Well I had a lazy weekend (again – this is becoming a nasty habit!), must try to get away this weekend. I was hoping to have been able to get snowboarding, but unfortunately there was lots of warm weather and rain which has washed a lot of the snow away. Apparently down south (Wanaka/Queenstown) is good – so will probably have to head down there when my brother matt arrives. Hopefully by then there’ll be lots of snow in Canterbury too.

I also had the pleasure of celebrating the engagement of Warick and Hannah. They had a few friends over on the Saturday night and it was a really lovely evening. They’ve really make the house into a very nice home.

I also got out a copy of Harry Potter and Half Blood prince which is the last book in the harry potter series. I wanted to re-read it in anticipation of the final book which comes out in 16 days or so. I’ll probably not do much else that weekend except reading! Though I do hate finishing good books! It’s such a shame :)

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.