More pictures from Snowboarding
After battling with the blogger for nearly an hour trying to add these photos onto the other post, I gave up and started a new one....
This is me and Lisa enjoying the sunshine before heading back to Christchurch. It's Lisa's birthday on Friday, so that'll be another night out... keep watching this space for stories and pictures...
And this is me being all cool with my snowboard and stuff. I had actually given up about an hour before this 'cos I was feeling cranky and tired with the cold, but I had to get a picture of me being a snow-boarding type. In fact, I nearly didn't make it to Mt Hutt at all. On the Friday night, I set my alarm for 6:30, but failed to notice that I had set it for 6:30PM, not AM...d'oh. The result was that I was supposed to be at the bus stop up the road at 7:15AM, but I was actually in bed when the bus driver rang me! So I gave him my address and he came and collected me after I tore around the house getting up and ready to go in five minutes. A delightfully stressful start to the day. It all worked out in the end though and I'd definitely go again. The prices are really reasonable, the hire of the equipment and three hours of lessons was only $99 and the bus was $35 return from Christchurch. It's good value, but still not free, so maybe I won't turn into a snow-boarding chick and I'll concentrate on the surfing.. much cheaper...
Snowboarding
I tried snowboarding for the first time this weekend. Lisa (my fellow surfer from work) and I got a bus up to Mt Hutt to spend the day on the piste on Saturday. Lisa went skiiing while I took a beginners snowboarding lesson. I had a cold on the day so I was feeling quite miserable and sorry for myself so unfortunately I didn't enjoy the day as much as I would have if I'd been in better shape. The other thing was that I had loads of clothes and jumpers and fleeces etc on, but it was something ridiculous like 19 or 20 degrees up there so I was melting away while other people were going around the place in t-shirts and vest tops... in the SNOW... But I'm still glad I went and I'll be trying snowboarding again next season.
My instructor was telling me that he will go the States for the snowboarding/skiiing season there when it's over in New Zealand and that he hasn't seen summer in something like eight years.... Madness!!
As you can see from the pictures, there's not too much snow left on the mountain. In fact, they would have been closed last week if it hadn't been for the snowfall last Monday. While the farmers were counting their losses from the cold snap, the ski resorts were celebrating... every cloud and all that I guess...
Anyway, here are some of the pictures I took from the mountain. It's not very clear from this photo because of the haze, but you can actually see all the way to the Pacific over the Canterbury Plains... it's pretty spectacular in person...
Snow in Christchurch II
So it would seem I've managed to get the blogger to work and here are the pictures from Christchurch during the snow. This is my wee house looking all Christmassy (in September). The brazier from our party is still out in the lawn and it seems weird that just a few days before, we were out in the front yard partying til the wee hours of the morning!
And this is the view from the office window
Snow in Christchurch
I promised you all some pictures of the snow in Christchurch, so here they are. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to take photos until Tuesday and a lot of the snow had melted by that stage.
30 minutes later......
And I would be delivering on that promise right now if the stoopid blogger wasn't broken and refusing to co-operate with the uploading of pictures... grrrrr..
I'm pure annoyed 'cos I've got some really good pictures from Mt Hutt at the weekend and I want to share them with you all... ah well, I guess I'll just have to try it again tomorrow...
Adventure Weekend!
Well, I've got an actioned-packed weekend planned this week! Tonight (Friday), I'm off to the rugby again (Canterbury V Wellington), but this time I'll be working there. My flatmate, Maggie and her team-mates fund-raise for their softball club by working in one of the stalls selling chips and burgers and the like at the games. Maggie can't go tonight, so I agreed to go in her place.
Then tomorrow morning, bright and early, Lisa and I are off to Mt Hutt for some skiing and snowboarding!! Yeay!! I'll be bringing my camera so if I'm still alive and capable of using a computer on Sunday I'll put pictures of that up on the blog!
