Archive for March, 2009

Well it took 71 days, 12 rounds of Golf, 4 currys, more meetings with recruitment agents than is good for a person’s sanity and numerous arguments with the wife that “I am not trying hard enough”, finally I have good news to report. Monday morning will see me start work as a PHP/Web Applications Developer for a government education agency here in Wellington. Well people were starting to get tired of seeing my face at the Golf Course weren’t they. It is just typical that I start work the week the Test match rolls into town. Guess what I will be doing next Saturday and Sunday?

I have to say after 7 years of working for the same institution I found the whole interview process hard. Towards the end when people were asking me about my weaknesses I was fighting every instinct in my mind not to say, “saturated fat and long par 4’s”! My father in law has always told me that the person with the hardest job in an interview is the person with the budget. Now I am not so sure.

Right, moving on. As mentioned in my last blog entry, Shona took a trip to Napier with some of her friends from work. This is against my better judgement but Shona has written the next paragraph.

Possum World - What is the one in front doing?

When my friends told me I had to visit OPossum World (being a Napier must for the tourist trail), I was imagining lots of furry creatures running around – a sort of petting zoo. The first clue I was wrong was that on walking through the door you entered a gift shop in which all the products were made from Possum. You then walk through the shop to the “museum”. One of the friends I was with described the museum best – “this is the possum holocaust”. After visiting I looked up their website – their vision is “Creating useful products from an ecological menace”. Thankfully there was more to Napier than this, and we spent a good few hours visiting some of the fantastic wineries in Hawke’s Bay – it’s not just Paul who is enjoying himself… What am I going to do now though that I have to share the bathroom in the mornings!

Here is their website

Anyway, on to more important things. (originally written in an email to Del) The golf club is fantastic. I have played it four times this week. It is tough, you have to be straight to get any kind of decent score,  most of the fairways are lined with trees all of which have large, overhanging branches, if you get into the trees your chances of making par are almost zero. The course is set in the middle of some really large rolling hills, it is easy to get distracted by the sheer beauty of your surroundings. Talking of which I was held up teeing off on the par 5 sixth on Wednesday, there were 2 rams who had jumped the perimeter fence and started rutting on the tee box. I stood and watched until one of the rams backed down from the head-butting. I ended up shanking my drive, bloody rams.

Tomorrow I am going to make the most of my last proper day on my own. I will be watching the Cricket from Napier on the TV in the morning, followed by a round of golf in the afternoon and then hopefully a curry in the evening. Then we are out to dinner at a friend’s on Saturday. It’s tough but someone has to do it!

Parking Ticket

Look at the offence bit. I have to pay a $40 fine (approx £16, but that is beside the point) for parking facing the “wrong way” on a two way street.

Who does this benefit? Are there confused drivers out there who swap lanes when they see my car facing the “wrong way” on a two way street. If so, fine people for being idiots, and not for using a legitimate parking space albeit facing the wrong way.

Main blog entry to follow later this week. Topics will include Shona’s trip to Possum World (not what you might expect) among other treats.

I have joined a golf club (membership costs £20 per month!) Here is a picture of the par 3 second. Note how there is a tree between the tee and the green. You either go round it or over it. So far I have lost 2 balls on this hole practising moving the ball from left to right. I got the left bit right but they failed to turn back!

Nice tree

Well not a lot has happened since the last blog entry. I have attended 2 cricket matches at the Westpac arena (known locally as ‘The Cake Tin’, because it looks like one). I have had numerous interviews. Frustratingly not much has come of these but for the moment I quite optimistic, I am having a high success rate with getting interviews so that must be a good thing . For the moment I am continuing to apply for jobs I actually want rather than compromising anything.

One thing that always grates me is the cop out employers use by writing you a letter, stating ‘Due to an overwhelming response, we are unable to offer you an interview’. I always imagine a beleaguered secretary opening all those letters, nearly fainting at the sheer weight of pressure opening all those responses.

We have had our first house visitor from the UK. Karl who used to work with Shona is travelling around the country and stayed with us for the Wellington leg of his journey. He mainly did his own thing, but we did go out for a couple of meals, the second of which was at a restaurant called the ‘Curry Club’. Now, if I was asked ‘what is your favourite curry?’ I would probably go for a medium spiced curry, something that I can enjoy the flavour of without crying, that sort of thing. Well I have discovered that when confronted with the question ‘Would you like your curry mild, medium or hot sir?’ and I am in male company, my ego will not allow me to say ‘medium’. There is, as it turns out, only one response to that question – ‘Hot!’ ……. So on to my next piece of advice for anyone visiting Wellington and finds themselves at the ‘Curry Club’, under no circumstances say ‘Hot!’ that is unless you want to drink a beer and have it enter your mouth as a liquid and leave as steam!

I went out for another curry last night. During the course of the meal the waitress came over to me and asked “How is your meal progressing?’ …”Alright”…”I turned up through that door over there, sat down here, started talking bollocks with the wife and then started eating”. Progressing???

The exercise is going well. I have started timing myself running 5k. My PB is currently 15 minutes outside of the men’s world record. Now I think it is a good assumption that if I keep training I will be able to shave about 5 minutes off of my PB by the end of the year. So by that calculation in three years I will be running world record pace. Get down the bookies and put your money on me for London 2012.

Some mornings I drop Shona off at work and go swimming. It is just me and the OAPs. I have changed pools once already because having the granddads lapping me was damaging my ego.

Following on from the last blog entry I thought you would all be itching to know how I got on with the golf courses. The good news is that most of the week we basked in glorious sunshine (oh yes!) so I had plenty of time to visit local golf courses. Well I have narrowed it down to 1 of 2 courses that I will join. Both stunning courses, well to a novice like me they are! I struggled around both them as they were both challenging courses.

We have been to 2 cricket matches since my last blog entry. The first was the 20-20 match mentioned in the last entry. What a game and what an atmosphere in the Westpac Arena . Hats off to the Indian fans, they certainly love their cricket, and they certainly know how to charge up the atmosphere of the crowd. The game went down to the last ball, with the brilliant Brendon McCullum winning the game for the Kiwi’s with a chipped single just over the head of mid off. A real treat.

The second match unfortunately was a washout of a game, but at least I got to see Tendulkar bat (and make fifty) before the game was abandoned.

Speaking of cricket, here is my favourite Kiwi cricket blogger.

If any of you are worrying that I may not be keeping myself busy when I am not in interviews or playing golf or watching cricket, fear not! I have found the time to watch the first two series of the West Wing on DVD. I missed this when it was on UK television, loving it.

This weekend sees Shona head off on a girlie weekend in Napier with some of her work colleagues. I am going to try and visit some other places while she is away, so hopefully the next blog will be about a bit of travelling.