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Don’t go riding with someone who owns a gym – if you want to keep your lungs from exploding

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Work last Sunday was definitely under the categories of “try anything once” & “what the heck, I don’t have a permanent job & need the money”. I spent the day housekeeping at a local hotel – rather repetitive work & the only highlight was the free lunch (there’s no such thing of course) of bacon, eggs, sausages, potatoes, pancakes, loads of salad & dessert. Knocked off a bit late as it was a long weekend & we had thirty-four rooms to clean between the two of us. A quick dash to Safeway later & I had my contribution for the night’s barbecue in hand – lots of veges & some little sticks for kebabs.

The barbecue was a couple of blocks away at Zara (from the hike up Eeor the previous day) & James’ apartment. Lots of great food (the kebabs had a bit of a kick to them too after someone found the cayenne pepper to add to the marinade) & it was neat to meet friends of Alex & Megan’s. James is a dab hand at home-brew – the stout was particularly good & it was nice to have a real ginger beer, even if it was a little on the fizzy side. With quite a few of the people there keen on riding, it wasn’t long before tentative plans were made to meet up for a ride on the morrow (a public holiday – Victoria Day). The girls were keen to ride Goat Creek Trail to Banff & back, the guys weren’t so keen on a 50 km return trip on quite wide trail.

After a nice sleep in (unfortunately for Alex he had to go to work), the ride was organised for 12.30 pm. I met Neil, James, Tanner (from the barbecue) & Jeremy & we biked through town to the east side of the valley & rode up beside Cougar Creek to get to the start of the Montane Traverse. It was quite chilly riding in the sun to the trail-head with the breeze, but by the time we were in the trees it quickly warmed up. This was in part due to being much more sheltered, but mostly because of two very steep climbs that we hit almost straight away. Neil, being really quite fit (he’s the aforementioned gym owner) cruised on up quite easily, & the rest of us ended up walking small to large parts of the end of each climb.

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera so there are no photos from that ride. The ride after the two horrid climbs lived up to its name & traversed along towards Harvie Heights (beside a golf course – for the second time in a month I was pretty much riding along a golf course). This trail was in great condition with lots of roots to negotiate & the odd little downhill to keep it interesting. All of a sudden one would go from a dirt & root trail to the crossing of a stream bed with big chunky rock to try & ride over, usually getting out of the stream bed was a bit difficult. Once the big climbs were over & I started to catch my breath a bit, I was able to almost keep up with Neil & his local knowledge – but at times, he would seemingly just take off. A nice technical steep downhill before we got to Harvie Heights & then started to turn back on trail that flowed very nicely & enable to one to hold on to a bit speed with confidence that a big dropoff or rock wasn’t around the corner. Eventually we found the highway & we rode along this for a couple of kiolmetres back to the Irongoat beside Cougar Creek. At the Irongoat we enjoyed sitting on the patio in the sun with a few pitchers & patiently waited for the clouds to move when they were so rude to get in the way. After more pitchers & a good plate of nachos, the girls turned up – they weren’t so ambitious in the end & only made it as far down Goat Creek as Megan & I did in February on light touring skis – that is about half way.

It was the Montreal Canadiens last game in their Stanley Cup semifinal series against the Philadelphia Fliers – & as they were the last Canadian team left in the NHL they had some support in these parts. After returning from the ride & showering, I was off out again to see if I could get in to (ice) hockey – couldn’t really. The rest of the week I’ve been back at the Banff Center temp labouring – feels like I’ve spent a lot of the week pushing a vacuum cleaner around after contractors – not too bad & the iPod helps if it does get a bit too boring. Boring or not, it’s some much needed income. I found a huge diesel engine tucked away behind one of the staircases today – apparently enough to provide the entire Banff Center with back-up electricity. It reminded me of the huge Caterpillar engine that was put in MP01 – I bet it is not so yellow now, but just as loud. In fact, quite a few things remind me of NZ Steel – mostly wandering around in hardhat, steel-toed boots, safety glasses, gloves & Hi-Vis.

Tuesday after work, James, Zara, Megan & I went for a little ride up towards the Nordic Center. The others were able to show me how to get up there mostly avoiding the roads & there were some nice little bits of singletrack in places – unfortunately I got my first puncture in over fourteen months (haven’t had one since the two I got in Karapoti 2009).

