The Thursday with iced coffee dates

Hi,

Iced latte/coffee might have been the highlight of my day yesterday.  Hahahah.  The morning and late-morning pics show my hair drying over the intervening few hours.

Iced latte with Steph and Mike

Iced coffee @ Arabica with Jo, Rex and Mary

Fun times, eh?

I met Mike on the way home - he had visited the physio about his Achilles.  Not good apparently.  He's been doing the wrong things since it happened on Jan 21.  Now it's time to do the right thing.  And he started last night with some roller action.

The half marathon is now a 10 km walk.  And I think I will join him.

Got home and sorted out chicken schnitzels for the boys.  With mash.  And then it was time for some laundry and bed.

That's how our day pans out.

Have a lovely Friday.  Wellington weekend for us.  Ooosshh.

Love,
Angela

The Wednesday with more news

Hi,

Nah - that title is just clickbait.  Hahahah.  Although I did tell the team about me leaving so there was that bit of sadness for me.

Got through the emotions of the day as everyone found out.  Headed to dragon boat training and had the best day out on the water.  Lovely evening - 26C apparently.  Anyway - it was very pleasant.  Only 12 paddlers - but we absolutely tried.  And that is the best feeling ever!

Mike was watching us train and waiting for me when I got off the boat.  :-)  We walked to the car and headed home.

Cooked tea - home made burgers.  Yes!  Fell asleep in a coma.

Hope your day is a good one.

Love,
Angela

The Tuesday with some news

Hi,

Happy birthday to Col and Carolin today.  Yay!

Tuesday was interesting for a few reasons.  I resigned from my current job for a start.  Huge news, i guess.  It's been almost 9 years.

Start elsewhere on April 1st.  Oosshh!

Had dragon boat training in gorgeous conditions - shouted at some people in the boat because they weren't trying hard enough.  And they seem to think they don't need to.  I will blame the high emotions of the day on that.

Wednesday morning sunrise over Wellington harbour

Me as foreground

Up early to head in for the group PT session.  Brendan came with me.  Mike did not.

Group PT session

Tuesday iced latte

Told the team today about resigning.  That was tough because my team is so lovely.  They are in safe hands now and are so good they can keep doing what they do best.

Let's tackle the next challenge, eh?

More training in the boat tonight.  I hope they don't throw me overboard as retaliation for telling some of them that they couldn't sing and paddle at the same time.  :-)

If there is a blog entry tomorrow, you know I made it back to shore.  Hahah.

Have a good day.

Love,
Angela

The Monday back at work

Hi,

Iced latte in my mourning Monday clothes - no typo

Slightly busy day at work juggling a few things.  PT session after work and great news (I bumped into her at the gym) from a friend that she has secured a job in her research field at a uni here in NZ.  Woot!  Does mean they are likely to move.  Boo!  But it'll just be more friends to visit in the big smoke.

Which does remind me - we need to visit Sampsons and their mewing multitudes very soon!  Hahahah.  More social media pics, please.  To get me through to when I see them IRL.  :-p

Tuesday is here in all its majesty - blue skies, no wind.  Dragon boat training will be a pleasure after work today.

Enjoy your day.

Love,
Angela

The weekend with Wellington things

Hi,

What a weekend - flurries of activity followed by bouts of inactivity.  Kinda perfect really.  Just how I like it.

Saturday saw me and Mike up early for the group PT session at Frank Kitts Park.  We bussed in and that worked out well.

The session was diabolical!  OMG.  We started with stair climbers and crazy quad exercises and by the time Mike and I were finished the stations, we were had it!

Moxley goes for a walk in the backyard

Smudge prowls the deck

We ended up in the mini Pride Parade from Civic Square to Waitangi Park, right at the back, walking with the trans part of the parade.  This was to start "Out in the Park" for the day.  Loads of stalls for the community and singing and dancing etc on a stage.

Mike and I detoured to Joe's Garage for a coffee fix and brekkie.  Yum.  Back to Out in the Park to check out the things happening.

La Cloche iced coffee dessert goodness

Out in the Park - taiko drums!

Joe's Garage iced coffee

Okay - my pics are so out of order.  Hahahah.

We went home and I showered and headed out to John's house in Churton Park for lunch with my colleagues.  Lovely time - great food.  It was good to chat to people and meet John's family.  His wee son was quite the highlight (he's 22 months old) - feeding Andrew S all the food.  And even some wine!

