The Wednesday with a Flight experience and dinner

 Hi,

Mike came into town after midday after he felt much better while working from home in the morning. I managed ot go for a run at lunch time with Juliet. 3k. And I was hopeless. But as Mike said, I did better than him. He ran out of time to go for a run after work - before our Flight fun.

Mike and the Flight container

Me and the Flight

All of us - and the Flight

Yes, what is the "Flight fun" I hear you ask.  These containers have been set up to give you an experience. Wellington have two - Seance and Flight. We chose the Flight one.

Mike and I had a drink at Macs - and Janine and Kara joined us.  Then off to queue for Flight.  We probably had about 12 punters. The container is set up as the inside of a plane. 3 seats along one side of the aisle. You get headphones that block all sound and they turn out the lights and you cannot see a thing.

They play a story out through very good use of sound through your headphones. It was actually quite well executed. Not as scary as I thought it might be. More of a commentary on philosophical views than anything else. Short.  In and out within 30 mins.

Went to tea  at St Johns.  Wed night is $28 for steak and chips. Kara, Janine and Mike enjoyed that. my food was good - sides of cheesy cauli and bruschetta and some crispy potatoes.

Uber home just after 20:00 and fed the cats, got ready for Thurs and went to bed. Up early for me. 5.30am. Got ready and headed into town. PT session. Bench. 52.5 kg.  Eccentric bench press. So good.

Then brekkie with the wider team. 

No friends - except Roanne was lurking just out of shot

Everyone - except Kris

Weekend beckons. Date night this Saturday.  Park Run. Float. And a movie. Woot!

Have a great weekend.

Love,

Angela

The Tuesday with dinner with Adnan

 Hi,

Tuesday - I can't keep up with the week days.  Hahah. What did I do? Worked from home to avoid pestilence at work.

Baked sourdough. Did kitty litter too. All the important things.

Sourdough

Andrew popped in after his hand checks and we had a cup of tea before driving into town. Me to meet Mike and Adnan at Otto. Andrew to meet Sally (and probably others) at Bin44.

In loc at Otto

Hey Mike and Adnan!

Saw Kate at Otto too. Good to have a quick chat to her. Then enjoyed dinner with Adnan. Grilled him about his life and work. Sorry/not sorry Adnan.  Hahahah.  Top bloke. Lucky to know someone with his head screwed on just right.

There was some sort of incident on the trains in the Hutt at Waterloo, so we drove Adnan home. Bit wet and rainy too. Then drove back and grabbed some urgent groceries on our way home.

Tucked ourselves into bed.  Up for a spontaneous gym session because Mike didn't feel well enough for it. He has since come right! I did 95kg deads with Qunetin. Oosshh. 1 rep x 4 sets. Repping next time!

And now at work. First te reo level 2 lesson s starts today! And my parents are in Barcelona. Woot!

Have a great day!

Love,

Angela

The Monday with spin after work

 Hi,

Smudge was so happy I was working from home yesterday. She spent a lot of time next to me. So cute.

Smudge sleeping next  to me

Completely relaxed

Then she moved positions

Spin

I put on some wild lamb to slow roast in the oven. 4 hours later and the lamb was still tough as an old boot. 

I went out to Spin and did R30 at Thorndon. Then did a wee run on the treadmill. Went to work and waited for Mike. He had a run and then a late meeting (juggling timezones for people in Singapore,  Sydney and Wellington). Took him home and then we tried to eat the lamb. Mike said it must have been the wildest, oldest lamb known in the country! 

Well, it definitely is not a juicy fresh lamb that somehow fell over the farmer's fence into wild lands. We are going to try to slow cook it now as a stew.

Watched some YouTube. Went to bed. Mike was up for a brekkie meeting and I did garage gym with Quentin.  Bench.  40kg 5 reps x 4 sets. Then squats.  40kg 5 reps x 3 sets.  And some adductor work.

Back to the house to shower and get ready for the day.

Meeting Adnan for dinner tonight after work. So I will drive in and park and meet them both somewhere. Maybe Otto?  :-)

Have an amazing day!

Love,

Angela

The weekend with so much happening where do I even start?

 Hi,

Big weekend. I will probably forget all the things in relaying the details. Let's see...

Friday saw me walk into town - and I avoided any rain so that was good. I went to Spin and enjoyed a R30 class there at lunch time.

Smudge moustache

Walk to Spin

At lunch Spin

This is where I made a big mistake. I shazamed a song on the spin playlist. It did not find it. So I checked google with a lyric line. Found it. Checked it was correct on Spotify.  

So far, all good. Right?  Walked to the library after spin.  In the rain. Phone screen was wet. Tried to ping Mike to see if he was around. Gibberish went through to him.

