The Monday back at work

Hi,

Back at work - and it was a long day.  But I did get a lunch spin in to test my legs.  And... I might be coming down with a cold.  But I am still in the denial phase. 

He missed me

Obvs Mike missed me while I was away as he carefully left a towel on my side of the bed for me to find when I got home.  Shucks! 

What Marmite coverage do YOU like?

I liked this post in my Insta feed about Marmite coverage.  For anyone out there that ever makes me toast - I am a 3.14.  Like Pi.

Bussed home with Mike and he cooked a great dinner.  Yay!  I didn't have to do anything.  But we both went to bed fairly early as we're both a bit shattered.

Today looks lovely.  Enjoy your day.

Love,
Angela 

The weekend with saying goodbyes and going to Blenheim

Hi,



What a crazy good weekend.  Friday night saw me and Mike meeting Jo and Momo at Capitol for dinner.  It is one of my favourite places and it didn't fail me this time either.  I had asparagus as an entree and risotto primavera as a main (small) and then their wonderful soft centred chocolate pudding.  Mmmmm.

Pondering Capitol's menu

We went out to Goldings for drinks and met up with a whole bunch of people.  Vanessa came back from Wow to chill with us too.  Jase got in after his work and we all enjoyed a chat and some drinks.  The pub actually closed around us and chucked us out.  It has been a long time since that happened to me.  I seem to recall a time with Karen in some pub in the middle of nowhere.

We took Vanessa home and entered the land of fog when we breached the heady heights of Newlands.  But all good and we were home and in bed by 1am!  Wait, what???  Sigh.

Bresolin iced coffee

 Next morning we were up early and headed in for a big brunch leaving celebration with Momo and Jo.  And all their friends.  Woot!  I had some yummy eggplant thing in a tomato sauce that had eggs poached in it.  With haloumi.

Bresolin!

I caught an Uber to the airport at 11.15am and checked into my SoundsAir flight super easy.  Got on at 12:05 and had a lovely flight across to Blenheim.  Landed at 12.35pm and met Col and Iona and went back to their place to chill.

In Marlborough!

 Iona and I rode bikes over to the Mega Mitre10 and bought some cord to re-thread Iona's Roman blind.  That was a pleasant excursion and I got used to her two bikes.  She must be a bit taller than me as the seat height was just a little too high.  After we got back we adjusted her commuter bike to suit me for the big bike ride on Sunday.

I may have snoozed a bit on the floor with the television on. Then it was dinner time.  Stir fry with noodles.   And I wasn't too long out of bed.

Sunday I was up early (not quite as early as Col - she knocked on my door and I could not drag myself out of bed for another 20 mins!) to watch the All Blacks versus Springboks in Lotus Stadium in SA.  What a game!  I was sure NZ was going to get hammered at one point and lose by a massive margin.  But they clawed back a win in the last 5 minutes.  Scored two tries.  Wow!

Picnic table outside the substation

Tree ferns and the turquoise sea

Beautiful views

Iced coffee @ Seabreeze Cafe in Picton

Then Iona and I were off on our bikes.  We got away at 8am.  Rode down SH62 to SH6 to Havelock.  Up the road from there to Picton (along Queen Charlotte Drive).  Had a lovely stop in Picton (iced coffee - solid 7) and then the last wee push to Blenheim down SH1.

I forgot to put sunscreen on so my nose is a little bright now.  Hahah.  We got home around 2:30pm.  Such a good time.  I may have also had a snooze in a patch of sunshine that afternoon too.  When I woke, it was time for tea!  Tacos with quorn.  Mmmm.

Into bed fairly early and up at 5.15 to have toast with Iona while Col walked Frida.  Iona dropped me at the airport at 5.55am and we chatted before she headed away to start her working week.

My commute to work was stunning!

My morning commute on Monday

At work and happy with the bike ride.  Well, happy I did one.  Pretty sure I should have done heaps better.

Let's see how many more I can fit into my remaining training regime.

Have a wonderful week.

Love,
Angela

The Thursday with lunch with Vanessa

Hi,

Busy day at work.  I did get a lunch in with Vanessa at Machete.  Mmmm.  We both enjoyed our lunches.

Machete with Vanessa

I got home after a hectic day and cooked tea for Toby.  Mike arrived home bang on time and got steak and mash with broccoli with Toby.

Garden mushroom

So pretty

Cats in harmony

 As I cooked, the two cats shared the seat in the kitchen.  Smudge was already there and Moxley climbed on too.  I thought Smudge would growl and run away.  But no.  Moxley plonked her paw over Smudge's neck and I thought it would be all on for young and old.  But still, Smudge tolerated it.  Then Moxley began licking and grooming Smudge.  And they both settled in to snuggle while I cooked tea.

