Well that was totally unexpected – I just spent two weeks down in Wellington for work.  I had a great time, the weather was amazing and I was doing really different things for work – no training at all, I was creating!

 
Here is where I spent the two weeks working, this is National Office

and this is where I slept.

I went for lots of big walks. On a really big walk I managed to climb a mountain, well it was only a hill but it wasn’t exactly easy to walk up, I found some track which I thought might take me somewhere with a good view but it ended up taking hours to get to the top. But the view was worth it once I finally made it. Oh and on the way I found Katherine Mansfield’s birthplace.

With all the great weather we’ve been having Wellington seemed to be constantly in celebration mode. Every night there was a big party type atmosphere and everyone was outside eating and drinking having fun. Down on the waterfront there was even dancing!

On one of my walks I managed to make it all the way to the Westpac Stadium which I’ve heard about and seen from a distance many times but never been right up to and seen the very cool entrance. While walking around near the stadium I ended up on a road with a really amusing street sign which simply said give way when wet. I laughed out loud (no really I did) thinking well what happens when it’s not wet – do just drive straight through??? Turns out the pole was missing the middle sign which says slippery.

One of the great things about this trip was, this time my Auckland Boss was in Wellington at the same time so we did loads of things together after work like walking through the rose gardens, up the cable car hill, along the waterfront, eating dinner in some great restaurants and hiring a tricycle and peddling to some beach while nearly dying from laughing too much. I had a blast – it makes a huge difference to have someone to do things with when I’m away on these trips.

Wednesday, 9 January

Today really felt like I’m on holiday.  I had several friends ring me this morning who are still on holiday like me and wanted to have coffee and a catch up but I had to say to both of them that I would love to see them but I’m waiting for a bed to arrive so would you like to come here for coffee instead.

As it turned out one popped round in the morning and the other popped round in the afternoon and about an hour after the morning friend left and 10 minutes before the afternoon friend arrived, the bed was delivered.  It was a gorgeous day for sitting in the courtyard & catching up with old friends, the weather couldn’t have been more perfect.

However the bed delivery didn’t go quite so well as the rest of the day – the delivery guys could not get the base up my stairs.  Whoever designed the building I live in clearly didn’t give any thought to getting furniture up to the bedrooms.  How have all my neighbours managed to do it?  There was a lot of pushing and shoving from me and the two big fullas, but the base was just not going to fit.  The height of the roof, the angle of the steps, the width of the staircase and the width of the handrail all transpired against us.  So the main bed delivery dude said: “sorry mate but we haven’t got time to muck around with this we’ll have to leave it here”.  I exclaimed that in that case they would have to take the bed back to where it came from coz you can’t just leave me with a bed stuck in my staircase.

Then I had a thought, I wondered if I moved the Xmas tree (yes my tree is still up) out of the alcove at the bottom of the offending stairs, could we fit it through the hole/window thingy.  I ran to get a tape measure, discovered it would fit and that’s how we got it up.  Thank goodness.  And in case you are wondering how I got my previous bed up there, it was a slat bed that completely comes apart in times of moving.

Monday, 7 January

The last few days have been spent relaxing with friends, watching movies, reading books and eating far too much chocolate (thank you friends and relations who all decided I needed fattening up and gave me loads of my faves). Sadly two of my friends returned to England at different times throughout this week which always leaves me with mixed emotions about how cool it is to see old friends again after a long time but how sad it is that people come into your life and then leave.

When I lived in Japan one of the best things about living there was how many amazingly cool people I became friends with from all over the world, but this also led to one of the hardest things about life in Japan.  Most foreigners living there were only there for a year while their working holiday visas lasted and then they would leave, most of whom I never saw again and didn’t manage to stay in touch with.  At least these days with email and Facebook it’s so much easier than in the “old days” when the only way people stayed in touch was by letter.

Today I went into town to have lunch with a friend who is leaving New Zealand to study medicine, he probably won’t return but I hope we do stay in touch.

After lunch to cheer myself up I went shopping and bought a brand new bed, which excitingly is going to be delivered on Wednesday – yay.  I would much rather have bought a new iPhone but probably a new bed will be better for me in the long run.

Tuesday, 1 January 2013

Last night I stayed at a mate’s place after the party. I woke at a reasonable hour and after several coffees we decided to check out some garden centres and Mitre 10 so I could buy a table top fireplace.

Last year (a couple of weeks ago) I discovered the table top fireplace and thought what an awesome idea, I’d love one.  So I decided to wait till after Xmas to see if I got any Mitre 10 vouchers etc and then buy one.

I could hardly wait for it to get dark enough so I could light my brand new fire. The thing actually comes with 3 pages of warnings about what not to do, which almost made me too scared to light the frigging thing.  But after much convincing and despite all the warnings I went ahead and lit it. It is very groovy but I can see why it needs 3 pages of warnings, if there is any breeze at all, the fire turns into a bonfire and could easily burn down a house very quickly, not to mention ruin your dinner guests best outfits and cell phones if they were anywhere near the thing. It’s also far too hot for a fire at this time of year, so what was I thinking when I decided I wanted one!

Sunday, 30 December

Had lunch at Dad’s, took my camera to take some nice photos of the place for him, but every time I go there the weather is crap, so I’ll keep trying coz one day the weather will be good enough.

After lunch we went for a drive – he’d bought a new car so this was a cool surprise and an added bonus for my day.

Didn’t do much on Saturday, so no blog for day 9.

Friday, 28 December

Today I got to spend the whole day with a friend who is over from the UK. She turned up at about 9:30 and we headed over to Onehunga for a day of shopping, coffee and catch up.

Once we were done we popped in on a friend who lives in the area for a beer and made plans for New Years Eve.

The photo is of the very cool old building, which is now the Library Cafe.

Thursday, 27 December.  Today I went up to Whangaparoa to have lunch with a friend and his Mum.  She’d been given some garden centre vouchers for Christmas so we took her down to her local to help her pick out some nice indoor plants.

I’ve known the people I visited since I was 12, so we were discussing old times and how things had changed and this led to a discovery that on the street where my friend used to live another friend’s house had apparently gone – moved, demolished or something, so on my way home I was keen to have a look.

Being as it was on my way I also stopped by the reserve next to the house I used to live in for a wee trip down memory lane to soak up the amazing view and take a photo for the blog.

Click for a larger view in Flickr.

Wednesday, 26 December. Today was spent relaxing with my nephew. Still raining so couldn’t do anything outside, but I did manage to get outside between showers to check out the frangipani to see if it was flowering yet.

I bought the frangipani about 8 years ago but it didn’t seem very happy so I gave it to Mum who treasured it and placed it in a great spot at her home where it got maximum sun and attention. Now that Dad has moved to a smaller place he has no room for it, so it has returned to me – but now it’s quite large, very healthy, happy and about to flower which I’m very excited about.