Category: Friends

The great uncrossing of legs

Over the last few days we have been very pleased to hear of a few new arrivals.

James and Chantelle had a little boy, Jacob, and Tash and Dave also had a (second) little boy, named Jesse.

What with all our friends having little boys Charlotte will have no shortage of boys to stomp around in the mud with and climb trees with, and later in life we will have plenty of options for her arranged marriage (although the price will have to be right… anyone can see that she’s at least a five camel girl 🙂 ).

So congratulations go out to them and their little collections of frogs and snail and puppy dogs tails.

The flourishing of wands

On thursday I went with Simone and two of our friends Margaret and Prue to see the new Harry Potter movie.

It was good, although having recently re-read the book as some light bedtime reading I found it a bit frustrating how much of the good stuff in the book they had to cut in order to fit it into the 2 1/2 hours. This phenomenon is becoming more and more prominent (and, in my opinion, problematic) as they get further and further through the series. Harry is also starting to look disconcertingly old, and perhaps more incongrously, buff for the character he’s supposed to be portraying.

Still, I enjoyed it overall, and it’s only a short while until the next book comes out (with recent suggestions in the media that JKR may not be as averse to writing more Harry Potter books in the future (contrary to her previous assertions that there would only be 7)).

I also saw the other day that they’ve released the companion game for the Order of the Phoenix movie, and one of the flavours it comes in is for the Wii. This is cool, because it would appear that part of the game is that you use the Wiimote as a wand to cast spells. I must say I’m looking forward to wingarduim leviosa’ing stuff, and perhaps even Reducto’ing a few things. 🙂

Golf day

Over easter Simone and I went down to Canberra to visit our best people (my best man and best friend James and his cool wife Chantelle, and Simone’s matron of honour Tash (best woman would be a perfectly accurate term, but sounds a little odd somehow), and her great husband Dave (bloody Dave’s. Far to many of ’em. Bloody everywhere they are)).

It was superbly good to get away, and even better to spend the time with such great friends.

And on the monday we had a golf day.

Now apart from Simone, I don’t think that any of us have done much more than watch golf on TV, but I must explain that we had a really good time none the less.

In the morning we had a lazy sleep in and went for a bit of a walk around the neighborhood after coffee at a local bar. Then we went and played a quick 18 at the local minigolf course, after which we had take-away-lunch-of-your-choice, topped off with easter eggs, and spent the remainder of the afternoon playing 4 player “Mario Golf: Toadstool tour” on James and Chantelle’s Nintendo gamecube.

It was so much fun that since arriving home I have been forced to go out and buy a gamecube and Mario Golf, so that Simone and I can continue the fun.

As if we didn’t have enough to do with our time as it was…. 🙂

Underestimated

It has been many years since I last saw my old high school friend Rebekah, and while I had always appreciated that she was smart, given that she was on the school’s top debating team with me, and was better at it than me (as was the other girl on the team, which frequently left me with the paranoid suspicion that perhaps I was only there as the token male), she had always managed to be smart in a quiet and unassuming way.

Then she went off to uni, got her law degree, and got a job, and I didn’t see her for a number of years.

Today I ran into her in the lead up too James’ wedding, and in the evening watched her do a crossword as part of a group. Now almost the entirety of the group had university degrees, but Rebekah was leading the pack, and you could almost see the cogs of her mind flying around, and I was left with the inescapable impression of being in the presence of something of an intellectual giant.

Underestimated

It has been many years since I last saw my old high school friend Rebekah, and while I had always appreciated that she was smart, given that she was on the school’s top debating team with me, and was better at it than me (as was the other girl on the team, which frequently left me with the paranoid suspicion that perhaps I was only there as the token male), she had always managed to be smart in a quiet and unassuming way. Then she went off to uni, got her law degree, and got a job, and I didn’t see her for a number of years.
Today I ran into her in the lead up too James’ wedding, and in the evening watched her do a crossword as part of a group. Now almost the entirety of the group had university degrees, but Rebekah was leading the pack, and you could almost see the cogs of her mind flying around, and I was left with the inescapable impression of being in the presence of something of an intellectual giant.

Reversi

One of the things that I have found whenever I move to a new place is that when I am walking down the street my brain keeps on expecting to see people I knew in the last place I lived.
The odd thing about this current flying visit to Wellington has been that on several occasions I have found myself expecting to see people I know from Brisbane walking around here in Wellington.