I had found a room to move in to this weekend, but Steve made a slight error with regards to his other flatmate’s parents coming to visit, so it turns out I can’t move in until July. He was suitably embarrassed, but it shouldn’t turn out to be too much of a big deal. Especially now, that Megan & Alex finally have more than one seat in the living area. Another hike planned for Sunday, up Grotto; & if the weather clears by Saturday (it’s got quite cold & wet the last day or so – good days for going to work) hopefully a ride then.

around home, bikes, family, friends, history, MTB, UK

Hastings, Welsh riding & almost the end of my stay in London

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I’m up in Ipswich this weekend visiting Louis & Emma (Te Puke & Palmy friends) before I leave (ash cloud permitting) for Canada next weekend. The weather seems to have regressed back to winter, so it’s been a nice relaxing weekend hanging out with old friends, eating good food, watching sport (a horrible game, but a good last ball win by the Black Caps), churning through a recent Tess Gerritsen novel, winning at Buzz & so on. All the major things have been crossed off my list of things to do before leaving London, so it’s been nice to get away for the weekend & ignore all the smaller things left. Louis & Emma live in a flat in a converted malthouse, & I really like the massive exposed beams & wondering at all the industrial & processing goings on that this place would have once seen – plus being so close to town is pretty good too.

Trish & I did make it to Battle & Hastings last week. I was quite impressed that Trish made it around the large battlefield with her previously broken ankle & leg still on the mend. The small display & video before walking around the field complemented an excellent audio-guide. The battlefield runs up the side of long gentle slope to the abbey at the top.

It was quite difficult at times on the rather pleasant spring day on which we were there to imagine fifteen to twenty thousand men slashing, bashing, shooting & charging at each other over the length of 14th October 1066. One part of the commentary that sticks in my mind is when it said that the first phase of the battle was over – that was six hours after the start & the battle then continued for the rest of the day. I can hardly last six waking hours without food, or at the least a drink – I can hardly imagine having to fight all day with such heavy equipment just in the chance that I might stay alive & help my side to a victory. William the Conqueror was persuaded by the Pope to build an abbey on the top of the hill as an act of penance for all the blood spilt – parts of this still stand & the second half of the tour is around the remains, which were quite interesting.

Leaving Battle, we headed off to Hastings – which is quite a dreary little seaside town really. The most interesting thing around the seaside were the two short funicular railways that go from sea level to the top of cliffs – one of them is now the steepest in Britain at 78% incline; the tracked submersible tractor unit to launch the Lifeguard’s launch was also of note.

The day following, I eventually got around to packing up the bike & associated gear for the bank holiday weekend & set off to Farnborough to meet Andy – with a fair bit of sitting on the M25 in traffic on the way. After a feed at Andy’s & loading up Andy’s A3 with two bikes & associated gear, food & clothes we were off to Wales for a weekend of riding. The weather forecasted did not look too promising, but the prospect of three days’ worth of riding had us both pretty excited. We stayed in Southgate, on the Gower Peninsula (the UK’s first area of outstanding natural beauty, apparently) just west of Swansea in south Wales – where Andy’s sister, her partner & their daughter live. Andy’s parents have a holiday house just around the corner from Katie, Simon & Amber, so this is where we stayed for the weekend. After reasonable traffic (considering the long weekend) we arrived, unpacked & promptly hit the hay.

Saturday dawned overcast, but dry & shortly Simon had turned up on his bike & Katie pushing Amber in the stroller. At thirteen months Amber is just learning to walk & was quite intrigued by a stranger – so she kept staring at me with her large & gorgeous deep brown eyes. Shortly after, we were out riding & Simon was showing us his local trails around the peninsula. We started off with a nice rocky descent before crossing a road & riding through a group of Scouts setting up camp for the weekend. Most of the riding was out in the open with a mixture of ascents & descents & a bit of ridge riding. Nothing too taxing, but my lack of time on the bike started to show on some of the climbs – there was one good steep one, but at least I wasn’t off pushing this weekend, even if I was in the granny ring. On a good day you can see Devon from the Gower, but it was a bit overcast, so we could only just see back to the Welsh mainland.

