The Wednesday with work

 Hi,

Big day at work. Another restructure. Work will be abuzz with discussion today. But I am WFH because I am off to Mystery Creek and Fieldday with Andrew. Woot!

Work iced latte

Had a long chat to Kris at work yesterday around jobs. More news on that later. Late in the day we got the restructured org chart. Found my name on it - another manager again (although that position is vacant now). Thinking of some colleagues that have to apply for roles as there are some reductions in places. Mike says he is all good.

After work I bussed home with Madeleine. She had 3 days in her new workplace. She seems to really enjoy it but is super keen to get her hands dirty. She is still on-boarding. Hahah. Good on her.

We did garage gym. Bench and deads. Such fun. Then I dropped her home and got back in time for tea from Mike. Thank you.

Nice sunset - but I missed it

Brekkie Thursday

Up for garage gym with Quentin and Mike headed to town for his session. I am WFH to get away on time when Andrew gets here. Big roadie for us up to the Waikato. I will take lots of pics of Mystery Creek.

Saturday we will go MTB with Mark at Kinloch. Should be awesome. Back in time for dinner Sunday with Sreejith and his family and some friends.

Hope your weekend is as jam-packed with fun activities as mine.

Love,

Angela

The Tuesday with work and date night

 Hi,

Busy-ish day at work yesterday. But the bigger news was date night after work. Mike worked from home on Tuesday (he said the cat pinned him at the crucial "get ready" time). I did note his desk was still set up for him. Hahah.

Mike's desk

But after work he drove in and picked me up from work. I stood outside for maybe 10 mins and I was freezing. The southerly blast is so cold right now. 

We parked on lower Taranaki St and walked to Float Well. We were a little early but they let us into our pod immediately. And I reckon I was asleep in minutes because the voice was waking us up after a very short time. I checked my watch and it was 7pm already.

We got dressed and walked to 1154 for a pasta meal. It's on Cuba St. Mike had never eaten there before. Jessie from work took me there about a year ago. So good.

Got home and watched a bit of You Tube before sleep. Up to bus in. I was on the treadmill and Mike with Quentin. We walked to work after gym - and Mike rummaged around in his bag and said:  I wondered why my bag was so light.

Yes. He is now back on a bus to work from home. With his PC. Which is still on his desk there.

Snort.

Our friend Maureen is in good company.

I will bus home with Madeleine after work today. Lifting heavy things in the garage gym. Woot! 

Hope you have a fantastic fday.

Love,

Angela

The Monday with work actually in town

 Hi,

Was weird to be in at work on a Monday - that is my usual WFH day. But we had a workshop so I wanted to be there. And it turns out our main stakeholder was working remotely. Hahah. Good for a change though - right?

Iced latte and brekkie at Margies Monday

Sourdough

I walked home after work - that was good. 50 mins - not too bad. Then baked sourdough after feeding the cats.

Mike wasn't too late after his run with workmates. Off to bed. I was asleep by 9.20pm I reckon. Up at 5.30am. Got changed. Fed the sourdough. Fed myself. And out the door to catch the 6:03am bus. Not been on that one before. Got me into the gym at 6.30am and I was running on the treadmill before my session with Quentin. A quick 3k.

Gym Tuesday morning

Squats with Quentin. No wraps so only did 50kg. But did 5 reps x 4 sets. Then bench 42.5kg. 3 reps x 4 sets. With leg extensions after - just to fill in time.

Setting me up for the day. Got Float with Mike after work. Plus date night dinner. Ooohhhh. I am so lucky.

Have a great day.

Love,

Angela

The weekend with some Wellington fun

 Hi

We had an interesting Thursday night - we got to stay at a friend's AirBnB and look after their dog, Momo. Went there straight after work and settled in. met Momo. And Mike came after his working day finished. We watched YouTube briefly and fell asleep by about 8.30pm with Momo sleeping on our bed with us.

Momo on Thursday

Smudge on Friday

Back home nice and early Friday morning to the usual cats on my lap. They were very interested in Momo smells. Hahahah.

Saturday brekkie in bed for me

I got brekkie in bed on Saturday. Thank you Mike.