Stuff phone into my pocket.  Get to the library. It is packed. I find a good book and a spare seat and sit down. Only to hear some obnoxious person playing music softly but loud enough to hear it. Weird. Terrible taste too. Dance music. What even is that?  An older woman sat opposite me. Surely she would be cross with the person playing music?  My watch pings me. Message from Mike. I check my phone.

OMG!! It is me playing music. Spotify must have decided I needed to listen to music like the Shazam song from Spin. So I did not recognise the songs. And it was me. I was the obnoxious person. 

I stayed to read and slowly the people around me changed so no one left there knew I was a goose.

Little did I know it was not the only dork moment of the weekend.

From there I went to get a haircut and enjoyed some pampering. I was going to meet Mike after his presentation at work and possibly go out for a bit. But he got a migraine 7 mins before his presentation. So he postponed it and came and waited for me at St Pierres where a miso soup did him a lot of good.  Caught the bus home and we were in bed by 1730.

Moxley snuggles

Garage session with Mike

Up late Saturday for a garage gym session. Mike helped me try 50 kg on bench. Did not make it. But I am so close!

Maureen came at 2pm and we cooked some late lunch or early dinner.  Oh. Wait. This is where I explain my second dork moment. So.  Friday night in bed, I was wondering why Elly was keen to organise a shared trip to the rugby. I had recently bought two tickets for me and Maureen. Something was niggling at the back of my mind. I checked my inbox.  No - only had tickets for me and Maureen.

Wait. Was there a chat with Elly?  I checked that. Yes.  In April Elly asked if I wanted to go. And I said get me 2 tickets. Someone will come with me.

And I forgot.

So... I asked around. Mike was keen. And Andrew was keen. So yay!  I got punters for the tickets.  Glad the tickets with Elly were a lot cheaper than my recent tickets. She paid $43 for each of hers. And I paid $183.

:-o

Waiting for the bus

Here we go!

Wrapped up in Row Y.  

The rugby was superb. Black Ferns v Aus. FOllowed later by a bonus All Blacks v France game. Bus got us in at 4pm and it was 4.15pm by the time we got there. Gates had opened at 3.45. There was quite the queue. So we missed the anthem and haka.  But saw the first kick when Elly pulled us into the stadium at the first gate.

Watched the first half there. Then we split up to sit in our assigned seats. Maureen and I had a great view - up in the second last row. Wow!

Black ferns won handily. But not as easy as they should have.  Ruby Tui was called into the squad late to cover injury and got a try. Yay!

All Blacks were much more convincing against France. So - also yay!

Tom kindly came to pick us up from the New World after the rugby - thank you Tom. And thanks everyone for a great night and rescuing me from my ticket fiasco.

Sunday brekkie

Up Sunday for trap line day. We had brekkie on our way to get Andrew. And then met Callan at the Sunny Gr road end. Nice and early too.  Away by 9am. Mike and Callan set off to do UTS 11 - 7 and KAT 4 to 6 and I did SG1 - 8, UTS 1 to 6 and KAT 3 to 1. Andrew also set off with Mike and Callan - but to clear track on McKerrow.  

I take a photo of Mike's UTS points

View from the top

It took me a while going up Sunny Grove doing the traps by myself. 1 hour 40 to the top. I got about 4 rats here maybe? Misty at times - but no rain to speak of.

Saw Andrew clearing track on McKerrow and he suggested I got back and do UTS 1 to 6 and then come up KAT to find him. So I did just that.

Found UTS1 without much bother. Then followed pink tape and found all the others. It was wet underfoot and the stream was a little high. I got into knee deep water a few times. Bit of a log jam here and there that meant I had to climb a bit.

Found all the traps. Found a lot of rats. From UTS6 I checked my screen shot of Mike's UTS points. They did not show KAT but I could see the spur I had to climb. Started up directly from UTS6 - but it is about 15m downstream from UTS that KAT starts. I saw the pink tape off to my left as I tackled some steep wee bits. Yay!

Once on KAT it was easy going. Except I had 2 rats on these 3 traps. What!!!  And KAT2 has no grab piece. Just an eye. You have to grab the trap to set it.

A lot of dead rats

In UTS

KAT

Crown fern

Back to Andrew and I ate lunch while he chatted to a hunter and cleared more track. It looks like a different track where he has cleared. So good.

Walked back down with him. Admired the channels he has engineered too.

Mike and Callan were 20 mins behind us.  Said goodbye to Callan and dropped Andrew off and then went to charge the car at Z Vivian St.  Had my first F'real. Coffee one. Very nice.