Apparently we were in King Arthur territory, so we had to stop for a pint of Double Dragon here:

From here it was only another half an hour or so home. While not a particularly demanding ride on the face of it, it must have been pretty trying for me as I was exhausted for the rest of the day & even had a bit of nap before we headed around to Katie & Simon’s for dinner – where I was feeling so out of sorts I shockingly lost part of my appetite & couldn’t quite finish my meal, weird.

The trail centre at Brechfa is one that Andy had been wanting to ride at for quite some time & Sunday was the day. We started off on the Raven trail that was graded “black/severe” & the signboard feature such glowing descriptions as: “mountain biking to the next level” & “fast, undulating trail that sweeps betweens and flows sinuously in berms and over jumps”. I wasn’t particularly convinced as the trail had a really steep & hard climb at the start on nicely paved singletrack & then the following descent was a slippery rooty affair which didn’t really flow at all. In fact, on this trail it seemed that the price you paid for a lot of climbing was never really repaid by decent descents. A few times I would notice a great singletrack climb to be followed by descending on fireroad – what a waste. Still, at least I wasn’t the guy near the end of the trail with his arm in a sling & a broken collar bone. With all that climbing I was pretty tired (in addition to the previous day’s ride) & spent a lot of time in the granny ring & with Andy waiting for me. Back to the car for lunch & to load up the car again for a few miles’ driving up the valley to the red/difficult graded trail.

The Gorlech trail was about the same length as the Raven trail, but with even more climbing (over 1000m c.f. 725m). Fortunately, this climbing was a lot more manageable & some of the singletrack going up was beautiful winding its way through mossy trees.

We got much more value for our climbing efforts out of this trail & parts of it flowed very nicely & all the berms, step-ups, tabletops & other jumps were great fun. Not to mention every so often popping out of the trees with good views over the valleys (& even some sun, which was much better than the sleet forecast).

The only work in Welsh I learnt all weekend was ‘araf’, which means ‘slow’. Due to the British Health & Safety cotton wool culture, these two words were plastered all over the narrow roads & at any opportunity along the trails – for no good reason. Here is Andy waiting for me again after another great piece of trail.

So my legs managed to survive near on 40 km of riding & about 1800 m of climbing & we didn’t even get all that wet – only a little bit from all the puddles at any dip in the trails. Still it was enough water to mean that I had to pay a little more attention to cleaning my bike that night. A night blobbing in front of the telly – we avoided Welsh TV & some how ended up watching an episode of The Pretender (there really was nothing better on) which took me back about a decade or so (the days when you would record on VCR TV programs to watch later – haven’t done that for ages).

Bank Holiday Monday dawned brilliantly sunny. After sleeping in a bit & tidying up the house at a leisurely pace, Andy took me for a short stroll across the golf course that neighbours the village to the see the ruins of Pennard Castle. A castle has been here since about 1100 & it’s in a great position above some sheer drops, one small problem is that sand blown up on the wind easily builds up against the castle – it was for this reason that the castle was abandoned at the end of the 14th century. The golf course is a real links course – wind-swept, open full of hummocks, hillocks & mounds; however it is a good couple of hundred feet up from the ocean & has commanding views of Three Cliffs Bay below.

Back on the road we headed east towards Port Talbot & its blast furnaces, steelmaking, rolling & finishing plants before we turned up the valley to Afan – one of Wales’ most popular trail centres. As it was a public holiday, there were a lot of people out walking & on all sorts of types & quality of bikes. We did the Y Wal trail, & this proved to be the most enjoyable ride of the weekend. Crossing the river at the bottom of the valley we climbed quite easily for a while – old rail paths always have nice gradients. The steepness stepped up a notch, but even in my state I could manage it in the middle ring – maybe a little bit of strength & fitness was returning to my legs after all – & we managed to pass quite a few groups of riders. Some of climb was on singletrack & it was really quite nice. But what was even better, was that these trail builders had remember to save their best work for the downhill – woohoo! These lived up to the signboard’s claims this time: “some of the best singletrack descents in the UK… fast, open & flowing”. Great fun & in no time at all we were back at the car – three days of good to great riding were over. With the car loaded up again & lunch downed we were back on the M4 fighting the holiday traffic. Countering what is apparently usual, when we crossed the Severn from Wales to England the weather went from good to poor; with a little crawling on the M5 we were soon at Taunton & catching up with John & Anna – Andy had not met the twins, Ester & Lydia, yet. The A303 back to Andy’s was pretty chocka, but my run home up the M3 & around the M25 were unbelievably quick.

