my heart rate is now back below 180bpm February 20, 2006  

Bad process definition moment: realising that you've absentmindedly abbreviated the 'Asset Manager' role within a flow diagram to 'Ass. Man.'

Rode in to work today. It was good fun. Rode home. Was less fun. The Ngauranga Gorge is remarkably unfun both ways. Half of the problem was probably due to the fact that I've not really been on a bike for four months, and I didn't have much in the way of hill legs to start with. It's actually a very straightforward run - the bulk of the ride is along a long, fairly straight road (following the old coastline), with a nicely-sized cyclepath. It's just that it either starts or finishes (depending on your point of view) with a change in altitude of around 150m. The ride in took 20 minutes, and the ride home took somewhere around 35. That's allowing for the time I had to stop and stand by the bike halfway up the bloody hill. I need a lower bottom gear.

Got the wormery set up on Saturday. I now own a good swathe of wriggly workers, merrily spending their time chomping away on our organic waste and getting jiggy with each other to produce yet more workers etc. It's good. We're trying not to overload them at the start, so I may need to set up a separate conventional compost bin, but I've got high hopes. We plumped for the "Worm Around" bin, made in NZ and approved by the Palmerston North city council (who, amusingly, refer to it as a 'vermin composting' rather than 'vermicomposting').

two days until worms February 16, 2006  

As an adult, there's a certain pressure not to admit the truth about some things. For instance, MP3 players. The contemporary MP3 player is designed to be unfashionable in one year, outdated in two, and totally obsolete in four - if it doesn't break, get stolen or lost in the meantime. Digital cameras, ditto. Gadgetry and faddery in general - from portable GPS receivers to DVD recorders to this year's cameraphone - is sold mainly for one reason. And that one reason is one that most of us won't admit. "But I need a GPS unit," we protest, "so I don't have to look at maps when I'm in the car." We frantically justify spending money on these dinky little things, most of which will be outdated, broken, or just not really used much in fairly short order.

With kids, it's much simpler. They know what these things are: toys. And they want toys. So they can play with them. It's very honest. So it's great fun going into a toy shop to buy something for a kid. Normally, while spending discretionary income, there's a certain amount of justification. "I'm buying this new phone so I can send picture messages, which is bound to be an extremely useful piece of functionality. For instance, if I wasn't sure which specific type of tampons I need to buy my wife at the supermarket, I can send her a photo of the options and she can text me back saying 'THE PNK 1 W WINGS'". Ultimately, we're buying the stuff because it's shiny and we reckon it'll be a laugh playing with it (plus, it's a status symbol), but if you query someone why they spent $800 on a phone when they've got a perfectly good one already you can usually expect the excuse to be couched in terms of added functionality. But with kids, you're buying something shiny that they want to play with. There's no other criteria to be met. Does this thing look cool? Then buy it! It's a good toy! You walk into a toyshop and that's precisely the level the marketing is pitched at. This - the signs say - is cool. And that's it. There's no need to justify it any further. Oh, the educational toys will have some pseudoscience on the labels to salve the parents' conscience, but the actual pitch to the kids is simply: this is cool, get someone to buy it for you. Why would I want to buy a Postman Pat doll? Because it's cool. And there's nothing else.

It's very refreshing.

That said, if anyone wants to buy me an MP3 player, please feel free: security policies at my current workplace prevent me from listening to CDs via my PC, so an iPod would actually come in extremely handy.

See? A functional justification.

everything everything February 15, 2006  

The house is an absolute tip. We're eating meals off our knees. Furniture in varying states of completeness or decrepitude is scattered throughout. Half our stuff is unpacked. The rest is stacked in big boxes in the garage. We've moved in.

Unpacking all our worldly possessions turns out to be a surprisingly huge job. It's complicated by the fact that we don't have quite enough storage - for instance, we only have one bookshelf, which may prove unequal to the task of storing twenty boxes of books. We've been unpacking in stages, concentrating on individual rooms as needs required and storage arrived. First out of the boxes was the kitchenware; since it's a fitted kitchen (does anyone really use non-fitted kitchens?) we could get everything unpacked straight away. There were a few worried moments when we were concerned that the occasional small component (notably the pestle from our mortal & pestle set) might be lost in the blizzard of packing paper on the floor, but it all seems to have turned up.

Second was Rebecca's bedroom - since her clothes storage was pretty straightforward and the main consideration was where to put her toys. Since she's sleeping in her bed, we set up her old cot and proceeded to fill it to a depth of 40cm with various toys. The advantage to that is that the high cot sides means that she can't just grab them and strew them everywhere (though they don't stop her trying).

Then we got to our bedroom. We had several of those "how many bloody clothes do we own?" moments, followed by emergency decluttering measures. After which we've just managed to shoehorn everything we own into the room, and (for a bonus) even managed to end up with a pleasingly minimalist look. All we need now is somewhere to hang our bathrobes and then we're groovy.

The living room is still a bit of a tip, the spare bedroom desperately needs a boot up the jacksie, and the garage is a mass of cardboard. Still, early days, early days. We've only been living there for less than a week: this time next week, the place should be in good shape. Of course, we were given a rather drastic helping hand by our friends Michael, Hayley, Livia, and Maire, who all came around on Sunday to help unpack. Unpacking turned out to involve such activities as assembling shelves and mounting bathroom mirrors, which was much appreciated all around.

