Friday 25 January 2008

It’s the final countdown

Almost. Was going to hand in my official resignation today, but my Acting Manager is away for the day. The change of ticket is finalised and paid for, departing these distant shores on 27 March, flying via Sydney and Taipei to Delhi on China Airlines. Haven’t paid for my insurance yet, as I’ve been doing the rounds of all the insurance companies to get the best value for money, as a result of which my travel agent said they’ll match the best offer I get. Nice one. Has been slight problematic in that I couldn’t get insurance for any country listed by the NZ Ministry of Foreign Affairs as being an “extreme risk”. That meant Pakistan and basically all in the border areas in Iran, but I’ve decided that discretion is indeed the better part of valour after consulting Pakistani friends of friends, and will hence give that country a very wide body swerve by detouring to Dubai and then on to Bandar Abbas in southern Iran if possible. Should then emerge into eastern Turkey near Van around the end of April in time to meet the missus somewhere else in that country on or around May 10.

tbc

Sunday 13 January 2008

Back again

Okay, okay, it's been a while, but I'm back from my mental health exile and ready to fire a few more shots from a moderately well-stocked anecdotal arsenal. And just in case you were wondering, it wasn't our dismal display in France last year that precipitated my sudden disappearance. In fact, I'm so over 'The Code' after that flaccid performance against the French in Cardiff that it's not likely to rate a mention at all anymore; at least not until the start of the Super 14 in a couple weeks time. I hope tvc has taken note of the fact that the parcel sent over for Laura doesn't contain even a hint of All Black merchandising - she can use Emma's hand-me-downs after all ;)


Haven't been totally inactive since October 2007, although as usual with the arrival of summer, my Vitamin D addiction has taken control, preventing me from spending more than one minute under cover whenever the sun's out. I've put my time outside to good use by constructing a glasshouse in the vegetable patch. See below. Erection wouldn't have been complete without a few lacerated fingers, of course, though I didn't count on the near-miss that resulted from tripping over while running across a busy road in spongey jandals carrying a large replacement pane of glass. I've had visions ever since of impaling myself on glass shards and dying in 30 seconds flat from eviscerated stomach organs while being cradled in the arms of Libor of all people (more on that at a later date...). Fuck, what a dick I must have looked. The glazier did a good business that day. Anyway, the glasshouse was completed in the end, and the tomatoes, capsicum and cucumbers are doing well. The rest of the garden is all a bit leafy at the moment from having prepared the vegetable patch with too much nitrogen at the expense of some counter-balancing phosphate. All you apartment-dwellers will understand that this comes from sowing too much mustard seed over the winter months and not enough lupin, eh?