I'm back!

I have no good reason (excuse?) for not posting for so long. In fact I hadn't realised this many months had gone by until I logged onto tonight. I truly thought I had posted to my blog in February and March but I see that this is not the case. So this entry is a bit of a catch up on where I am at and a bit about what I've been up to.

The main thing is life is all good! My work life balance is spot on - I'm loving my job and also loving how I am spending my leisure time.

Firstly, my house is still on the market. Sigh. It's now listed with The Professionals and they are doing a great job but the buyer (for my house anyway) has not been identified yet. There have been quite a few people through but not the right match for the property unfortunately. I've had no quibbles about the price that's been advertised and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to the property to make it more appealing to potential buyers - unless I can increase the size of the bedrooms, add another bathroom and reduce the size of the section. So the waiting game continues for now. It's a little frustrating as I am ready to move on and I feel I'm being held back from doing that. My method of coping is to keep active and spend as little energy as possible fretting. That's working pretty darn well.

I'm still not eating meat and not missing it at all. I haven't managed to eliminate fish from my diet yet - I love eating fish! That is something I need to work on. I had thought that by cutting out meat I would naturally lose some weight but that hasn't happened. I am pretty sure that wine is the culprit there so for the past two weeks I haven't been drinking any alcohol - I will check my weight in another week or so and see whether that has made a difference or not. I'm not that bothered but I know I'm carrying a few extra kilos than is good for me.

Since I last posted there have been plenty of adventures in my life so I'll finish off this post with a couple of them. The post will be far too long if I try to cover them all off.

In February I spent a long weekend in Auckland. The main purpose for my trip was to spend some time with a very good friend. We spent the weekend at her family bach with her husband and sons. The bach is at a lovely seaside spot called Matapouri. We spent plenty of time at the beaches in the area. Here's a photo of my favourite beach - Whale Bay. It takes about fifteen minutes to walk to the bay and is well worth the walk.


We had a fantastic weekend at Matapouri and I was already plotting a return trip by the time Sunday rolled round. Here's a photo of the beach at Matapouri itself.


In March I had a weekend trip to Lake Taupo to stay in another bach. This bach is owned by the directors of the company I work for. It's situated at the southern end of Lake Taupo in Kuratau. The weather for the weekend was rubbish but it was quite warm so we spent quite a bit of time in the water mucking around in kayaks. I think I need to do some serious training in how to paddle a kayak. The kayak I had a play in has so rudder so I would manage to do about 6 to 8 strokes before I would end up in a turn I couldn't stop until I would be facing back the way I came. Very frustrating but sort of amusing at the same time.

Also in March I had my birthday. This year I decided I wanted to head into the bush so I talked my sons and their girlfriends into coming along. We booked Oaks Hut in the Orongorongos through the Department of Conservation. The walk in there is quite short and easy with a river crossing at the end. We walked in after work on the Friday, stayed two nights and headed for home on the Sunday. Friday night was when the earthquake happened in Japan but we were blissfully unaware of the extent of it. Here's a picture of the crew outside the hut ready to head for home.

And a picture of the damage you can do if you slip on the track. Ouch.


I think that's enough for one post. There are a few more adventures I want to post about so keep an eye out and I will get onto that soon.