Surprisingly un-hungover on Saturday morning. A pleasant surprise, but still decided to be lazy. Which, I must admit (well, I choose to) I thoroughly enjoyed. Started another book (finished Richard Bransons autobiography which was most entertaining), and now onto Tenzing and the Sherpas of Everest. Those guys can tramp!

Anyway.. there’s a film festival on at the moment. Glynn, Mark and I headed to see a film called The Aristocrats. It’s sort of a documentary on comedians. It’s also extremely vile. Quite looking forward to A Fistful of Dynamite on Wednesday evening. A western by Sergio Leone. The same guy wot made The good, the bad and the ugly and many other excellent films!.

Sunday trad climbing on the Port Hills. Glynn leading most of them (I gibbered my way up a couple of easy climbs)

Oh, and daylight savings has come in over here.. so now we’re 12 hours ahead..

Had an excellent dinner at Florians on Thursday – a pre St. Patricks Dinner. Glynn had got into the spirit of things properly… and made a cake.

Oh Glynn has also put a video from Stewart Island up. Take note of his warning!

St. Patricks itself, as per usual, ended up in The Bog. I was less than impressed with the band though. There was one gig to dance to while we were there, and the did this wicked slow-pop-beat for U2’s ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for‘. Wicked being the word for it! Anyway, still proud to be Irish (esp beating England in the rugby and coming second ahead of Scotland in the 6 nations ;))

So a while ago I was playing squash and twinged something. The physio has been helping out but slow progress.. so took an x-ray the other day. The results were .. ok.. there’s little bit of wear and tear (hmmm) but he seems to think I should be all right. It is kinda depressing though – life here is all about being active – and when jumping down from boulder problems gets painful it’s really kinda irritating. Still.. I know life will be just wonderful when things sort themselves out.

Other than that.. climbing this eve with Glynn was fun.. we’re both quite weak, but that’ll change. Glynn also learned to roll a kayak, which is super exciting – well done to him and Dave (who taught him). Great stuff.

Anyway, time for a few stretches before bed! Sorry no pretty pictures this time.

Oh, on the plus side – my flatmate Mark was really really kind – and fixed my mp3 player (soldered the contacts back again, so now I can hear out of both headphones.. total bonus)

The week in Wellington went well work wise (not bad for alliteration?!) All the integration between the work I have done and the external systems showed that what we wanted to achieve was possible.

It was good to work with other techy ppl again. That has been missing a bit – one of the disadvantages of my freedom I guess.

The Arts Festival was in full swing while I was there. I took myself off to see Orchestra Baobab. I put a short movie up too.

They were excellent. Luckily all the normal tickets were sold out leaving only standing remaining. Which was great, as it meant the crowd got to dance. I wished I’d had a partner present to dance salsa away to! (I should have just grabbed someone!!) hehe.

The pictures were from an artist called Yann Arthus-Bertrand. Actually that link I just came across is great! you can download any of his pics as wallpaper for your desktop!. Anyway, he flies around the place taking pictures from helicopters documenting eco-stuff. Good pics anyway.

So yes, the arts festival and work went well. I also (stupidly didn’t take any pictures!) met up with on a couple of the nights with my friend Jackie from Engineering in TCD. Great to see a friend from home who might even stay a while.

Then also out with two caving friends – Dave (recently relocated from ChCh) and Joe (X-Scotland, now wanting to move back to ChCh)

So yes, good times in Wellington. I made no use of the hotel facilities as I forgot my swim gear and runners… last time I don’t make a list. I also forgot my nice portable speakers… quite annoying.

More annoying again! was when I was taking a (well deserved?!) lie in.. and the fire alarm went off (7am). Politely informing me between deafening screeches, that ‘A fire alarm has been activated in another area of the building, you can leave if you want to, more information will be given shortly‘ in a nice, calm, reassuring American voice. I waited 10 mins and then exited!. Also dragon boat practicing was going on.

Finally it was time to leave Wellington. I traveled up to Palmerston North to see my Aunt + family for the weekend. It was lovely seeing all them again. They seem to grow up so fast (which again makes thinking of my nieces and nephews in Dublin + Minneapolis all the harder!). This pic of my first cousin once removed (Bridgit)

So this weekend it was off to Mt. Somers climbing for the weekend – with Glynn, Mark (flatmate) and his friend Blair. The walkin was quite long for climbers – at 3 hours or so (we had to do the last 1/3rd in the dark). Glynn cursed me most of the way, but the climbing more than made up for it (at least, he says it did) The hike started off with a climb up to – 843m I think it was (ooooh) to the top of Dukes Knob.

It’s definitely one of the best places that I have climbed in NZ. The rock is split (at least where we climbed) into two distinct types. One has these awesome basalt columns, and the other a weird sort of rock that looks like it’s a pile of cement with lots of loose bits in it, but is actually really stable..

The first crag we climbed (quite the hike up from the hut) was Christian Principles crag. I must write down the names, but they were all pretty nasty! (climbers have an odd sense of humour sometimes) All the routes on this crag (except one which we didn’t do) were trad. Glynn leading them all.. like I said, great to have him along.. I’m not quite confident enough yet .. but I’ll get there. I just lead one climb later on – on the Meat Grinder slab… just an easy one – but freaked me out enough! just not used to climbing trad any more.

It was quite nice to get back down to the hut in the evening. It had become quite cold up on the hill as the cloud came down. Still, apparently it had lashed rain all day in ChCh (as our friend Steve informed us when he joined later on in the day)…

Dinner was a delicious curry (I’m going to invest in lots of small containers for different curries ‘n spices!). It wasn’t quite a perfectly sound sleep following though… See the hut (lovely hut!) had space for 15 people. One of which snored. A lot. And happened to be in the next bunk over. I made sure he woke up a few times in the vain hope he would shift himself into a less snore-prone state… but to no good! Even with my earplugs in it was too loud! One more night of that and it would have been over to Holmes..

Anyway, next day dawned with a nice blue sky, so back to the crag – this time to the concrete looking pinnacles. Steve and Glynn led up a 3 pitch 19 (Glynn leading the 1st and 3rd pitches with Steve taking the long exposed middle (19) pitch. Great views from the top – and a really quality climb.

Finally, a very happy birthday to Glynn. It makes such a difference having a friend like him around when so far from home! Shame I’m up in Wellington and can’t head out for a pint – that will be put right when I get back though…

On the Wellington front, all the tests so far have gone really well, so looks like all the integration with the other systems is going to work out ok. Which is a nice relief!