Well - following the British election from the other side of the world was interesting, to say the least. Although John and I didn't get to vote (we didn't sort out our proxy/postal forms in time), we were in good company, as nor did the rest of the ex-pats on this side of the world - the volcanic ash cloud also stopped all air mail (including postal votes) from getting through until it was too late. For myself, I have mixed feelings about not voting - when the election started, I really didn't care, as I didn't think I could make much difference, and it didn't feel right in voting when we are no longer living in Britain, and don't have any intentions to return (at least, for residency purposes) However, as it got more exciting (and we love the BBC Radio I-Player - we aren't able to access the TV version from outside the UK, but the radio is fully available - we listened to the News Quiz and the Vote Now Show, which kept us fully informed of the more interesting parts of the campaign), there was a small twinge of regret that we wouldn't be part of probably one of the most gripping UK campaigns to grace the political theatre in recent years. But, hey, we may still get a chance if there is a re-election in the next year or so! It was nice to be able to watch the results unfolding in real time (I was not alone amongst my colleagues in having the BBC Live website open on my PC throughout the day), even if the end result wasn't as decisive as the build up would have suggested.
The rest of this week has been pretty quiet - a draw in hockey (fortunately, a friendly, so it didn't count), but I did manage what has to be one of the more spectacular saves of my career, managing to knock the ball out of the air with my left (padded) hand as it whizzed past on a very acute angle. Even the opposing coach was impressed (as was I - I hadn't even consciously seen the ball move!).
We're starting to delve into the pieces for the next concert - we are doing the Shostakovich Jazz waltz, which I'm really pleased about. We've also got a very mixed bag of pieces, some of which are nice, and some which are less fun, both to play and to listen to - the most extreme of this is the Unanswered Question:
in which the woodwind, trumpet and strings are playing at different speeds, in different keys and with different bar lines. Not sure how well it is going to go down with a paying audience - it isn't going down well at all amongst the woodwind!
Winter is starting to grip Wellington - the temperature is definitely dropping in the evenings and mornings - however, it is still sunny and warm during the days (just a shame they are spent in an office!). I have been assured that the fine weather won't last, and we will get our share of wind and rain, but I will be happy if the depths of winter stay away for a wee while longer - I am enjoying the spectacular sunsets and the ever changing colours of the sea too much :-)
Showing posts with label Orchestra. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Orchestra. Show all posts
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Firsts!
Well - this week has had a few firsts in it:
We have had our first orchestra concert, with a lovely programme of suites and serenades. The audience wasn't large, but everyone seemed to enjoy listening to the music as much as we liked playing it. And the husband of one of the violinists is doing an audio recording qualification, so his class were practising with our concert - we might even get a CD out of it! We had a chat and social afterwards (Known as "bring a plate", which does include bringing something to go on that plate - an American supper), which was lovely and friendly. The next concert is going to be a Jazz one, so I'm looking forward to that, but I think that someone else is going to have to do my counting for me!
I had my first league hockey match. We lost 3-2, but didn't play too badly, given that we hadn't played together properly as a team (and the practice on Thursday seemed to mainly be spent playing 'getting to know you' games...). Only one of the goals shouldn't have gone in, and I did save far more than three, so I'm happy with the way that I played! It will be interesting to see how the team develops over the season.
I had my Introduction to the Ministry on Friday - this was actually really rather fun. Rather than just sit and be lectured to, part of the morning involved going round the Ministry main office (the IT Group is actually sat in a separate building, about 10 minutes' walk away) and talking to the people working there, and then feeding back in a presentation (involving posters, glue, coloured pens and glitter!) to the rest of the group. It was really interesting, and great fun. As well as the rest of the lecture (which included some info on gifts and ethics which I thought was self evident, mainly because I have to deal with it a lot in contracts, but other people hadn't heard about, and we ended up having quite a debate about!), we also got to go round the Parliamentary offices (also known as the Beehive). The Minister wasn't there, but we did get to meet four of her Privy Secretaries, and they explained about their role and how the Ministry and the Minister fitted together (and also the reason for them needing information as a top priority whenever there is a Parliamentary Question that needs to be answered - there are less than three hours from the question being asked to it needing to be given to the Minister to answer it in Parliament!) Sadly, we didn't get to go into the debating chamber, so I shall have to be a tourist at some point and do that for myself!
I also had a two day training course on Wednesday and Thursday, which has given me a better groundwork for the work that I need to do on contracts. Which is a good thing, as we also have a new member of the team (though I am still the new girl, as she has moved internally), and she is taking on the administrative part of my job (which wasn't very big to begin with!), and I will be concentrating more on the high level and strategic part. A definite shove outside of my
comfort zone, but I am now confident that I can do it!
Autumn is definitely on its way now - there is a definite nip in the air in the mornings (though, in general, the late morning and afternoon is still up in the high teens / low twenties C, so it isn't cold by any stretch of the imagination!). I'm learning the difference between a Northerly (wind coming down from the North end of the island - usually warmer, occasionally bringing a gentle rain and low cloud/fog) and a Southerly (wind coming from the South Island, usually come straight from Antarctica, and occasionally still carrying a penguin - it is *cold* and is the type of wind that goes through you without stopping to say 'please') It is also getting darker, very quickly. In the last week, I've gone from a half-light in the mornings to near blackness when I wake up. The light fades very quickly in the evening, too - it's not going to be fun when the clocks go back on Sunday.
But I'm still getting a chance to get out to the greenhouse on the odd occasion - I'm starting to fight a battle with caterpillars - at some point over the summer a butterfly got in, and my broccoli is covered with caterpillars of all sizes (all a lovely bright green that blends in with the leaves!). Fortunately, they aren't too difficult to pick off (some have fastened themselves down with silk, but it doesn't take much to get them to let go), and I now have some very satisfied birds in the garden! The broccoli does seem to be able to take the munching, but I'd rather not be bringing up the next generation of butterflies to eat next year's crop! I now have three capsicum growing on my pepper plant, too, with a few more flowers still in the process of opening. Very exciting, particularly as the capsicum in the market are showing a marked sign of being at the end of the season - the prices are starting to skyrocket, and the quality is going downhill very rapidly (it is now difficult to find ones that I could confidently say would last the week, even in the fridge, and as I cook with peppers on average 5 meals out of 7, I dread them disappearing completely!)
It's a short week coming up at work, and then Easter - I am really looking forward to the four days off. We haven't got anything definitely planned (tentative discussions from someone at sci-fi to be doing "something"), and I can't wait for the lie-in on Friday morning!
We have had our first orchestra concert, with a lovely programme of suites and serenades. The audience wasn't large, but everyone seemed to enjoy listening to the music as much as we liked playing it. And the husband of one of the violinists is doing an audio recording qualification, so his class were practising with our concert - we might even get a CD out of it! We had a chat and social afterwards (Known as "bring a plate", which does include bringing something to go on that plate - an American supper), which was lovely and friendly. The next concert is going to be a Jazz one, so I'm looking forward to that, but I think that someone else is going to have to do my counting for me!
I had my first league hockey match. We lost 3-2, but didn't play too badly, given that we hadn't played together properly as a team (and the practice on Thursday seemed to mainly be spent playing 'getting to know you' games...). Only one of the goals shouldn't have gone in, and I did save far more than three, so I'm happy with the way that I played! It will be interesting to see how the team develops over the season.
I had my Introduction to the Ministry on Friday - this was actually really rather fun. Rather than just sit and be lectured to, part of the morning involved going round the Ministry main office (the IT Group is actually sat in a separate building, about 10 minutes' walk away) and talking to the people working there, and then feeding back in a presentation (involving posters, glue, coloured pens and glitter!) to the rest of the group. It was really interesting, and great fun. As well as the rest of the lecture (which included some info on gifts and ethics which I thought was self evident, mainly because I have to deal with it a lot in contracts, but other people hadn't heard about, and we ended up having quite a debate about!), we also got to go round the Parliamentary offices (also known as the Beehive). The Minister wasn't there, but we did get to meet four of her Privy Secretaries, and they explained about their role and how the Ministry and the Minister fitted together (and also the reason for them needing information as a top priority whenever there is a Parliamentary Question that needs to be answered - there are less than three hours from the question being asked to it needing to be given to the Minister to answer it in Parliament!) Sadly, we didn't get to go into the debating chamber, so I shall have to be a tourist at some point and do that for myself!
I also had a two day training course on Wednesday and Thursday, which has given me a better groundwork for the work that I need to do on contracts. Which is a good thing, as we also have a new member of the team (though I am still the new girl, as she has moved internally), and she is taking on the administrative part of my job (which wasn't very big to begin with!), and I will be concentrating more on the high level and strategic part. A definite shove outside of my
comfort zone, but I am now confident that I can do it!
Autumn is definitely on its way now - there is a definite nip in the air in the mornings (though, in general, the late morning and afternoon is still up in the high teens / low twenties C, so it isn't cold by any stretch of the imagination!). I'm learning the difference between a Northerly (wind coming down from the North end of the island - usually warmer, occasionally bringing a gentle rain and low cloud/fog) and a Southerly (wind coming from the South Island, usually come straight from Antarctica, and occasionally still carrying a penguin - it is *cold* and is the type of wind that goes through you without stopping to say 'please') It is also getting darker, very quickly. In the last week, I've gone from a half-light in the mornings to near blackness when I wake up. The light fades very quickly in the evening, too - it's not going to be fun when the clocks go back on Sunday.
But I'm still getting a chance to get out to the greenhouse on the odd occasion - I'm starting to fight a battle with caterpillars - at some point over the summer a butterfly got in, and my broccoli is covered with caterpillars of all sizes (all a lovely bright green that blends in with the leaves!). Fortunately, they aren't too difficult to pick off (some have fastened themselves down with silk, but it doesn't take much to get them to let go), and I now have some very satisfied birds in the garden! The broccoli does seem to be able to take the munching, but I'd rather not be bringing up the next generation of butterflies to eat next year's crop! I now have three capsicum growing on my pepper plant, too, with a few more flowers still in the process of opening. Very exciting, particularly as the capsicum in the market are showing a marked sign of being at the end of the season - the prices are starting to skyrocket, and the quality is going downhill very rapidly (it is now difficult to find ones that I could confidently say would last the week, even in the fridge, and as I cook with peppers on average 5 meals out of 7, I dread them disappearing completely!)
It's a short week coming up at work, and then Easter - I am really looking forward to the four days off. We haven't got anything definitely planned (tentative discussions from someone at sci-fi to be doing "something"), and I can't wait for the lie-in on Friday morning!
Sunday, 14 March 2010
Wow!
Where did that week go?
Time has just flown by, and I can't believe that we are at the end of yet another weekend!
Things have been incredibly busy at work, in both good and bad ways. It is good in that I am being given more projects to do, and people are learning that it is my job to help them, but bad in that I am not having a chance to sit and look back over things and consolidate them; I'm always moving on to the next bit and hoping that I'm not making too much of a mess of things! Next week I've got a number of training courses, and I hope that they will help put things in context and give me a better idea of where I need to be coming from. I had a very interesting meeting with my equivalent in a different agency; the agency had run a similar procurement project a few years ago, and he had a number of lessons learned that he wanted to share. I've since learned that I need to take his opinion with a little pinch of salt (his reputation isn't that great across the sector), but it was definitely useful information.
