This weekend I’ve been putting in more hard yards but this time on the high street in the city of sales. Ophs, I mean the City of Sails. Yes, I decided to set aside my prejudice of Auckland and try some rest and relaxation in the company of Naomi. A girlie weekend unencumbered by him indoors (who incidently spent the weekend watching televised sport or reading his new Wisden).
First the views.

I have to admit that this trip did redeem Auckland generally and NZ from a retail perspective as I pounded the streets of Ponsenby, Parnell and Newmarket with a fleeting look at Queen’s Street which provide more shops for girls than you can really do justice too in a two day break.

At last I’ve got into a really interesting project that has consumed my time at work this week. It beats the usual round of pointless meetings and corporate strife to work as part of project team on a worthy cause. Attention this week has been on a campaign to address NZ’s darkest secret – family violence.

It’s brought me back on contact with the suits, creatives and assorted hangers on within advertising agencies and most importantly exposed me to the full range of options for morning and afternoon tea that kiwi hospitality can offer. In short it’s been fun!

OK so it might be in a wierd and twisted sort of way but professionally speaking you can’t beat it within NZ to part of the latest “social marketing campaign”. The closest thing to this that has happened in the UK is the NSPCC Full Stop campaign.

As always with things kiwi we’ve been battling with the middle ground and trying to come up with a solution that will be agreed by over 25 assorted organisations working to prevent family violence. Can’t have any tall poppies in kiwi land showing their colours and towering over others . So, I suspect we’ll end up with a compromise campaign than will have limited impact on the bottom line of stats which are grim reading (9 domestic deaths over the holiday period, 3 more than happened last year).

Whilst I’ve been closested with the great and good of the communications world this week, MT has kept his usual view that any muppet can do marketing and after a cursery look at the prized proposals he has voted for the best campaign. Good to have him supporting my work so closely.

Whilst this professional euphoria has been nice whilst it’s lasted I am back to base next week and the usual round of high jinks. Still, it’s only 35 weeks to go till I can work on fun things every day – and wouldn’t that be better and sitting around being miss piggie in the muppets.

The view towards the Wairarapa over the Rimutakas (27 degrees)

Know where I’d rather be!

As another week passes I can’t help reflect on where the week has gone. Maybe it’s age but time just seems to flash past at a rate of knots.

At least I’ve had the amusement of watching those people who have just returned to work coping with the brain fog that decends causing your memory to fail and your energy drain away. Mine lasted at least three days when I first returned but now I’m needing to turn up the dial as all those things that were kicked into the long grass before the break have crawled back out for attention.

To keep spirits high mid week – and celebrate the arrival of a new manager – we had morning tea, so cake baking was required (thanks Sarah for the Mary Berry Lemon Cake Recipe which was a real hit). I could really get into this baking lark – a few whizzes in the food processor and hey presto instant gratification for those with a sugar deprivation.

Talking of sugar deprivations, we’re on a new eating and drinking regime which means no alcohol Monday to Thursday and more vegetables than you can shake a stick at. I’m also trying the 1 litre of water a day (I know it should be 2 but there is only so much time you can spend going to the bathroom!). Results are good so far but need to keep up the good work and avoid morning teas for a while.

It’s a long weekend this weekend which is a wonderful reprieve – Monday is Wellington Day (mor on that in Monday’s blog) so hopefully we’ll be able to enjoy the Wellington summer for another day. Now that would be a rare treat!

Increasing numbers of people are returning to work but someone there are parts of NZ that are still on snooze mode.

For example, last week our train line to Wellington from Khandallah was still running on a special summer timetable leaving me bemused when the train didn’t turn up when I thought. Newspapers are still as thin as ever (although the price hasn’t changed) and there is no morning report (NZ’s answer to the Today programme) and we’re stuck with smooching summer tunes from the beach boys to listen to in the morning and ever increasingly exciting episodes (not) of Harry Wakatipu to listen to. [For those just not in the know, Harry Wakatipu is a greedy old packhorse that accompanies a 12-year old Urewera hunter with a moustache on his travels across the backcountry]

Rumour has it that NZ will remain in slumber land until at least Waitangi Day (6th February) and then everything will grind back into action and much will return to normal.

From a personal perspective it feels like things are already starting to ramp up – my once quiet moments in the office and escapes to catch a few rays of sun are drying up rapidly. Also, pressures to get things moving on the house are plenty and keeping on top of the paperwork, lawyers and builders is almost a full time job in itself.

Hard to believe where time goes and we’re already through January – luckily for many New Zealanders they are still at the bach (beach house), camping or tramping without a care in the world. I’ve made this mistake this year but think I’ll turn native next and take off January to follow the crowds to be part of snoozy NZ.

