricksy) but 08:30 on the 21st..

And in [countdown will appear here] is when I am having a party (on the sat).. please Skype if you get the chance :) Be only lovely to hear from you!

Ok, so the title is somewhat misleading.. in that it wasn’t an extreme weekend. But hey, I’m almost frickin’ 30.. cut me some slack. You don’t have to be extreme all the time. In fact, those who know me well would definitely argue that I am something of a slacker.

Anyway… enough of this… cabin fever set in, as did the weather (North of ChCh) so Maaike and I headed to Ohau area for the weekend. It’s a really lovely part of the country – especially in winter. We did a really cruisey (3 hour – at a leisurely pace) walk into the South Temple Valley.

It does have some pretty nice scenery – definitely worth a drop in if you are in the area and fancy an easy walk.

Then beautiful views of Mt. Cook on the way back.

Getting a little nervous about the olde 30th rolling in. My flatmate Mark informs me that any birthday with a zero in it means a month of parties. We’ll see. I’ve been trying a Chiropractor and today a Massage Therapist to try and piece my broken (3 year old squash injury) back into shape. Perhaps my 30s will usher in a new era of fantasticness. Well see.

Unfortunately my camera died before Christmas so I have no exciting pictures to show you. I do however have some groovy pictures to show you. Pictures of pictures. How recursive is that (more on recursion later)

Flew to Palmerston North, and was utterly hammered at every game that was played (mostly scrabble). It was good for my humility. Did claw back a lucky game of Risk against Cousin Thomas, but he retrieved the Scrabble Trophy. He got recursion (re was already down… git) for 50 points +, better than that he got Sealings through two triple letter words – 122 points for that one. So yes, well and truly hammered. Starting therapy on Monday.

Went to a few beaches, played with the kids (though I did escape for some Me time too – definitely less ready for kids than ever I was before now!). Had some drawing competitions (anyone guess which one is mine?)

I went in with a blatant attempt to pander to the judges ego (James 6), but it failed (but not entirely miserably).

The more fun game was called ‘Consequences‘. I’d not heard of it before, perhaps you have. We played a shortened version of it – basically everyone gets a sheet of paper. Then you write down a story with the following questions.

1. Mr [x] met Ms [y] At [place]
2. She was wearing [clothing]
3. He was wearing [clothing]
4. She said to him [something]
5. He said to her [something]
6. And the consequence was [event]

You don’t have to tie it all together as a story (but most of us did). The trick is that after each of the steps above you fold your page partly over and pass it on to the next person. Results below.

So that was fun, New Years at a beautiful beach called Waimarama (Water + Moon). Stunning stars, yeah – a really beautiful time.

And now back to work & ChCh… we are having ridiculously hot weather at the moment – hottest days on record – or close to. Yesterday Steve suggested we all go swimming & and have a picnic at corsairs bay. Good times.