Aahhhh.

Crazy weekend ahead.  Dinner out tonight with Momo and Jo to say goodbye.  Then brunch early tomorrow with more people to do the same thing.  In order to stop myself feeling sad at their departure, I booked myself to fly to Blenheim and catch up with Iona and Col and get a long bike ride in!  Oosshh!

I fly back to Wellington early Monday morning and will go straight to work from the flight.  Mike and Toby have a Wellington weekend.

Andrew is supposed to go trapping - but judging from his report on his forearm my suspicion is he may be in a cast for a few weeks.  We shall see.

Enjoy your weekend lots.

Love,
Angela

The Wednesday with a coffee catch up with Jo

Hi,

After a hefty day, it was good to see Jo at The Lab below my work at 3pm.  I managed to snaffle lunch too.  We chatted about her plans for extricating herself from the country by Saturday.  She made a list.  Yay for lists!

Late coffee catch up with Jo @ The Lab.

Apart from that, the day was fairly uneventful.  I did get to Spin at lunch with Sreejith.  He thought he had dodged Scott as an instructor (who would give him a hard time) as it was Sarah running this lunch class.  But Scott ran in as a punter at the last moment - and gave Sreejith a bit of a ribbing for finally turning up to a class.  Hahahah. 

I got some groceries on my way home, and cooked tea for Toby.  Went to bed as I was shattered. 

Mike was out at a quiz night with Andrew, Jo, Momo, Vanessa and Janine.  Last I heard they came a solid middle of the table.  With that brains trust it must have been a hard quiz!

About to head to Spin now.  Have a great day.

Love,
Angela

The Tuesday with Bill Bailey

Hi,

What a lovely day yesterday.  Work was work.  But - I did get to see Andrew in the morning for an iced latte and catch up on his mad tramping weekend.  He had two epic days in the hills, grabbing more spot heights and cracked the 100 left barrier.  Oosshh.

Also caught up with Vanessa at Spin after work.  It's been a while since I had this instructor and I like her.  I tried hard to keep up for the hour.  Hahahah.

Had a shower and met Vanessa again at work while we waited for Mike to get there.  Walked with him to Mexico (ok - the restaurant, not the country) and met Momo there.  And then we stuffed the food down as fast as it came out.  It was so good.

Getting back to the car

Iced latte with Andrew @ Machete

At 7:57pm we left and walked fast to Michael Fowler for the Bill Bailey show.  James had bought 3 tickets expecting to go with a good friend, but when she couldn't make it, he decided not to go (it's a special thing with them).  So - we benefited.  We were ushered in and as we took seats 3 rows back and right in front (how did you get those tickets, James???) Bill stepped onto the stage.

And talk about funny!  The man is hilarious - and so smart.  He ad libbed through some stuff, but also had a script he kept to.  And played musical instruments.  Different ones.  Weird ones too.  And a recorder.  Electronic organ.  Some Weber BBQ looking thing that was a weird drum.  An electronic aerial thing.  And about four different guitars.

I laughed and laughed.

Bill opened with a great monologue about how magical New Zealand is.  How we're all healthy and live in a verdant, green country - where we paddle to work and eat fruit from trees outside our windows.  And he loves our birds.  Worked their bird calls into his music routine.

Wandered home via the bright orange car and Momo collected his washing and I collapsed into bed.  Didn't get up at 5am for my Spin class.  Slept in.  Mmmmm.

Need some groceries for tea tonight.

Right. Time for tea.  Have a brilliant day.

Love,
Angela

The Monday with a movie and dinner

Hi,

It was an unexpected pleasure to get an invitation to go and watch "Johnny English" (the second movie) with Jo, Momo and Vanessa after work.  I laughed and laughed.  Must have been exactly in the mood.  It got to the point where Rowan Atkinson would appear on the screen, go to do something, and my brain would fill in the anticipation and I'd dissolve into giggles before anything even happened.

After that hilarity, we decided on ramen for dinner.  Mmmmm.... ramen.  Went to that wee place on Victoria (potentially it is called The Ramen Shop, but I'm not super sure [sure is - ed]) and Mike met us.

Enjoyed dinner with everyone, then Mike and I found a bus and got home.  Chatted to Jason a bit before going to bed.  Toby was staying over with his mates at Tessa's house.

Up early to get in for spin.  Oosshh!

Have a great day!

