Another Year

I've actually done something since posting the last entry which is a bit of a change. For starters there was New Year, which was fairly quiet - was working on Hogmanay until early evening, then came back and had food and drinks at Jen's grandparents with the whole Jeffrey clan.

That was followed by the usual exchange of phone calls to the rest of the family, which has become disjointed in recent years with Ryan being in Jakarta, but now even more so with me here. The calls were duly staggered, but the usual cellphone network saturation caused minor problems.

Not too much after that for a few weeks, just mostly work. No exciting developments there. A new batch of docs have just started in the last few days so have to get used to a whole new crowd of people.

Just got back from New Zealand where I was visiting John, who is currently living and working in Auckland. I cashed in some airmiles so I only had to pay for tax on the flights ($120, about £45). Was a good weekend despite our constant attempts to make an arse of everything we did - we were going to have a barbeque on Saturday night, but got to the park where there are free, button operated BBQs, to realise that we forgot all the cooking utensils and cutlery. So John went back to get them, and in the meantime the 45 minutes or so of heat were used up and finished just as he arrived back, and didn't work after that. We drove round a few places looking for a disposable BBQ, with no luck, and eventually gave up and went out for dinner instead.

After a night on the sauce, we got up late and drove to the beach. It was a sweltering day in Auckland, and after picking up a few of John and Louises' colleagues, Rich and May (I think?), we drove out of the city and around in a few minor circles as per John's directions, before setting off on an epic winding pilgrimmage to the beach. After an hour or so of driving we managed to get to the only overcast area in the hemisphere, and the beach. The beach was black. Now, black sand is, to all intents and purposes, exactly the same as white sand, but it looks like mud. No matter to us, we were just happy to get out of the car and away from Louise's threatened vomits (courtesy of the night before).


The Beach

Had a good day at the beach, despite the clouds, mud and ridiculously cold water, which we splashed about in getting battered by some fairly decent-sized waves. We even managed to get sunburn.


If you look carefully, you can see John being eaten by a shark

Our barbeque was finally achieved on the way home, where we stopped in some sort of mosquito hive, and all huddled on the picnic table trying to wrap all skin visible to insects in a futile attempt not to get bitten.


Note the forced smiles

Back again to the grind here on Monday evening, and now I have a few days, then a few nights, to look forward to. Fortunately I can get away from work by coming home, where I am instead interrogated by my dear brother on the health of his second-born and the in-laws.