The Thursday with stuff

 Hi,

Busy day.   So busy I can't remember what I actually did.  Let's see...

Iced latte.  Check.

Cold at work?  Check.  (Because I see I have my jacket on at my desk).

Thurs work iced latte

I headed home after work while Mike went to his Parrot Dog AGM and enjoyed the fruits of his shareholding labours.

Up early to walk into work and meet Andrew for a quick brekkie/iced latte before work and Mike's potato cake meeting.

Selfie

Iced latte @ Mojo

Weekend is coming.  Hopefully some chill time in there.

Have a great day.

Love,

Angela

The Wednesday with work

 Hi,

Happy birthday to my sisters today - Shona and Sharon.  Woot!  

What is it with all this work stuff?  :-p

Wednesday morning

Work iced latte

Yesterday was a long day at work.   I did get out for a walk with Mike, Juliet and Callan at lunchtime though.  That was a good thing,

Mike and I headed home via the supermarket at 4.15pm as we both had late meetings.  Decided it was far better to eat at home and settle into the office there for the meetings than stay at work for ages.

Fell into bed afterwards and slept well.  Up for bench day at the gym.  Arms are pumped!

Enjoy your day.

Love,

Angela

The Tuesday with work

 Hi,

Highlight of the day yesterday was catching up with Chris halfway through his second day in his new job.  We did coincide our lunch date at Ugly Bagel with a downpour.  So my shoes got wet as I went to meet him.  He is happy so far - still on-boarding.

Wednesday morning is looking mighty fine

Ninja cat and the moon setting

Lunch with Chris

Went home on the 13 bus.  Mike got distracted at a work meeting and got home a bit later than me.  But all good.

Up for a bus trip in early this morning.  Today is stunning here.  The best sort of day.

Have a good one, wherever you are.

Love,

Angela

The Monday with work

 Hi,

There seems to be a lot of iced latte in this post.  Ohhhh.

Got an early morning bagel/iced latte in with Roanne and Juliet.  This involved Juliet giving photo taking advice to Roanne.

From above is where it is at.  

Roanne taking photos of iced lattes

Roanne following advice from Juliet on better photos of iced lattes

I also got away mid-morning with Kirsty for our iced latte date.  That has been a long time coming.  Anticipation is great!

Iced latte with Kirsty

Busy day at work (luckily I was caffeinated up to my eyeballs, eh?) but I did get away early (I was brain dead) to catch the 13 home.  Mike headed out to try a run in the park when I got home.  I made tea.  

We chatted to Toby on a video call.  That was so nice.  I miss him.  I watched the men's mountain biking in the Olympics.  That was epic.

Into bed quite early.  Slept okay but I did dream about being in workshops.  What does that tell you?  Hahahah.

Up for gym with Quentin.  Leg day.  :-o

Roanne following advice still for iced latte pics from above

Another early night tonight would be good.  8am meetings are messing with my blogging schedule.  Am I right, Roz?  Hahahah.

Have a great day.

Love,

Angela

The weekend that was so busy with dirt duathlon and kick-boxing fight watching

 Hi,

Okay - so this weekend was absolutely jam packed with activity.  Friday night saw me and Mike head to Master Kong with Callan and his mates.  Angie joined us as they left.  Celia, Nicky and Joycie also appeared there as they had dinner plans ahead of karaoke night!  Then off to karaoke with Khemry, Joycie, Yosan, Sreejith, Celia, Mike, Angie and me.

Khemry and me in a blur!

Awww - they are dressed the same

KZone!

Hey there Celia!

 

We sang for about 1.5 hours.  Mike nailed it!  Hahah.  It was such fun.  At the end, my bus was coming so I took off for it and left Mike and Yosan and Sreejith wandering around Courtney place.  Celia was sensible enough to head home.

Moonrise

Up for boot camp Saturday morning.  Then back home to get my gear ready for dirt duathlon.  Mike headed to Epuni to meet Sally and Andrew and finish the car port.  Done!  Legends!  It is ready for roofing iron now.

So ready

I headed to Porirua for Theresa's kick boxing fight.  AJ, Callan and Stacey were there to support her too.  We watched many fights.  It is brutal.  Theresa was on around 6.30pm and fighting some bouncy 20 something year old.  I think it was close (not that I really know much about scoring in this) but it ended up with a unanimous decision for the blue corner and not the red visiting corner.  Next time Theresa is going to own it!

She managed to avoid getting truly broken.  Big lump on her shin and her foot didn't really want to work correctly.  OMG!