We've also had a little bit of turmoil as a press release from the Minister regarding efficiency savings was interpreted by the media as massive redundancies - fortunately, we have a very good CIO who took the time to have meetings with the IT group and explain what was really meant and to allay any fears (she did point out that, with the savings that had already been found by the finance team, if they did have to have redundancies, then at most it would be six people, and she had already had (by show of hands) far more than that from people looking for early retirement!)
The social side of the week has also been very busy; we had the general Sci-fi meeting on Wednesday, which was, as always, good fun. Then Thursday, I was out with hockey - we didn't get a great practice in as it got dark, and it turns out that the pre-season pitch only has two floodlights on them, both at one end. So we had to finish early, which is a bit frustrating when you've paid a train fare to get there! Fortunately, someone was able to give me a lift home (which was even more appreciated when I realised how far out of their way they had gone!), which was a good thing, as I'd just watched the last train for an hour go past when they announced that they were cancelling the rest of the practice. This week's practice will be at a closer, and better, pitch.
Friday was interesting - we had a spectacular storm which blew in from the South Island - it really was a case of the sky suddenly going black - we were able to watch it rolling across the city. Thunder, lightening, hail and tornadoes (though I didn't actually get to *see* the tornadoes as they just over the hill and hidden by the low lying clouds - the damage they did was incredible, though, including lifting roofs off of buildings "like paper" according to one news report - fortunately in that case, a school, the kids had been let out for the day about half an hour earlier, and there was pretty much no-one about, meaning that no-one was hurt. In fact, across the whole of the two islands, there was very little injury given the scale of the storm). I was working late anyway, and quite thankful of allowing the worst of the rain to blow over. However, the storm had done its damage, and when I got to the station, it was bursting at the seams with people. I ended up standing next to a perfect stranger, and asked him what was going on - it turned out that a tree had come down across the lines. This had taken the power out further up the tracks, and the train company were trying to work out what to do. We got chatting, and, after a while, I (very cheekily) asked whether I could borrow his mobile (and pay him for the text) to let John know that I was going to be late - knowing KiwiRail, we could easily have been there for a couple of hours, but I didn't want to risk leaving the platform to look for a public call box, just in case they put something on while I was gone. The announcement then came through that the company could get us to Petone, which was only about half the way to my stop. They were then going to try to sort out replacement buses (but given that it was Friday rush hour, it might take some time) Ashley then said that as his car was parked at Petone station, did I fancy a lift home? Now all the rules of common sense said that I should have declined (particularly as he knew that I didn't have a phone), but common sense wasn't soaking wet and absolutely shattered from a long week at work (and didn't have a husband at home waiting for his birthday pizza!) And, to be honest, he was a very nice bloke, and we had a great chat all the way home. So, no worries :-) And another indication of how nice the Kiwis are as a race!
The birthday pizza that I mentioned came from a fantastic company called Hell Pizza - www.hell.co.nz - their pizza names include the seven deadly sins, the seven circles of hell as well as various other amusing names. For me, however, the big intrigue was that they do dessert pizza. This turned out (once I'd scraped all the toppings back on - the delivery guy had held it on its side!) to be a sweeter pizza dough with chocolate and vanilla custard and various cooked berries. It doesn't sound like it should work, but it definitely does!
Whilst we were eating our pizza and enjoying "Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra" (much worth watching - I definitely recommend, even if Mr BB had a few tuning problems with his singing...), there was a thunderous knocking on the door, and it turned out to be our neighbour's son. He had a plate of nibbles, meat and dips in his hand and passed it over saying "Mum said to give this to you, I don't know why." Very bemused, I thanked him, and (as we were very full from pizza) we put the food in the fridge for another day!
On Saturday, we were invited out by one of our Sci-fi friends to go and watch another of his friends flying model helicopters with his aviation group. Whilst this had the definite potential to be a "boys and their toys" day, it was really great fun. The skill of some of the fliers had to be seen to be believed (and I do actually have some videos of these on the camera. Unfortunately, none of the films are very good on their own - they need a bit of editing. Which means that I need to find a decent Linux video editor, or wait until we get a *ptooie* Windows PC. So, you will get to see them, it just won't be straight away!) - they were throwing the model helicopters (worth scary amounts of money!) through the sky (and very close to the ground), both right way up and upside down, and, aside from one which didn't get into the air due to a bust giro (in itself costing over $1,000...), nothing crashed or got broken. And we also got a free lunch out of it (the club is sponsored by one of the local supermarkets, who provided a veritable feast, including burgers, buns, crisps, fruit and drinks...) Alex then took us round the Porirua shops again, which was even better now that we had a bit of disposable income to spend! I've picked up some lovely fluffy wool and have just started my next knitting project (having not quite finished my last one...)
Sunday was another early start - I'd been called on Friday by the coach for the 2nd hockey team asking whether I wanted to play in a friendly match - a mixture of both the 1st and 2nd teams. I definitely wasn't going to say no, so was at the pitch just after 9.00. The match itself was great fun, but very difficult, with the ball spending a lot of time down our end. It was very interesting to start to get a feel for the different ways of playing, and realised how much I'd got used to the Bristol Ladies' defence tactics (here, there is pretty much no marking until the players are in the D, which makes me feel a lot less secure, as the team seems to often be on the back foot once the ball does get closer to goal!) But I saved more than I let in (and was only cross with myself with one of the goals), and think that I didn't do too badly given that, aside from a couple of practices, I've not played since September. And, on that part, the 1st team coach didn't think I'd done too badly, either, as she asked afterwards whether I'd mind subbing for the 1st goalie if she couldn't make matches. Like I'd say "no" to that!
Sunday afternoon, after we did our supermarket run, I spent making cheese scones to put on the now empty and washed up nibbles plate from our neighbours. We then spent a very nice half hour or so round at their place chatting - they are a lovely family (even if she says she is having a couple of problems with her teenage son - we certainly don't hear them arguing!), and I think that we are very lucky to have such nice people on either side of us.
And that was last week. It's now Tuesday (I have been writing this post for a couple of days - I hadn't realised that it had got quite so long!), so we've had another orchestra rehearsal. We've only got a couple of weeks to go before the concert, but it does all seem to be coming together now (and I'm now hearing the music whenever things go quiet, which means that it has sunk into my brain!) And my pepper plant has bloomed - when I popped into the greenhouse to get basil and spinach for supper, I spotted that there are a number of open flowers hiding under the leaves. I'll try to get some photos tomorrow :-)
Time has just flown by, and I can't believe that we are at the end of yet another weekend!
Things have been incredibly busy at work, in both good and bad ways. It is good in that I am being given more projects to do, and people are learning that it is my job to help them, but bad in that I am not having a chance to sit and look back over things and consolidate them; I'm always moving on to the next bit and hoping that I'm not making too much of a mess of things! Next week I've got a number of training courses, and I hope that they will help put things in context and give me a better idea of where I need to be coming from. I had a very interesting meeting with my equivalent in a different agency; the agency had run a similar procurement project a few years ago, and he had a number of lessons learned that he wanted to share. I've since learned that I need to take his opinion with a little pinch of salt (his reputation isn't that great across the sector), but it was definitely useful information.
We've also had a little bit of turmoil as a press release from the Minister regarding efficiency savings was interpreted by the media as massive redundancies - fortunately, we have a very good CIO who took the time to have meetings with the IT group and explain what was really meant and to allay any fears (she did point out that, with the savings that had already been found by the finance team, if they did have to have redundancies, then at most it would be six people, and she had already had (by show of hands) far more than that from people looking for early retirement!)
The social side of the week has also been very busy; we had the general Sci-fi meeting on Wednesday, which was, as always, good fun. Then Thursday, I was out with hockey - we didn't get a great practice in as it got dark, and it turns out that the pre-season pitch only has two floodlights on them, both at one end. So we had to finish early, which is a bit frustrating when you've paid a train fare to get there! Fortunately, someone was able to give me a lift home (which was even more appreciated when I realised how far out of their way they had gone!), which was a good thing, as I'd just watched the last train for an hour go past when they announced that they were cancelling the rest of the practice. This week's practice will be at a closer, and better, pitch.
Friday was interesting - we had a spectacular storm which blew in from the South Island - it really was a case of the sky suddenly going black - we were able to watch it rolling across the city. Thunder, lightening, hail and tornadoes (though I didn't actually get to *see* the tornadoes as they just over the hill and hidden by the low lying clouds - the damage they did was incredible, though, including lifting roofs off of buildings "like paper" according to one news report - fortunately in that case, a school, the kids had been let out for the day about half an hour earlier, and there was pretty much no-one about, meaning that no-one was hurt. In fact, across the whole of the two islands, there was very little injury given the scale of the storm). I was working late anyway, and quite thankful of allowing the worst of the rain to blow over. However, the storm had done its damage, and when I got to the station, it was bursting at the seams with people. I ended up standing next to a perfect stranger, and asked him what was going on - it turned out that a tree had come down across the lines. This had taken the power out further up the tracks, and the train company were trying to work out what to do. We got chatting, and, after a while, I (very cheekily) asked whether I could borrow his mobile (and pay him for the text) to let John know that I was going to be late - knowing KiwiRail, we could easily have been there for a couple of hours, but I didn't want to risk leaving the platform to look for a public call box, just in case they put something on while I was gone. The announcement then came through that the company could get us to Petone, which was only about half the way to my stop. They were then going to try to sort out replacement buses (but given that it was Friday rush hour, it might take some time) Ashley then said that as his car was parked at Petone station, did I fancy a lift home? Now all the rules of common sense said that I should have declined (particularly as he knew that I didn't have a phone), but common sense wasn't soaking wet and absolutely shattered from a long week at work (and didn't have a husband at home waiting for his birthday pizza!) And, to be honest, he was a very nice bloke, and we had a great chat all the way home. So, no worries :-) And another indication of how nice the Kiwis are as a race!
The birthday pizza that I mentioned came from a fantastic company called Hell Pizza - www.hell.co.nz - their pizza names include the seven deadly sins, the seven circles of hell as well as various other amusing names. For me, however, the big intrigue was that they do dessert pizza. This turned out (once I'd scraped all the toppings back on - the delivery guy had held it on its side!) to be a sweeter pizza dough with chocolate and vanilla custard and various cooked berries. It doesn't sound like it should work, but it definitely does!
Whilst we were eating our pizza and enjoying "Bill Bailey's Remarkable Guide to the Orchestra" (much worth watching - I definitely recommend, even if Mr BB had a few tuning problems with his singing...), there was a thunderous knocking on the door, and it turned out to be our neighbour's son. He had a plate of nibbles, meat and dips in his hand and passed it over saying "Mum said to give this to you, I don't know why." Very bemused, I thanked him, and (as we were very full from pizza) we put the food in the fridge for another day!
