"Typical" Sci-Fi meeting?

WiseWebWoman asked in the comments to the last post what a Sci-Fi meeting is like - I'll do my best! The Phoenix group here in Wellington is divided up into the main monthly meeting, which is held in a central Wellington venue, and Special Interest Groups, which include the Board gaming group, a video group, a writers' group, Bibliophiles (a book discussion group) and "PIG", which is a social get together, eat and chat group. The SIGs are mainly held in members' houses, rotating around the main members of the group.

NB - John and I go to the main meeting, Board and PIG, so I can't really comment on what happens in the other SIGs.

Since we've joined, I don't think there has been a "typical" main meeting. There have been presentations (on "sci-fi" weaponry which is being used or developed now; on the manned space missions); discussions (on "Speculative Fiction" and whether it is just another form of "Science Fiction" for people who don't want to be labelled as Sci-Fi writers); silly games (limerick writing; "20 questions" with a Sci-Fi theme), and, of course, the all important post Christmas pub get together and then last month the AGM.

PIG is very social, and seems (in my experience), to have the greatest turn out in terms of numbers. Everyone brings along food (there seems to be a baking challenge going on at the moment, with some fantastic cakes being created, and devoured!) and drink, and just generally chats. Conversations are wide ranging, and certainly not Sci-Fi limited.

The Board tends to run along the lines of everyone gathering over the course of half an hour or so; some bring along their evening meals to eat, and everyone brings snacks and drinks to share. After general chit-chat, we decide what games to play, depending on who is there, and what games have been brought along. Then we split into groups (there is usually enough people for two sets of games) and get playing. Usually a bit (or a lot...) of wine is consumed, and there is a lot of laughter and fun.

I think that the atmosphere is what typifies the various groups that we go along to. The tendency is towards openness, friendliness and a genuine welcoming attitude, whether the meeting is in a "paid for" venue, or in someone's home. There is a real community feel which comes with having a common interest (I also get this feeling with the orchestra, both here and back in the UK), even if this interest ends up being a the periphery of what we chat about during the course of an evening. I know that this warmth and acceptance has gone a long way in helping me to feel at home here.

I hope this has answered your question, WWW!

Seasonal defiance

With winter very much on the way in, rain and chill mornings now a certainty, I was delighted this week to find that there are some areas where there is a last ditch defiance against the encroaching season



We haven't yet put the heating on (to the amazement of a number of friends and colleagues), but I don't think that it will be long before we start, particularly as we are hosting the board gaming group for Phoenix Sci-fi this weekend, and it's probably not fair to ask friends to sit in the ice-box all evening...

The birds are starting to gather for their migration - I don't know which birds here are seasonal and which brave the winter through, but there is a definite congregation on the roofs of the office towers around where I work - not only does the block opposite ours look like it is auditioning for a Hitchcock film, but they are also gathering on the roof of our building. Right over my head. The squeaks and chirrups are at just the right pitch to trigger my sensitive hearing, and I think I will be glad when they have taken off for warmer climates!

Work and social life are busy in equal measures - we have also joined the Hutt sci-fi group, who do a video evening locally to us once a month, and also have a monthly "presentation" evening. There is a small "cross pollination" from the Phoenix group, but we actually were persuaded to join by the husband of one of the flautists from orchestra! We had a narrow loss in hockey, but given that we were a person short, had three players who hadn't played in a long time, and our star centre forward got concussed by a bad tackle mid way through the first half, I think we did very well to only lose 1-0. The pitch was all the way out in Paraparamu, which is about an hour's drive north from here, right at the end of one of the train lines. The coastline was spectacular - the bay round Hutt is so calm that I'd forgotten how stormy the sea can be. I'd definitely like to visit the area properly, but it may wait for the spring or summer (possibly even a train trip on the free Christmas train...)and the certainty of a nice day.

Getting better...

It has definitely been a quiet week this week. I only ended up taking that afternoon off work - I was feeling well enough on Tuesday to go in (and I knew that the backlog of tasks would just keep on piling up - it is the main issue with being off - you still have to do the work when you get back in to the office!), and just took it easy, trying not to stay too late on any one day.