The rest of the past week has included Tuesday in Portsmouth (taxi-driver for Trish, who was attending a workshop), a bit of painting of the cattery at Ray & Jill’s, buying travel insurance, walking a good few miles down the Thames from Kew to Putney & the penultimate visit to Andrew & Shelley’s. I’m back round there next week to say goodbye, the only consolation there is the pavalova Shelley has promised to cook – with the Patricks planning on being back in NZ by the time I return to the UK & their wonderful hospitality & friendship, it’s a harder goodbye than most.

Forgot to mention that I got to vote in the general & local elections last week. Not really much of note there – strolled across the road in my slippers to the local primary school, resisted the urge to vote for Napoleon Dynamite of the Loony Party & that was about it really.

around home, bikes, family, friends, history, London, MTB, UK

Back to the gloom – but now we see the sun

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The London weather has turned over a new leaf for March – the last two days have heralded brilliant sunshine & something bordering on warmth. Apart from that, the last two and a half weeks since returning from Canada have been pretty gloomy & wet. Not that that has mattered too much as I’ve been staying up much too late watching the Winter Olympics – fantastic & quite addictive viewing Consequently, I haven’t taken a single photo since my return & may have some trouble remembering what I’ve been up to. Nice to catch up with NZ cousin Chris for his birthday the day after my return – & good to see the expecting couple Sasha & Blair, who are planning their return to NZ in a couple of months.

I haven’t been quite the tourist around London that I was when the weather was more conducive. Nonetheless, I’ve managed to finish off looking around the National Gallery – unfortunately mostly during the very busy period of half-term. I particularly enjoyed the English landscape work of Constable, Turner & so on. While the National Portrait Gallery is a lot smaller, I enjoyed looking around there yesterday – will be back some time to finish – I liked to see the pictures of various scientists from the 1800s, especially Faraday & Lord Kelvin.

A couple of days last week I had to head in to the city briefly & it was definitely museum weather. The first time I went to the Hunterian Museum (Royal College of Surgeons) before heading out to catch up with the Patricks. The museum is roughly a third of what it was before it got hit during the Blitz and is what remains of John Hunter’s collection of all sorts of anatomical specimens from humans & animals – from the days of surgery with public viewing, a shortage of corpses for scientific study, & grave-robbers supplying the demand for bodies. It was much larger than I was expecting & the history of the medical profession was fascinating; I’m sure all the displays would have been even more interesting if I was medically trained. The best part however was the rather extensive display of surgical instruments (some quite disturbing of course) & the history of the surgical instrument making trade. This was of interest to me as it was in this trade that my grandfather apprenticed in for seven years from 1939 & then worked in. It was great to see quite a few (ten to a dozen) instruments made by the company he trained & worked in (Down Brothers) during the period in which he was there – even if he didn’t make the exact instruments I saw, I’m sure he must have made some ones that were identical to those on display.

Opposite the Hunterian Museum, across Lincoln’s Inn Field is another fantastic free museum. The Sir John Soane Museum was left to the nation by Soane on the condition that it be free for everyone to enter & it be left in the state in which it was when he died. Soane was one of Britain’s greatest architects (his work on the Bank of England) may be his most well known, even if little of it except the imposing outer walls survives after expansion in the 1920s & ’30s. The museum is based on his three adjoining houses – Number 12, 13 & 14 & is filled with his vast collection of paintings, architectural drawings, sculptures & ancient artefacts. Soane was famous for his use & exploitation of natural light in a time when there was no electric or gas lighting in buildings. This was perhaps best demonstrated in ‘The Picture Room’, a reasonably small room in which there are over a hundred paintings (& not all that small ones at that) ingeniously hung on the front & back of large hinged false walls. The two series of Hogarths in there are quite something; there are also numerous pictures of Soane’s designs & buildings. Outside of The Picture Room two Canalettos of Venice are pretty neat, as is the sarcophagus of the Egyptian King Seti I (died 1290 BC) that Soane bought after the British Museum refused to pay £2000 for it. The Bank of England museum was only a couple of tube stops away & with spare time, I very happily whiled away a couple of hours learning about the history of the bank, the British currency & currency in general. As one would expect there is a bit of loose change of various ages lying around – also some ingots of gold, one of which you can pick up ever slightly (the case it is in is somewhat restrictive).