We're ready

There she is!

Headed home and slept for an hour before I got up to watch the Football Ferns take on USA in the Olympics.  That was awesome.  For a team that has not played together for 18 months and has some non professional players, they really out up a great fight.  6-1 does not reflect that.  NZ had two own goals and the USA got 3 in the last 10 mins.

Start of the day

Up early for brekkie and getting ready for Dirt Duathlon.  Theresa arrived at 8am and we threw her gear in the van and we were off.

Oakleigh St park in Belmont regional park for the race day.  Gorgeous weather.  Ground still soggy after huge amounts of rain.  But not too bad.

Bike is ready

First loop was A and a run loop on relatively flat terrain.  Except for the grunt back up to the car park.  I managed to run for 75% of this loop.  6 km.  An hour or just over.  

Belmont trig

But after that an 8 min transition to the bike loop saw me under the hammer as soon as we started up the track to the trig.  It was so high and so steep.  I pushed my bike probably 75% of this loop I reckon.  And I depleted any energy reserves I might have had.  I was exhausted.

The team were full of beans.  How does Theresa manage this level of sustained effort after her fight the night before?  Machine.  Chris is like a pedal monster.  And Callan is lovely and waited for me.  The other competitors looked out for me too.  One woman even walked back to see if I was okay as I sucked down water and dried apricots at one point.

Okay - this is a great view

The view from the top was superb.  A light wind which was a little cool.  But given how hard it was to slog up - I enjoyed it.

Finished!

The downhill from here would have been okay if it was a tad less greasy.  Or 80 other riders hadn't been down there already.

Let's go!

Belmont trig

Stupid amount of heart rate activity for hours and hours!

Where we went

Yeah - we went up there!  With bikes!

When we eventually got back, I was so worried I had made us DNF because it was already 3pm and loop C was beckoning.  But no.  The organisers had called it at 1pm a two-loop race.  So we finished!  Phew!

The idea of having to do loop C after that slog was so hard.  Instead, we packed up and headed home.

Theresa drove home to her pasta dinner - she has a week off the intense regime before she is back into it.

I got home and got into the bath.  Watched the Olympics surfing and saw Ella Williams (kiwi surfer) make it through to the next round!

Fell into bed and watched the women's 137km road cycling race.  OMG.  Grueling. The peloton got it all wrong and let a wee breakaway pack of 3 women get a 10 min lead and they kept it.  Then the Austrian woman broke away from them and I don't think the peloton actually knew she was there.  They hauled in the two other breakaway women and I think the Dutch team thought that was it.  But no.  Austria took it out!

Huge!

Meanwhile I had no energy at all.  Mike gave me dinner and pretty much after the cycling race finished on TV I was asleep.

I could not get ready for work or wash my clothes.

Sapped.

But this morning I got up.  Sorted my life out.  Did deadlifts with Quentin.  And at work only feeling slightly tired in the body.

A month to the next one.

Hope your week ahead is good fun.

Love,

Angela

The Thursday with work

 Hi,

I was working from home again as it was the cleaners day to come and they need supervision when it comes to that ninja cat Moxley.  Hahah.  Or is it Moxley that needs the supervision?  Anyway, I kept both cats in with me.  Although at one stage I could not find Smudge.  That room is not very big!  But once the cleaners left, she crawled out of whatever tiny space she had wedged herself in.  And made herself right at home on the desk next to me.

Picture purrfect cat

Home made iced latte

Lounging around

Finished work and commuted up the stairs to make some tea and wait for Mike to get home.  I was in bed by the time he finished his "Snowlovers Thursday tipple", organising snow trips with meetup people. He asked for a lift home from the supermarket but I said no as I was in bed already.  But I should have because it was raining and no buses and no Uber.  So he walked home in the rain.

Poor Mike.

He came to bed and was asleep in no time at all.  Up for bus in and a day at work.  Looks like the weather might be coming right - just in time for the weekend.  We have the second Dirt Duathlon on Sunday.  Oosshh!

Have an awesome weekend.  Bring that good stuff on.

Love,

Angela

The Wednesday with work

 Hi,

Wednesday was a busy day at work.  Lots of meetings.  I did get a team lunch in in the work cafe though.  Good to catch up with my colleagues in my team.  We spend so much time in our cross functional teams that it is always good to touch base with them.

