It always takes me a while after being back from abroad to get back into the swing of things, and this time probably more than most. I’ve definitely not been as sociable as normal, but, finally, feeling back up to 100%.
It is good being back in ChCh. I love where we live – close to the hills. From our house we can turn right and immediately be straight up into the hills. There’s a nice little 8ish k loop which takes us up to this view (lyttelton crater) Big old volcano in its time, thankfully quite extinct. That said, maybe the mountain is getting taller, it can’t be that I’m getting less fit ;)
My old friend Warrick is back in town and lives nice and close. Great to be able to go up to his place for a nice lunch in the sun :)
I decided to take advantage of my current work situation (contracting remotely) and so I headed up to Wellington for the week and stayed at Glynn & Jaynes. It was lovely, as ever, to see them. It really is a shame that they live up in Wellington! hey ho. Still, good excuse to visit. Glynn and I went for a wee bimble around the Karori wildlife sanctuary, quite a long fence line (I’m totally out of shape). I also played one of the more fun co-operative games that I’ve ever played pandemic.
On the Thursday my cousin Thomas picked me up (hurrah that he’s back in New Zealand, running for election this year with the greens). Very cool to get to catch up with him, and to meet the latest arrival to the family with the arrival of William & Buzz’s Phoenix. Also, my Aunt dug out some old pictures ;) I’ve hardly changed you’d have to say.
So yes, really great to be able to take advantage of remote working & catch up with family and friends. While I definitely definitely miss some things (quite a lot of things) about not being in a team, I do really enjoy the flexibility. It’s weird being a contractor though! Sending invoices, having a company, accountants, service contracts, co-working spaces, managing communication with the client, trying to implement better practices. Who knows how long it’ll last, but, it’s good for the moment.
One of the many advantages to being Maaike’s partner is that there’s a decent discount on courses which are run at her institute (if there aren’t enough spaces to fill the course). I have taken advantage of this before with a mixology (cocktail making) course, and I just did a 6 evening course in barista training.
It was actually quite a full on course. I have no idea how many $$$’s of coffee we made, but, at a guess, 30 or so coffee’s an evening – so, around about $900 of coffee.
I’d had a pretty decent leg up already after having worked at Resolve (and now BizDojo Christchurch) where there have been decent coffee machines to use. Anyway, I definitely improved, and while I’m not consistent, I can make a reasonably OK flat white most of the time.
Maaike has been on about buying a coffee machine, but, I dunno, to get a decent machine is very expensive, and then you’d want a decent grinder, and then you’d actually have to have quite a lot of coffee as the beans would deteriorate fairly rapidly. So, for the moment at least I’m going to stick to using the coffee machine in work ;) If you’re in the area and fancy a coffee, come call in :)
Off up to Castle Hill for Mike & Jenny’s wedding. It’s a beautiful spot up there, just between you me & the gatepost, all the best people get married at Castle Hill ;) They really picked the weekend for it. All this week it has been stormy and massive floods on the North Island, but, for them, it meant the hills had a nice dusting of snow, but the weather for the weekend was perfect.
It was a lovely service, I really enjoyed the readings, especially the one comparing a marriage to life kayaking on a river. I loved meeting Jenny’s family, definitely the most dance-tastic family I have ever met. Yip, really lovely weekend.
We did get out for a bike on the hogs back, such a nice little mountain bike ride.
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