Finally. It’s been near a month before I’ve seen someone who I could call a good old friend, rather than a new friend. I was really looking forward to, and really
And what a wonderful weekend! After getting off the plane (Tauranga and Wellington are about 7 hours by car – 1 hour by double-engine propeller plane) in Wellington Airport, we headed straight to a great Italian restaraunt in the center of the city, near Cuba St., and talked about how the year passed, about the McGillicuddies, (which is Helen’s video project) and about life. We picked up tomorrow’s lunch, and I got her a housewarming gift of some Leffe Blonde – Helen’s favorite beer [a fact I found out from her father.]
We headed to her home after that, talking more about the McGillicuddy documentary (she showed me what she has so far), and traded some movies.
I also applied my geek cred knowledge and helped her set up her Internet connection and WiFi – she had been doing without until recently.
She insisted on giving me her bed, she slept on the couch. Felt guilty about that, but then she explained that if I slept on the couch, then she would feel guilty, and I’d feel guilty about making her feel guilty.
The next day, we went out for Tex-Mex breakfast at “Sweet Mother’s Kitchen,” a wonderful place near the Green Party headquarters and the tri-pod statue you’ll see later in this post when I get to the pretty pictures.
After that, we enjoyed a walk across the Wellington Harbour, through a craft market, and then Helen got a chance to use the Canon 7D.
The 7D is one of my cameras, and by far the trickiest, both for stills and video. I’m happy to lend it to her for both the McGillicuddies project and other projects, but it takes some getting used to. I walked around with her around Newtown, her suburb of Wellington, and let her take some pictures as we walked around, walking and talking, talking and walking, right up until we headed back to her place for packing, a lunch of coleslaw, and the regret of a visit far too short – Helen works Sundays, and I had a “work-mates day out” scheduled. So I took the latest flight from Wellington to Tauranga, giving me less than 24 hours in Wellington – with Helen.
(Some details of this trip have been omitted, but they were important bits. But they’re not appropriate for a blog. Maybe I’ll tell you someday.)
Sunday, I went to the group work outing, which turned out to be waterskiing and other related activities. After a quick turn on a three-person banana boat, where I knock the 100-pound Hannah off simply because she was sitting behind me when I was bounced off, I was chosen (by random draw) to wakeboard.
Wakeboarding is to waterskiing, what snowboarding is to snow-skiing.
One problem. The wakeboard will not fit my massive feet. So I give up on that, and head to the waterskis.
One quick tug and I go nowhere fast – my feet, once again, are too big to fit comfortably in the skis and they go flying.
The next is the kneeboard, where you kneel on a boogie-board like thing – only when I kneel, my thighs and calves are so big that my knees get bent backwards and hurt like hell.
That only leaves the “biscuit” – a type of innertubish wake-riding device meant for children.
It started off okay, but, stubbornly, I go through 30 seconds of desperately being dragged behind the boat before I let go.
Well, it just goes to prove, that contrary to mothers’ advice, there are simply some things that I can’t do.
But there’s nothing that I can’t try.
Pictures to follow.
 |
This is a blurry, out of focus picture. I’ll need to retake it with
a better camera, and a tripod, the colors are worth it. Wellington |
 |
| Pidgeons in flight – startled by a bus tooting it’s horn. Wellington |
 |
| Took this picture from the airplane window. Came out well. Wellington |
 |
| They nuked Whangerei! Ah, well, no one will miss it. Wellington |
Posts