On Saturday, we were invited out by one of our Sci-fi friends to go and watch another of his friends flying model helicopters with his aviation group. Whilst this had the definite potential to be a "boys and their toys" day, it was really great fun. The skill of some of the fliers had to be seen to be believed (and I do actually have some videos of these on the camera. Unfortunately, none of the films are very good on their own - they need a bit of editing. Which means that I need to find a decent Linux video editor, or wait until we get a *ptooie* Windows PC. So, you will get to see them, it just won't be straight away!) - they were throwing the model helicopters (worth scary amounts of money!) through the sky (and very close to the ground), both right way up and upside down, and, aside from one which didn't get into the air due to a bust giro (in itself costing over $1,000...), nothing crashed or got broken. And we also got a free lunch out of it (the club is sponsored by one of the local supermarkets, who provided a veritable feast, including burgers, buns, crisps, fruit and drinks...) Alex then took us round the Porirua shops again, which was even better now that we had a bit of disposable income to spend! I've picked up some lovely fluffy wool and have just started my next knitting project (having not quite finished my last one...)
Sunday was another early start - I'd been called on Friday by the coach for the 2nd hockey team asking whether I wanted to play in a friendly match - a mixture of both the 1st and 2nd teams. I definitely wasn't going to say no, so was at the pitch just after 9.00. The match itself was great fun, but very difficult, with the ball spending a lot of time down our end. It was very interesting to start to get a feel for the different ways of playing, and realised how much I'd got used to the Bristol Ladies' defence tactics (here, there is pretty much no marking until the players are in the D, which makes me feel a lot less secure, as the team seems to often be on the back foot once the ball does get closer to goal!) But I saved more than I let in (and was only cross with myself with one of the goals), and think that I didn't do too badly given that, aside from a couple of practices, I've not played since September. And, on that part, the 1st team coach didn't think I'd done too badly, either, as she asked afterwards whether I'd mind subbing for the 1st goalie if she couldn't make matches. Like I'd say "no" to that!
Sunday afternoon, after we did our supermarket run, I spent making cheese scones to put on the now empty and washed up nibbles plate from our neighbours. We then spent a very nice half hour or so round at their place chatting - they are a lovely family (even if she says she is having a couple of problems with her teenage son - we certainly don't hear them arguing!), and I think that we are very lucky to have such nice people on either side of us.
And that was last week. It's now Tuesday (I have been writing this post for a couple of days - I hadn't realised that it had got quite so long!), so we've had another orchestra rehearsal. We've only got a couple of weeks to go before the concert, but it does all seem to be coming together now (and I'm now hearing the music whenever things go quiet, which means that it has sunk into my brain!) And my pepper plant has bloomed - when I popped into the greenhouse to get basil and spinach for supper, I spotted that there are a number of open flowers hiding under the leaves. I'll try to get some photos tomorrow :-)
Monday, 1 March 2010
Tsunami!
Apologies for the lack of a blog update on Sunday – Blogger decided to play around, and would load up the page title, and nothing else *rolls eyes*
So...
The rather overshadowing news of this week was the 8.8 earthquake in Chile which triggered a Pacific wide tsunami warning. It meant we got to see and hear first hand the Civil Defence system which we had been taught about at the seminar not two weeks ago. That same seminar meant that, although we were woken up with the CD warning on the radio news, we automatically knew that, although we are in a low lying area, we weren't in any danger. So it was a case of leaving the radio on and listening for news updates, which happened about once every quarter of an hour or so. I did think I faintly heard the warning sirens in the distance, but it might have been my imagination! Fortunately, as events showed, whilst we did have a tsunami, only the Chatham Islands had anything over a meter high.
It was very interesting to listen to events unfolding over the next couple of hours - I have a short cut link (mainly because I'm interested in the local earthquakes) to GeoNet (link) which also has tidal gauges to monitor tidal waves. You can see the events unfolding here:
Usually the lines are pretty flat (as they have been adjusted to take into account the tides)...
The radio was also quite amusing - at one point they had a reporter up on the hills overlooking Wellington harbour, and he'd obviously been told that they had set aside a three minute segment for him, and he was determined to fill it, even though he had nothing to say!
It is very comforting to know that, even though this turned into quite a non-event here (in Wellington the waves reached 30cm), if it had been bad, the emergency planning was there.
Now, it is just really a hope that the devastation from the earthquake in Chile can be contained and that the death toll does not rise.
In other news, I've had my first full week of "flying solo". All things considered, it hasn't gone too badly. I don't think I've made too many mistakes (only one obvious one, and that was due to me not finding out enough about a contract and relying on other people's opinions - fortunately I was able to clear it up within a very short space of time without too much fuss and bother! Lesson learned for next time...), and I've managed to impress the boss with the fact that I know how to use Excel and Project (he did get very excited when I showed him a couple of pivots that I'd used to get some data out of our unwieldy database, and a series of formula to flag time periods when contracts were expiring) My workload hasn't got too heavy yet, either, which is good, and means that I can work on some longer term projects which will make my life easier in the moths to come.
Orchestra was fun this week - I sat in for the first oboe, and didn't manage to fluff the solos too badly (apart from one piece, which I hadn't realised we were going to be playing, and where every note was an accidental and awkward fingering!)
I also had the trials for the hockey teams - not quite the trek all the way out to Trentham, this one was at the hockey club where we had the sign up session, and only a couple of stops up the line. It was a good session - great to get back into the pads again (and these are *posh* pads - not quite top of the range, but getting there! I've never had 100% body coverage before...), and I did manage to make a couple of good saves. And let in a couple of doozies as well... I wasn't good enough to get into the firsts, but then I wasn't expecting to - their current first goalie is amazing! Kerry (the guy who hired me) was watching the trials, and very kindly gave me a lift back - given that my other option was to walk (I wasn't going to wait for an hour and a half for the next train which was going to be a bus anyway), I was very grateful. And he then invited me out for drinks the next evening - he was going to be watching the NZ/Oz 20:20 cricket, and was meeting his mates at the pub beforehand. It transpired that one of the people he met up with was a contractor who had been doing my role a few months ago, and the other was also a procurement consultant. It is nice to know that, even if I don't decide to stay here for the very long term, there are consultancy roles available when I have built up enough experience (as Kerry said - the government will always need to buy things!)
The weekend was spent pottering - we had hoped to get out on the Sunday to a regional park where they were having an open day, but when we looked at the distance on the map, and the fact that the start point for the guided walks was 2km uphill from the road (which was already well over an hour's walk away), we decided to give it a miss! There are some gorgeous purple flowers growing on the tree which sits just into our neighbour's garden.
And the plants in my greenhouse are really getting going, particularly my broccoli
and my pepper.
We've also had a bit of an insect explosion - as well as the cicadas deafening us in the trees outside, these moth like insects were all over our lilies
and this little fellow was buzzing around the greenhouse
Looking at the length of his sting, I decided that the prudent course of action would be to leave the door wide open until he stopped head butting against the glass and flew out!
So...
The rather overshadowing news of this week was the 8.8 earthquake in Chile which triggered a Pacific wide tsunami warning. It meant we got to see and hear first hand the Civil Defence system which we had been taught about at the seminar not two weeks ago. That same seminar meant that, although we were woken up with the CD warning on the radio news, we automatically knew that, although we are in a low lying area, we weren't in any danger. So it was a case of leaving the radio on and listening for news updates, which happened about once every quarter of an hour or so. I did think I faintly heard the warning sirens in the distance, but it might have been my imagination! Fortunately, as events showed, whilst we did have a tsunami, only the Chatham Islands had anything over a meter high.
It was very interesting to listen to events unfolding over the next couple of hours - I have a short cut link (mainly because I'm interested in the local earthquakes) to GeoNet (link) which also has tidal gauges to monitor tidal waves. You can see the events unfolding here:
Usually the lines are pretty flat (as they have been adjusted to take into account the tides)...
The radio was also quite amusing - at one point they had a reporter up on the hills overlooking Wellington harbour, and he'd obviously been told that they had set aside a three minute segment for him, and he was determined to fill it, even though he had nothing to say!
It is very comforting to know that, even though this turned into quite a non-event here (in Wellington the waves reached 30cm), if it had been bad, the emergency planning was there.
Now, it is just really a hope that the devastation from the earthquake in Chile can be contained and that the death toll does not rise.
In other news, I've had my first full week of "flying solo". All things considered, it hasn't gone too badly. I don't think I've made too many mistakes (only one obvious one, and that was due to me not finding out enough about a contract and relying on other people's opinions - fortunately I was able to clear it up within a very short space of time without too much fuss and bother! Lesson learned for next time...), and I've managed to impress the boss with the fact that I know how to use Excel and Project (he did get very excited when I showed him a couple of pivots that I'd used to get some data out of our unwieldy database, and a series of formula to flag time periods when contracts were expiring) My workload hasn't got too heavy yet, either, which is good, and means that I can work on some longer term projects which will make my life easier in the moths to come.
Orchestra was fun this week - I sat in for the first oboe, and didn't manage to fluff the solos too badly (apart from one piece, which I hadn't realised we were going to be playing, and where every note was an accidental and awkward fingering!)
I also had the trials for the hockey teams - not quite the trek all the way out to Trentham, this one was at the hockey club where we had the sign up session, and only a couple of stops up the line. It was a good session - great to get back into the pads again (and these are *posh* pads - not quite top of the range, but getting there! I've never had 100% body coverage before...), and I did manage to make a couple of good saves. And let in a couple of doozies as well... I wasn't good enough to get into the firsts, but then I wasn't expecting to - their current first goalie is amazing! Kerry (the guy who hired me) was watching the trials, and very kindly gave me a lift back - given that my other option was to walk (I wasn't going to wait for an hour and a half for the next train which was going to be a bus anyway), I was very grateful. And he then invited me out for drinks the next evening - he was going to be watching the NZ/Oz 20:20 cricket, and was meeting his mates at the pub beforehand. It transpired that one of the people he met up with was a contractor who had been doing my role a few months ago, and the other was also a procurement consultant. It is nice to know that, even if I don't decide to stay here for the very long term, there are consultancy roles available when I have built up enough experience (as Kerry said - the government will always need to buy things!)
The weekend was spent pottering - we had hoped to get out on the Sunday to a regional park where they were having an open day, but when we looked at the distance on the map, and the fact that the start point for the guided walks was 2km uphill from the road (which was already well over an hour's walk away), we decided to give it a miss! There are some gorgeous purple flowers growing on the tree which sits just into our neighbour's garden.
And the plants in my greenhouse are really getting going, particularly my broccoli
and my pepper.
We've also had a bit of an insect explosion - as well as the cicadas deafening us in the trees outside, these moth like insects were all over our lilies
and this little fellow was buzzing around the greenhouse
Looking at the length of his sting, I decided that the prudent course of action would be to leave the door wide open until he stopped head butting against the glass and flew out!
Sunday, 21 February 2010
And another week gone!
Time flies when you are having fun...
