Recently blogger upgraded and made everyone stop using blogger accounts and start using google accounts. Slightly irritating but not the end of the world.

Anyway, I had to make a new account so that people can still post. If you want to post a picture either create a google account and drop me an email and I can register you as a named account… or log in and post anonymously as
username : picaweek
password : 123picaweek

Last weekend I headed up to Wellington to spend a weekend with Glynn & Jayne, and to see my friends Jackie and Mairead who are also working up in Wellington. I was due to fly out on Thursday evening but unfortunately there were some nasty storms and the flight was cancelled. Not that I can complain as I was on a ‘Buddy’ ticket with my friend Matt – so the return trip only cost $80.

So flew up on the Friday morning, and Glynn and Jayne collected me from the airport. Shortly after arriving we walked 50m down the road to the local coffee & ice-cream shop. The people who work there know Glynn & Jayne by name and their usual orders off by heart! And they’ve only been living there for a couple of months! The ice-cream really was superb though.

All in all it was a pretty lazy weekend. One of the hilights for me was going to see Old St Paul’s a 19th century gothic revival church. Matt’s girlfriend Silke works there. It’s a beautiful old (for NZ) wooden building with a really peaceful feeling to it. The other highlight was playing pool in the pool hall where Stickmen was filmed.

I’m sure I put on at least a couple of kilo’s with the amount of food and drink consumed, but all in all well worth it.

No pictures I’m afriad this time, but spent a very enjoyable weekend hiking to the otahake hot springs in Arthurs Pass. It’s a 4 1/2 hour (leisurely) walk in with the reward of being able to sit in really nice hot pools surrounded by mountains beneath a blanket of stars (poetic or what?!).

I was most impressed by two of the party who brought in a 6 month old baby. He was remarkably well behaved.. great to see that having a kid doesn’t stop them getting out and about.

Looking forward to the weekend – I’m off up to Wellington to see Glynn & Jayne, Jackie (eng friend from TCD) and Mairead (another TCD friend).. should be a great weekend (if a little inebriated on Sat night!)

On a lighter note – NZ houses (in particular mine) are utterly pathetic for their lack of insulation, double glazing and central heating. I sleep on thick (flanalette) sheets, under a duvet, a down jacket with a hot water bottle with a hat on! If there’s one bad thing about NZ this would have to be it. Well, that and distance – but that’s the reason NZ is as wonderful as it is.

It’s a funny thing, the first Monday in June is the queens birthday bank holiday weekend. Now, I could be wrong (happens occasionally) but I don’t think the UK gets a holiday – strange as she’s their queen too and lives in the country.

Anyway, headed off to Ohau region to do some tramping/mountaineering. We had 3 days of pretty good weather and attempted to climb Mt McKenzie. The drive in was pretty interesting as it was an old 4wd. I think our subaru station wagon has done more extreme 4wdriving than most SUVs in town!

I’m really not much of a mountaineer – and certainly found some of the slopes we had to go up a little scary! Mind you, food in the evening always tastes so good if you’ve been out walking all day – I think it’s probably my favourite part ;)

So a good weekend away with Steve, Ben,Andrew, Carine & Olive. Andrew, a friend of Olive & Carines is a maths teacher here. It was good to chat with him as I have been thinking more and more (though I’m still not sure) that maybe going back to become a teacher is something that I want to do. I’ve had so many conversations going from ‘Don’t do it you’d be mad’ to ‘the holidays are great’. I’m not sure – I think I’ll have to try and do some shadowing of teachers to see if I like the scene before committing to a years study. The other question is where do to it.

If I do it in Ireland it’ll cost 5000 euro – though I might be able to
save somewhat on accommodation.. assuming:
a) I can live with my parents again
b) that they’ll have me!

If I do it in NZ I can most likely get a 10K grant as they’re stuck for maths teachers, or alternatively the UK which would mean starting in August next year most likely – but I think there are grants over there too.. so who knows – not me for sure. It’s a pretty scary prospect – thinking that you want to get out of the area you’re trained in & have work experience in – to move into an area that you’ve no experience in and aren’t too sure of.

Last weekend headed off to Mt. Somers for the weekend. It’s a 2 hour walk in to the crag (nice DOC hut at the base of the crag), but excellent climbing rewards the walkers.

Then today I headed out to meet Kris from Kingswood Skis who are sponsoring snowpool. It’s really impressive the company they have been able to make within 2 years. I loved their robot too..

What else.. well.. been having a pretty difficult time of late to be honest. I have been feeling quite down – I now have an idea of what depression is like. And to be honest it sucks! Little energy, find it really difficult to make decisions, worry, anxiety.. tis terrible stuff really. While I still believe the basic idea behind Vipassana is a good one, the effects for me have been less than positive (at least at the moment). I’m sure things will (they are) get better – just at the moment life could be a little easier.

So there you go – life isn’t always perfecto for me – even though one does ones best to make it look like that with the sneaky idea of getting all the right ppl to move out to NZ so that I’ll have more friends to play with out here :) It’s at times like these that being far from family sucks. Still, I suppose whatever doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger, and if that’s true I should come out of this super strong!