Murmuration

Worth watching in full screen… only 2 mins long

Well… today… Greece has decided to put its bailout terms to a referendum. This is either clever or insane … and either way I think things are going to get very interesting before they settle down.

If this spreads to Italy (already at 120% debt to GDP) and onwards? Some massive proportion of bonds are covered by Credit Default Swaps – basically insurance which is taken out to cover the “risk” of a country going bankrupt. Unfortunately, the numbers are so massive that the banks who are covering these contracts will, most likely, go bankrupt when the contracts are called in. Most of those banks are (apparently) American (and maybe British).

And after all that, China will probably swoop in and buy up all the distressed assets they like with their fat wadges of cash. Clever.

(other than this – last couple of weekends have been ChCh bound – being quite lazy which has been lovely. Also, my instructor at Outward Bound (Viv) was down – and it was really lovely seeing her again. Had a dinner for my watchmates – and definitely need to learn how to make cocktails from Mike)

Maaike had headed away for the week tramping with her friend Rachel. Feeling abandoned, I decided to find solace in digging holes (and filling in other ones) at Mike and Heathers.

Here is a picture of a post, newly ‘quikcreted’ (like concrete, only quicker).

I also helped out lagging the pipes. It gets down to around about -7?! or something, and so the pipes all need to have nice woolen jackets to keep them warm through the winter. Fair enough too I say. Who thinks of the pipes these days? Eh? Who stands up for them? Do you? Do you think of..

ok, enough about the right of pipes. Here’s a picture of my nicely wrapped ones.

Don’t they look happy?

I also had a lovely bath in their outside bath (before watching the Ozzies beat the Welsh). I might have to get me an outside bath at somepoint…

Ok, not musical.. but still, funny..

Off to Kaikoura to see Val & Dom. Val just back from another stint in the Arctic (guiding) and soon off again to Antarctica… Dom, soon to get his thousand hours in the helicopter and then presumably they’ll be off somewhere else (which will be a shame as we’ll miss them!).

Games were played, “Kinect” – that clever little add on for the X-Box which tracks your movements. While it may not look like it, this is me on my way to crushing Maaike in the 100m sprints.

On that note, I got my report card back from Outward Bound … and I quote:

They encouraged him to be more competitive so that he continues to gain as much as he can out of life

You read it here first folks, I’ve a green light to be *more* competitive. Hah.

Anyway, Kaikoura..

Lovely spot. Need to get a set of these wooden kiwi’s …

Then it was off to see Mike and Heather – and how their house is progressing. The last time we were there, there wasn’t a house. Now there is.

And a turkey (Romeo)

And a septic tank water cleaning tank system thingy..

It’s all very impressive. Heather’s Mum is over from the US and helping out for a while, and she is keeping an excellent blog on how the building is progressing.