Saturday last I was down in Farnborough staying & riding with a MTB mate – Andy. It turned out to be the largest group ride I’ve ever been on – almost thirty people (& one dog, not on a bike) I think. Naturally, it had been raining for quite a few days before so the forest (mostly in & around MOD) land was pretty wet & muddy – just as well the sand drains reasonably well, or else it would have been even worse! We all met at nine o’clock (the earliest I had been up & out of the house in a couple of weeks) near the Basingstoke Canal – after general flaffing around & waiting for a straggler we were out riding just after half past. Thankfully the ride was a pretty easy pace, mostly due to the size of the group I think, & there were no real hills – this was good as it was my first MTB ride for the year & it was really wet (but not cold). There were some nice bits of singletrack & as always, I was pleased to be back on the bike. It was a little odd riding near a military firing range – there were some pretty decent booms not all that far away from where we were. Returning back to Andy’s place we were of course soaked & needing to clean bikes & ourselves (with the final bike clean this morning I’ve found I am in need of a new pair of rear brake pads – I’m sure they weren’t that old). After sorting myself out & watching Italy beat Scotland in the Six Nations, it was a pretty short drive up the M3 & M25 to the Patricks where I was babysitting for the night.

Yesterday was the first of the cracking days of sunshine, so Walking London came off the book shelf & I tried to find a walk that I hadn’t done yet in the central city (didn’t want to head too far out as the ground is still pretty soggy). Found I hadn’t done the Covent Garden walk yet, so that was a pleasant stroll. Not too much I hadn’t seen before – a lot of theatres of course, & the houses of all sorts of literary figure & the rather fancy Savoy.

That’s about all the news – apart from the half-hearted start to the job-hunt; it’s a bit of a trade off between finding a job I could do & starting to earn some pounds or waiting for a job that I like the look of & might be a bit more challenging. And I’m going to Madrid on Thursday for ten days – that all happened very quickly. For half the time I’m volunteering at some English language internment – where basically you sit & speak English to Spanish people who are learning the language. I don’t know too much about Madrid, but it looks pretty neat, so it should be a good week & a bit.

around home, bikes, family, friends, London, MTB, national park, UK

Walks, Christmas, a ride & New Year’s

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I’m mildly disturbed that all my bags are packed for a month long trip & my bike is firmly in the garden shed. If the small amount of snow that has fallen today, & whatever falls tonight, doesn’t bring London’s public transport to a standstill before noon I’ll be back at Heathrow & then on to Calgary. It seems ages since I’ve been on a train or the tube – so it’s more than two weeks since I did my last bit of walking around London. That particular time I met up with my NZ cousin Chris & we followed the walking tour from Soho down to Trafalgar Square. Unlike in NYC, the origin of the name Soho is an old hunting cry – Soho Square was once part of a royal hunting ground.This walk wound around quite a bit & went down lots of small old alleys that we would have missed otherwise. Of relevance to NZ was a house that the botanist Joseph Banks used to live in & of most interest to me was the site of the Broad Street pump. In 1854, 37 of the 49 occupants of the street died of cholera & Dr John Snow was the one who worked out that the common factor was the water pump that they drunk from. The handle was removed & the death rate fell immediately – this work was perhaps one of the most important in the study of disease. Walking through Chinatown brought on a very interesting discussion with Chris on their family being in, & then evacuated from, Beijing in 1989 amongst the Tienanmen Square chaos. It wasn’t long before we were at NZ House, Pall Mall & then Trafalgar Square, where Chris left me & I went on up to Regent’s Park.

There was still a fair amount of snow & ice lying around on this particular Sunday, so it was a bit of a careful climb to the top of Primrose Hill. But as it was another nice crisp clear day, it was well worth it – good views of the city with London Zoo & Regent’s Park in the foreground – & some clowns playing touch in the snow. Crossing over Regent’s Canal & past the zoo I seemed to walk around most of Regent’s Park. With all the snow & frozen lakes it was quite beautiful & there were a surprisingly large number of people out & about.