We did some DIY in the upstairs bathroom - fitted the door stop, siliconed some gaps and holes, cleaned up some old misapplied silicone - woot! Then some messages in the Hutt and called in to see Sally and Andrew.

Their garden looks amazing.

Garden

Up early Sunday and off to pick up Janine and Callan for a mysterious walk Janine had discovered. Whitecliffs Boulders, between Mangaweka and Taihape.

Sunday brekkie in Bulls while the car charges

What a great place. We walked there and back and only covered maybe 3 km. But the place itself was so good. We spent ages poking around at the lovely boulders. The Rangitekei river created them. Seems as though mud secreted around something like a rock or something and created these round mudstones. And now they are all through this wee patch of native bush.

Walking to Whitecliffs Boulders

Mossy boulder

Like Monkey hatching from the mountain top egg

Dappled sunlight

Trees on rocks

Perfect spheres

That's me

Walking back

Contemplating my path in life

We stopped at Levin to charge on the way back - and oddly Janine wanted to eat at the Cobb and Co, because she'd never experienced this kiwi (and Aussie) cultural institution before. What a laugh. We enjoyed some food there before getting back to Wellington. Fresh, well made and ... bland and uninspiring. Just like our parents and grandparents would have loved. 

Fantastic weekend.

Hope your week is a good one.

Love,

Angela

By the numbers:

Where	Start	End	Duration	Rate (c/kWh)	Cost	kWh
Bulls Chargenet	09:40	10:35	00:55	$0.95	$31.38	29.8
Levin Chargenet	15:27	16:25	00:58	$0.90	$29.76	29.4

476 km

2 charges

1h 53m charging time

59.17  kWh charged (89.96 kWh total)

$61.14 charging fees

Plus RUC ($76.00/1000km) $36.18 = total cost $97.32

Versus the Forester, at $3.13/L for 95 petrol, would have cost $148.99

The Wednesday with work

 Hi,

The end of Wednesday was weird. Mike had to go look after a friend's dog at short notice. His friend went for some tests at the hospital and his wee dog is a bit anxious about separation. Although given how good the dog was for Mike, maybe it is the human that is more worried. Hahahah.

That meant Mike was in the car. So he came to work to swap so I could drive home. But the uncertainty meant Mike's plans were all disrupted for his run with others. So we both just went home.

Mike made tea - nachos. And we watched some YouTube and went to bed. 

Up for a bus ride in because after work I am bussing home with Barb and doing garage gym. Woot. And tomorrow - do not let me forget. Quentin is coming at 12.15 to garage gym! Must remember.

Gym Thursday morning

Deads. 87.5kg. 3 reps x 4 sets. I was a bit hopeless. Could have done better.

Off to data brekkie. Big crowd of people today. And I spotted Reimer briefly. Then Sally arrived for a coffee and brekkie before her gym session.

Smith the Grocer iced latte

Look who turned up

Big crowd

Back to work. Big day. Madeleine's last day is tomorrow. Waaaaah. Morning tea today for her. And I made banana bread. Nom, nom.

Weekend is a Wellington one. Lots of work to do around the house. Need to do a big walk or bike ride too.

My parents are on their flight to South Korea now. Woot.

Have fun. 

Love,
Angela

The Tuesday with a quiz win

 Hi,

Do I need an iced latte this morning? I am now at my desk and staring at the pic from yesterday and thinking a little too much of a delicious caffeine hit.

Tuesday's iced latte from French Kiss cart

Work treats

We are gathered together.... to eat donuts

After work we had Green Man quiz. Jesper, Juliet (and Rose), Celia (and Eva and Charlie) and Jon all joined us for the evening. Awesome mix because we ended up winning. Smashed them with 92 points.

Moxley is AMAZED at our abilities

Okay - there were only 4 other teams. But still. We had a great run through most of the rounds. 92 points would have been a winning score on any other Tuesday I think. Some easier rounds though, including the Ponderous which Mike got first go - along with nearly all of the other teams. 

Can you too get 10 points?

We ubered home afterwards and fed the starving cats.Fell into a coma. Up to bus in with Mike and he had his PT session with Quentin while I did a run.

I will walk home tonight. Feed the cats. Get the groceries that are coming. Bake banana loaf for Madeleine's morning tea tomorrow. Mike is running in the rain. Make good clothing choices, Mike!

