Well, visitors this week – old friends of the family – two wonderful people – Paddy and Jane were in town…

They’ve been touring NZ for the last month – and before that British Colombia and now heading on to the US for another couple of weeks. But in NZ they hired this huge camper van and headed all over the place. Quite a comfortable way of traveling really. They used to be my old scout leaders – and it was great being able to return some of the hospitality..

Headed out for a wee drive with them on Sat off up into the Port Hills (the hills overlooking ChCh). Had a good view from old WW2 gun emplacements out over the entrance to Littleton harbour.

That’s a pic of Paddy beside one of the gun emplacements, the ship in the distance (the d’Amico) was heading into the harbour. Huge guns…really huge – not that they’re there any more, but we saw pics!

Also saw some people up in the hills flying gliders. Looked like fun

The other excellent thing of the weekend was catching up with Mum and Dad in Uganda on MSN, so glad I got this computer now!! AND :) I tried Skype with my brother Chris. Basically it’s internet PC->PC telephone. Voice Over IP.. AND IT WORKS PERFECTLY!! Just perfectly.. it was just like a telephone call… only free. Free from NZ->Ireland. Mad. So please, anyone who wants a chat and has an internet connection – well download the software and drop me your username.. It’s incredible really. My bro was just on a dialup modem connection – and there was no lag or anything… it’s fantastic.

Go get it!!

Oh, finally… a plea ;) If anyone is feeling generous.. well.. OK, so I’m living with a Frenchman – Florian. That, in itself would be bad enough ;) ehehhe, but.. well he has this frog you see

Which we keep in a little alcove by the door, and it changes position from time to time.. it was originally smoking a cigarette, then started ploughing into the wine, then the beer.. then it felt a little sick, and now it seems to be on a healthy buzz

But…. if anyone would like to (and I Honestly Have looked for a Leprechaun over here.. but if anyone would like to send me over a little leprechaun soft-toy I’d be so grateful! (otherwise I’ll just have to order one online! :) but it would be great to have an Irish influence back in the house…

But yes, good times, good times. Called home to Ireland as my friend Viv was having a barbecue.. would be great to hang out for a couple of weeks.. but this place kinda rocks.. I’m really trying very hard not to think about what exactly I’m up to at the moment!! It’d be far too easy to just stay here…

Anyway, message of the moment –

GET ON SKYPE

and then plug in patrick_davey as a contact.. You will need to get a headset. I would recommend Plantronics as a good make (quite cheap too). This is the one I got.. works fine…

Manic week, Monday had to play squash was wrecked after the weekend.. we drew.. right down to the number of points each team won over the evening.. crazy. It was a semi-final, so was replayed today (Thursday) we came second (lost ;) hehe. Also got up boarding at Hutt today.. took a second lesson which was really worth while, lots more to practice. But it was very windy and icy.. not ideal conditions really.

So, pretty full week and weekend really.. Monday had squash off as it’s the end of the league.. Tuesday climbing as per usual, Wed my Aunt was in town so headed out for dinner.. yum, then off to the CUTC meet, where a tramp was organised leaving on Thursday evening.. It’s great working here and being able to just take time off when wanted.

So Thursday evening headed off on the St. James Walk. It was bucketing rain on Thursday evening, really incredibly dark and stormy weather (forked lightning too), but it cheered up. So walked 7km in on the Thursday night..

Both Friday and Sat hiked 30km each day pretty much. It was very straightforward hiking really, very flat terrain, but it was long.

My knees really don’t like going downhill with a rucksack any more… which is a little disconcerting as they used to not mind… keep thinking about heading to the Phisio on ACC.. will see about that.

There were some pretty cute views though, esp in the snow. And lots of lovely swing bridges to walk across, most of them being 1 person bridges.

The ‘summmit’ of the walk really didn’t look like one! :) It was an excellent group of people though, and funny, it was the first trip I’d been on that the kiwis outnumbered the foreigners.. 7:3.

