Funny

Here is a little vid of when a few of my  mates (some english, some irish, and one welsh-ish) went over to Martinborough to celebrate my tirtyith birthday. The perfect birthday. Lunch in a winery, few more bottles of the good stuff during the day and then a concert by a Ukelele Orchestra. What more could an old man want?

If you are going to watch this turn the volume up, grab a glass of wine and enjoy.

So I am beginning to think that I am taking too much for granted! Since I last blogged we have been to another All Blacks game, attended a barbecue for ex pats in New Zealand and competed in the Karori Golf Club Championships (Knocked out in the first round – I just can’t get a break, the golfing gods seem to have it in for me!). However, none of the above compelled me enough to write a blog entry. This of course proves what I have known all along that I am lazy, but also that I am becoming blasé about some of the things which 6 months ago I would have gotten all excited about. This is just a note to myself that I am going to nip this in the bud and once again become completely giddy at the prospect of doing new and exciting things whilst here in New Zealand.

My main news is that I have begun participating in a weekly 5km race around the harbour. I have been running for 5 weeks and have set 4 personal bests, bang! Running for fun has never been my idea of well….fun! However I am enjoying this while it lasts, and you have an incentive of a free beer once you have completed the course which keeps you going. The run is organised by ‘The Welllington Scottish Athletics Club’ and the weekly results are posted on their website here http://www.scottishathletics.org.nz .This week’s results are here http://www.scottishathletics.org.nz/Brooks5k13Oct2009.html . As you can see I am by no means keeping up with the competitive runners, but I am not last either! The second week I showed up one of the other male competitors came up to me and said that he didn’t care what time he got as long as he beat me. Sounds like a challenge, doesn’t it! I haven’t beaten him yet but wait…just wait until I do. Wellington, with its winds isn’t ideal for running as you can imagine. Yesterday, it was particularly bad and at points it felt like you were treading water, so to notch another PB felt good and reward for my training last week which saw me notch up 22km. Still on track for 2012.

In other news, we are just about seeing off the end of winter and looking forward to the start of summer. However, last week it felt like it just wouldn’t stop raining and it is still raining as I am typing this blog entry. This is a pain as Rick Astley and I have recently purchased a couple of fishing rods and we are keen to enter a new ‘Hunter Gatherer’ period of our time here in New Zealand. I think Rick is hoping to move away from the comparisons with Rick Astley and become more like another famous ginger haired celebrity, Ray Mears. Speaking of ginger haired related stories, every morning I get the same bus into work. A couple of stops after I get on the bus a mother gets on with her 3 sons, all of varying ages and heights, nothing unusual there except for the fact that they all have ginger hair. Every day I find myself thinking ‘Well at least she hasn’t stopped trying to have a normal haired child!’ You have to admire that don’t you?

Moving on. Another highlight of my bus journey into work is when the bus passes the Wellington night shelter. Now, I understand that this is a refuge for people less fortunate than myself and I am by no means poking fun at them, I am merely painting a picture of the character of this city. You should understand however that unfortunately I still have the sense of humour of an immature 12 year old and still quite often make myself laugh by asking Shona to ‘pull my finger’, so I can’t help but find this stuff humorous. For instance, as the bus was passing last week a pot bellied chap was stood out the front of the shelter (located on a busy main thoroughfare) the with his legs shoulder width apart in just a shell suit top and a tight pair of Y-fronts saluting the rush hour traffic as it passed by him. On a separate occasion I saw a man stood outside the shelter wearing a pair of jeans, with a pair of pink novelty boxer shorts pulled over the top, he was obviously having an argument with his imaginary friend. His arms were flailing around wildly, and in my mind the argument went something like this (minus any swear words).

Man: ‘I am Super Man’.

Imaginary Friend: ‘I do protest! For I am Super Man’

Man: ‘Look! Now just look here! I am clearly Super Man, I have gone to the trouble to put my novelty underwear on the outside of my trousers, therefore man equals super vis a’ vie Super Man’

Methamphetamine has a lot to answer for!

Another character who always boards the bus at the night shelter stop is a rather large, threatening looking lady who has very few teeth remaining (a common sign of meth abuse). The kind of person who, if they board the bus and you have a spare seat next to you, makes you inevitably shift uncomfortably, hoping they won’t sit next to you as they are clearly intimidating. However, this lady has the honour of twice in one week lifting my spirits and reinforcing my own whole hearted faith in human kindness (What’s that Paul? You are just like an onion aren’t you….so many layers? Well let me tell you the story first, but of course you are damn right!). Anyway, the first time I remember noticing her on the bus was when she got on the bus and found a seat opposite a man with his very young son. She was holding a lunch for the day provided by the shelter which included a small bunch of grapes. The young boy who was clearly not as intimidated by the lady as everyone else on the bus, began pointing his finger at the bunch of grapes and with his finger aloft repeatedly said ‘Gwapes, gwapes, gwapes, gwapes’. You could sense the tension amongst the fellow commuters as they imagined what type of scene was about to be played out in front of them. ‘Was this lady going to snap and lift this child up and eat him, as she looked like the kind of woman who had used this punishment on other children who had dared to speak to her in the past? Or if not that drastic was she going to unleash a tirade of profanities at the poor defenceless child, as this is what is expected from such a menacing looking woman, isn’t it?’ There was an audible sigh of relief however when a toothless grin appeared on the woman’s face and she put her hand into her bag of grapes and said, ‘I’ll just take off a few for myself and then you can have the rest’ and she passed the grapes to the young boy.