I didn't go to hockey on Thursday (and I think I haven't endeared myself to the coach as I had the Phoenix Sci-fi Board Gaming evening on Saturday, clashing with this week's match, and I chose Board over hockey...), and have had early nights all week - I think I'm now pretty much back to normal (though it did take my body a couple of days to be persuaded that it wasn't going to get an afternoon nap every day of the week!)

I had a couple more steep learning curves at work (assisting with the evaluation of two quotes), but I think I'm getting better at tackling them, even if I do seem to spend far too much time out of my comfort zone!

I'm getting to know my colleagues a lot better now - I know which ones are likely to respond to emails, which ones will actually listen to phone messages, and which ones will not do anything unless you are face to face with them. I'm also getting a good number of friends across the teams that are based on my floor, not only within my team, but also from different departments. One is another ex-pat - I'm not sure how long he has been in NZ, but he hasn't lost his British accent at all, nor his love of cricket. He was therefore very interested to learn that I am related to Frank Foster (he is my great-great-uncle) - I'm not sure how much of his enthusiasm is his very dry humour, but he has printed off a number of the Crick-Info statistics, and also pointed out that next year will be 100 years since the England/Australia match where Foster and Barnes decimated the Australian batters.

Board last night was good - we learnt a couple more new games, one of which was incredibly easy to pick up, and the other will need quite a few more plays through before I understand all of the tactics involved!

I've also had the first harvest of my broccoli - I've picked two heads, and we had the first yesterday with our lunch. I'm hoping that some of the smaller heads on one of the plants will grow now that I've taken the main one off, but if not, we are going to be having a fine meal of broccoli stem at some point soon! The capsicums are still not big enough to be picked, but were, I discovered, weighty enough to topple the plant into the broccoli - I've now staked it upright, but I don't know if the roots have been damaged at all. We shall see!

Today has been very relaxed - I made cheese biscuits for lunch, and they had pretty much all been eaten before they cooled. They are definitely far too morish!

It's going to be a busy week ahead - there are a number of major projects at work which all come to a conclusion next week, but I'm hoping to be able to get away to meet up with a university friend who has been out here for a couple of months with his job, and is now taking a well deserved holiday.

That's better

Well, after the doom and gloom of last week, this week has been a lot better. A lot calmer at work, and lots of social events to keep me busy.

We had our monthly sci-fi meeting, with a very interesting talk on manned space flights by someone from the Astronautics Association of New Zealand. John and I decided that rather than me coming home to eat, and then us heading back into town, we'd treat ourselves to a pub meal at the Occidental, just round the corner from my office, and on the way to the sci-fi meeting main reason for choosing - they have cheap food nights on Tuesday and Wednesday...). The pub was crowded, but the very helpful bar manager found us a table whilst we were ordering our drinks. We had plenty of time before the meeting, and it was nice to relax, have a chat and watch the occasional Dr Who trailer running on the silent TV behind the bar (the series starts here on the 2nd May - yay!) About 20 minutes after we ordered, the bar manager came out to apologise and say that our food-order had blown off the counter, and they'd only just found it - so to make it up to us, she was going to get us a free drink each! Given that the place was heaving, and we had plenty of time, we hadn't even started to wonder where our food was. But the free drinks were very nice, and our food turned up 10 minutes later - we'll definitely be going back again!

I had a great hockey practice on Thursday - we had a trainer in specifically to look at providing goalie coaching, so it was a very intensive practice, with a lot of diving to get me nice and bruised... That then translated into a very good game on Sunday - with only 10 players, we still managed to win 6-1, which after the disappointments of the last few weeks was a brilliant score, and will hopefully get everyone's morale up for the rest of the tournament.

We had friends round for dinner on Sunday, which was lovely - these were the people who very kindly lent us not only the mattress and bed-clothes whilst we were waiting for our stuff to arrive, but various kitchen utensils, all the stuff that you forget you are going to need. We had a lovely time, but not too late as we needed to get to work in the morning.