Over the years I’ve learned that restarting work after a holiday on a Monday is definitely a bad idea. The thought of a full working week stretching a head when you can barely remember the name of the person who shares your desk pod is not a good space to be in.

This week MT and I returned to work on a Wednesday and of course the three days passed in a flash. Sadly it was only about 2pm on Friday when my mind actually ground into action and I was able to do something constructive. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like for people who’ve been off work for much longer.

Hard to believe that we’re almost half way through January and my countdown continues at a rate of knots. Worth flagging now that we’ve been in “dialogue” with the builders and architects for our house project and it may be that this kiddie needs to extend her deadline for work a few weeks if we’re to get carpets, curtains and appliances in the new house!

Boy, you can read all the books and watch Grand Designs as many times as you like but it still doesn’t really prepare you for the detail that you need to keep a handle on and most importantly the design aspirations of your architect. Beautiful all the fiddly bits might be but they can rack up the costs at an astounding rate that we are just not prepared to afford.

So this weekend its about reviewing the specification again and shopping for tiles, bathrooms and appliances so we can nail down the detail and fine tune the costings more. Although this is scary when you look at the $s in the spreadsheet there is a sense that we are actually getting closer to the achievement of our kiwi dream.

In the meantime, the real world starts again on Monday and I really must try harder to be productive this coming week and practise the names of my staff!

This evening is an auspicious occasion that needs loud celebration. The sun is out, it’s 24 degrees in Khandallah and MT and I have come home to sit on our decking for the first time ever. Yes, summer may have arrived.

It’s been lousy for the last couple of days which has only made the return to work much more miserable. Then, quite by surprise there was a rush to my side of the office with the crowds wanting to rubberneck at the rays of sunshine outside the window. This precipitated a stampede of people to take long morning tea breaks on the park lawns in front of our building. These then stretched into long lunches and to cap it all, I stretched to a long afternoon tea.

You may think that this is strange behaviour but when you consider that for most wellingtonians this is the first sign of summer since summer began it’s understandable that people want to grab the rays whilst they can. The office started to decant at about 4pm with furtive calls on mobiles making arrangements for evening BBQs and beach parties.

It’s amazing how different the world looks when the sun is shining. Who knows what will happen tomorrow so best make the most of it whilst we can!

It’s that time in a holiday when you start to think that you should really set the alarm in the morning to start to retrain the body into the way of the world of work. Only kidding!

I’m still making the most of the time at home away from the realities of work but today has been very much about taking stock of where we are with house stuff. As they say…things are all heading in the right direction.

The current status is that the inspection by the council of the land as part of our resource consent has concluded that the application should be approved when we have title. This is indeed good news as it could have been a real stumbling block to be moving earth around and wanting to build a slightly larger than normally permitted cottage on the plot.

There is a pile of drawings ready for submission now for building consent. Only thing awaiting is the engineers report on how many piles we need to drive into the earth to hold up bits of the house. Subject to final drawings and calculations we expect all the paperwork to be with the council imminently and these should be approved when we have title.

Now what is this title you might ask? It’s the bit of paper we need from the land registry to say that the land is now a separate plot and recognises our ownership. According to the lawyer there is one more signature required by the electricity people to confirm the power to the land and then it can be submitted for the title to be issued.

Although things are heading in the right direction it feels like a ticking bomb as we wait for the housing industry and the administration of New Zealand government departments to do their stuff. I know that the next month will be as frustrating as we wait for all the bits of paper to fall in to place but fingers crossed and a fair northerly wind 2007 might actually be the year that we get our 6 acres and a house with a walton’s porch and two turrets!

Being back home from the Wairarapa has been quite a shock. The sun just doesn’t shine as hard on this side of the Rimutakas so back in windy Wellington it would have been easy to hunker down and not make the most of our remaining holiday. Fear not, we’re still making the most of our “summer” break and set off today to see some sights in Wellington.

The Botanical gardens with some of the finest examples of municipal planting in the capital amongst the 25 hectares of unique landscape, protected native forest, conifers, specialised plant collections, colourful floral displays, and views over Wellington city (complete with the cable car to save your legs up the hill!). It is classified as a Garden of National Significance by the Royal New Zealand Institute of Horticulture and is an Historic Places Trust Heritage Area.

Also, we ventured to the birth place of Katherine Mansfield, a tragic heroine of New Zealand literature which was just a few yards from our first apartment block on Tinakori Road. http://www.katherinemansfield.com/

The sun did shine when we ventured out so being tourists in our own home town didn’t feel so bad!