Still haven't had time to get the bikes operational. I've unwrapped my mountain bike, which needs a bit of fettling before I'll be comfortable taking it down the Ngauranga Gorge (or, indeed, back up it). I've located all the relevant bits of kit - it's just a matter of finding the time to fiddle with stuff.

[This bit originally written prior to our getting home net access, and thus not posted until now]

What's the first thing you do after buying a house? Go on a five-day holiday, of course! Yup, the day after we officially took possession of the house, we hopped in the car and hooned it up to Papamoa (small beach town just east of Mount Maunganui), via an overnight in Taihape, to attend the wedding of my old schoolfriend Cat. No, not that Cat; Catherine Allen. As of Sunday arvo, of course, now Catherine Bish. Talk about from the A to the B, etc. We left early on the Friday (I took the afternoon off) and drove up to Taihape for Friday night. Today's clue: there's not much on in Taihape, even on a Friday night. A feed of fish & chips and some boy racer action up and down the main drag (all 500m of it) seemed to be the size of it. We forewent the latter but partook of the former. On the Saturday, we put our heads down and made hard time from Taihape to Papamoa, pausing for a cuppa and a go on the playground at Taupo (good miniature train, nice climbing frames). We got to Papamoa nicely in time to head to the pre-gig barbie at the venue - a lovely wee house right on the seafront. Food was consumed, swims were swum, people were met, and a good time was had by all. Rebecca enjoyed herself but got a bit overtired, so we called it an evening around 6:30pm and headed off. On the Sunday, we took the chance to start the day off with a swim, then headed off to the wedding. It was a beautiful, cloudless day, with the sun beating down. In fact, the sun spent most of the ceremony walking that fine line between the beautiful sunshine that you remember from your childhood and the sort of merciless glare that you see causing members of the French Foreign Legion to die of thirst in the desert. The toddlers and grannies took it the worst: a lot of wilting occurred. In consequence, Heather spent most of the ceremony inside with Rebecca.

But you couldn't have asked for a better day or location for the nuptials. We were sat on a verdant green lawn, facing out over a brilliant blue sea, with a cloudless sky and two very happy people in front of us (plus assorted hangers on trying not to drop the rings, sink too deep into the lawn in their high heels, etc.). The happy couple were clearly so, and at the end of the ceremony a giant monarch butterfly flew over the proceedings - a good sign, I think.

Rebecca enjoyed herself immensely. She spent a lot of time during the reception running around the various tables, playing tag with some of the other children. We'd told her that we were going to see the pretty lady in her white dress, and Rebecca spent much time demanding "Pretty lady now!". After about ten minutes, Rebecca worked out that she could just go up to the top table herself and make faces at them. Or show them her tummy, which she was very keen on. Or play peekaboo with the Head Bridesmaid (my other old schoolfriend Holly) behind someone's chair. She was also chuffed that the reception was on a boat, which was right by the East Coast Main Trunk railway line, and that there was an airshow underway during the reception. Add in lots of pretty dresses and bouquets of flowers and the only thing preventing it from being Rebecca Heaven was the lack of horsies.

We headed back on Monday via Rotovegas. Rainbow Springs probably rates as the biggest tourist rip-off I've been to for a long, long time; we waited fifteen minutes for a single, very slow counter person to grotesquely overcharge us to see a ho-hum collection of animals. OK, so bonus points for having Tuatara and a very good gecko display, but overall it wasn't anything special and it certainly didn't justify the exorbitant pricing. One firmly aimed at the tourbus contingent. Then it was a happy overnight at Tokaanu (hot pools, ho!) and the remaining drive back to Wellie. Heather did most of the driving, as I'd come down with a mystery ailment and felt like a gumdrop being chewed by a hyperactive cow.

Had an interesting moment with an English bloke at the pre-wedding barbie. He said that as part of the trip, they were off down to "T warta -a-pear" to go hiking. It took me about ten seconds to realise that he meant Tuatapere, the small town in Southland that my paternal grandparents lived in for fifty years. It's one of the better mispronunciations I've heard for a while: the correct pronunciation is more like "Too-uh-tap-ri" (or at least that's how the locals pronounce it - it's still not entirely correct Maori).

thank god that's over February 02, 2006  

It was probably a very bad idea to boast about how much better the New Zealand property purchase system was than the UK. I think that was what guaranteed it. The house purchase took considerably longer than anticipated, and was characterised throughout by "that'll be done soon". The vendor was a very nice bloke, who was just that little bit relaxed about things. Consequently everything took rather longer than anticipated, and occasionally turned out not to be quite as done as we may have been lead to believe.

The last couple of days have been characterised by such hilarious incidents as the vendor's solicitor denying all knowledge of our 5% deposit (paid just before Christmas), our 'final inspection' yesterday turning out to not be quite as final as we'd thought, the final inspection today consisting of taking an entire lunch hour to get onsite to do a two minute inspection... it's all been a bit of a hard one.

In any case, we now have a new house. We have somewhere to unpack all our stuff. We have somewhere to install a worm farm. We have somewhere to let Rebecca run around. We have somewhere to hang our bikes. Life is good.

Reasons Newlands is a good place to live:

• There's a good toy library.
• The local shops include a video store only renting Indian videos, a good sized Asian foods supermarket, and a wholefood bakery.
• The local pub has one of the anchors from the Wahine outside (the other one is part of the memorial at Seatoun).

The list just keeps on getting longer, doesn't it?

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