Today has been interesting - I woke up with a stinking head cold, and managed to get into work, only to be sent home at lunch time (my first day off sick in over a year). It is annoying as I had things which needed to be done, but as my head was nearly hitting the keyboard, it was the right move - I slept for a few hours this afternoon, and am going to have an early night this evening whilst John is out at orchestra practice (very frustrating as this is our first night back after three weeks off, and I was looking forward to trying out the new repertoire - however it definitely wasn't a good idea to try to play, nor to share my germs with the other members of the orchestra!)

Happy Easter!

I hope that one and all have had a very happy and peaceful Easter weekend. I was definitely ready for the four day long weekend by the time Thursday came around. I'm still trying to get a major project launched, and trying to get people to make decisions is interesting! Still, that's all part of the fun of being in the civil service, and certainly nothing surprising.

We had a very nice lazy day on Friday - it was so good not to set the alarm at all and just wake up when my body had decided it had had enough sleep. I didn't quite lounge as much as I'd expected, and definitely didn't stay in my pyjamas until lunchtime (although part of that was due to someone from the hockey club borrowing the goalie kit, so I really had to be dressed in order to answer the door to him!) I got quite a bit of writing done, and it was good to be able to get my creative juices flowing again.

Saturday was our usual shopping day. I also got some baking done, making coffee and walnut buns to share with our neighbours (although I didn't actually give them to Shirley until Sunday and Gary and his wife until today) I pottered in the greenhouse for a bit - I think I may have got on top of the caterpillar problem with a minimum of fuss (and some very happy sparrows...), as after my mega blitz last week, and a few that I'd missed which I threw out on Saturday, I haven't had any more rear their heads. I've now got four capsicum peppers growing on my pepper plant, which I'm very excited about - I have a vague hope that they will be big enough to eat by next weekend, but it will probably end up being another week just to make sure they ripen.

Easter Sunday was a lovely day - the clocks went back, which meant another hour in bed, and I was fully rested when I got up to Skype my family at 8.30 in the morning. They had been very generous and used the online shopping facility of our local supermarket to buy us chocolate eggs and a lovely bottle of bubbly, so we had chocolate for Easter morning. (which is, of course, the whole point of the celebrations, is it not? ;-) ) Then, after the call, I got out our slow cooker for the first time - this was a wedding present which I'd never got round to using. However, when I cooked our last joint of silverside beef, a number of websites said that this was a perfect cut to put into a slow cooker, and I thought that a lazy Easter weekend would be the best time to try it out! Everything went into the pot (apart from the potatoes, as we both wanted roasties), and it sat on the side in the kitchen for the rest of the day, slowly doing its thing. When the time came for us to have supper, the joint was so tender that it actually fell in half as I lifted it out of the pot. I'm definitely using it again - I'm an instant convert! (now that I google slow cooker and recipes, it seems that pretty much anything that has a sauce element to it can be made in the cooker.)

Staying with the domestic theme, I iced the buns that I'd made, and took a selection round to Shirley - I've not seen a lot of her since I started work (the tendency to come home and either head straight back out again or to veg has meant that I've not been as good a neighbour as I could have been), and I feel a little guilty that she recently had a fall whilst out shopping, and we hadn't known about it (we could have offered to help out with shopping etc for her). Still, she was in a very bright mood, and we chatted with her for over an hour. We had a friend over for supper, too, one of the people we've met through the sci-fi group. He brought wine and board games, and we were eating, drinking, talking and playing through till about 1 in the morning. All in all, a great way of spending our first Easter in New Zealand.