We talked a lot about the flats we had as students.  I think I did quite well in that regard, listening to them all.  :-)

As work wound down, we had an issue that meant we stayed a bit longer to provide support as needed.  It is sometimes a bit tough in the digital space when things that should just work, do not.  :-(  But it seemed to finally get sorted and I headed home in a shared Uber with Ange.

Made some soup when I got home.  Fed the cats.  Went to bed and lay out on my nuclear electric blanket.  Hahah.

Mike got home not too long after me.  Went to sleep pretty fast.  For some reason we both woke at 4.30am. The rain was hosing down.  The cats were frisky.  Mike was chatting to Jo in the UK.  Humans were awake. Cats were awake.  Chaos.

I did get another hour's sleep before my alarm went off.  Online PT session this morning and into early meetings.

Hope your day is a good one.

Love,

Angela

The Monday and Tuesday at work

 Hi,

Turns out I forgot to post yesterday.  Oops.  I got to work after a great PT session that left my arms as mere accessories, really.  Decorative, not functional.  Good bench session.  Met Roanne and she asked for a bagel date.  Which - excuse me - but Roanne, plus an iced latte and a bagel.  A terrific combo not to be missed.  So I said yes, but do I have time for a shower first?

She said yes.  I jumped in the shower.  Sang away with enthusiasm and little skill.  Got dressed, sat at my desk and got ready to head to my bagel date when Laura asked if I was coming to the 8am workshop session.

No.  Should I?  Yes, she said.  And sent me the invitation.

So I stood Roanne up.  She said next time I say yes, but can I have a shower first, she is going to say:  No you #!@#!@ cannot have a shower first.

Bwhahahah.

It did get worse for her too.  She went for a bagel at lunchtime to make up for her poor choice of date for brekkie.  Ordered and paid for her bagel and cream cheese.  And they took her money then said:  we just ran out of cream cheese, choose another bagel.  

What?  And all the bagels she wanted had cream cheese on them.  So she was not happy.  Left there with her peanut butter bagel and wondered at why a shop could run out of its most popular topping and they not have a contingency plan.

I was in the doghouse.  Roanne is sure there would have been cream cheese for the brekkie date.  Hahah.

Work iced latte

Busy at work.  Then Mike sorted out Mevo and he wanted to try it out. A car that you rent by the minute.  You use the app on your phone like the scooters.  You find a close one, and you can reserve it so it waits for you.  They have Audi plug-in hybrids. Nice car.

We live outside the CBD zone, so we have to keep paying for the car if we drive it home. That makes it a bit dearer. But we left it outside our house overnight and drove it in again the next morning. Total cost: $50. Dearer than an uber each way, but cheaper than a taxi each way.

Mevo ride home

Parked and recharging, back in town

Elly and Tom popped over and Mike cooked home made burgers for them.  It was a lovely catch up.  Moxley quite likes Tom.  I think it is his dog she can smell.  Hahah.

Off to bed after Elly and Tom left.  I was getting quite tired.  But it is my sleep in morning on Wednesdays.  That was pleasant.  With the car outside waiting for us, we did get in nice and early.  And Roanne was there so we went for a brekkie date and she got her bagel with cream cheese.  I may have one paw out of the doghouse now.

Ugly bagel iced latte morning

Busy day again at work.  

Hope you are all well.  Have a good day.

Love,

Angela

The weekend that was wet

 Hi,

What a weekend of wet.  The rain did not let up and Mike and I stayed at home for all of Saturday and quite a bit of Sunday too.

Breakfast in bed

Saturday saw us stay in bed instead of getting up to brave the conditions for boot camp.  The spouting often overflowed through the day and it was like living inside a waterfall.

We read books and I doom-scrolled a lot on social media.  West coast and Marlborough were badly hit by the weather.  I also kept an eye on Toa the wee baby orca stuck in Plimmerton.  

We postponed the house warming visit to Ana and Daniel on Saturday night.  Good call as cars stuck on SH2 were there for hours.  I read on Sunday it took 9 hours for someone to get to Eastbourne.  There was a lot of slips and flooding.

Getting up Sunday I was having a leisurely shower when Mike told me I had to be ready to leave in 5 mins.  I was like:  what?

Turns out we had forgotten brunch with Kara and Neil at La Cloche.  Lucky it was a close venue.  Mike threw me out as he found a park.

Hello Kara

It was so good to see Kara - she has not changed a bit.  She is trying to settle into Wellington, as is Neil.  Hopefully she can join us for the ski trip in August down south.