I dropped Andrew and Larissa back at their house and they invited me in for tea.  I felt so looked after by them - it was such a nice break.  Their house is lovely and I think if you ever have the privilege to be a guest of theirs, you would be very lucky indeed. Well looked after.

Friday Machete

  Out to pick up Toby and Tessa and then meet Sally and Mike in town.  They were at Panhead, but we had reservations at Mama Browns at 1815.  Ate there - it was okay.

Sally walked back to the station and we dropped Tessa off and headed home.

Up on Sunday to assess the cycling options - but heavy rain made me cancel.  :-(  Boo!!!!

We laid out the Good Nature Chirp trap monitoring tags.  Ooohhh.  Wednesday we will take a look and determine the best place to lay the trap.

We went out to get messages done - cat stuff (kitty litter etc), petrol, brunch, groceries - then home to sort out a few things.

Cooked tea and fell into bed.  Toby got home late and was furious with the buses.  He waited close to 2 hours for his bus home.

And today he has a migraine.

Let's see what the week has in store for us, eh?  Last week of February 2020.  My birthday month is coming to a close.

Enjoy your week.

Love,
Angela

The Thursday with Toby sick

Hi,

 What a day, eh?  But at least I restricted my intake of caffeine to my morning iced latte with Andrew.

Iced latte morning goodness

Home to sort out wee Toby who was home sick.  Cooked him fish (baked in oven) and mash.  Two of his favourites. Mike also loved it!  #parentwinning  #spousewinningtoo

Hahahah!

Went to bed early and had a decent sleep.  Warm though.  Yet when I woke up to head to work - rain!  What???

Weekend looks good.  Group PT session tomorrow.  Out in the Park is on so Mike and I will try to go to that.  Work BBQ from midday for a bit.  Sunday I have organised a bike ride to Pencarrow head with a bunch of women from work.  "Organised" is a bit strong.  Okay - I just emailed people.  Hahahah.  Hope the weather holds out!

Enjoy your Friday.

Love,
Angela

The Wednesday with dragon boat training

Hi,

 Okay - I totally admit I had three separate iced lattes yesterday.  That is definitely one too many and probably two too many.

Khemry iced latte!

Lunch iced latte @ The Lab with Mary

Joycie took a few pics of dubious quality

I have no clue - I think this was one Khemry took!

Sip!  Ahhhhh.

After work we had dragon boat training for the second night in a row.  It was hard work on top of the group session at Frank Kitts park.  The back of the boat held water while the front paddled - and it was hard yakka.

The sea was a bit lumpy again - but all good fun.

Drove home (remembered the car!) and fell into bed.  Mike got home from AKL after he got to the airport and discovered they had booked him on the next evening's flight.  Swapped it and got home a tad later than he anticipated.

Up early to walk in for my PT session.  Misty light rain again.

Hope your day is a good one.

Love,
Angela

The Tuesday with dragon boat training

Hi,

All I can say is Andrew is getting very casual with his pics of my iced latte and my quality control of the pics has gone out the window.

What am I doing?

Sleeping!  Obviously.

I did not have a lot of photo options to choose a carefully posed and composed photo.  Two pics, both showing me looking like a dork.  But hey - the iced latte is the main thing and that looks superb in both photos!  Hahahahah!

After work was dragon boat training and a pretty good session.  Lumpy seas meant it was a bit tricky.  But we did well enough.

The drama came after the training session was done.  We all met in the car park (where the underground market is held - to be closed March 14 due to earthquake risk) to debrief.  Rex (who isn't paddling this year) borrowed Danii's eBike to try it out.  I was waiting on Sreejith as he wanted to fill his water bottle for the drive home.  The salty water dries you out.

I turned around and noticed Rex on the ground with Jo and Anton beside him.  Weird.  Wandered over and Jo said he had fainted.  But he was coming around and got up again to talk to us.  He chatted to me and I reached out to brush the dirt off his head and he fainted into me as he leaned down to let me touch his head.

OMG.  Anton calmly rang for an ambulance.  Good on him!  Jo and Aaron cushioned Rex's head and when he came around he said he was fine.  But given two faints in a row, we convinced him to stay put.

The ambulance staff arrived nice and fast - good on them.  Sreejith and I took that chance to escape in case Rex had to divulge his medical details and didn't need a cast of thousands learning about it.  Hahahah.