Today has also been successful one in a slightly different way - after an early start for me (my body is definitely in shock from the hour change - it woke up at 8am, and wouldn't go back to sleep, even after the very late night we'd had), and a leisurely morning, we headed out to the slightly more industrial area of Lower Hutt to investigate mattress sales. We'd been told that there were a few shops over there which sold mattresses for slightly better than the $1,000 that we'd been finding, and as there seems to be a proliferation of Easter sales, it was a good time to go and investigate. We've managed to save up enough from the slight excess between our outgoings and my income to cover something cheap, so it was worth going to have a look and see what we could find. And, sure enough, we are now the proud owners of a mattress that will actually fit onto our bed - it is going to be delivered on Wednesday and cost us just over $400 including the delivery fee. I am really looking forward to not sleeping on the floor any more!

So, overall, we have had a very good Easter weekend; I am, however very glad that it is only a four day week this week coming - I think I need another weekend for a rest!

Ups and Downs

It has definitely been an interesting week this week. Work has had some highs and lows, as has life outside of the corporate world.

Lows included hitting my head against the brick wall which is the Student Loans Company - these people have no concept of the fact that I am not telepathic. They sent me a letter, dated the 10th March, stating that my next loan repayment was due on the 10th March... And then when I went onto their website to try to make a payment, it wouldn't get to the point where it would let me put in my card details, so I couldn't make a payment anyway! It also took quite a bit of looking to discover that they charge a whacking great percentage if you are paying from a "for'n" bank account. So, I have sent them a long email, with scanned payslips showing deductions attached, asking them to tell me how much I owe them in total (due to the way the loans are administered, nothing gets updated until after the end of March, however the interest still mounts up), and then I'm going to pay off the balance using money (eventually aimed for a house and car deposit) that is still sat in the UK waiting for the exchange rate to pick itself off the floor. It will just be easier that way!

I also had a meeting first thing Monday morning, in which I needed a Senior Level decision, and had stayed late on Friday and came in an hour early on Monday to prepare for. Unfortunately, my item was 8th on the agenda. Items 3 and 4 involved a colleague of mine who, partially due to his length of service in the field, takes his own, very singular view of events. Quite often the opposite to what was actually decided. Because of his expertise, there is a tendency amongst the people that he works with and for to just defer to his judgement. However, our CIO is not one of those people, and she wanted a full explanation of item 4. Which took the remainder of the meeting time and then some. Very frustrating, particularly when my bit would have only taken five minutes. Fortunately, the delay has allowed me a bit more time to think about the project, and hopefully I'll still be able to get a decision before my next deadline!

Another low turned out to actually start climbing up towards the highs... I got asked to pop into a meeting with one of my colleagues regarding an email I'd sent her. The email itself was fairly innocuous, asking her to confirm the contracts that were held against her budget code. Unfortunately, there turned out to be a couple of cans of worms hidden in there, one which was easily solvable (even though it will require a chunk of paperwork), the other which just got messier and messier as I kept on digging! It also required me to learn how to use the Oracle financial system, and is going to have an interesting outcome, whatever we decide to do. So - whilst it was a headache which I could have done without, it has become very intriguing, and has also highlighted an urgent need for process chance (which we were aware needed to be done, but, because it will lead to extra work for some people, was difficult to put across), and I think I now have enough ammunition to get it to stick.

However, even with the lows, there have been very many more highs this week. They have included:

Getting confirmation from the insurance company that they are going to pay out the claim on John's mouldy boots. Which is a good thing, given that the chap who was looking at them (and who has found a way of cleaning them rather than having to take them to bits and put them back together again) actually fixed them over the weekend. (He said that he wasn't that fussed about the payment, but as he'd put in so much work, I'm very pleased that I can actually give him something back!)

Spotting that my capsicum/pepper plant not only has flowers on it, but now has a pepper growing! (unfortunately, the position of the pepper and the flowers means that I can't actually take that good a photo, so you'll just have to imagine what it looks like...)

