Camping by the river

[Thu 26 Jan 06 1400]

Well, I haven't really been home much this past week. On (last) Thursday, while playing board games with some of my friend's Auckland mates, I decided to go camping. So I txt lots of people and said to meet me in town the next day to go camping. As it turned out most of the people said that they couldn't. Some had good excuses, and others said that they would come visit, but it was going to be just Hayds & me, which was fine, but we would have been a bit bored, so we went and tried to steal Elliot. He was busy recording Dick's music video, so we got Sarah (who was originally unable to come, but we convinced her otherwise). We also tried to get Anna, but she wasn't home. So off we drove to Vinegar Hill and stayed the night there. It was dark by the time we arrived so we set up in the dark - suprisingly easy. We lay out under the stars for ages before going into our own seperate tents. Then people came to visit us on Saturday and we had a few swims before being scared away by some very dark clouds that started to spit on us. It turned out that they blew over just after we packed up camp. On our way back into town we got a txt from Kimmy who had just flown back from Aussie. So we turned up at her place, just to hang out and decided that we would go camping again, but with her instead. When her parents got home they wouldn't let her go using some excuse about needing to be in Wellington the next day. I quickly decided that we could go camping and still get Kim to Welly the next day by camping in or near Wellington. That worked out well because we have a (well actually several, but only one for this story) friend that's living there now. Aparently he doesn't have a lawn that we could put a tent up on so we unpacked most of our camping gear and headed down. Turned out that it was X-Air that weekend (Welly anniversary) so we went along to that and saw some stuff. We ended up staying in Wellington for three nights - a lot more than we were all intending. It was fun just hanging out down there. Their house is real close to town so we were in walking distance to almost everything. On Monday we went for a drive around the Heads and then over to the Botanical Gardens where we saw Roger Fox and a jazz band doing a sound check. Tuesday night we came back and saw a movie in town which was a lot funnier than we thought. Yesterday (Wed) I helped Joy pack up her room and start moving stuff from her current to new flat. During the afternoon I got a txt saying that Jordan was in town (he went to america when I came to NZ so we missed each other) so I went and hung out with them lot. That was fun, and later that evening I had tea with Hayds' family before crashing Derek's party. It turned out that it was a leaving party for two girls who are going back to England next week. That wasn't all that a great party so we left and watched a dvd at Hayden's place. This morning I haven't really done much - packing up my stuff and things. Tonight I've a farewell party for me so that will be fun.

Time really does fly

[Wed 18 Jan 06 1140]

Well, I'm not so good at this keeping up to date thing. It's been almost three weeks since my last entry. So much has happened, I'm not sure if I'll remember it all! Luckily I wrote much of it in my diary, so I'll be using that a lot for the next few minutes. Ok, here we go: Saturday New Year's Eve we (Joy & I) met up with Jonny our cousin in the square shortly after they finished their sound check for the evening gig. I also saw Jonas & Hayden there and I hung out with them for the rest of the afternoon. When Jonas left to go play his cowbells, Hayds & I hung out and went to a friends place for a barbeque tea. We went back to the square & saw Jonny play, then decided it was crap after they finished their slot so left. Again we went back to the square for the final countdown (which is a story in itself). After, we went over to Hayden's and had a spa under the stars. It was great. By the time we'd had enough of the spa, it was about 3am, so I slept there because I wasn't safe to drive home. We ended hanging out all day and Jenna joined us in the evening to watch a movie on (sky) TV. That night I stayed at the Muir's with Mum & Dad because we were leaving early in the morning to go to Christchurch. It was a very windy morning, but as we drove further south, it dropped quite a lot. NZ is so beautiful. When we arrived we headed for the Broughton's (Emma's parents) and had tea there. It was nice to meet them and they seem like good people. Tuesday we cleaned out Geoff & Emma's new flat because it was filthy. It had grease everywhere and it was so bad that we decided to re-paint it. So we finished cleaning that day and started to prepare for painting the next. Mum & Dad did all the painting themselves as we all were busy doing other wedding things. It took them two days to paint the whole flat and the result was good. Meanwhile, on Wednesday I had a suit fitting and hung out with Geoff in the morning. That night I went to where Geoff was living at the time and helped him sort out some of his stuff and put it in (banana) boxes. We also started to clean the room. Thurday morning I again hung out with Geoff and then went shopping with Mum before having tea with the Broughton's and Grandma D who arrived earlier during the day. On Friday I hung out with Geoff in the afternoon and helped him clean his room, the car, finish some table decorations. We also went and got a friend of his (one of the groomsmen) from the airport before having our final suit fitting and going shopping for glasses for me. By that stage it was time to eat and we had tea with all the cousins who had arrived during the day. It was nice to see them all again so soon after Christmas in NP. Saturday was getting closer to the 'big day'. We had a rehersal for the ceremony in the afternoon and got lots of little things sorted out (before, during & after). We decided to have dinner with the bridal party (that's the name for all the peoples who stand up front). I stayed the night at Geoff's because that would be easier on the day. Sunday morning we had a nice fried breakfast before going and playing 9 holes of golf. The wedding was at 2.30 pm and all went to plan. They got married and cut the cake and all that stuff. They looked real good (and I'm not just saying that because I was one of them). We left the reception and had photos. That was fun. We went to some alley way and had lots of there before going to a warf over the hills for some more there. We did have a place sorted out up the Port hills, but because of the wind we thought it best not to go there. We did manage to find a slightly sheltered spot on top of the hill on the way back from the warf. Some photos are available on the photographer's website. At the reception we had speaches and food and more speaches and because I didn't want to do a speach they made me read a 'telegram' (email). Nathan was a good MC and kept everything rolling, he even added a bit of humor. On Monday I went into town with Janice & Rosie (my aunty & cousin) and then met up with Anna V and her family. It was nice to see them again and we all went to the Antarctic Centre. After saying goodbye to Anna & family, we went into town and had tea at McDonalds. That was the first time in years that I'd eaten at McDonalds. To be honest their deli choices menu was quite nice. Tuesday morning we cleaned out the house where we were staying and then visited the Broughton's before travelling back to Feilding. My week since then hasn't been too exciting. I stayed the night at Anna's and then they went away to Taupo (& Napier) for about a week all up, so I've been living in Joy's house since then. We've seen a few movies, gone bowling, I've seen people for the first time since I've been away too. Oh, on (this) Monday (been) I did the Gorge walk. It really does take 3-4 hours. I did it twice as I was by myself and didn't get anyone to pick me up at the other end. Although it was long it was worth the effort. Last night I went to see "Just like Heaven" at the movies after having tea with some friends, it was good and the others enjoyed the night too. It was nice catching up with Matt & Relle before they headed off to Taupo for the weekend. Ok, I've now run out of things to say and I need to go (food) shopping.