Last Week

Well it's been a busy last week.  As you probably know Chris passed away on Friday night.  I knew he was getting very weak, my last few messages with him on the phone his replies had been one or two works.  Still it happened a little quicker than I thought it would, only ~24 hours before passed away he was still sending me (very short) messages.  I got the phonecall from Simone's Mum while I was out jogging on Saturday morning, I was 8 and a bit km into a 21k+ run and her name popped up on my watch, I didn't realise who it was at first but when it dawned on me I stopped and rang back.  And she gave me the news that I thought she was probably going to, that Chris passed away at 11:30pm on Friday night.  I talked to Simone for a minute or two then, just to tell her I was thinking of her etc, though of course she was very upset.  Then I rang Sarah and asked her if she could come and get me in the car because my desire to keep running was gone!

Plus ugh, Christchurch on Friday afternoon.  It's just amazing.  A single nutter did all that damage, to all those people who were just living their life.  It's so horrid.  I mean Port Arthur was "better" in that he was just a nutter, but the Christchurch muppet had to target a particular race of people.  What a cunt.  Anyway.  Saturday was fucking depressing, that's my point.  Anyway, I stopped running and rang Sarah and asked her to get me.

Sarah and the kids came to get me and we went to Orbit for some breakfast, then went home and Theo helped me to put the Lawnmower into the car (well, Sarah helped, but Theo wanted to help) and Theo and I drove around to the lawnmower repair place to get it fixed (minor repairs required).  I also asked them if they would honour the gift voucher I had forgotten about and had expired two months earlier and good for them they said that yes they would.  Came back and did some housework, Theo and I took some Watermelons around to people in Jervoistown in Theo's little Yellow Wagon.  I thought it would be a great idea but it turns out that mostly Daddy had to drag the trolley and it's not designed for my height.  It kept tripping up and the Watermelons would fall out the back.

Saturday night we went out with Sarah's friend and her husband, we had a nice night.  I was in two minds about going but then I figured there's no point sitting at home sulking, might as well go out and still do thinks we had planned etc.  Plus Sarah was really looking forward to it, it's nice to get away from the kids on a Saturday night every now and then.  Thanks Auntie Holly for looking after the kids while we went out.  We went to Hunger Monger and had a nice meal, even if it was very very fish oriented.  Then after there we went to Monica Loves for a couple more drinks.  By the time we called it a night I was quite boozed!!  So it was a good night.

Sunday was a bit rough, especially because the kids get up at 6:30am and want to be fed.  Thankfully I had saved 4 pancakes from the Saturday morning pancakes so I just heated those up in the Microwave and then lay on the couch for a little while, while the kids ate their pancakes and then watched some TV/played games.  Once we'd all booted up properly we went over to Holly's so the kids could go for a swim in the swimming pool.

What else?  I spent some time moving my website and other things from the server that Tony has kindly hosted for me the last 10 years.  So Tim's Diary now lives on the little server under the stairs at number 10, along with a bunch of other stuff.  It's actually much faster, much more up to date and just better.  So that's good.  It's always a pain though, IT Maintenance.  This weekend I have to move all our email off the old server onto a new one I'm paying money for.  I don't like paying money really, who does, but it's just easier than trying to find someone else to give me a free bit of server space.  Plus paying for it means they have a good backup policy etc.  Sorry I'm boring myself, dear reader, I doubt you've made it this far.  ANYWAY.

Remember the thing where Beth and Sarah trooped around Napier looking in store windows for stuffed penguins?  Well, they won the prize!  The silly thing is it was Theo's entry that won!!  Regardless, it means we get a 1 year family pass to the Aquarium which is pretty awesome.  Great work Beth and Sarah in traipsing around Napier to find the penguins.

Tuesday morning was Beth's ukulele lessons again. This time I got her bike ready in time so off we set up the road.  I quickly realised it was going to be impossible for me to easily ride my bike, Beth keeps stopping and starting and my bag, plus her bag, plus the ukulele around my neck was quite difficult.  We got off to a very rough start too when Beth lost control and drove into one of the Jervoistown ditches, but I was very impressed with her when she just picked her crashed self up, dusted off all the dirt and gunk and kept going.  Back a year ago that would have been the end of it, tears and screaming and all that.  But she's growing up and she handled it really well.  She just got back on and kept going, hardly a single complaint.  We still got to school JUST in time for lessons, but it was still fun.  This weekend I think I'll spend some time with her working on her braking skills, because that's the biggest problem.

Lots of running this week, only 8 weeks until the Marathon now.  I got up this morning and ran 13km, I think it's another 7km tomorrow morning.

Tonight after dinner, Beth, Theo, Biscuit and I went for a walk.  The kids found lots of docks and blew them, making lots of wishes.

It's Chris' funeral on Friday, Dad has kindly agreed to go for me.  I'd like to be there, but I'm still extremely glad I go to go and see him when I did and give him a farewell cuddle and tell him what a great friend he's been etc.  It was a very sad time, but I'll always be glad that I got it.

Tim