Hello! It's been a few days since my last entry (if you don't count the one via mobile phone earlier today), we've been to busy having fun to be bothered with writing diary entries. Plus it doesn't help that the hotel wireless is totally hopeless as I think I've mentioned already. So this will be another of those tediously long entries that you'd only read if you're my parents or a bizarre stalker person.re

We've had a fantastic time, totally amazing and fun. Christmas day was another day of Snowboarding, which for the both of us meant falling on our butts a lot. We got quite good at it though by the end of day two, learning how to slide down the learners slope properly and starting to practise how to turn. Turning is a lot harder than you'd think.
It didn't really seem that much like Christmas day...

'Twas the night before Christmas
And through the hotel
People had sore arses
They were complaining like hell.

Happy Christmas everyone! It's Christmas eve here, but I know it's Christmas in Australia and New Zealand at the moment, though it's very early morning. Christmas doesn't seem to be such a big thing here, things are still open tomorrow, there's still skiiing and snowboarding lessons and other business as usual.

As you can probably tell from my rather awesome poem, we went snowboarding today! It was really, really fun. I've been before when I was in Canada, but we didn't have any lessons then just get-a-board-and-go. So I fell over heaps. I fell over quite a lot today too, but each time I did I pretty much knew what I'd done wrong. We had a really good instructor who took the time to show us everything and kept reinforcing the basic...

Hello from snowy Switzerland! We made it after a long day's travelling yesterday. We packed all our bags on Friday night, I was in a bit of a panic as I didn't think we were going to get them packed in time, but we did it with ease. The house was tidy and everything when we left Saturday morning at 6am, wheeling our bag down the dark misty street. There's not to many people around on a Saturday morning in Acton and it felt a little weird.

We got to the Tube station and there was a tube waiting for us, perfect really because it was a cold morning and the last thing we wanted to do was sit around freezing waiting for a train. The train ride out to Heathrow was quite quiet and it seemed like we'd missed the crowds of people I was expecting. That feeling lasted...

It's the last day at work! Tomorrow we're off to Switzerland. "Have we packed?" I hear you ask! You bet we haven't! That's what tonight's for!
We have checked into our flight however, British Airways lets you check-in online and print out your boarding pass, then drop your bags off at a special place at the airport. I have faith in technology, I am hoping it will help us to avoid what will be massive queues tomorrow at Heathrow Airport. Arrrgh I want to curl up into a ball just thinking about it.
Well, back to work! Next post will be from Switzerland!

It still doesn't seem to me like it could possibly be Christmas. I thought it was the weather at first, but it's not. When I was in Canada all those years ago it was freezing cold but it still felt like Christmas. Talking to Sarah I think she's right in saying it's because we don't have any family here and we're still just working as usual. I guess it will finally sink in when we're up early on Saturday morning, heading out to Heathrow with our bags.

We will still be going our trip. Peter's brother's funeral isn't going to be held until sometime early Janurary, Peter himself won't be arriving until the 6th, 2 days after we get back from Paris.

I'm heading out to Reading this morning, another meeting with my customer out there. I like the train out to Reading, it's comfortable and warm, there's always a...

I had my grading today and I'm pleased to say that over a year since I started Karate, I've made it to Bluebelt! It's hard to believe it's been a year, but it has been. The grading was very different to the one I did in Wellington earlier this year. First, I was very pleased with how I went, I knew almost everything and my techniques were good and solid. Second, it was much more intense and involved than the first one was. We much have graded for about 2 hours I think, in front of everyone. It was a lot like the Blackbelt grading except there were less people there and it didn't go for as long. Oh yes and we didn't have to spar with each other for an hour.

But I did have to do lots of pushups, situps, kicks and punches. Before we started I...

It was so cold this morning that everything was frosty. Even bits of discarded littler. That in itself really isn't that special, though there was more frost than I'd seen before. When I really became amazed was my daily walk through the park, where I always watch the birds swimming on the pond and the squirrels running around. This morning there were no squirrels and the birds weren't swimming on the lake, they were standing on it because it had pretty much frozen over. No wonder they were looking confused.

We didn't do anything with our weekend, Sarah was sick the whole time so we just stayed in and she rested up to try and feel a bit better. She still wasn't well on Monday so I took her up to the Dr's, for what had to be the world's quickest appointment. She's almost better now, nearly a week later...

Powderfinger last night was awesome, I'm not sure how many times I've seen them live now but this was the best show so far!
There was a bit of a mix-up with who was going to go, because Sarah was feeling ill I rang Darius who agreed he'd come along. However an hour before the show was due to start he rang and apologised, saying that he couldn't make it. Sarah's eyes lit up a bit and she decided that she would come along, illness be damned!

I'm glad she came along, because it was awesome! We had a great time, we arrived 20 minutes before PF came on stage and we still got a good spot to stand where we could see the whole show. It seems the last 20 concerts I've been to that I could only see half or quarter of the stage at any one time...