Love,
Angela

The weekend with the last ski trip with Momo and Jo

Hi,

Happy birthday to my dad today.  :-)

Not sure I can accurately describe the weekend's fun and emotional content - it was certainly loads of fun.  But emotions are mixed.  Mixed, because we've made good friends with Momo and Jo and all the snow crew.  Especially Mike.  And this was the last ski weekend with Momo and Jo before they leave to go and live in the UK (Jo to return home and Momo to a new, exciting country and a new job in Glasgow).  And happy, because the skiing and company was superb.

Celia and Vanessa were also punters on this trip - and Jason managed to get time off work to come too.  So it was a great mix of people - all friends.

Let's see...  How did it all unfold?

Friday saw Toby coming to my work and us meeting Mike at the carpark next to our work (on Boulcott St) - that was an inspired choice of carpark by Mike.  We got onto the motorway, only to get an update from Celia, ahead of us in the traffic, that an incident at Seaview had snarled the traffic.

Yes, indeed it had.  Mike weaved through motorway exits and found Celia at a park, on the Alicetown side of Hutt Rover.  Celia walked to us over the rail bridge with all her gear to save us negotiating traffic chaos.  She's wonderful!

And - we were off.  Over Paekakariki Hill Road, super easy, and into the night.  Sounds like a Bruce Springsteen song.

We ate at Maccas at Levin (I think I am so over Maccas brekkies now - I choose them whenever we go to Maccas) and continued driving.  Up at the lodge at a decent hour.   Maybe just around 10pm.  Settled into the custodian room and after a few hellos, I tried to sort out Toby's skis with his boots.  He has now got my old skis and his boots are significantly larger than my boots.  While I got them in, Mike realised I did it wrong.  So he googled the front binding adjustment, and ended up taking it off and moving it that way.  Anyway, upshot being:  Toby now has Mike's ski boots and my old skis.  He is set.

Saturday off to a great start!  Twins - Celia and Vanessa

Caught up with Vanessa, Jo, Momo, Melissa, Janine and all the rest.  Everyone was pretty tired after the long day though.  Off to bed.  I slept well and was up pretty early.  Brekkie, and got ready with Celia and Vanessa.  We tackled the ticket queues, and I left Celia and Vanessa to get their ski gear.

I got up early with my First tracks and enjoyed the Valley T without any crowds.  Eventually I joined up with people.  Skied mostly with Celia during the day.  She had a lesson though at 2pm so I skied with others then.  Toby came up in the afternoon and I skied with him all afternoon and had such a good time.

The snow was lovely - the bitter wind from the morning dropped away.  They have 3.2m still and it is glorious conditions.

Happy skier finds clear skies higher up the mountain.

Bye Jo...  Sad face.

Toby skiing with me on the West Chair

Back to the lodge and dinner and party time.  Stew and strudel for tea and then party games.  We played some game a lot like Heads Up.  Everyone put three names of famous people in the hat (real, fictional - didn't matter) and we split into two teams.  We had a minute to pull as many out of the hat in a minute and try to guess what the name was from either a description without using the word, a charade and in the third round, one word.

Our team lost.  But what a fun game!  Thanks for organising that, Jo.  It's hard to come up with a game that is fun and kept 18 people entertained for quite a while.

Hilarity on Saturday evening

We also got a glimpse of our talented members - with a car karaoke session.  Jo, Momo and Melissa doing an "In the Jungle" rendition.  Mimicking the PartyWagon road trips.

The start of daylight savings means we lost an hour sleep.  And getting to bed at 12.30am did not help.  But I was awake by 6.30am and eventually got away with Celia to buy her lift ticket.

We skied together all day.  Such fun.  Gorgeous again, although viz did drop on occasions and made navigation tricky.  Elaine lost the track and thumped into a gully and gave herself a good headache.  Cracked her goggles too.  I hope she is ok.  We were worried about her.  She just disappeared when she was right behind us.  Mike stayed at the lift queue and Celia and I went on the chair to try and spot her.  But as we got up, she walked up out of the gully.  Phew!

Sunday was another great day!

Celia on the chair!

Mike looking mighty fine

Caught up with Jo and Melissa for the last few runs of the day.  Did the Far West T bar and took Celia up there and enjoyed the best runs of the day.

Headed down the home run to the base from there.  And packed into the car, and headed back home.  Toby DJ'd the whole way and didn't do too badly.

What a great weekend.  Such fun.  I can't believe this time next week, Jo will be gone though.  I'll let that sink in.

Thank you to all that organised it.  I had a wonderful time.

Love,
Angela