This week has been really enjoyable on a number of counts. I've finished my handover training at work, and am now "flying solo" as the lady who was training me has now left. I actually got a couple of practice days as she was off sick on Monday and Tuesday, which was a nice way of easing into it! (though a little frustrating when people came up looking for her wouldn't accept my help as "Julia knows what is going on, so it's easier if I just speak to her". They don't have that option now!) My boss has already decided to push me out of my comfort zone, just a little way, in asking me to help him sort out a dispute with one of our suppliers. I'm fine with the facts gathering, report writing and recommendation making, it's the sitting in front of the suppliers and telling them that they are being completely unreasonable is what slightly worries me. But I'm sure it will be easier once I get a better grip on what is going on. It's also very difficult for me to get my head round my new "status" - for all of my working life, my role has been administrative, and I've always had in my head that I've been "low down" on the status structure (even when the role hasn't been lowly, I'm still used to being seen as at most a couple of levels up from basic receptionist), and I'm now having to flip to the fact that my manager's manager is the CIO for the whole IT group, and three levels above her is the Minister. But I'm sure that will come once I've got a bit of a better handle on the role.
My enjoyment of the week has also been helped by the fact that I'm starting to get the hang of getting up in the mornings, remembering that I need to be heading to bed by 10pm and keeping my brain in gear all day.
We've also been pretty busy all week, hence a lack of posting until today!
Orchestra again on Monday - as interesting and fun as always. I've now got the first oboe parts, and need to spend some time today actually practising them ready for rehearsal tomorrow! (First oboe is away for two weeks, so I really need to look at the solos that she has - there are a lot of them!)
On Tuesday, we went to a seminar run by the good folks at Settlement Support. This one was on Emergency Preparedness - what to do if the earth shakes or the water rises... Apparently the Hutt Valley is prone to flooding on a reasonably spectacular scale; fortunately, we are far enough away from the rivers that we are only going to be affected in as much that the public transport will go up the swannee and make things difficult to get to work. The tidal waves should stop at the railway line a way back from us, so, again, we will only have problems with transport. Earthquakes may be a bigger problem, but only if they get to house or road/railway destruction levels. But we do now know what we should be doing and what sort of items we need to keep handy, and also how long we can expect to wait before help arrives in the event of a major scale disaster (3 days). And we got fed some really rather yummy pancake rolls and chocolate biscuits :-D
Thursday I had my first practice with the Hutt hockey club - this was quite an adventure! The training wasn't being held at the pitch that I had been to on Sunday last week, so I had a 20 minute train journey up the tracks to Trentham to the pitch there. The weather was hockey-typical (grey, rainy...), and I didn't get a great sense that there would be many there, particularly when I arrived five minutes before training was due to start and I was the only lady there! (The men were training before us, and they had a turn out of eight people...) In the end, there were four of us. Two of the men stayed behind and we had a three on three game, which was great fun - lots of running about and no being able to hide at the back! I even managed to get two goals in, which I was very pleased about (even though our side lost incredibly badly...)
We finished about fifteen minutes before time, as we were all getting a bit cold and wet, and there wasn't a huge amount that we could do with just the four of us after the men left. Unfortunately, no-one was heading back to Lower Hutt, so I had to go and catch the train back again, just as the heavens opened completely. I trudged back to the station, only to see the signs up saying that they are doing bus replacements. Unfortunately, the bus stop is the other side of the station from the shelter, and because I couldn't trust that the buses would be running to a similar schedule to the trains (it taking longer to go by road), I had to keep on nipping out in the pouring rain to check whether the bus was coming. It was made a little worse (for my frustrations at least) that the timetable that we picked up three months ago is now out of date, and the train that I was waiting for now only runs on a Friday, meaning that I had an extra half hour wait anyway. And one of the local drunks saw me at the shelter and decided to come over for a chat. Well, I say "chat" - more of an incomprehensible mutter from his side with me nodding and making appropriate sounds when he stopped! (and before anyone starts worrying, I was in no danger from him - he was holding on to his bags of bottles too tightly to ever be a threat, and I had my hockey sticks in my hands!)
Fortunately, the bus that was heading to Upper Hutt showed up, and the conductor suggested that as they were going to be the next bus heading back down towards Wellington, I might as well get on now and start warming up. I did get another drunk sitting next to me as we started to make our way back to Waterloo (this one so drunk that he was having difficulty taking the few paces up the aisle to fall into the seat), but I was able to ignore him better as I had my book out - he didn't really get the hint and kept on talking to me, but didn't really notice that I wasn't responding very much. It was still a very late night back, and unfortunately, the rail replacement after business hours is going to happen for the next few months whilst they do some major track work (they are bringing in some new trains, and laying new tracks to help cope with the extra volume) So, I'm very much hoping that someone will be going my way next week!
And last night, to round off the week, we hosted the Board SIG (Special Interest Group) for the Sci-fi society. It was very nice not to have to travel to get to the meeting, and was brilliant to have everyone round to show off our place. We played some really enjoyable games - I was playing a new one, which really rather complicated rules - however, once we got into it, it wasn't too confusing - one of those games where it is easier to play than to describe! The party ended up finishing at about half twelve, but it really didn't feel that late. Looking forward to the next one!
This week has been really enjoyable on a number of counts. I've finished my handover training at work, and am now "flying solo" as the lady who was training me has now left. I actually got a couple of practice days as she was off sick on Monday and Tuesday, which was a nice way of easing into it! (though a little frustrating when people came up looking for her wouldn't accept my help as "Julia knows what is going on, so it's easier if I just speak to her". They don't have that option now!) My boss has already decided to push me out of my comfort zone, just a little way, in asking me to help him sort out a dispute with one of our suppliers. I'm fine with the facts gathering, report writing and recommendation making, it's the sitting in front of the suppliers and telling them that they are being completely unreasonable is what slightly worries me. But I'm sure it will be easier once I get a better grip on what is going on. It's also very difficult for me to get my head round my new "status" - for all of my working life, my role has been administrative, and I've always had in my head that I've been "low down" on the status structure (even when the role hasn't been lowly, I'm still used to being seen as at most a couple of levels up from basic receptionist), and I'm now having to flip to the fact that my manager's manager is the CIO for the whole IT group, and three levels above her is the Minister. But I'm sure that will come once I've got a bit of a better handle on the role.
My enjoyment of the week has also been helped by the fact that I'm starting to get the hang of getting up in the mornings, remembering that I need to be heading to bed by 10pm and keeping my brain in gear all day.
We've also been pretty busy all week, hence a lack of posting until today!
Orchestra again on Monday - as interesting and fun as always. I've now got the first oboe parts, and need to spend some time today actually practising them ready for rehearsal tomorrow! (First oboe is away for two weeks, so I really need to look at the solos that she has - there are a lot of them!)
On Tuesday, we went to a seminar run by the good folks at Settlement Support. This one was on Emergency Preparedness - what to do if the earth shakes or the water rises... Apparently the Hutt Valley is prone to flooding on a reasonably spectacular scale; fortunately, we are far enough away from the rivers that we are only going to be affected in as much that the public transport will go up the swannee and make things difficult to get to work. The tidal waves should stop at the railway line a way back from us, so, again, we will only have problems with transport. Earthquakes may be a bigger problem, but only if they get to house or road/railway destruction levels. But we do now know what we should be doing and what sort of items we need to keep handy, and also how long we can expect to wait before help arrives in the event of a major scale disaster (3 days). And we got fed some really rather yummy pancake rolls and chocolate biscuits :-D
Thursday I had my first practice with the Hutt hockey club - this was quite an adventure! The training wasn't being held at the pitch that I had been to on Sunday last week, so I had a 20 minute train journey up the tracks to Trentham to the pitch there. The weather was hockey-typical (grey, rainy...), and I didn't get a great sense that there would be many there, particularly when I arrived five minutes before training was due to start and I was the only lady there! (The men were training before us, and they had a turn out of eight people...) In the end, there were four of us. Two of the men stayed behind and we had a three on three game, which was great fun - lots of running about and no being able to hide at the back! I even managed to get two goals in, which I was very pleased about (even though our side lost incredibly badly...)
We finished about fifteen minutes before time, as we were all getting a bit cold and wet, and there wasn't a huge amount that we could do with just the four of us after the men left. Unfortunately, no-one was heading back to Lower Hutt, so I had to go and catch the train back again, just as the heavens opened completely. I trudged back to the station, only to see the signs up saying that they are doing bus replacements. Unfortunately, the bus stop is the other side of the station from the shelter, and because I couldn't trust that the buses would be running to a similar schedule to the trains (it taking longer to go by road), I had to keep on nipping out in the pouring rain to check whether the bus was coming. It was made a little worse (for my frustrations at least) that the timetable that we picked up three months ago is now out of date, and the train that I was waiting for now only runs on a Friday, meaning that I had an extra half hour wait anyway. And one of the local drunks saw me at the shelter and decided to come over for a chat. Well, I say "chat" - more of an incomprehensible mutter from his side with me nodding and making appropriate sounds when he stopped! (and before anyone starts worrying, I was in no danger from him - he was holding on to his bags of bottles too tightly to ever be a threat, and I had my hockey sticks in my hands!)
Fortunately, the bus that was heading to Upper Hutt showed up, and the conductor suggested that as they were going to be the next bus heading back down towards Wellington, I might as well get on now and start warming up. I did get another drunk sitting next to me as we started to make our way back to Waterloo (this one so drunk that he was having difficulty taking the few paces up the aisle to fall into the seat), but I was able to ignore him better as I had my book out - he didn't really get the hint and kept on talking to me, but didn't really notice that I wasn't responding very much. It was still a very late night back, and unfortunately, the rail replacement after business hours is going to happen for the next few months whilst they do some major track work (they are bringing in some new trains, and laying new tracks to help cope with the extra volume) So, I'm very much hoping that someone will be going my way next week!
And last night, to round off the week, we hosted the Board SIG (Special Interest Group) for the Sci-fi society. It was very nice not to have to travel to get to the meeting, and was brilliant to have everyone round to show off our place. We played some really enjoyable games - I was playing a new one, which really rather complicated rules - however, once we got into it, it wasn't too confusing - one of those games where it is easier to play than to describe! The party ended up finishing at about half twelve, but it really didn't feel that late. Looking forward to the next one!
Sunday, 14 February 2010
What a week!
Well, I make no apologies for the lack of posting this week - I've been exhausted! This whole going to work lark is a lot tougher when you have gotten out of the habit of getting up and thinking all day...
In spite of the tiredness, it has been a good week. I'm finding my feet within the Ministry, though I despair of ever knowing who everyone is (there are about 300 people in my building, and there's another MoE building round the corner). There also seems to be far too many Peters around! It took me till Wednesday to get set up with a login and email - I have a phone number but no phone, which is interesting!
The office that I'm working in is lovely; just five minutes from the train station, and I'm right up on the 12th floor. My desk is in the corner of the office (right by the CIO of the whole division), and, aside from one building, which is slightly lower than us, I have an unimpeded view of the harbour and the sea. Great efforts are being made to not spend the whole time staring at the view, but I do have to admit that it happens on occasion!
I'm getting a good handover from the lady that I'm replacing, but I think that it is going to take me a while to get used to all the systems and processes (particularly as a good chunk of them do seem to be bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake), and the computer systems that they use, both the main database and the internet links, are shocking - I've not had to wait 20 minutes for a web page to load in a very long time! (and given that the main database is only accessible over the web, it's not as though I'm only using the internet for personal use...)