Turns out Rex has wrenched his ankle falling off Danii's bike and his body was compensating for the pain by slamming him to the ground.

Stupid bodies! 

So he's fine - but has a really bad ankle sprain.  Staying off it for a few days and then hopefully he will be right as rain.

But - wow!  Excitement plus - and the sort you can do without.  It's not fun seeing people you care about hurt like that.

Sreejith took me home and I cooked tea for Toby.  He is doing a play where his character loves spaghetti Bolognese so he asked for that to eat.  Hahahah.  He got it.  Because I love him lots.

Did make for a late night as I had to wash all my wet, salt-encrusted dragon boat gear for another session Wednesday night.

Into bed and I think I woke up when Mike got home.  He was out with Josh, solving all the problems of the world.  Hahah.

Up early to go to group PT at Frank Kitts park.  Mike continued onto the airport with an Uber for his day trip to AKL for work.

Fun times!  Oosshh!

Have a great day.

Love,
Angela

The Monday that was my birthday

Hi,

It was my birthday!  And so warm - yet a bit on the soggy side.  I never got rained on.  But it was certainly not a sunny day.

Last week's happy iced latte pic

Cheers!

Mid-expression captured.

Iced latte with Andrew to kick start the day (I was in super early at work).  Then made it through the working day to go to the gym afterwards.  Then back to work to check in on a few things before a shower and dinner out!

My virgin mule @ Dragonfly for my birthday dinner

My present from Mike - but we're not close enough apparently

Closer!

 

That's close enough for the public spot, Angela!

Dragonfly with Sally and Andrew for a scrumptious dinner.  The food was fantastic.  And I got the best presents.  My own compass, maps of the trapping area and artisan chocolate from Whittakers - manufactured from milk lovingly obtained from happy cows grazing the green meadows of New Zealand.  While music played on flutes creates an ambiance that makes the cows even happier to provide the milk for aforementioned artisan product.  Hand-crafted, with lots of care.

Hmmm. 

Anyway - great present.  And then an awesome present from Mike.  A Good Nature A24 with Chirp!

Good Nature A24

How lucky am I?  Thank you so much.  We will single-handedly create a predator free back yard!  This trap will ping my phone when it fires too.


Home to bed!  And now it is my unbirthday!

Have an awesome day!

Love,
Angela

The weekend away trapping

Hi,

Friday saw me catch up with James to hear about his amazing ultra marathon last weekend up at Tarawera.  Ed and June both same for brekkie at Little Peckish too.  June is about to head to Mongolia for her crazy multi day marathon - on a frozen lake!

June and James are both slightly mad, obvs.

Surprised June

Surprised James

Ed took my iced coffee pic.  Menace that he was with it!

The only one ready

Ed selfie - never give him the phone

Home to pack after work and ready to head away super early Saturday.  5am start.  Flung stuff in the car and collected Andrew at 5.50am.  Hurtled over the hill to try and find brekkie somewhere.  Bakeries all closed.  Weird.  Finally found a place in Carteron.  Wild Oats.  Yay!

Slightly late into the car park - 8.15am instead of 8am.  Oops.  But we met Annette and Phil and we headed off for our monitoring line with them.  Andrew was with some high school boys and a teacher (called "Sir") for a gnarly line.

Ours was superb.  Up Gentle Annie, then off left to the Gentle Annie creek.  Up there for 100m and then left straight up the hill.  10 traps.  Laying monitoring cards.  Ink pads with a dollop of peanut butter to lure the critters in.

Annette and Phil

Mike

Stunning view

Where I have been

Almost back

We were done by midday and had a cup of tea at the ranger's house to touch base with the other teams.  Andrew's team was still up in the back of beyond so Mike and I headed to a patch of grass and read in the shade for a while.

Turns out Andrew was up at the lodge chatting to other trampers and runners and we finally met up with him around 1730.  Oops.

Headed into Masterton and found a pub to eat and drink at.  Nice.  Back to Holdsworth and Eric the ranger said we could use Holdsworth Lodge.  Woot!  We got a room to ourselves as did Andrew.

Up early ish the next day to decant from the lodge to the car and off to do the monitoring line - this time to collect the ink pads and see what critters had been lured in to eat the peanut butter.

Okay - the bush is riddled with rats and mice.  Our cards were covered in tracks and the peanut butter was gone in all but one monitoring station.