Getting the chance to have a free guided tour round the New Zealand Supreme Court. The neighbour of one of my colleagues works in the court, and, as part of her duties, has to lead the tour - it was her first go on Friday, so my colleague said that she'd bring along some friendly faces! The Court is a fascinating building - it is split in two, with a modern building at the front, which was only finished this year (Prince William got to do the official opening). The modern part is a glorious piece of architecture - copper twining decorations round the outside to represent New Zealand trees, a glass entranceway into the lobby, which has copper round the walls, and a glass window through into the courtroom (symbolising "transparent justice") - this window has some clever chemical in it, which, when a switch is flicked on the judge's bench, turns the window opaque, in order to protect witnesses if necessary. The courtroom is a miracle of acoustic engineering - it is shaped like a kauri cone, with overlapping diamond panels made from sustainable New Zealand silver beech. The engineering that they have done means that from anywhere in the courtroom, a speaker can be heard as clearly as if they were sat next to you. The whole building is just beautiful, and a demonstration that modern architecture needn't be ugly! We then went round the Old High Court building, a Victorian structure which, after being abandoned for over a decade, has now been restored, using traditional techniques where possible. We were taken down into the holding cells, where the tables and benches in each cell were covered in the graffiti of the accused. (I could have spent *hours* reading it all. My colleague found names of people that she'd been with at school...) The interior of the High Court is very Victorian, and obviously designed to impress and overawe anyone (prisoner, jury or press) who was visiting. (The Press bench was also covered in graffiti, but slightly less crude than that which was down below...) Overall, it was a brilliant tour, and I definitely recommend it to anyone visiting our area of the world!

Getting confirmation that I'd got onto the Seconds team for hockey. (though given that I am one of only two goalies who show up, I'd have been very upset if I hadn't!)

Having another brilliant Board session with the Sci-Fi group - one of the members is moving house soon, and she brought along a number of bottles of wine that they'd been given, and hadn't actually got round to drinking. One of them was two years older than me, so, of course, I had to try it! It was delicious - almost sherry-like in look and flavour, but not in strength. The other *mumble mumble* bottles of wine were also very good :-) (it is lovely not to be driving anywhere!)

Going round the Pompeii exhibition at Te Papa. I won tickets to visit here a while back, and as I was aware that the exhibition was finishing soon (and that the Easter holidays are coming up, so it was likely to get swamped by school children rather than just visiting coach parties), we decided to head down. The exhibition was excellent (though I am glad that I didn't have to pay for it, as I think the entry fee was quite steep!), with artefacts ranging from every day items (pots, pans, amphora) to coins and jewellery, frescos, and carbonised food. The information displays were also very well laid out, with timelines of both the Roman Empire, eruptions of Vesuvius (with a lovely map showing where the different lava flows had gone), and the final days of Pompeii (including, of course, excerpts from Pliny). There were translations of the various bits of graffiti on the walls, as well as interactive computer displays, and a 3D animated film of the explosion (though, apart from a couple of bits of flying pumice and a bird, there didn't seem to be any real point to it being 3D...). They also had a few of the body casts, separated off from the rest of the exhibition. Whilst I'd seen pictures of most of them before, I don't think that anything could have prepared me for seeing them in the flesh (so to speak). The reality of them was completely overpowering - I know that I now have to go to Pompeii and Herculaneum for real to see it all in situ.

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 :-)

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!

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!

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!

Challenges

Well, the job offer has come through the post, and the acceptance (along with a whole ream of paperwork) signed and sent back. The last hurdle, which I was only told about Thursday afternoon, is that the notice of appointment has to go up on their intranet for five working days in order for anyone internally to challenge if they felt that they were treated unfairly. However, I've not been told that that will be a possibility, so I'm not going to worry about it!

We have a few challenges to sustain us over the coming weeks:

1) Saving money
Whilst the first pay day comes at the right point to stop us running out of money in our NZ bank account, it is only going to be eight days' pay at the most, as I will be starting midway through a pay run. By the end of the next fortnight, we will be ever so slightly in the red... (by less than $100) I would still like to avoid transferring any money over, so we have a challenge to save ourselves that $100 over the next five weeks. It can be done, I'm not stressing about it, and it is going to be interesting to see what we can cut out of our lives without too much trouble!