It is also very intriguing that their personal use of internet policies aren't consistent - Gmail is banned as it is a webmail (which I understand), but Yahoo and Facebook aren't. Still, I'm not going to complain too loudly, as it is nice to be able to look at Facebook on my lunchbreak, particularly when it is raining. When it is sunny, though, it is much nicer to head out to the harbour and eat my sandwiches looking out over the sea...
There is also a little bit of office politics, as is usual in a company of that size. I am doing my best to steer clear - we shall see how easy that gets when I'm dealing with people more regularly :-S
Outside of work, we have also been very busy; our second orchestra rehearsal on Monday. The second oboe has already said that she doesn't want to play first at any point, so I will have to practice both first and second parts in order to be able to stand in for the first oboe when she is away. I've also been landed with a huge dilemma - the orchestra has an annual workshop weekend where they work in sections with members of the Wellington Symphony Orchestra to put together a concert over the weekend. Unfortunately, this year, it happens to be on the same weekend as NatCon, the NZ national science fiction convention. I don't have to decide straight away, but I want to do both!
On Wednesday, we had a sci-fi meeting in town - a semi-serious presentation for the first half, and then some silly games for the second.
Then Saturday, after a reasonably early start to get the vegetable shopping done, we had a lovely day with one of the sci-fi members - he was over our way getting sausages from our local butchers (these are apparently the best sausages in Wellington - when we have a bit more money, I'll be getting some to see for ourselves!), so he treated us to a coffee, and then, as he had his car, drove us round a couple of shopping centres, including a very nice bulk buy shop (similar to Macro) which I'm sure we'll be visiting again!
And today, we had a small lie-in, and then we were out up to the hockey club to get me signed up for the new season. This came care of Kerry, who had hired me, who is also president of the club and who spotted that I played in goal when living in Bristol. The people at the hockey club are really nice - its a mixed club of all ages and abilities, and they have multiple teams as well, so I should be able to find something that sits with my limitations as a goalie. Plus, as they do have a number of people who play in goal, they do specific goalie training, which, aside from a one day coaching session, I have never really had. They didn't have any goalie kit there today, though they do supply the kit for practices and matches, so I had a good run-around on the pitch, and came to the realisation that four months or so without any major exercise does not do good things to the fitness levels! Fortunately, as well as the hockey, and the TKD once I have the money to cover the club fees and insurance, the job comes with free membership to a local gym, so I'll be able to get there during my lunch break, once I've got myself a bit more settled into the job. And I may even join the local squash club if I've not completely exhausted myself!
In spite of the tiredness, it has been a good week. I'm finding my feet within the Ministry, though I despair of ever knowing who everyone is (there are about 300 people in my building, and there's another MoE building round the corner). There also seems to be far too many Peters around! It took me till Wednesday to get set up with a login and email - I have a phone number but no phone, which is interesting!
The office that I'm working in is lovely; just five minutes from the train station, and I'm right up on the 12th floor. My desk is in the corner of the office (right by the CIO of the whole division), and, aside from one building, which is slightly lower than us, I have an unimpeded view of the harbour and the sea. Great efforts are being made to not spend the whole time staring at the view, but I do have to admit that it happens on occasion!
I'm getting a good handover from the lady that I'm replacing, but I think that it is going to take me a while to get used to all the systems and processes (particularly as a good chunk of them do seem to be bureaucracy for bureaucracy's sake), and the computer systems that they use, both the main database and the internet links, are shocking - I've not had to wait 20 minutes for a web page to load in a very long time! (and given that the main database is only accessible over the web, it's not as though I'm only using the internet for personal use...)
It is also very intriguing that their personal use of internet policies aren't consistent - Gmail is banned as it is a webmail (which I understand), but Yahoo and Facebook aren't. Still, I'm not going to complain too loudly, as it is nice to be able to look at Facebook on my lunchbreak, particularly when it is raining. When it is sunny, though, it is much nicer to head out to the harbour and eat my sandwiches looking out over the sea...
There is also a little bit of office politics, as is usual in a company of that size. I am doing my best to steer clear - we shall see how easy that gets when I'm dealing with people more regularly :-S
Outside of work, we have also been very busy; our second orchestra rehearsal on Monday. The second oboe has already said that she doesn't want to play first at any point, so I will have to practice both first and second parts in order to be able to stand in for the first oboe when she is away. I've also been landed with a huge dilemma - the orchestra has an annual workshop weekend where they work in sections with members of the Wellington Symphony Orchestra to put together a concert over the weekend. Unfortunately, this year, it happens to be on the same weekend as NatCon, the NZ national science fiction convention. I don't have to decide straight away, but I want to do both!
On Wednesday, we had a sci-fi meeting in town - a semi-serious presentation for the first half, and then some silly games for the second.
Then Saturday, after a reasonably early start to get the vegetable shopping done, we had a lovely day with one of the sci-fi members - he was over our way getting sausages from our local butchers (these are apparently the best sausages in Wellington - when we have a bit more money, I'll be getting some to see for ourselves!), so he treated us to a coffee, and then, as he had his car, drove us round a couple of shopping centres, including a very nice bulk buy shop (similar to Macro) which I'm sure we'll be visiting again!
And today, we had a small lie-in, and then we were out up to the hockey club to get me signed up for the new season. This came care of Kerry, who had hired me, who is also president of the club and who spotted that I played in goal when living in Bristol. The people at the hockey club are really nice - its a mixed club of all ages and abilities, and they have multiple teams as well, so I should be able to find something that sits with my limitations as a goalie. Plus, as they do have a number of people who play in goal, they do specific goalie training, which, aside from a one day coaching session, I have never really had. They didn't have any goalie kit there today, though they do supply the kit for practices and matches, so I had a good run-around on the pitch, and came to the realisation that four months or so without any major exercise does not do good things to the fitness levels! Fortunately, as well as the hockey, and the TKD once I have the money to cover the club fees and insurance, the job comes with free membership to a local gym, so I'll be able to get there during my lunch break, once I've got myself a bit more settled into the job. And I may even join the local squash club if I've not completely exhausted myself!
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Many Meetings
This weekend has turned into a little bit of a social whirl. On Saturday, after market shopping in the sunshine for once (we actually had four whole days of summer this week - a nice treat for the kids before they go back to school - the summer holidays end tomorrow), I made up some cheese scones (I *love* having my food mixer back!), and we then headed out in the evening for a Phoenix Sci-Fi social. This is a "Bring a Plate" social (and the interpretation of it is that you bring something *on* the plate, rather than just an empty one!) Unfortunately, as we are a bit out of touch (despite reading the local paper, and therefore knowing all about the 94 year old who has just hit his first hole in one in golf, a year after suffering a stroke...), we hadn't twigged that, in addition to the very important Sci-fi event, there were also two other events in the area.
The Trentham Races (The Wellington Cup), which is the equivalent of the Cheltenham Races, in Upper Hutt, which is at one end of our train track, and an AC/DC gig, which was held at the Wellington Stadium, right by Wellington Station. (some unsung genius designed it so that the far end of the platform (at the opposite end to the station) actually leads up into the Stadium itself. On major event days (particularly rugby and football), the fans can just pour out of the stadium and onto a waiting train (obviously getting the right train for their destination!) - when the train is full, then it leaves, and the next one pulls in.
The combined events meant that, rather than the two-carriage train being half empty, as it has been every other time we have used it, there were eight carriages, and we still stood all the way to Wellington. However (despite the heat and the fact that the AC/DC fans next to us needed a little bit of education in the use of deodorant), it wasn't an unpleasant journey - the fans standing by us were from Hastings, and didn't often come down to "the big city"!
The bonus was that as the guard couldn't get down the train through the crush, we didn't have to pay for our journey! (I had my wallet out ready to pay - we weren't fare dodging!)
The Sci-Fi meeting, which was on the hills overlooking the Stadium, was good fun. It was a lot busier than the other meetings that we'd been to, and a lot of new faces. It was a little bit intimidating at times - having thought that I'd got to know most of the Phoenix members, I suddenly realised that there were a lot more than I'd already met, and I was going to have to remember a lot more names (I'm not good at names at the best of times!). But it was still good fun, and we got to have some very interesting discussions. We had to leave a little earlier than we would have liked, but had been warned that we would want to get the train *before* the gig finished for obvious reasons!
Then yesterday (Monday), we had our first orchestra rehearsal. Having been to their Christmas concert, and then had to wait all summer whilst they were on holiday, I've been really missing playing in a group. I will admit that I was a little bit nervous when we arrived at the school where the orchestra rehearses. Already knowing that they had two oboes, I was a bit worried about being a "spare wheel", but I needn't have been concerned. Everyone was incredibly friendly - the two oboes insisting that I sit between them so that I could look at both of their music and choose which one I wanted to play (I did opt for second all the way through - I didn't want to get landed with an unexpected solo, particularly given that I've not really played for three months!). We were all sight-reading, which was very nice, if a bit brain aching - it is a lot harder to come into something when everyone else knows what they are doing! The pieces weren't too difficult, but were taxing enough that I'm looking forward to having my own copy so that I can do some practice. Afterwards we stayed behind to have a bit of a chat, and ended up nearly being the last to leave (no change there, then!) The lady who is in charge of the sheet music also plays the accordion, and is going to get me the contact details of her teacher so that, when I've been paid (oh, this pay is going to be stretched out a bit!), I can actually have some lessons before I pick up too many bad habits.
I've started doing some background reading ready for work next week - I'm happy to see that, on the surface, the procurement rules in NZ are very similar to those in the UK, so it won't be quite the feeling of being thrown in the deep end. Maybe just up to my chin...
Another lovely thing is that Kerry, the chap who interviewed me, emailed me to say that he is the president of the Upper Hutt hockey club. He'd noticed that I'd put hockey down as an interest on my CV, and has asked me if I would like to join! So the weekend after next (the one after I start work), I'm heading up to the astro-turf for registration and a couple of warm up games. I'm rather hoping that they will need a goalie - I think I may be a little bit unfit for running around on the pitch!
So, when I start up TKD after pay day (probably mid-March now), I will be back to a full after work schedule!
The Trentham Races (The Wellington Cup), which is the equivalent of the Cheltenham Races, in Upper Hutt, which is at one end of our train track, and an AC/DC gig, which was held at the Wellington Stadium, right by Wellington Station. (some unsung genius designed it so that the far end of the platform (at the opposite end to the station) actually leads up into the Stadium itself. On major event days (particularly rugby and football), the fans can just pour out of the stadium and onto a waiting train (obviously getting the right train for their destination!) - when the train is full, then it leaves, and the next one pulls in.
The combined events meant that, rather than the two-carriage train being half empty, as it has been every other time we have used it, there were eight carriages, and we still stood all the way to Wellington. However (despite the heat and the fact that the AC/DC fans next to us needed a little bit of education in the use of deodorant), it wasn't an unpleasant journey - the fans standing by us were from Hastings, and didn't often come down to "the big city"!
The bonus was that as the guard couldn't get down the train through the crush, we didn't have to pay for our journey! (I had my wallet out ready to pay - we weren't fare dodging!)