I can’t remember the second incident but I do know it finished with another toothless grin. She still gets on the bus, and most days will have a very enjoyable, jovial conversation with herself. Although it isn’t with herself because I know I am listening.

Once again I apologise for the lack of activity on the Blog. October and November promise to be busy blogging months as we have trips to Martinborough, Christchurch and Rangitikei (White water rafting) planned. I am especially looking forward to the Martinborough trip as it is for a wine festival, see here .

Shona is fine by the way and just about to finish her busy season at work. It’s like my homie Jay-Z keeps telling me ‘I got 99 problems, but the ***** ain’t one’. True.

To finish I thought I would let you know that I have discovered that I have a new super power. Last Saturday I correctly predicted that we would be experiencing an earthquake in Wellington a full 5 seconds before a 4.8 magnitude quake hit the capital. This completely freaked out the friends we were with (Rick has come up with the name Vibrator Man!). However, I do now have to come up with a super hero costume for my new found powers. I am thinking of wearing novelty pink boxer shorts over the top of some jeans. I hear it is popular amongst other Wellingtonian super heroes.

Here is an article featuring Shona at the Wellington Board Game society (the Paul mentioned in the article was me) . You can see the back of Shona’s head in the picture http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/blogs/the-girls-guide/2774475/Welly-round-up-and-CF5 .If you don’t follow the link at the bottom here is the video, very funny.

As recommended by my English Welsh poker chum. The trailer for the best film ever.

So it has been a while since I have updated this site. There are two reasons for this. The first is I have been busy at work and getting back into the mundane structure of working life, and the second is that I am just lazy. I will try and get you up to speed with what has been happening in Windy Wellington.

A lampost and some sea

Last night was the semi-final of the super 14. For those that don’t know, the Super 14 is the southern hemisphere version of the Heineken Cup involving 14 rugby union franchises from Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. The local franchise are known as The Hurricanes (get it, Windy Wellington….Hurricanes – it is all straight forward when you think about it). Anyway the Hurricanes made it to the semi finals and were pitted against another Kiwi team, ‘The Chiefs’. My chosen venue for watching the game was a pub called the Back Benchers which is located in front of Parliament, from which once a week the local Parliament Channel TV station broadcast a political chat show. It also happens to be two doors down from where Shona works, which makes it her ideal Friday night drinking pub.

The game was very tight, with two closely matched teams not giving an inch to each other. The Hurricanes had the slight edge in the opening exchanges and scored the first try to take an early lead. Then came the turning point; Jeremy Thrush, the Hurricanes man mountain of a lock, got injured and had to temporarily leave the pitch. Almost seconds later the Hurricanes had a player sin binned and the Chiefs took advantage of their numerical advantage and scored a try to bring the game level before half time. The drama was fantastic; it wasn’t long before the camera went to touchline to show Thrush, itching to get back on the pitch. I will remember the game because of the company I was with. Myself and a Welsh guy, who has just moved over here, were both supporting The Hurricanes and had been joined at our table by a retired engineer and his wife, who were visiting Wellington from The Coromandel and both of whom were supporting the Chiefs. As it turns out they were the now the King and Queen of the Watch Strap industry in New Zealand. He had a cracking sense of humour and the banter was flowing for most of the game. The Chiefs won the game 14 – 10. Now if you are thinking I may have written that whole paragraph just to get the joke in about thrush, you would be 100% correct.

In other news, we received our second set of visitors from England. Jo Chapman, who went to school with Shona, came to stay with us for a couple of nights on her tour of the southern hemisphere. Craig, her travelling companion, also joined us. For their first night with us we decided to go to an Indian restaurant on Cuba Street. Our waiter turned out to be a great character. Here is how our first conversation went……

Waiter: Alright English. You ready to order?

Paul: Yes Thanks….

Waiter: So you are English….What vindaloo do you want?

Paul: (Racist) Don’t want a Vindaloo actually!

Waiter: Alright, which Balti do you want?

Paul: (Racist) I don’t want a Balti actually!!!!

Waiter: Alright, which Rogan Josh do you want?

Paul: Well actually, I do want a Rogan Josh, Lamb Please.

Waiter: How hot, mild, medium, Hot, Kiwi Hot or English Hot.

Paul: English Hot please!

Waiter: You don’t want English hot sir, you want kiwi hot!

Waiter looks at Shona.

Waiter: And what would you like?

Shona: Do you do Korai Chicken..(not on menu)

Waiter: How Hot do you want that? Hot like me hot or hot like you hot?

Paul: (is he taking the preverbial?)

Waiter: Drinks? What lager would you like sir?

Paul: (Racist!)