I think it was the Tuesday before Christmas that I popped out to Hammersmith to take a quick look at a small photographic exhibition of Kenyan wildlife. The photos were quite good & mostly scenes at Nakuru & the Mara – so it was nice to see them. However, I wasn’t that enamoured with them to shell out nearly three hundred pounds for each small print. Up the Piccadilly line to drop off a couple of presents for Andrew & Shelley’s girls & then I was off to check out the Christmas Fair in Hyde Park. With all the German stalls, great smelling food & amusements it was a very Christmasy experience.

Thankfully it didn’t snow on Christmas Eve, so the drive down to Trish’s sister’s house just north of Dover was very easy. Jan cooked up a storm & it was a great day spent with family. As it was a gorgeous day I couldn’t help but go for an explore – so a short drive later I was at the top of the famous cliffs. It was a little strange seeing eight ferries sitting in the port doing nothing. But much more impressive was the sunset – I stuck around a good half hour to see it go all the way down. Back home very early on Boxing Day; later that day we went around to Trish’s brother’s for another great dinner.

After a couple days relaxing & getting the bike ready, I was off driving to Taunton to stay with John & Anna the night before what promised to be a very wintery ride on Exmoor on Wednesday. Since I last saw them, the Lambert family has doubled in size with the arrival of twin girls three months ago & their house has much more than doubled in size with the move from an apartment to a two-storey house. It was great to see John & Anna again & meet the girls – a little sick, but thankfully they seem to sleep well (one night is hardly a representative sample, but I was impressed). With a leisurely two breakfasts & getting organised, John & I drove an hour through very close fog to Withymoor – where we eventually met up with four others. Well wrapped up against the cold (we would have been lucky if it got to three degrees Celsius), mud & rain we set off through the village trying to follow a route that Dave had plotted on his Garmin GPS. Mr Garmin was to provide us with much amusement in the rain as he sent us all around the National Park on the most unlikely trails (or non-trails). A nice gentle & reasonable climb to start before we got off the road & on to the grass & tracks – with all the rain the day before, we were quickly soaked by all the standing water.

We had some good fun, but thankfully gentle, & slippery downhills.

In all we were out about three or so hours & I had a complete blast – it was at least six weeks since I had been on my bike & therefore six weeks since I did my shoulder, I was very pleased with how it stood up to the ride.

Unfortunately, by the time we got to the pub they had finished serving lunch. Back to John & Anna’s for a much needed bike, clothes & body clean; a quick dinner then it was driving through the night & rain to get back to Andrew & Shelley’s before they all went to bed. I’m always surprised at how well I manage to sleep on the floor of their lounge.

New Year’s Eve – spent a delightful four or five hours babysitting (two year old) Vittoria – reading books, pretend cooking, chasing her around the house & (the best game of all) pretending to be asleep. After Andrew & Shelley returned I was rather worn out – mostly from babysitting, but perhaps a little for the driving & riding the previous two days. A quick escape for another exploratory walk – this time to the rather delightful little centre of Pinner. We were joined for a quiet New Year’s Eve by a friend of the Patricks & we enjoyed a good meal, a strange game of Settlers (never seen so many long roads with four people playing), slight excitement when the new year ticked over, more excitement when Andrew touched the cork on the champagne & it went flying & champagne went all over Shelley & the Settlers set.

New Year’s Day was a gorgeous one, if very chilly – and also Andrew’s birthday. The six of us went out for a walk around a rather frozen in part lake & Vittoria amused us all by skating on the ice in her wellies whilst hanging on to the safety net of Dad’s hand. Lazy afternoon & then I babysat the girls again while Andrew & Shelley escaped for a birthday dinner. A nice cross London drive after they returned & I was back in Sidcup by eleven, ready for a sleep in my own bed & facing another drive – this time north. Trish & I spent the weekend staying with another of cousin of Mum’s – very pleasant weekend it was too. A little bike riding around the village, dropped in on my great-uncle Alan (who for almost ninety, is doing remarkably well living on his own & looking after himself). For dinner we met yet another cousin of Mum’s (three cousins, but no brothers or sisters present) & also my second cousin, Catherine & her boyfriend, Chris. Catherine & Chris have recently been to NZ & Australia, so it was great to hear their stories. That’s about it really for the last few weeks – the last few days have been spent recovering from the week before & mostly preparing for Canada.