The Sci-Fi meeting, which was on the hills overlooking the Stadium, was good fun. It was a lot busier than the other meetings that we'd been to, and a lot of new faces. It was a little bit intimidating at times - having thought that I'd got to know most of the Phoenix members, I suddenly realised that there were a lot more than I'd already met, and I was going to have to remember a lot more names (I'm not good at names at the best of times!). But it was still good fun, and we got to have some very interesting discussions. We had to leave a little earlier than we would have liked, but had been warned that we would want to get the train *before* the gig finished for obvious reasons!
Then yesterday (Monday), we had our first orchestra rehearsal. Having been to their Christmas concert, and then had to wait all summer whilst they were on holiday, I've been really missing playing in a group. I will admit that I was a little bit nervous when we arrived at the school where the orchestra rehearses. Already knowing that they had two oboes, I was a bit worried about being a "spare wheel", but I needn't have been concerned. Everyone was incredibly friendly - the two oboes insisting that I sit between them so that I could look at both of their music and choose which one I wanted to play (I did opt for second all the way through - I didn't want to get landed with an unexpected solo, particularly given that I've not really played for three months!). We were all sight-reading, which was very nice, if a bit brain aching - it is a lot harder to come into something when everyone else knows what they are doing! The pieces weren't too difficult, but were taxing enough that I'm looking forward to having my own copy so that I can do some practice. Afterwards we stayed behind to have a bit of a chat, and ended up nearly being the last to leave (no change there, then!) The lady who is in charge of the sheet music also plays the accordion, and is going to get me the contact details of her teacher so that, when I've been paid (oh, this pay is going to be stretched out a bit!), I can actually have some lessons before I pick up too many bad habits.
I've started doing some background reading ready for work next week - I'm happy to see that, on the surface, the procurement rules in NZ are very similar to those in the UK, so it won't be quite the feeling of being thrown in the deep end. Maybe just up to my chin...
Another lovely thing is that Kerry, the chap who interviewed me, emailed me to say that he is the president of the Upper Hutt hockey club. He'd noticed that I'd put hockey down as an interest on my CV, and has asked me if I would like to join! So the weekend after next (the one after I start work), I'm heading up to the astro-turf for registration and a couple of warm up games. I'm rather hoping that they will need a goalie - I think I may be a little bit unfit for running around on the pitch!
So, when I start up TKD after pay day (probably mid-March now), I will be back to a full after work schedule!
Monday, 30 November 2009
Huzzah!
Whoops! I hadn't realised that it was nearly a week since I last posted - sorry! I had been waiting for some good news to post...
Things moved very quickly last week after I last posted...
The GIS interview went really well. I had a bit of a trek out (the offices are two train rides away, and the office manager was very kind to give me a lift to and from the station, otherwise I would have had a bus journey, too!), to a glorious office in the middle of a suburb (my impressions might have been coloured by the fact that it was a beautiful day!). I got on brilliantly with the directors (they are a husband and wife partnership, and the wife is also a TKD teacher...), and it ended up with them saying that although they didn't have a role for me at the moment (and they had made that clear from the start, so I wasn't going there under false impressions), they were looking at a positive restructure (i.e. they had just won two major contracts, and the company was going to have to change radically to cope with them), and a role similar to the one that I had been doing with Innogistic was needed. However, because they hadn't worked out the exact details of the restructure as yet, they couldn't offer me anything. So I had to give them a call before I accepted any other offer... This did therefore leave me in a bit of a dilemma, as both companies had pros and cons, and if I ended up with job offers from them both, I would be having a couple of sleepless nights trying to work out what would be the best course of action to take!
I then had on Thursday my fourth interview with Heat 'n' Click, this time with Steven, the new sales manager (so new, that he hadn't actually started at the at point!). It was more of a chat than an interview - we are going to be working closely together, so it was vital that we weren't going to annoy each other. We got on brilliantly - totally on the same wavelength (a good chat about what processes were needed, and then a discussion as to why Gandalf didn't just get the eagles to take Frodo to Mount Doom and short cut all that mucking about on the ground... ;-) )
They then left me hanging for the whole weekend, which got a bit nerve wracking - by this afternoon, I was wondering whether they were just trying to work out how to tell me to stuff off! But James called just at the end of office hours to say that they would like to offer me the job - yays!
Rather sadly, when I called up today (post offer from James) to speak to the managing director of the GIS company, he said that they hadn't had the restructure meeting yet, and therefore wouldn't be in a position to offer me a formal interview until after Christmas. A bit of a shame, but it does mean that if the Heat 'n' Click does fall over, or if I realise that I really can't work with them, I do have a fall back company to go to! And he has said that he will keep my details on file and get in touch with me (though he would understand if I said that I wasn't interested any more). So I didn't have two companies fighting over me, but it would have been nice ;-)
The role that I am going to be doing is essentially a general administrative one; the company is new and doesn't have any processes or procedures in place, so initially, I am going to be working on setting those up (getting a stock management system in place, for example, including building an Excel based one for short term use, though I hope that they will be buying in a sturdier one for long term usage!), and looking after accounts management (sorting out their GST (equivalent to VAT) returns etc). When the Christmas period is over, I'll also be helping out with the website and doing some back office sales (i.e. taking calls in etc). There will also be some marketing work (helping design their pop-ups and literature for trade shows, actually arranging the trade show stands etc) (I'm also going to be doing a bit of short term work on their "Calendar Club" stand until that contract is finished in January)
The exact nature of the role beyond that is actually a bit nebulous - a lot of it will depend on how the Christmas sales go, and how much interest they pick up on the Green Biz side of things (they've had a couple of trade shows where they hoped to get some good leads; I expect that some of my early role will possibly be processing those leads, though that hasn't been talked about yet!)
I've got to wait for him to talk to my references before I get the job offer in writing, but as I know they will be good, all I need to find out now is where I'm going to be working from (they don't actually have an office as such, so I might possibly be working from home for a while, either that, or in the shopping mall waiting for my shift on the CC stand!), and when they want me to start...
In other news, we have also found ourselves an orchestra! The Hutt Valley Orchestra rehearses about 20 minutes walk away from us, and we went to their final concert of the year (they are now having a break until Feb). Their repertoire is very similar to that of Longwell Green, and the sense of humour is the same. I've just got to get myself some sheet music from the library so that I can keep my eye in until I'm next playing properly (unfortunately, news from the shipping company is that our belongings have only just left, and we can't expect them to reach NZ before the first week in Jan. Total pain!)
Things moved very quickly last week after I last posted...
The GIS interview went really well. I had a bit of a trek out (the offices are two train rides away, and the office manager was very kind to give me a lift to and from the station, otherwise I would have had a bus journey, too!), to a glorious office in the middle of a suburb (my impressions might have been coloured by the fact that it was a beautiful day!). I got on brilliantly with the directors (they are a husband and wife partnership, and the wife is also a TKD teacher...), and it ended up with them saying that although they didn't have a role for me at the moment (and they had made that clear from the start, so I wasn't going there under false impressions), they were looking at a positive restructure (i.e. they had just won two major contracts, and the company was going to have to change radically to cope with them), and a role similar to the one that I had been doing with Innogistic was needed. However, because they hadn't worked out the exact details of the restructure as yet, they couldn't offer me anything. So I had to give them a call before I accepted any other offer... This did therefore leave me in a bit of a dilemma, as both companies had pros and cons, and if I ended up with job offers from them both, I would be having a couple of sleepless nights trying to work out what would be the best course of action to take!
I then had on Thursday my fourth interview with Heat 'n' Click, this time with Steven, the new sales manager (so new, that he hadn't actually started at the at point!). It was more of a chat than an interview - we are going to be working closely together, so it was vital that we weren't going to annoy each other. We got on brilliantly - totally on the same wavelength (a good chat about what processes were needed, and then a discussion as to why Gandalf didn't just get the eagles to take Frodo to Mount Doom and short cut all that mucking about on the ground... ;-) )
They then left me hanging for the whole weekend, which got a bit nerve wracking - by this afternoon, I was wondering whether they were just trying to work out how to tell me to stuff off! But James called just at the end of office hours to say that they would like to offer me the job - yays!
Rather sadly, when I called up today (post offer from James) to speak to the managing director of the GIS company, he said that they hadn't had the restructure meeting yet, and therefore wouldn't be in a position to offer me a formal interview until after Christmas. A bit of a shame, but it does mean that if the Heat 'n' Click does fall over, or if I realise that I really can't work with them, I do have a fall back company to go to! And he has said that he will keep my details on file and get in touch with me (though he would understand if I said that I wasn't interested any more). So I didn't have two companies fighting over me, but it would have been nice ;-)
The role that I am going to be doing is essentially a general administrative one; the company is new and doesn't have any processes or procedures in place, so initially, I am going to be working on setting those up (getting a stock management system in place, for example, including building an Excel based one for short term use, though I hope that they will be buying in a sturdier one for long term usage!), and looking after accounts management (sorting out their GST (equivalent to VAT) returns etc). When the Christmas period is over, I'll also be helping out with the website and doing some back office sales (i.e. taking calls in etc). There will also be some marketing work (helping design their pop-ups and literature for trade shows, actually arranging the trade show stands etc) (I'm also going to be doing a bit of short term work on their "Calendar Club" stand until that contract is finished in January)
The exact nature of the role beyond that is actually a bit nebulous - a lot of it will depend on how the Christmas sales go, and how much interest they pick up on the Green Biz side of things (they've had a couple of trade shows where they hoped to get some good leads; I expect that some of my early role will possibly be processing those leads, though that hasn't been talked about yet!)
I've got to wait for him to talk to my references before I get the job offer in writing, but as I know they will be good, all I need to find out now is where I'm going to be working from (they don't actually have an office as such, so I might possibly be working from home for a while, either that, or in the shopping mall waiting for my shift on the CC stand!), and when they want me to start...
In other news, we have also found ourselves an orchestra! The Hutt Valley Orchestra rehearses about 20 minutes walk away from us, and we went to their final concert of the year (they are now having a break until Feb). Their repertoire is very similar to that of Longwell Green, and the sense of humour is the same. I've just got to get myself some sheet music from the library so that I can keep my eye in until I'm next playing properly (unfortunately, news from the shipping company is that our belongings have only just left, and we can't expect them to reach NZ before the first week in Jan. Total pain!)
Friday, 29 May 2009
Music and Ice-Cream
We had a fantastic concert last night with the Longwell Green Orchestra - we were playing as the opening event in a music festival organised by one of our members. The venue was a glorious church, which had the best accoustics of any place I've played in. We had quite a 'serious' classical first half, with pieces like Borodin's Polovtsian Dances (with a lovely oboe solo in the intro and first piece played by yours truely), Bizet's L'Arlesienne, the overture to Peter Schmoll... These pieces all had Grand Pauses (i.e. where the whole orchestra shuts up for a few beats), and the echoes of the notes we had been playing soared up to the rafters. I discovered that it is very difficult to play the oboe and grin at the same time! The second half of the concert was much lighter (including medleys from Duke Ellington and Leroy Anderson; the theme from Jurassic Park), and ended with the Can-Can - such a fun piece to play, particularly when you don't announce what it is (it was our encore piece, so we didn't have it in the programme), and you can hear the audience catching on during the introductory ten bars or so... All in all, a wonderful evening, and I really hope that we get to go back and play in that venue again.
