Cerebral feasts, iPod madness, driving mr hazy

Christchurch - Friday - Arrived in the afternoon, having forked out $90 excess baggage. Proceeded to turn Ian and Bevs house into something resembling the aftermath of a force 10 Hurricane (not sure if force 10 is well large or not but you get the idea). Went and saw Mels mates Marcus, Nick, Nathan and Jamie (aka The Undercurrents) play at Creation gallery. This place used to be a porn theatre so theres a large screen behind the stage which was used to first show Death Race 2000, followed by Faust. Two bizarre films at the best of times but remove the sound and have bands play music at the same time and the plot is anyones guess. Well confused but a fantastic, multimedia, cerebral feast!!!

Since Friday have been catching up with friends and family (a couple of very cute babies).

Have bought a laptop to take with us. With Mels Dad being an apple-a-maniac we got a good deal on an iBook (I am in fact typing this very message on it - doesn't help the quality of my prattle though). Had a minor heart mumur when we accidentally wiped our iPod of its contents (which apparently everyone does at least once due to apples wonderful software - I really wanted to type that in the most sarcastic font I could find but how exactly does a font look sarcastic?). Chris is, thank the gods, coming to our rescue and sending the songs on DVD to us so we can reload them. (ps Chris if we can find a Magnum of blonde Mac - its yours!!)

Have my driving test first thing Friday morning. We have hired a little Mazda Demio to run around in while we're here and for me to practice and do the test in. Need to have a couple of dry runs around the streets but I am beginning to love Christchurch's wide flat streets. Fingers crossed!!!

Lessons you learn from locums

Wull its been a while since the first post, largely due to my forgetting my password duh!. We moved out of our flat last weekend (without too many arguments) - what a full on and stressful week that was. Perhaps I should have taken time off work but I so did not want to lose any hol pay. All settled into Phil's mum's house and being spoilt (washing done etc.). Unfortunately I have caught Phil's lurgy that led to his brain being absent from his body for much of our moving week - not the best situation when he was in charge of much of the organising of the relocations people etc. Phil - now that I have an understanding of how much this cold makes my head feel stuffed of cotton wool - please forgive me : - ). I feel like crap - and I could only take one day off work last week on Wednesday. As I was going to the doctor for my pre-travel medical on Thursday, I thought I better go to work. As it turned out, Thursday was a good day - I really felt like shit on Friday when we had to organise our going away party from work - yay!. And on top of that I had the locum from hell conduct my medical. Note to self - it is not a good sign when the doctor asks you what you want done for your medical. I think I'll go back for a second opinion some time in the next week.

One more week of work, two weeks in Welly, three in NZ, Four (approx) to London - beginning to get excited....! Sat down with friends and wrote some places to go and see when we get their today which did much to make me feel more excited despite the large amounts of mucus attempting to exit my body via my nose. Arghhhh....

Much to do over the coming weeks.... farewell for now

P.S For those who care - Sammy has settled well into her role as Cafe Cat to the stars of the Waikato. Last seen sunbathing with a smile on her face, Sammy has taken over title as 'queen of the household' and has put Molly (co-cat) firmly in her place. Must have been something to do with the excellent sedatives that I was able to administer her to prevent undue travel trauma. There was some revenge had in the form of a small pile of poo in the corner of the guest room but as I said, when I left the next day, there was not a whisper of discontent... all the best my beautiful feline furball