Then Sunday morning is more surfing, but I've not made any promises about that one yet, 'cos I'm going to wait and see how I feel after the snowboarding before getting out of bed on Sunday.
So I'll be talking to ye then!!... TTFN
SNOW!!!!!
I take it all back about it being nearly summer here. This morning I woke up and looked out my window and everything looked sort of whitish grey. "Ah-ha" I said to myself, "there must be lots of condensation on the windows. I'll just wipe a bit of it off so I can see what it's like outside." With that, I wiped the window, but everything maintained it's white colouring... because it was all covered with 3 inches of SNOW!! I'll take some pictures when I get home from work this evening to show you all. Don't know how long it's supposed to last though, I heard today that there might be even heavier snow tonight... I may have to walk to work!! Christchurch has ground to a halt. The buses have stopped running and lots of things aren't being delivered. But here at MWH we're still working away. I'll definitely be wanting to make a snowman when I get home... but sadly I don't have any wellies here. Funny the things you miss!!
Party on Wainui St
Maggie's friend Karen turned 40 this week, so the girls organised a surprise party for her at our house last Saturday night (10th Sept). We even had a Marquee for the event, although we didn't need it in the end as the weather was fine for the night. Maggie, Alison, Lynne and I put the marquee up Saturday afternoon and we did a pretty good job on it, if I may say so myself:
Once the marquee was up, it made sense to start the party ourselves. Notwithstanding the fact that the birthday girl wasn't to arrive until 7:30pm and this was about...four..
We also had a brazier so it was like camping in our own front garden... very adventerous. This is Takkie and Shannon who could be relied upon to get the party started.
The party really got going when Karen arrived and here she is in the middle with Rosie, her uncle and her Mum and Dad.
And here's some more photos of the night.
This is Maggie and Carl
Me and Kirk
Deb and Kim
Takkie, Shannon and Jude (Maggie's Mum)
Shannon, Alan and Kim
Surfing
So now that I've had TWO surfing lessons, I think it's fair to say I'm a bit of an expert and I'll be teaching you all when I get back to Ireland. Nonetheless, I think I might just take a few more, just to perfect my technique. Currently my technique is to struggle to my feet (although nine times out of ten I don't even make it to my feet before falling off) and then plunge into the water after a few exhilarating seconds of standing, so I think it might need a little more work.
The beach that I've been taking lessons at is called New Brighton and this is what it looks like on a Sunday morning in September.
Before our first lesson, Trish, one of our instructors took this photo of us. On the left is Lisa, she works with me in MWH, I'm beside her and then next is Sandra and Ina, two girls from Germany who are over here studying in University of Canterbury. Sandra and Ina have really taken to it and our instructor even suggested that they just rent the equipment next time rather than taking a lesson. She did not make any such suggestion to me :( I wonder if there's a hint in that... ;)
Home Sweet Home
Well I still haven't taken too many photos here in New Zealand, but here are some of my house and housmates in Christchurch. This is my house on Wainui Street.
There's just three of us living here, Maggie, Macca and I.
This is Macca.
Macca went and sprained her ankle playing soccer a few weeks ago and here's how it looked three days or so after it happened. (Genny.... don't look!!!)
I have to say though, it was quite amusing to watch Macca hopping (yes, hopping... no crutches) around the house before she could walk on it again. In hindsight, it might have been a bit mean making her answer the phone every time it rang on the grounds that it's NEVER for me.... ( I didn't really do that, we make Maggie answer the phone cos it's ALWAYS for her)
And speaking of, this is Maggie
Maggie dragged me along to a dinner with her bosses and their suppliers last night and we were both pleasantly surprised to be treated to dinner! So thanks to Colin for that! (And thanks to Maggie for inviting me in the first place!)
I know I siad there are only three of us in the flat.... well really there's four if you count Macca's cat Benji
Benji sleeps a lot, eats a bit and every once in a while, he knocks over the bin in the kitchen.
So here is my room and below that is my car
