ok ok ookkkkkkkkkaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy I’ve been a wee bit slack on ye olde blog front lately. Guilty as charged. Still, you try to find another (non professional) blog from someone born in Shankill, Ireland in 1979 which is about New Zealand and has been updated more regularly than this one. I think not.

Anyway, I have been really busy (too busy some might say. Those some might be people’s who’s names start with an M and end in aaike. Fair cop too really I guess. I’ve been working hard trying to get Snowpool up and running and completely rebuilt using the latest web framework – Ruby on Rails. Quite the learning curve for me, but the development server is live at : http://snowpool.heroku.com, and I’m pretty happy with how it’s looking.

Anyway, now for a big catch up over the last – almost 3 months. In no particular order (except chronological) ;)

My Aunt Mary came down for a weekend. It was Maaike and my Christmas present to her. Basically she’s been threatening to come visit for years.. but it *never quite happens*. So we took matters into our own gentle hands and bought her tickets down from Palmy.

We had a lovely time out at Akaroa, eating cheese, drinking wine, playing mini-golf (not as much fun as last time somehow) going for a walk at the Hinewai Reserve and altogether the weekend was over far too quickly. The only disappointing thing was that ChCh didn’t put on a decent earthquake to show Mary what it’s really like. Sigh ;)

Another weekend we went out to visit our friends Mike and Heather. They bought a chunk of forest to farm and live in. It’s wonderful. They have chickens, turkeys (unfortunately the odd stoat too), water, electricity, internet, veges… and a perfect place to play hide and go seek.

And they have an outside bath.
1) Take an ordinary bath & fill it with water
2) Light a fire underneath
3) *put a plank of wood on the bottom (else your bum gets fried)
4) Enjoy

And a quick video

Glynn and Jayne were down for a visit, with their little Isla. Isla is now walking, and talking a lot more. This is change.

Isla did make a beeline at the end of the night towards the Isla(y) malts..

Can’t blame her myself.

Finally for this catch up, was a trip (over Easter) with Maaike, Ivor and Berit to Mt Cook NP. Got some climbing in on real rock again. Rock which hasn’t been munched by an Earthquake. Great to be out there again. Ivor led me up a 3* multipitch.. it was wonderful to be “out there” again. Need to get back into climbing I think. So much to do. So little time.

On the way back from Tasmania I stopped over in Melbourne for 24 hours to catch up with my friends Heather and Katrina. It was all too short a time, but a happy one, perfected by regaining a second scrabble trophy (there are only two) from Katrina. My first ever double double word. Yes, a double double word. Not quite the triple triple word that Thomas once pulled on me (sealings, lucky guess if you ask me), but still, magnificent.

It’s really quite upsetting and frankly disturbing when good people move away. In fact, it’s one of the most upsetting parts of the whole earthquake saga. Obviously I’ve nothing to complain about really, I have some friends who are in far far worse positions…. but moving to another part of the city is really quite disruptive. Especially after moving out from the community that was 39 Fendalton road. I realise I’m repeating myself here, but still, it’s true. The friends you used to be able to just drop in on are now in another part of town. It really does take some getting used to.

After the wedding we headed off to explore the Tasman peninsula. Carole had been here before and highly recommended the walk to the Totem Pole, an absolutely classic rock climb, which, if I had fingers, guts and time would be fun to climb someday.

It was a beautiful walk out there. Now, Mick has been promising to go on “a walk” with Domhnall Glynn and I for *years*. There’s always talk of the mythical “walk”. Here, for the first time *ever* on video is captured Mick. Walking.

He takes his sunscreen very, very, seriously. Which is a good thing. There’s a whole lot less ozone down here.

Anyway, it was a lovely walk with Tall Neil (not that he’d be that in The Netherlands), Mick, Carole, Andrew, Glynn&Jayne&Isla, Eoin, Maaike and I. It was great to be out there… my feet were somewhat itchier by the end of the trip.