2) Learning Maori
One of the clauses of the Treaty of Waitangi gives the Maori "exclusive and undisturbed possession of their Lands and Estates Forests Fisheries and other properties." The word on the Maori version for "properties" more properly is translated as "treasures" or "precious things", and this includes language. The upshot for us is that a number of places will offer beginners' Maori courses for free, and my home learning kit (with 20 20 minute lessons on CD and a workbook with nice pretty pictures) arrived in the post on Friday. It is designed to cover over 4 weeks - a lesson a day. I think the first two weeks will be easy, whilst I'm not working, but it will be interesting to see if I can keep it up once I'm at work.

3) Learning the accordion
As it made the sea-voyage without any problems, I am determined to have a good go at playing the accordion. I think the fact that I have a reasonable understanding of music (particularly keyboard) will help, but it is still going to be a challenge to get everything moving correctly (after about 20 minutes' playing, my arms start going numb!) Fortunately, once I start work, I am allowed to join the Wellington library; at the moment, we can join as outside members and pay a fee for every item borrowed, because we aren't living in the Wellington district area. However, having an employer with an address in the Wellington area gets round this rule, and the Wellington library has a number of "learn to play accordion" books.

This last weekend was a very Sci-fi orientated weekend - on Friday, we went into Wellington to meet up with a friend who was introduced to us (through Facebook) by a couple of sci-fi friends in the UK. It turns out that we have a lot in common as well as Sci-fi, and it was a very pleasant evening. I will definitely be looking forward to doing that again!

Then on Saturday, we had our next Board meeting of the Wellington Phoenix Sci-Fi group. As it was actually our side of the Bay, we decided that it wouldn't be too much trouble to walk over (thus saving us bus fare). The first fifty minutes or so were really pleasant, and included the discovery of a walk along the Hutt River, which I will do if the sun ever deigns to show its face again! The last thirty minutes were a bit more interesting - whilst it was only a short distance on the map (and we thought that we were going to be very early), it was almost all uphill! We definitely got our exercise for the day (particularly as we had already done an hour or so walk up and round the market and shops - fortunately, as it was throwing it down, our neighbour was also up at the shops and offered us a lift home), and so didn't feel too bad about snacking on chippies (crisps), chocolate and wine! A very good evening was had - lots of laughter and fun, and very generously were given a lift home as well.

Once again, I was able to reflect on how lucky we are to have the Sci-Fi community - I think that this has helped us to avoid some of the bigger issues that other people have found in emigrating; we have a social group that is instantly welcoming, and who I feel that I have known for years, rather than a matter of months.

Little happy dance!

Well, thank you everyone for your good luck wishes - they meant so much :-)

I had a bit of a rush in the morning - on top of it being an evilly early start (well, given that we are used to waking up at 7 and then dozing till 9, having to be out of the house at 7.45 was nasty!), the train then ended up running about five minutes late, and, as it was packed with commuters, it took me five minutes to get out of the station. Unfortunately, as I'd only left 15 minutes to get to the interview, I therefore only had 5 minutes, and it was exactly 5 minutes walk away! So I was a bit out of breath when I got in; fortunately, they weren't waiting for me, and I was able to sit and chat a bit with the receptionist to regain my composure (she lives up the line from us, so I was able to get a bit of information about the train services).

The interview itself went ok - nothing "zingy" - I was able to answer all of the questions, using examples from my previous job (which is the way they like doing things here). I liked the two interviewers, Kerry, who is doing both this role and the managerial one, and Dion, who is one of the key internal customers of the role - we were able to chat as well as be more formal. However, I didn't really walk away with the feeling that the job was in the bag. It also didn't help that I wasn't coming from a government background, and, early on in the interview, they said that Kerry's position was also being replaced, and the person that they'd got in came from a similar background to me; a private IT position, rather than within government. As the position includes providing advice and support around procurement policies and practice, I didn't think that they would want two people who didn't have that much internal knowledge of the policies!

As I left, I was told that they had a number of other people to see that day, and they would let me know on Monday (Kerry was going to South Island for a long weekend on Thursday morning).