My other success has been in making icecream - I always thought that an ice-cream maker was fairly mandatory, but a couple of recipes have convinced me otherwise. I played around with a very basic banana one from the BBC Good Food website, and came up with this:
Ingredients:
For every banana used (I used 3)
100ml whipping cream
100ml double cream
30g dark chocolate, broken into chips
30g sugar
Splash of lemon juice (about 5ml but I didn't measure)
Splash of Irish cream / Baileys (optional!) (about 10ml but I didn't measure)
Method:
Mash up the bananas, add lemon juice.
Pour on the creams
Mix well (I used my blender)
Add the chocolate, sugar and Irish cream
Mix again
Taste - add more lemon / Irish cream if needed.
Pour into a tub; 3 bananas three quarters filled a 2 litre icecream tub.
Put in freezer - every hour or so stir to break up the ice crystals.
It doesn't come out soft scoop (there was a lot of hacking!), but it is very nice :-) As the weather gets warmer, I suspect that I will be making more...
My other success has been in making icecream - I always thought that an ice-cream maker was fairly mandatory, but a couple of recipes have convinced me otherwise. I played around with a very basic banana one from the BBC Good Food website, and came up with this:
Ingredients:
For every banana used (I used 3)
100ml whipping cream
100ml double cream
30g dark chocolate, broken into chips
30g sugar
Splash of lemon juice (about 5ml but I didn't measure)
Splash of Irish cream / Baileys (optional!) (about 10ml but I didn't measure)
Method:
Mash up the bananas, add lemon juice.
Pour on the creams
Mix well (I used my blender)
Add the chocolate, sugar and Irish cream
Mix again
Taste - add more lemon / Irish cream if needed.
Pour into a tub; 3 bananas three quarters filled a 2 litre icecream tub.
Put in freezer - every hour or so stir to break up the ice crystals.
It doesn't come out soft scoop (there was a lot of hacking!), but it is very nice :-) As the weather gets warmer, I suspect that I will be making more...
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Music
I forgot to mention that we had an orchestra concert on Saturday as well, playing at a church in Thornbury (raising some money towards the church's restoration). It went reasonably well - second half a lot better than the first half, though the atmosphere in the church played havoc with the woodwind; going from a warm early-evening to a cold church, to it heating up again after the interval when the radiators were turned on, led to quite silly amounts of condensation coming out of the instruments - the first oboe had a mini-waterfall coming over his thumb!
However, I am incredibly chuffed that my solo in the Borodin went far better than I'd anticipated - the balance of oboe and cor anglais with the strings underneath sounded absolutely glorious in the church accoustics.
I did feel slightly sad, though - the person who had organised the concert (one of our trumpeters) had mentioned whilst we were setting up that he was bit concerned that one of their congregation might disrupt the proceedings. She is an Ulster Protestant and Bi-Polar; the church that we were playing in was the only one in the town which had not banned her. She had called him up earlier in the week and told him that the concert was the work of the devil and that she wasn't going to let it go ahead. Fortunately she did not show!
Whilst I know that she has mental health issues (though having worked with someone pre and post their bi-polar diagnosis, I can't believe that her attitude is not just a manic-exaggeration of her own feelings, rather than being wholly out of character), I feel really sorry for her beliefs. To feel that music of any kind is evil (and, yes, we were playing a mixture of music from high classical and religious (a lovely theme and variation on "Simple Gifts" in a piece called "Shaker Variants) to film scores and show music) and to want it out of not only your life but everyone else's is incredibly sad. I am an atheist, and have been for about 15 years now, but when I play and listen to music (particularly classical, but also things like electronica, indie etc) I get the same sense of peace and spirituality that I did when I was able to believe. She is missing out on this, and doesn't even realise it.
However, I am incredibly chuffed that my solo in the Borodin went far better than I'd anticipated - the balance of oboe and cor anglais with the strings underneath sounded absolutely glorious in the church accoustics.
I did feel slightly sad, though - the person who had organised the concert (one of our trumpeters) had mentioned whilst we were setting up that he was bit concerned that one of their congregation might disrupt the proceedings. She is an Ulster Protestant and Bi-Polar; the church that we were playing in was the only one in the town which had not banned her. She had called him up earlier in the week and told him that the concert was the work of the devil and that she wasn't going to let it go ahead. Fortunately she did not show!
Whilst I know that she has mental health issues (though having worked with someone pre and post their bi-polar diagnosis, I can't believe that her attitude is not just a manic-exaggeration of her own feelings, rather than being wholly out of character), I feel really sorry for her beliefs. To feel that music of any kind is evil (and, yes, we were playing a mixture of music from high classical and religious (a lovely theme and variation on "Simple Gifts" in a piece called "Shaker Variants) to film scores and show music) and to want it out of not only your life but everyone else's is incredibly sad. I am an atheist, and have been for about 15 years now, but when I play and listen to music (particularly classical, but also things like electronica, indie etc) I get the same sense of peace and spirituality that I did when I was able to believe. She is missing out on this, and doesn't even realise it.
Thursday, 12 March 2009
Time...
Like a winged arrow bears all its sons away...
As it does my posts - when the post in draft is over a month old, it gets a bit silly to finish it as it is! So I am starting again with a bit of a summary of the last month...
Hockey - some great wins... I've not been able to play as much as I liked, with other events on Saturdays and Tuesdays preventing me from getting to matches and to practice. But we are still 2nd in the table with two matches to go - there seems to be an excellent chance that we will go up the league again!
Tae Kwon Do - I had another competition in Feb, this time in Cardiff. I came away with two bronzes, one of which was similar to the last time, as there were only four in the sparring, so, winning or losing, I was assured of a medal (and I did lose, but only by a point, according to my instructor, who was one of the judges). The patterns, however, had nine people in the group, so I had to beat two others to get my bronze - and neither time did I think that I'd done well enough to win, so I was incredibly pleased with that! I've also had the trials for the demonstration team - going round various fetes and fairs in the summer, showing off TKD to the masses. Very pleased to have passed that and got into the team, and even more pleased with my company, who have generously offered to sponsor our doboks, meaning that we won't have to pay for them! (Hey, I asked the MD on the off-chance, not expecting anything, and he turned round and said 'Yes' :-D)
Culture - We had a trip to London to see Sir Derek Jacobi in Twelfth Night, which was *amazing* - there wasn't a weak link in the cast, and the Letter Scene (which, particularly when Sir D.J was performing it, deserves the capitals!) was just side-splittingly funny. Add to the mix a brilliant meal in a lovely Chinese, and fantastic company - it was an amazing day.
Culture - We also went to see Watchmen - I really enjoyed the film - possibly a little too much blood and gore when compared to the comic, but certainly nowhere near as much as Sin City! The changes in storyline (which I know some of the fanboys have been screaming about), I felt were completely justified, and fitted the story a lot better.
Orchestra - We've got a whole load of new pieces, including Danse Macabre, which is one of the first pieces which made me realise that I wanted to play in a group, rather than as a solo musician. We've also got the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, which includes as the first piece, the tune from Stranger in Paradise, played first on the oboe, and then on the cor. As the first oboe can't play both instruments at the same time, I've picked up the first oboe part for this, and also for the first two of the Snow Maiden pieces (though I've handed it back for the Dance of the Tumblers, the last in the four dances - with having to do solos in 1 and 2, and having done a simplified version of Tumblers with a slightly different rhythm, I don't think I could cope with that one as well!)
New Zealand - We've had our medical checks, and they have all come back clear, which is a fantastic piece of news. I've also fired my CV off to a number of recruiters, but they've pretty much all come back and said "Let us know when you have a visa". I did find another GIS company (reselling a rival's software) in Wellington, who are very promising, so I'm hoping that they will take me on once we've got the visa sorted...
Microcon - We headed down to Exeter at the end of Feb for the annual Exeter Uni Sci-Fi Society convention - as always, a great mix of people, some really fun talks and discussions (including one on the nature of Fandom with a capital F - I'm sorry, but if I'm not a Fan because I don't tick every box on the list of Fandom (Go to conventions, Run a convention, Slag off other people because they don't fit in to your definition of Fandom, Slag off guests because they happen to disagree with you...), then I'd rather just be a small f fan and enjoy sci-fi in my own way. Here endeth the rant (poor John heard a lot more of it over the weekend!)), and generally an all round chilling time :-)
I've also signed myself up for Race for Life, which I'm a bit scared about - I don't normally run further than up the incline to Temple Meads to get the train! However, it isn't till June, so I've got all the time in the world to learn how to run 5K...
And that is, in brief, the last Month. Hopefully, I'll post another one before the start of the next one, though I wouldn't hold your breath... I'm currently out four or five nights out of seven till the middle of May...!
As it does my posts - when the post in draft is over a month old, it gets a bit silly to finish it as it is! So I am starting again with a bit of a summary of the last month...
Hockey - some great wins... I've not been able to play as much as I liked, with other events on Saturdays and Tuesdays preventing me from getting to matches and to practice. But we are still 2nd in the table with two matches to go - there seems to be an excellent chance that we will go up the league again!
Tae Kwon Do - I had another competition in Feb, this time in Cardiff. I came away with two bronzes, one of which was similar to the last time, as there were only four in the sparring, so, winning or losing, I was assured of a medal (and I did lose, but only by a point, according to my instructor, who was one of the judges). The patterns, however, had nine people in the group, so I had to beat two others to get my bronze - and neither time did I think that I'd done well enough to win, so I was incredibly pleased with that! I've also had the trials for the demonstration team - going round various fetes and fairs in the summer, showing off TKD to the masses. Very pleased to have passed that and got into the team, and even more pleased with my company, who have generously offered to sponsor our doboks, meaning that we won't have to pay for them! (Hey, I asked the MD on the off-chance, not expecting anything, and he turned round and said 'Yes' :-D)
Culture - We had a trip to London to see Sir Derek Jacobi in Twelfth Night, which was *amazing* - there wasn't a weak link in the cast, and the Letter Scene (which, particularly when Sir D.J was performing it, deserves the capitals!) was just side-splittingly funny. Add to the mix a brilliant meal in a lovely Chinese, and fantastic company - it was an amazing day.
Culture - We also went to see Watchmen - I really enjoyed the film - possibly a little too much blood and gore when compared to the comic, but certainly nowhere near as much as Sin City! The changes in storyline (which I know some of the fanboys have been screaming about), I felt were completely justified, and fitted the story a lot better.
Orchestra - We've got a whole load of new pieces, including Danse Macabre, which is one of the first pieces which made me realise that I wanted to play in a group, rather than as a solo musician. We've also got the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor, which includes as the first piece, the tune from Stranger in Paradise, played first on the oboe, and then on the cor. As the first oboe can't play both instruments at the same time, I've picked up the first oboe part for this, and also for the first two of the Snow Maiden pieces (though I've handed it back for the Dance of the Tumblers, the last in the four dances - with having to do solos in 1 and 2, and having done a simplified version of Tumblers with a slightly different rhythm, I don't think I could cope with that one as well!)