Have a wonderful day.

Love,

Angela

The weekend with spring challenge training in Wellington

 Hi,

What a busy weekend. Long weekend here in Aotearoa with the King's Birthday weekend. Friday saw my haircut cancelled so I ended up walking into town to meet Maureen for lunch to plan the weekend fun.

Sourdough last week

Walk in on Friday

Mike joined us as we got a vague plan together. I rode home (I had left my bike in the bike shed at work on Thursday) and blitzed my way up the hill. 2 seconds slower than my PB. Woot!

Tidied the house. Then picked up Mike and Callan from Foxglove on my way to the airport for a 8.30pm pick up for Iona. She had a smooth flight and we were quickly into the car for our drive home. Mike and Callan decided to go out on the town and meet Quentin at Rogue and Vagabond. So we dropped them on Dixon and continued home. We had a nice cuppa and then off to bed.

I did get woken at 12:30am with Mike trying to find a sleeping bag for Callan. Despite the copious amounts of alcohol they did decide a night on our couch was wise. So good on them. But my broken sleep meant when the alarm went off at 6am, I was not ready to get up for parkrun.

So we slept in a bit. And then I made lots of scrambled eggs. Callan headed home before he could eat some though. We all ate eggs then got ready for our day.

Margies lunch

Iona and I rode our bikes down the hill to Ngauranga Gorge to meet Maureen. And then we proceeded through the new pathway to Eastbourne. At Eastbourne we stopped for coffee and grabbed some lunch. I went to Hive cafe and it was very good.

 

Saturday bike ride

Views

Continued down to the lighthouse and had lunch looking out to the southern ocean. Then we started back and realised just how strong the tailwind had been. It was a hard slog back.

Lunch spot

Bikes in a pile

Originally we were going to ferry back from Eastbourne but the ferry bike passage was full. So we had to continue right around the harbour back to town. We said goodbye to Maureen at Ngauranga and Iona and I got to Spotlight where Mike came to pick us up. Thank you Mike.

We managed 65km all up. Phew. That bike path was so busy at both ends of the day. So good.

And done.

A quick shower and out to town to meet the Forbes family at Great India. It was a good reminder about how good that restaurant is. Yum.

We caught up on all their news. Ellen was in town for a Shakespeare competition, so everyone was up to support her. I absolutely loved the conversation. So good to see them all.

Great India for dinner

New bridge

Sunday saw Mike drop me and Iona at Khandallah pool where we met Maureen. We headed up to the summit then along the Skyline track. It was pretty windy. I needed to hold my cap a lot. I saw Maureen get blown off the track a bit at one point.

Mt Kaukau

Selfie

View of Wellington

Walking on the Skyline

Such a good walk. 3.5 hours later and 13 km later we walked across Karori Park to meet Mike. And he whisked us to the pool car park where we enjoyed lunch at the cafe there. Cafe du Parc. Maureen headed home after that and we got home to get ready for the next social event.

Cafe du Parc

Sally arrived at our place and we got in the car with the ladder and water blaster and went to visit Quentin and Courtney. What a gorgeous house they have. Wow.

We got a tour of their house and a cup of tea. Quentin's mother came home just as we finished chatting so we got to meet her too. We heard about Joel's wedding to Rachelle the day before which sounded really good fun.

Out to Sally and Andrew's place for a chat and Sally cooked dinner. Roast vegetables with haloumi. Mmmmmm.

Home to bed.

Monday morning saw me drop Iona at her mother's place. I got a cup of tea with Helen and heard about her latest news.

Monday morning cats

Monday project

At home Mike got stuck into the plywood project. We want to extend the floor of the loft in the garage. Phase 1 is now complete. Ply measured and cut. Next phase is ready.

Skilsaw work

Sourdough #2

Brekkie Tuesday

I made more bread. And then off to bed where I slept like I was in a coma. The alarm at 5.25am was really tough.

Quentin was sick so my PT session was cancelled. Poor Quentin. Hope he is ok soon. I did garage gym instead. Bench 37.5kg 4 x 4.

Mike and I bussed in at 7.30am. It was nice to have a 3 day weekend. I so enjoyed the adventures. I have so much work to do to get fitter.

Enjoy your week.

Love,

Angela