Mike and Callan finish

My first F'Real

Monday morning wash did not work

Home to clean up. Wash clothes. Wash ourselves.  Into bed.  Mike was up Monday for gym. And checked the washing. So dirty! I took the pants out to soak. Will try again soon.

I will walk and run at lunch time. Then head to Spin after work. Yay!

Enjoy your week ahead.

Love,

Angela

The Wednesday with not much

 Hi,

I rode into work at lunch time from home and it wasn't too bad for traffic. Settled into my desk. And continued working. Main thing was for a coffee catch up with Barb before she goes to France for 6 weeks. Juliet and Kirsty joined in - great to hear what everyone has been doing.

Moxley enjoyed my working from home in the morning to sleep in the crate

Rode home and fed the cats and myself.  Watched a series on Amazon Prime with Alice Roberts.  Decided I may as well be in bed as on the couch. So tucked myself into bed to watch it. And fell so asleep that I only caught about 5 mins of a few episodes. Woke up - she was in a different town in a different time period. So yeah. Got to start those episodes again.

Up to drive in Thursday morning for my 7.30 - 8.30 hour session - taking Mike's spot really. Wrapped squats. 72.5kg.  3 reps x 4 sets. Then some narrow grip bench - 32.5kg.  5 reps x 4 sets.

Thursday morning PT

Post PT iced latte at home

Drove home. Cats are happy I am back. Cleaners should be here today so I thought I would WFH to watch out for them. I do not really like it when we keep them downstairs all day for when the cleaners come. They probably don't care too much. Hahah.

Mike gets home tonight. Yay! Looking forward to seeing him. 

Weekend is coming. Haircut for me. Bit of rugby! Go Black Ferns! Go All Blacks. Trap line. yep - busy weekend.

Love,

Angela

The Tuesday with dinner in Lower Hutt

 Hi,

Yesterday I bussed in for gym. Did my hour PT session with Quentin. Dead lifts.  92.5kg 2 reps x 4 sets.

Early bus ride

Iced latte with Hope

I got an iced latte with Hope - so that was good to catch up with her. She is just back from an awesome holiday in Europe.

I was supposed to ride home. But at the end of the day I just wanted to get home. So I bussed back home. Fed the cats. And jumped in the car to head to 40WLW for dinner.

Wallaby stew.  Well - I have to say it was pretty good. Would eat again. Thank you for the invitation. Any wallaby in a stew in NZ is a good use of a wallaby. Sorry to the strict vegetarians out there.

Wouldn't wanna be a wallaby

Sourdough

I got home and got the oven ready to bake. So it was a long night for me. It turned out ok. And I set it to cool and went straight to bed. Zzzzz.

Black fronted dotterel this morning

Up to ride in. And decided with all the things on the go, I would work from home this morning. Get my washing hung out. Be at home for my perishable delivery (I hope). And get my PT session done with Quentin in the garage. Bench. 40kg.  5 reps x 4 sets. Oosshh.

I do have a coffee date in the afternoon with Barb before she heads away next week to France for her hols. Hence the need to ride in.

I am wondering if I can squeeze in a Spin class at 17.30.  Hmmm. Let's see.

Have a lovely day.

Love,

Angela

The Monday with working from home and spin finally

 Hi,

It was good to work from home yesterday. The cats were happy. I went upstairs to find it was only 15C so I turned on all the heaters and we were all pleased to be in 20C before too long.

Cats on the blanket on the couch

Cold upstairs

Grocery drop came

Sunrise

Spin

I decided to go to Spin after work. The training weekend has scared me into action. When it got to 5pm and I fed the cats, it was hard to drag myself out of the house. But I was glad I did it. Parked on Thorndon Quay and headed in for 6:05pm Spin. It was the same instructor we used to have. And another one was in the class as a punter (she has gone to Les Mills as an instructor though!). They have just split the 1 hour group ride Monday session into 2 30 mins classes. So we have options.

The gym at Thorndon was heaving with people at 6pm. But it had emptied out a tad when we finished. I reckon I can go to Spin and then find a treadmill upstairs and go for a run. That is now my new Monday evening routine.

Cats together

Got home and had dinner. Buddha bowl. Cats were happy and sat together on a blanket directly under the heat pump. I made dough for bread.

Tonight I will ride home on the old pedal power bike. Yikes. Not looking forward to that slog up the hill. Jump in the car and head to Lower Hutt for wallaby stew. Hahahah. How funny. I think Alistair and Vicky sent a meat pack of wild meat to Sally and Andrew for Andrew's retirement. So we get to taste wallaby now.

I will let you all know.

Have an awesome day. Lovely winter day here in Wellington. No wind. Crisp.

Love,

Angela