So, I wasn't overly hopeful. I did perk up when I got to the station, and popped into the supermarket there to find that they are doing instant coffee at about half the price of our local supermarket. As we were down to our last cup, I picked up a packet of very good Espresso!

We were going out in the evening to our next Sci-fi meeting, so I made us a cooked lunch, rather waiting for an evening meal, and generally bimbled round the afternoon. (Scrabble on Facebook is a very good way of passing time, particularly if you are playing with someone in the same room as you...)

Then, just as we were thinking of having a little something for tea (we picked up a *very* nice coffee and walnut cake at the farmers' market this week), the phone rang.

It was Kerry, and as I wasn't anticipating being called before Monday, I presumed that it was bad news.

However...

They have decided to offer me the job! Apparently I gave them the confidence that I could do the job, and I also learnt the value of being friendly to everyone - they had asked the receptionist to do an informal opinion on the candidates - and she liked me, too!

It's not a formal job offer yet, as I have to do an online psychometric test and they have to talk to my references first, which won't happen until Kerry gets back from holiday. However, all being well, I will start work as a Contracts Adviser for a government ministry at the beginning of February. The pay is good, and will cover our outgoings with a little bit left over for fun stuff. And, even better, they get paid fortnightly, which means that I will get paid before the money runs out (well, until I'd have to organise the next transfer over from the UK). Just. (we will have less than $400 in the bank - we'd run out 4 days later!)

The Sci-fi meeting was therefore especially good - we were at a new pub for a "what I did on my holidays" chat, and I've found a *very* nice brand of cider!

And to make the week even better, our belongings have now arrived in New Zealand, and have been checked by MAF, with nothing needing to be cleaned. So all we have to do is wait for Customs to clear them, and then we will have all of our stuff to play with, too!

So huge smiles all round - it really takes away the stress. We still have to be careful financially until I get paid, but once that has happened, we can really relax and enjoy our new home!

Flowers

As it is lovely and sunny in the garden today (despite the forecast rain...), I thought I'd share some photos of the flowers in the garden :-)











Our Tui is now visiting us pretty much every day (though I suspect that it is the Christmas Tree flowers that he is after rather than the glory of our company ;-) ).

We had a great time last night at the Phoenix Sci-fi group - this meeting was "Board", the board game interest group - these were tactical board games, rather than just the throw the dice ones or D&D - we played a round of Carcasson, where you draw tiles to build up cities and farming regions, and then a couple of games of Trans America, a game involving connecting American cities by rail - both great fun as there is opportunity for working together or to try and sabotage someone else's game depending on how mean you are feeling! It was a great way of getting to know more members of the group - there were a number of people here who we hadn't met at the quiz night. And we were very lucky in that we were very generously offered a lift home - the number of people who put themselves out quite considerably in order to help us is just amazing.

End of the week...

It has been a reasonably quiet week this week (and note that it is Friday for us - for some reason, Blogger (or, to be honest, all of Google!) doesn't seem to be able to cope with the time differences, and even though I have told it that I am in New Zealand, it is still putting my posts up as GMT) - I am still waiting to hear from James (I dropped him a polite email this afternoon asking whether he thought I'd be starting before the New Year!) I have also started applying for jobs again - whilst I know that I am probably just being the victim of the slightly more laid back Kiwi mentality, a small paranoid part of my is whispering "what happens if it all falls through?"

We have, however, taken advantage of the week to go out and buy ourselves a sofa-bed - this was a very cheap second hand one from the Salvation Army, and, including delivery, was about a third of the price that we had spotted on the sofa bed that we had found in another charity shop window. And it is slightly larger... We've therefore also gone out and bought a set of put together shelves (the pile of books was starting to be too big for the heater) and a nice little corner table.