Waiter: A Large one Sir?

Paul: (Fatist!) Yes.

The large one as it turned out, was 2 cans of Kingfisher instead of just the one.

Anyway, on to the next night….. we had a lovely time. The Vino did flow but unfortunately the Wellington weather didn’t behave itself and they didn’t get to see the Harbour and the rest of this city at its best. However I did manage to drag them to my favourite Irish bar to hear a singer whom it appears I am the only one who appreciates his talents. There is no accounting for taste is there? All together now…. “In Dublin’s fair city, where the girls are so pretty”…… Their final night ended in a Chinese Restaurant I have had my eye on for some time, it has always looked busy from the outside but we must have caught it on an off night because there were only three other tables booked in the restaurant. I asked the waiter if the chef did prawn crackers because they weren’t on the menu. He looked at me and without missing a beat, said “not when it is this busy mate”…….. So never then.

Over the last month New Zealand has hosted its own comedy festival. We have been to see a couple of shows. First we went to see Steve Coogan, which was sadly a bit of a poor show. We both came out thinking that it was a bit tired and that we have heard all of these jokes before. However, our second trip out was to see Ed Byrne at the Opera House. The Venue was great and a bit unexpectedly the show was very well put together, something that we both enjoyed very much. We had tickets to see Mark Watson, but unfortunately it was cancelled. This was the gig we had been looking forward to the most.

Empire Cinema

However, what I really wanted to tell you about is my new favourite place in Wellington. It is probably well known to anyone who lives here or has in the past, but I had to tell you because it is a real gem of a place. The Empire Cinema, located in Island Bay. Obviously this is a Cinema but one which is completely different to any I have been to before. There are only a couple of screens and each one holds between 50 and 70 people. The best part is that if Shona and I go together we get our own comfy sofa. You can buy beer and wine and take it in with you and feel like you are in your own front room watching a film on the biggest flat screen you could hope to buy. I love it…

We are now very much in winter and we have been battered with 140 kmh winds for the past 2 days. The new picture on the site was taken yesterday during one of the storms. The local ferry operator which operates between the two islands suspended all ferries yesterday because of a 40m swell in the Cook Strait. It was very spectacular to watch.

Next week we are off to the South Island for a four day trip. I can’t wait, apart from the fact we are travelling over in a 20 seater plane – I hope the wind dies down a bit beforehand!!!

Paul.

Winter is not so bad is it? View from our house last weekend?

Last week saw our first earthquake experience, a rather pathetic 4.1 on the richter scale. Wasn’t so sure if it was an earth quake or someone rather large jumping up and down on the floor above me, but another New Zealand experience to get a tick. (4.1 is more than enough for me by the way).

Autumn in Wellington is bizarre, the weather can’t make its mind up. This morning when I left for work I fished the big winter coat out of the wardrobe as it was baltic. It started to rain about 10am, by lunch time I went for a walk and the sun was shining I had to take the coat and jumper off. Apparently it all depends on which way the wind is blowing. A southerly, brings the cold weather from the south pole (obviously) and will make it cold here, but if you get a northerly it is short sleeves and sunnies.

I like this quote from the sideline slogger’s blog regarding the IPL, my sentiments exactly.

Twenty-four tablets of No-Doz cost about $8 at the chemist – I will need to invest as it gets to crunch time in the Indian Premier League because at present I haven’t managed to stay awake for an entire match.

Clearly it is not all my fault with 10.30pm and 3am starts, and lisping Lalit Modi’s magnificent new innovation of 450 seconds of gibbering nonsense and advertisements masquerading as a “strategy break” all helping induce sleep.

These farcical interludes, which have even been enforced in reduced-overs games, are not quite as annoying as the new name for a six, the DLF Maximum. They’re not called that at Beige HQ, they’re called PFO Maximums where the P stands for Please and the O stands for Off.

We have just got back from an amazing chinese restaurant. The food was on a par with The Fountain in Newmarket. Apart from the great food and the wonderful company Shona always provides, I will always remember this evening because we shared the restaurant with a meeting of The New Zealand Institute For The Blind. A wonderful collection of guide dogs were in the restaurant, black labs, golden retrievers and an alsation.

Now, I’m not trying to make this into a quirky story, but Shona was so impressed with the food at the restaurant, that as we were leaving she nodded at the table of blind people and said to me ‘they know a good thing when they see it!’

I honestly couldn’t make it up.

Missing you all,

Paul.

Is it me or does this seem like a risk too far.

P.S.

Happy Birthday Richard (Uncle, not Best Man), and Liz (Bridesmaid).

I know it is childish, but I am short of something to write this week. Following on from the references to the ‘Half Blacks’ in my last post…… New Zealand National team names

The name for the All Blacks makes sense as the name of their rugby team because they play in ‘All Black’

The Tall Blacks makes sense because they are a Basket Ball team and play in Black Shirts.

Black Caps makes sense as the name of the cricket team because they play in Black Caps

Anyone guess what their Badminton team used to be…….Answers on a postcard (clue it wasn’t the Black Shuttles)

True story apparently see here & here