New Zealand - We've had our medical checks, and they have all come back clear, which is a fantastic piece of news. I've also fired my CV off to a number of recruiters, but they've pretty much all come back and said "Let us know when you have a visa". I did find another GIS company (reselling a rival's software) in Wellington, who are very promising, so I'm hoping that they will take me on once we've got the visa sorted...
Microcon - We headed down to Exeter at the end of Feb for the annual Exeter Uni Sci-Fi Society convention - as always, a great mix of people, some really fun talks and discussions (including one on the nature of Fandom with a capital F - I'm sorry, but if I'm not a Fan because I don't tick every box on the list of Fandom (Go to conventions, Run a convention, Slag off other people because they don't fit in to your definition of Fandom, Slag off guests because they happen to disagree with you...), then I'd rather just be a small f fan and enjoy sci-fi in my own way. Here endeth the rant (poor John heard a lot more of it over the weekend!)), and generally an all round chilling time :-)
I've also signed myself up for Race for Life, which I'm a bit scared about - I don't normally run further than up the incline to Temple Meads to get the train! However, it isn't till June, so I've got all the time in the world to learn how to run 5K...
And that is, in brief, the last Month. Hopefully, I'll post another one before the start of the next one, though I wouldn't hold your breath... I'm currently out four or five nights out of seven till the middle of May...!
Monday, 15 September 2008
Perfect Saturday
It doesn't come along often, but I really felt that last Saturday was a perfect day. We had a lie-in, our first in ages, and it was lovely to be able to sleep off the effects of early rising, late nights and being busy! Then, with the sun shining down on us, we went out to a nursing home on the south side of Bristol, there, along with the other members of the Longwell Green Orchestra, to serenade the residents. We set up in the courtyard of the nursing home, so that those who were bed-ridden would be able to have their windows open and be able to listen to us as well. The skies were blue, the air was warm, and there was just enough of a breeze to ruffle the pages of music. We were all relaxed, which meant that we played some of the best music, even managing to get back together again when we had got half a bar out (I don't think anyone noticed!) As we got to the end of our performance, playing a medley from Grease, some of the more sprightly residents (encouraged by the nurses) even got up to dance! It was all I could do to concentrate on playing and keeping my embouchure as I kept on wanting to grin.
Then back home for a quick and easy supper, and the Last Night of the Proms, followed by a televised broadcast of "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue".
Just brilliant.
Then back home for a quick and easy supper, and the Last Night of the Proms, followed by a televised broadcast of "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue".
Just brilliant.
Saturday, 24 May 2008
Music
We had a lovely evening yesterday - we had our annual concert at a local school's fete. It's usually a great fun event - we play bouncy music (like medleys, such as the Bond themes, music from Grease, or music from Porgy and Bess), in a very relaxed atmosphere, and afterwards, we go back to our director of music's house for an American Supper (where everyone brings an item of food, and we all share it...)
The reason that I enjoy this so much is not just because the music making or the social aspect, but because every year, we get to see the impact that music has on children. Most of them wander through with their parents, getting cakes or going out to the raffle, but one or two every year dance to the music (particularly when we play the Can-Can!), or sit down and simply listen. I love being able to communicate how I feel about music to someone else, particularly someone who can then take that joy and potentially learn an instrument of their own. Just brilliant.
The reason that I enjoy this so much is not just because the music making or the social aspect, but because every year, we get to see the impact that music has on children. Most of them wander through with their parents, getting cakes or going out to the raffle, but one or two every year dance to the music (particularly when we play the Can-Can!), or sit down and simply listen. I love being able to communicate how I feel about music to someone else, particularly someone who can then take that joy and potentially learn an instrument of their own. Just brilliant.
Tuesday, 18 December 2007
Catch up
Apologies for the absence of blogging recently - life has been very manic, both at work and at home.
Last weekend, we had a number of university friends come to Bristol for a spot of festive shopping (where I got loads of ideas for presents, then, as today has been the first day I could go in to actually buy the items, I go into town and discover that everything I like has sold out... Panicing? Not yet...), carols and music at our orchestra Christmas concert, and then a very cold, but nonetheless enjoyable day out at Caerphilly, where they had a medieval festival (though sadly very much reduced as a result of the atrocious weather that they'd had the day before) and Christmas market. We had a fun lunch in a pub where the waiter was (without meaning to be rude!) obviously hired on a 'positive action' programme. The first couple of times he came up were ok (he came to check the food order that we'd placed - 9 people meant that there was a lot of food!), but the popping up every five minutes to check that the food was alright, and to give us "Mr Pepper"... started to get a little bit creepy! The castle itself was gorgeous, and I'd like to see it again, in warmer weather. All in all, a good, if exhausting, weekend.
This weekend we had a very lazy Saturday and Sunday day, but busy evenings - Saturday, we were over at Oldland for the orchestra Christmas Party - a very silly, fun evening. Then, Sunday evening, we went out to see the Golden Compass. This is one of those films which has been hyped a lot, right from the first moment that it was announced (and even before - the books have generated a lot of coverage, mainly from the rabid-Christian types who don't like the idea of anybody even thinking of querying their beliefs, let alone writing a book which might be read to impressionable young children... (NB - Disclaimer - I am not claiming that all Christians are like this. Just the complete nutters...)) The cast list is amazing; Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Ian McKellan, Christopher Lee, Derek Jacobi and Freddie Highmore (and yes, I know that Freddie is still only a kid, but his name on the credits is now enough to make me want to see a film!) all making an appearance (even if Mr McK and Mr H are only in voice rather than appearing on screen). The graphics are fantastic - the daemons are gorgeous, and the scenery is beautiful (both real and imaginary - the scenes of the Scandinavian country - it isn't clear whether they are going to Norway or Sweden - particularly the going up the fjords and the docks, brought back very vivid (and happy) memories of the honeymoon). Some of the concepts could have done with more work - the idea of the daemons being souls are really only mentioned in the introduction, and not really covered in the film - and there were a lot of ideas and people which could have done with going into in more depth - the film felt like it was skimming over the surface. However, the acting was fantastic, particularly from Dakota Blue-Richards, who plays the lead - at age 12, and not having done any screen acting (at least, nothing that has appeared on IMDB...) before, she was breathtaking. She had to do a lot of acting against bluescreen (particularly everything that was done with the bears), and that in itself is very impressive. I'm looking forward to seeing more of her! Overall, I wasn't as blown away by the film as I'd hoped to be, but it is still definitely worth watching, and I'm looking forward to the next film.
Also, since I last blogged, Heroes has finished... I've left this till last deliberately in order that anyone who hasn't watched it, and doesn't want spoilers, can stop reading now ;-)
A finale which answered most of the questions, but left enough hanging that I'll want to watch the next series (even though indications from the US are that the second series is rubbish). Sylar's meeting with his mother was brilliantly done - his final hope for redemption being rebuffed. There are queries hanging over Peter's need for his brother to fly him away from New York when he already had that power - my theory is that Peter, at this stage, is unable to control his powers enough to be able to use them more than one at a time (we know that in the future, he can, but that is a different Peter, one who has had more time to practice using his powers). I really enjoyed this - not as much as some of the episodes (particularly the mid-season break one, which had cliffhangers for all the characters), but the writing was great, the acting brilliant, and I am still of the opinion that this is, overall, the best TV series to grace our screens for a very long time (yes, even beating Dr Who - whilst DW had some great episodes, it was not consistently good, as Heroes has been)
Last weekend, we had a number of university friends come to Bristol for a spot of festive shopping (where I got loads of ideas for presents, then, as today has been the first day I could go in to actually buy the items, I go into town and discover that everything I like has sold out... Panicing? Not yet...), carols and music at our orchestra Christmas concert, and then a very cold, but nonetheless enjoyable day out at Caerphilly, where they had a medieval festival (though sadly very much reduced as a result of the atrocious weather that they'd had the day before) and Christmas market. We had a fun lunch in a pub where the waiter was (without meaning to be rude!) obviously hired on a 'positive action' programme. The first couple of times he came up were ok (he came to check the food order that we'd placed - 9 people meant that there was a lot of food!), but the popping up every five minutes to check that the food was alright, and to give us "Mr Pepper"... started to get a little bit creepy! The castle itself was gorgeous, and I'd like to see it again, in warmer weather. All in all, a good, if exhausting, weekend.
This weekend we had a very lazy Saturday and Sunday day, but busy evenings - Saturday, we were over at Oldland for the orchestra Christmas Party - a very silly, fun evening. Then, Sunday evening, we went out to see the Golden Compass. This is one of those films which has been hyped a lot, right from the first moment that it was announced (and even before - the books have generated a lot of coverage, mainly from the rabid-Christian types who don't like the idea of anybody even thinking of querying their beliefs, let alone writing a book which might be read to impressionable young children... (NB - Disclaimer - I am not claiming that all Christians are like this. Just the complete nutters...)) The cast list is amazing; Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Ian McKellan, Christopher Lee, Derek Jacobi and Freddie Highmore (and yes, I know that Freddie is still only a kid, but his name on the credits is now enough to make me want to see a film!) all making an appearance (even if Mr McK and Mr H are only in voice rather than appearing on screen). The graphics are fantastic - the daemons are gorgeous, and the scenery is beautiful (both real and imaginary - the scenes of the Scandinavian country - it isn't clear whether they are going to Norway or Sweden - particularly the going up the fjords and the docks, brought back very vivid (and happy) memories of the honeymoon). Some of the concepts could have done with more work - the idea of the daemons being souls are really only mentioned in the introduction, and not really covered in the film - and there were a lot of ideas and people which could have done with going into in more depth - the film felt like it was skimming over the surface. However, the acting was fantastic, particularly from Dakota Blue-Richards, who plays the lead - at age 12, and not having done any screen acting (at least, nothing that has appeared on IMDB...) before, she was breathtaking. She had to do a lot of acting against bluescreen (particularly everything that was done with the bears), and that in itself is very impressive. I'm looking forward to seeing more of her! Overall, I wasn't as blown away by the film as I'd hoped to be, but it is still definitely worth watching, and I'm looking forward to the next film.
Also, since I last blogged, Heroes has finished... I've left this till last deliberately in order that anyone who hasn't watched it, and doesn't want spoilers, can stop reading now ;-)
A finale which answered most of the questions, but left enough hanging that I'll want to watch the next series (even though indications from the US are that the second series is rubbish). Sylar's meeting with his mother was brilliantly done - his final hope for redemption being rebuffed. There are queries hanging over Peter's need for his brother to fly him away from New York when he already had that power - my theory is that Peter, at this stage, is unable to control his powers enough to be able to use them more than one at a time (we know that in the future, he can, but that is a different Peter, one who has had more time to practice using his powers). I really enjoyed this - not as much as some of the episodes (particularly the mid-season break one, which had cliffhangers for all the characters), but the writing was great, the acting brilliant, and I am still of the opinion that this is, overall, the best TV series to grace our screens for a very long time (yes, even beating Dr Who - whilst DW had some great episodes, it was not consistently good, as Heroes has been)
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