We have also found ourselves a Sci-Fi Group. They meet up in the centre of Wellington on a monthly basis, and we were very lucky in that this month and next are their social events (this week was a quiz, and next month it is a "what did you do on your summer holidays" get together down the pub). I am pleased to say that they are as insane as they come, so we will fit right in :-) Part of the event was a bring a plate supper, so I dug out a cookie recipe that didn't involve too much measuring (my scales are still on the high seas...) and mixed up a batch of biscuits. We ended up with far too many left over, so we have given a box to our elderly neighbour, and are still munching our way through them. (if you are interested in the recipe, then it is at http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/3773/chocolate-crinkle-cookies They are really easy to make, and incredibly more-ish!)

The only other news of the week is that there have apparently been two earthquakes that could actually be felt (anything under 4 on the Richter scale is not strong enough unless you are really sensitive). However, I didn't feel them at all (very disappointed), and John thinks he might have felt the slightly stronger one, but it might also just have been the sofa settling underneath him... Better luck next time!

Busy!

I hadn't realised that it had been *quite* that long since I last posted... I have been rushed off my feet, both at home and at work, and the closest I have come to blogging has been composing posts in my head on the walk to and from work (most of them have been rants against cyclists and people who fail to indicate, but as I have made my feelings on that clear in an earlier post, I won't repeat myself...
So - we are now in April. Easter has passed by, and BST has started... And what have I been up to? Aside from being completely manic at work (April 1st is the start of our new financial year (although due to creative accountancy and the need for our sales team to edge a bit closer to their targets, year end is physically the 7th...)), John and I have also been highly active in our leisure time.
As well as more organising for the Fforde Ffiesta (link one more time ;-) ), we have also been to London, spending Easter at Heathrow airport for the UK Sci-Fi convention, Orbital (also known as Eastercon). This was a completely amazing experience - highlights for me included meeting Neil Gaiman again, and managing to exchange more words with him (well, a few) than "Wow, you are brilliant," being Gopher-liaison for Mitch Benn, and thereby getting to sit in the front row for his most amazing set (crying with laughted for at least three quarters of the time), plus having Christopher Priest sit with us for breakfast (for me, the ultimate convention experience - to be able to sit and chat with someone whose work you admire, but to talk about nothing at all (the fact that it was snowing at Heathrow...)). Plus, getting to wander round, sit in some very silly, and some not so silly panels, and to do my best to completely exhaust myself by Gophering for a good chunk of the weekend (I got enough 'groats' (1 groat for 1 hour worked) to buy a £5 t-shirt, a jacket potato, at least one or two drinks, and still have some left over to buy a lovely cloak broach, so I did quite a bit!) - it is something that I really enjoy about going to major conventions, and really miss when I don't get the chance to do it. We discovered after Orbital that the New Zealand Sci-Fi convention is also held over Easter - plans are already afoot to see whether, once we are established over there, we can work out a live satellite link up. One of the best comments about the convention, which summed up why I love going to these so much, came from Neil Gaiman. "You are my tribe." The idea that I can go along to a venue, where over a thousand people are, end up separating from my husband and friend (voluntarily, not by accident), and still know that I am amongst friends, fully comfortable with everyone around me, is something that transcends the shared love of sci-fi/fantasy. It might be the common bond that brings us together, but it is not that which makes it work - again, as Neil Gaiman said - "If, overnight, everything to do with sci-fi; DVDs, films, videos, books, comics, the lot, completely vanished, never to reappear, there would still be conventions. We would have to hold them about knitting, but they would still happen."
Last weekend, we were back in London for the Terracotta Army exhibition at the British Museum. This was breathtaking, even though it was only a very small portion of the full army, and I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to see it before it heads back to China again next week. The detail on the warriors was outstanding; a kneeling archer had moulded nails in the bottom of his shoes. They had even mocked up a painted soldier to show what they would have looked like when they were new - really quite terrifying, in fact - a very lifelike army, row upon row, of men and horses, taller than those who created them, silent, guarding the body of the man who felt that he was Emperor of the Universe.
And then back to earth with a bump with a very busy week of work this week, and my final hockey match of the season on Saturday - we are heading for relegation in a big way, and it is going to be a good thing - I'm looking forward to matches where we aren't going to lose 9-0! But first, I have to brave the end of season piss up...