Chewed cards

Monitoring group

Back by 11.30am, another cuppa with Eric at his house.  And then off to have lunch in Carterton at Wild Oats and then home.

Iced coffee in Carterton

Dropped Andrew home and then got home and tidied up - lots of laundry.  Hahah.

Up early this morning for work.  It's my birthday!  Woot!  I love birthdays!

Have an awesome day.

Love,
Angela

The Thursday with a goal setting leadership session

Hi,

Okay - so it might look like I only had iced lattes all day yesterday.  But pretty sure the afternoon ones are from the same visit.  Honest!

Morning hair iced latte

Afternoon hair - now dry - iced latte

Red letter day!  Amanda's first iced latte

I finally caught up with Amanda from work and introduced her to iced lattes at Machete.  She said it was delicious.  Yes, totally agree.

Went to a session after work at a Meetup.  Leadership one.  This was titled:  Why goal setting doesn't work.

Let it be said that I was totally catfished by Mike on this one (ok - not sure I am using that word correctly).  He asked me a month ago if I wanted to attend this.  I said no.  That is usually my default position on anything extra curricular.  My life is full enough, thanks.

But on Wednesday he said:  I have double booked myself and you need to attend this session and take notes.

Sigh.  So I did.  Dutiful wife and all that.

I had to talk to strangers before the session started.  Sigh.  Got through that.  Session started.  We got told to break into wee groups to discuss why goal setting doesn't work.  My group of 8 (yes - the session was really well attended) went through each person, one by one.  Varying degrees of goal setting done.  Smart people. 

My turn came.  I said:  I just focus on the end goal and plough through any obstacle in my way.  Otherwise you don't get there.

This was greeted in my wee circle with exclamations like:  that's a great approach.

Huh?  [My internal voice was saying that]  Because...  it didn't seem that novel an idea.

Anyway, the speaker spoke after listening to what the wee groups had discussed.  Took us through some ideas.  I took lots of notes.  All good stuff.  And then he pretty much summarised it all (the 1.5 hours) by saying:  keep your focus on the goal and smash through all the obstacles.

Oh.

Well, there you go then.

Met Mike after he had finished his appointment and we went home.  So late. But I had the best sleep so far this week.  So - yay!

Weekend looms.  Trap line tramping.  Mt Holdsworth.  I can't wait.

Have an awesome weekend.

Love,
Angela

The Wednesday with not a lot

Hi,

Highlight would have to be lunch with Mike and Andrew at Verve.  It was crowded by the time we got there at 12.30pm so Andrew snaffled a seat while I ordered food for everyone.  Made a stab at something yummy and iced coffee/triple shot capp and found Andrew.  Mike arrived and we chatted away about the trapping weekend looming, birthday dinners and all sorts of thing we hadn't discussed for ages.

Good morning, good morning!

Gimme, gimme

Invisible Mike

That's better

Met Mike after work delayed me getting away and we got the car from Te Papa (yay for not forgetting).  Headed home and cooked tea for us all.

Mike is in there somewhere

Mike replaced our grotty shower strip

Mike replaced the shower trim and now it looks superb!  Like new!  Thank you!

I interviewed Tessa - she is going for a job at Maccas today.  Wow.  She answered some of my usual questions better than people with 10 years work experience.  Maccas would be foolish to say no to her joining their team.

Fell into bed and up early (4.30am) to walk in for my PT session with Quentin.  Squats in the cage with a bar.  OMG.  My legs aren't working well now.

Have a fantastic day!

Love,
Angela

The Tuesday with dragon boat training

Hi,

What a great day - it included two iced coffee meetings so any day where I get that caffeinated up has got to be good.

Machete!

I might have gone again with Kate!

Caught up with Kate from work and wondered why it has been so long.  She is great!

Had PT session after work followed by dragon boating on the still, warm harbour waters.  What a great way to spend my evenings.

Got a lift home with Sreejith.  Made a salad for my tea and Toby got home.  Tessa has an interview Thursday at Maccas.  Woot!  I will go home tonight and give her a practise interview.  :-)

Up early for the group PT session at Frank Kitts Park.  What a stunning morning.  Reminder - we parked the car at Te Papa.  OMG.  This is going to be weird.  What's the bet we forget it is there?

This morning was stunning across the harbour

The moon still looks super to me

 Have a wonderful day.

Love,
Angela