The other thing we did see on the walk (apparently it’s something to look out for as they’re all over the place) were wild horses. So here are some wild horses… (didn’t look super wild to me, no stamping of the hooves, rearing / charging or anything)

Then on Saturday night when we got back in, headed out for mussles and fries to the Belgian themed restauraunt, washed down with nice Leffe Brun. Will totally be going there with Glynn after pool sometime.. Like for sure for sure ;)

What else, Sunday was quite lazy, slighly surprised when I got a phone call saying that our squash team got through to the semi finals and so I have to play on Monday.. which I’m not really looking forward to as I’m quite wrecked really.

Mind you, we did have an earthquake 4.3.. so that was fun.

Looking into Laser Eye surgery this week too. Well, not laser eye surgery exactly.. it’s not like I’m going to have an eye that shoots lasers.. though could be good for lining up pool shots.. hmmmm.. but will see about that, have been tempted for a long time now.

Fantastico weekend really, went off snowboarding for Saturday and Sunday. Wasn’t looking at all promising really as Jana, Mhairi and I drove down on Friday evening. Huge amount of rain falling and forecast. But we made good time down to Twizel where we met Clare, Marcel and Neil.

Then Sat morning it was off to Ohau skifield. Conveniently covered by my ski pass. And it’s by far and away the best place I’ve snow boarded. Ok, so the only other place I’ve ever snowboarded was Hutt (and after sunday, Mt. Dobson too), but it was a great place. Quite nice and small, not to crowded, but it had a *great* feeling about the place.

Really was getting the hang of boarding, getting down the blue runs pretty well by the end of the day.

The highlight, was taking the chairlift to the top of the ski field, and then hiking up the ridge at the back…

Bit of a slog up the hill, but the views from the top was just fantastic, right down over the lake, just beautiful.

Then snowboarded off down a pretty steep – nice and wide with lots of powder – off piste slope. And it was just the best feeling flying along in deep powder. Was on a total high after doing that run.

Then back to the chalet we were staying in to cook Mexican – twas yum. Unfortunatly the Bombay Sapphire had run out from last night… Anna arrived – another CUTC member so twas quite the party really!

L to R – Jana, Clare, Anna and Marcel

–sunday–

Then on Sunday it was off to Mt. Dobson, another ski field on the way back to ChCh. It was good, but a lot more packed and I was slightly wrecked from Ohau, so did not enjoy it quite as much. But still, am really getting my turns now. Well, kinda anyway.

So yes, a fantastic weekend, would really love to get back to Ohau again. Tomorrow :)

So left for Auckland on Wednesday morning.. Still don’t reckon it’s the greatest city in the world… Straight to the hotel, definitely a nice one.. close to the centre, and big rooms. Was quite surprised that we weren’t sharing rooms.. just for the expense of it all.

So the day was spent meeting our opposite halves in Auckland, was good to see the developers. Funny really to get a view of trying to get outside contractors to do work – it was all about ‘well what priority is your new project, is it more important than the other 15 really important projects…’. Quite familiar…

The evening was fun though. We were there for the Telecommunications Users Association of New Zealand – TUANZ awards. Basically a non-profit organisation for the Telecoms industry. We were finalists in two categories. No, we didn’t win, but it was great exposure esp. as two ministers were there and we were the only government department nominated for anything.

It was also a great excuse to dress up

Left to Right – Helen, Louise and Jax

and have a great evening drinking (slightly too much) excellent wine and eating yum food.

Left to Right – Andrew (boss!), Me, Grant

Then the next day we got to have a meeting with a crowd of people who publish the NZ Herald, amongst other things. The reason we were there was to see how they’re using the Nortel equipment in their call centre as we are thinking of doing some of the same things here to do screen pops etc (so when a call comes in, the screen will display pertinent info straight away). Will see how it works.

Finally, saw this in the paper on the way home, well I thought it was funny