Here’s a video looking out over the totem pole. It would be a perfect climb to do. But methinks I need to get back climbing twice or thrice a week for a while before I’d be able to tackle something like it.

Dah dum de dum…. dah dum de deee.. What a lovely day. Domhnall and Gill hired out The Cascades Colonial, a stunning venue out on the Tasman Peninsula. The day was blue skies (most of the Irish had t-shirts on their heads to ward off the Ozzie sun (which is quite a hot sun)).

Glynn & Jayne and Isla were over… and great to see them. Mick and Tall Neil (not that he’d be called that in The Netherlands), Carole & Andrew & Eoin.. it was quite the crowd from Ireland really – as well of course as lots and lots of family and friends.

The ceremony was simple and the bride simply stunning… the didgeridoo was played as Cormac (Domhnall & Gills son) brought the rings up to the alterythingy (a bicycle & double kayak).

Heard some very interesting stories at the speeches.. won’t say much.. but Gill was (is?) banned from national parks in Australia… fantastic… I mean really.. should finished bush fires get in the way of a good 5 day tramp? I think not. And so does Gill apparently.

An eve of merriment, excellent food, live ceili band, more merriment, playing the dig round a fire… all in all it was wonderful. There were tears (mostly Domhnalls, but he’s a total softie ;), much laughter, and yup, it was great. Pictures here and here

Well, congratulations to Domhnall and Gill – and thanks for the awesome party.

How’s that for the title to a blog post. The most impressive thing I have ever done in my life.. Still, won’t start with that, will leave you in suspense for just a little while longer.

So, there was a slight mishap on the Walls of Jerusalem trip. I was innocently eating into a jelly jet-plane… when one of my two (yes, I drank too much Jolt Cola as a kid) crowns came off. Not at all a pleasant sensation.. and not something I was expecting to go through for at least 10 years. This necessitated getting to a dentist ASAP.. so off to Launceston we went.

Checking email on my nifty smartphone was a delight I admit, made even better when I got an utterly random (kinda) email from my friend Mike Carrigan saying “If you happen to pass through Launceston then you must visit my cousin Alan). So we did. I’d met Alan before at Mike’s wedding.. and it was funny to walk into his hotel and see the “Where have I seen that guy before” face register.

He was an excellent host and showed us around his place, and we had a very nice dinner and a couple of well deserved pints there. One of the themed bars was entirely made up from all of his racing equipment. Very cool.

After that it was off to the coast where I was leaving Maaike to head back to Hobart to catch up with Domhnall for his stag night. It was in, I think, the coastal town of Swansea that the most impressive thing I’ve ever done happened. Out for a quite yum seafood takeaway and then back to our oh-so-unlovely camping site (I had to get a bus the next day, and there was little choice). Decided to see whether the table tennis room was still open. It was. Unfortunately, while the bats had no rubber on them (to be expected), there was also no ball (slightly less to be expected). There was, however, one of those grabber game thingys. Best described by a picture.

Feeling lucky, and pooling our coin resources (a single dollar coin) I had a go at the game. Maaike chose Ernie as the toy she wanted (there was only one accessibly Ernie, and that was in the back right hand corner). Anyway, you can see where this is going, one coin, one shot, one MONUMENTAL VICTORY AGAINST THE MACHINE.

Perfect.

Right – so after that it was off to Hobart on an early bus and met up with Domhnall for the stag night. Some of the Irish posse (Carole & Andrew, Eoin) had arrived, and we met up with some more of Domhnalls friends and had an entirely excellent stag. It was far too enjoyable for Domhnall ;) There was climbing…

Some coffee’s (Domhnall is _seriously_ into his coffee now.. the coffee machine costs more than the entire rent on my flat for about 3 years combined.. but it does make excellent coffee (when used well)).

Then it was off to an unmarked hut for the evening – which I’d been to before (but not stayed at) the last time I was in Tassie. Unfortunately I was having too much fun chatting to actually take many pictures, so I’d highly recommend looking at Domhnall’s pictures and Carole’s post on Australia

Lots and lots of fun, a really great night.