We got home from brunch at 1.30pm and Mike asked me to stay to help with putting the van seats in.  I was going to go to the Otago v Wellington Farah Palmer cup match at Jerry Collins field in Porirua.  Fortunately Sally and Andrew got back from the Surrealist exhibition (yes - the infamous one from the Sydney visitor weekend) and Andrew helped Mike while Sally and I checked out cats on the internet.

Twitter showed our supermarket was ankle deep in the carpark

Headed over to Ana and Daniel's place with Janine at 5.30pm.  Saw a very swollen Hutt River and debris all over roads everywhere.  But not an issue really.  

Their house is stunning.  Brand new - I think they have only been in it for 5 or 6 weeks.  Beautiful.  Our in Trentham.  Lovely dinner.  Allyson came too - as did Amy.

Drove home - in pouring rain!  Hahah.  I was more worried about the cockroach that wandered around as I drove home.

Working from home today.

Cold.  But not raining and the wind has dropped.

Take care.

Love,

Angela

The Thursday with working from home

 Hi,

Whenever I work from home, I only seem to get pictures of the cats.  A lot of pictures of the cats.  Hahahah.

Moxley on the chair next to me

Smudge next to the heater

Both stretched out luxuriating in the heat

Toe beans

After work I got pinned by Moxley to the couch.  Mike had stayed at work for a work function and then headed to the Michael Fowler centre afterwards to protest for trans rights.  A SUFW conference was taking place inside and the council had said yes to it, but also lit up the building in trans colours.  And a fair sized group of protesters had gathered outside.  Mike included.

Pinned

Got home to find Ange's birthday present for Mike had arrived and I hadn't heard.  In my defence it is super windy which masks any noises.  The house is creaking in the wind and there are bangs and knocks all the time.

Thanks Ange

Went to bed nice and early.  Up for an iced latte catch up with Andrew ahead of his day.  

Friday morning iced latte with Andrew

Weekend looms large.  The weather is really rather awful so not a lot of outdoor stuff is likely.  Boot camp tomorrow (my right leg is sore so I may be restricted in what I can do).  Dinner out with friends tomorrow night.

Hoping Aussie gets some good news in terms of their covid numbers.  Lockdown from last night for Melbourne.  Sydney still in one and cases climbing.  :-(  Good luck, you all over the ditch.  Hope we are careful and can keep it out and get more vaccinations done.

Have a good day.

Love,

Angela

The Wednesday with work

 Hi,

Busy day at work yesterday.  I did get away for lunch with Barb and Juliet though - that was good.  And ate with them in the work cafe.

New pies at work

Roanne found some new pies they are trialing for the retail market.  The one above was scrumptious.

After work we went out to say goodbye to Jayshree who is moving to a new job on Monday.  Stayed there until Mike drove in for it and also said goodbye to Jayshree.  And it turns out she lives just around the corner from Sally and Andrew.  So we drove her home and collected Andrew on the way.

Sally then put tea on for us.  That was nice to not have to worry about finding food.  And that was lovely.

Headed home and had the best sleep ever.

Up for PT session but the bus never came.  I waited for ages.  Went back home and as I got to the front door - it drove past.

So now I am working from home.

:-(

Have a good one.

Love,

Angela

The Tuesday with lots of work

 Hi,

My day yesterday was hard yakka.  But - there you go.  I did have a workshop at work to help me be a Rainbow ally.  That was cool.  Nice and interactive.  Turns out the facilitator from Rainbow Tick is a good friend of Iona and Col's.  Funny.

Moon and Venus last night

Went home with Ange and Barb as Ange had the car in town.  Made it a lovely commute home - thanks Ange.

Enjoyed the moon and Venus close together in the night sky.  My camera couldn't really cope with it - but it was beautiful to see.

Got tea ready and when Mike said he was close, I assembled it.  Mmmm.  Yay for Buddha bowls.

I was so cold at home that I convinced Mike he needed a bath.  He had pulled his calf while out running after work.  Oops.  I don't think the bath helped that much - but it made me warm and very mellow.  Job done!

Iced latte - with no ice.  Hahah

Up for work and in on the bus.  Brr - it was cold.  Stopped off for an iced latte at Ugly Bagels and they had no ice.  My crestfallen face must have tugged at the person's heartstrings as she suggested an iced latte - with just cold milk.  I said yes.  Hahahah.  And it is okay, readers!

My day stretches long.  Looks a long way off from this side of the day.  Might need more iced latte before the morning ends.

Have a fantastic day.

Love,

Angela