No, I'm not dead

Hello everyone!

You would be forgiven for thinking I had died or something since I haven't been posting for years, but I thought I'd just say hi! So, life has been really busy lately - but I have been in Auckland a bit more so that's been good. I have been working a lot, and really enjoying work - lots of challenges and fun stuff, and I guess I like being busy and ticking off things on my to do list (even though it grows steadily longer every day...) - also it's a bit sad cos David has his last day on Friday and Stephen is leaving for Texas in three weeks! It will definitely be quieter without them around, and I will definitely miss being able to talk to Stephen about anything whenever I want. And who is going to help me when I get stuck?? :( Well, I guess Stephen is not the only person who helps me, but he is really good at it. And Brendon has been so busy lately - by yesterday evening he had worked an impossible 61 hours for the week already. He was here both Sat and Sun, and very early on Sun. Poor Brendon. I hope he is going to change this soon and spend more time with Minan! See I may be working long hours, but not in the weekend.

In my weekend I played paintball (I raised the flag, and then got cut down by enemy fire, but we won that game! ) - and it was a lot better than Chch paintball. And I went out for tea with Lisa and Céci and Bas Fri night to Nishiki on Wellington St, it was really fun and yummy food, Japanese bbq so something quite different. Then we went to the supermarket to buy food for the post-paintball bbq, and I got up early on Sat morning to attend to the salads. After paintball, I watched 'The Importance of Being Ernest'. I don't often watch movies by myself but did on this occasion and it was hilarious! I was laughing out loud. Sure it was a bit farcical at time and I could have been very sceptical about the girls' claims of love, but it was great. So witty. Then I fell asleep on the couch, but woke up for dinner.

Sunday I did the 10km run2heal in the domain- but like most people got lost (no marshall present at the first corner for the first people) - so I think I ran about 10km, judging by my time (58 min) and by an examination of the route and comparing that to where I ran - the bit I missed was probably equivalent to the bit I did extra. It was such a beautiful day on Sunday so that was nice. I also went out for lunch on Sun with a couple of girls from choir and then we went to Black Grace - a contemporary dance production in the Town Hall. It was really superb, the first piece was great and the music so beautiful - Schubert's D minor quartet and 'Death of a Maiden' - I am going to the library to get it out :) The second piece was more thought-provoking and interesting, if less beautiful. After the interval I drifted a bit in the third piece (getting tired) but it was still cool. And so nice to do something different. Fell asleep 6pm on the couch again Sunday night, reading my book. (By Iain Pears, something about Scipio and a Dream - he wrote Instance of the Fingerpost or something too, read it ages ago and really liked it).

Monday I had a wonderful evening swimming at the police apartments in Newmarket with Lisa, my aunt, uncle and cousin Jessie - my other cousin Josie had tickets to Korn so they'd come down for the night. Had Chinese for tea. Learned (again) how to do forward rolls, but cracked my head on the bottom of the (1.2m deep) pool on one of my attempts to do a backwards one... still sore now if I scrunch up my face/ laugh/ stuff. Tuesday I had singing and tea at Tanya and Sascha's and fixed a couple of their computer issues. Well, they mysteriously vanished when I was there, so kind of "fixed" them...

I have also got two really lovely letters this week - one from Ben and one from Little Nana. And a postcard from Charlotte - sent before her first postcard from Vietnam. Well, I'm amazed they make it actually. So that's always lovely.

Went for a run tonight, 50min and it was really fun and not boring and not very hard. Good run day. And baked a banana cake, vacuumed the flat, cooked tea, did the dishes, talked to Mindy... nice to muck round the flat :) Actually, anyone who knows me will be astounded - yes I vacuumed. Well, the floor needed it. And it looks so nice now. And Lisa came home and didn't even notice :( Oh well, it might dawn on her tomorrow...

Tomorrow is Cécile's birthday!!!! Happy birthday Cécile... hope you're excited...