Category Archives: friends

bikes, Canada, family, friends, MTB, national park, roadtrip, snow, travel, USA

A little on the late side

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So, I never quite made the time to compose a Christmas letter. This will have to do as some sort of missive for me to sum up the year & wish you all happy holidays. 2011 was separated into distinct thirds for me. The first of those was the end of my year living & working in the Canadian Rockies. That spur of the moment decision to go & bike & ski in the mountains for twelve months still rates as one of the best of my life – I had a great time with fantastic friends; the snow was good too & my skiing could do nothing but improve with all those consecutive weekends on the hill.

The middle of the year – the end of a long winter & the first of summer – saw the completion of a long held dream. That was, a roadtrip around the West (USA) with a bike in the trunk/boot visiting many of the famous riding spots & national parks. My aunt, Valerie, joined me from Australia & we managed 22000 km (almost 14000 miles), 13 states & 2 provinces and an awful lot of quality mountain-biking (for me). Scenically, the highlights were Bryce Canyon & Crater Lake National Parks. As always when I visit the States, spending time with old friends & making new ones stays on top of the many memories.

Naturally, it was tough to leave close friends & the beauty of the Bow Valley; the last part of the year sees me finally starting to get around to what I left home for two and a half years ago. That is, to get a job & settle in the UK for a while and take full advantage of the proximity to Europe. I’m back process engineering for the first time in four years at a small rubber factory on the edge of the New Forest (not far from Southampton at the south of England). Mum’s been over here for the last three months at university, so it’s been great to see her every so often. The hospitality of extended family (some of whom I’m still only meeting now) helps to lessen the distance from home – as does Skype & 1p/min phone calls.

That’s this year – 2012 will not be nearly as well planned out or active for that matter. I’m down to have surgery sometime on my shoulder (to tighten it all up – two dislocations this year), so that will curtail the biking & skiing a lot. That will just mean I have more free time to explore this part of the world. I’ve finally got an invite to a wedding (first since leaving), so I’ll be back in NZ for a couple of weeks near the start of September for what will be a flurry of visiting much-missed family & friends.

Best wishes for the new year.

city, family, friends, London, UK

London trips

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For the first time in my life, I’ve finally been able to start biking to work. But a five kilometre round trip is not all that much & is especially helped by it being a lot flatter than it seems in the car – which is quite the reverse of what I was expecting. So it may be closing in on the longest day of the year, but if it’s not raining & I get up early enough to get organised, a ride to work (even if it just one or two degrees above freezing – thanks Canada for not making me avoid the “cold”) is a nice little start to the day.

Last weekend was a trip up to London for Levi & Marki’s Christmas party. Always good catching up with them & there was plenty of food too. Also pretty fun catching up with a buddy from high school who I hadn’t seen about twelve years – I thought I’d got away from Canadians telling me to watch Trailerpark Boys, but it turns out Jeff is a bit of a fan too. There was no playing football on the deck with an offcut from the woodwork shop, but then the deck at the apartment is a little small & had more important duties as the beer fridge. Somehow I managed to walk out (just managed to walk onto the last train too, thus avoiding my first ever night-bus) with a huge ham – apparently I was the most worthy cause as Levi & Marki weren’t going to get the chance to eat it with travelling on the cards.

Around Sidcup on the weekend was pretty relaxing, on the way to visit Ray & Jill on Saturday morning Trish & I paid a visit to Rudolph’s buddies & their spindly looking antlers.  I’m sure they would still do a bit of damage.

Even after a big sleep in, Sunday was looking pretty grey so Trish & I decided to head out to another little Kentish village – Westerham – to check out Quebec House. After a nice lunch in one of those great English pubs that look like they’re doing a commendable impression of a drunk trying to stand up, we strolled through the village to check out the house. It was the birthplace of General Wolfe – who was apparently the first English military figure to be a popular hero. The name of the house comes from the name of the victorious battle that won him his fame & took his life. All very Nelsonesque – except Wolfe pre-dated him. I’d learnt a little about the battle that saw the British defeat the French in the war for control of Quebec City & Canada when I was at Buckler’s Hard a couple of weeks ago – some of the ships built there sailed to Quebec before the battle. Always interested to get a bit more Canadian history, the museum above the coachhouse had great displays & was very informative. The house was pretty dark inside, but had some interesting period pieces – muskets are pretty heavy it turns out.

I was back in London three days later for yet another appointment about my bung shoulder. So I’ll get keyhole surgery sometime next year – I asked for after-February so I can go skiing at least once this winter. As it’s been three months to get this far, I’m hoping that’s a safe request. I’ll be out of action for a while (six weeks in a sling) with no driving & definitely not biking – but it’ll be nice to get it fixed up & hopefully avoid the agony of the last dislocation repeating. So 2012 doesn’t look like it’ll be so active – but perhaps I’ll finally get around to seeing some more of Europe, which I think was the whole idea of leaving NZ two & a half years ago. Oops.

around home, friends, London, UK

Last London day & the move south

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With the possibility of a brief return to my previous typical London day, on Friday I went in to London to potter around one last time before moving down south. The heavy rain seemed to miss the city centre completely & carrying a raincoat around all day seemed to be adequate to ward off any precipitation whatsoever. A bit early for my appointment in Putney, I strolled around Trafalgar Square, up Haymarket & then down Waterloo Place (here I found where Sir Keith Park’s statue had been relocated), St James Park, Admiralty Arch & then back along to Embankment & the rickety District Line. Further west the Thames was looking good with a few interesting boats on it & thousands of golden leaves lining it. My shoulder is immeasurably better after a quick adjustment – now just have to see what the specialist thinks next week.

Less than three-hundred days until the next Olympics

Back in the city, I (shock horror) went clothes shopping, for the second time that week, on Oxford Street. It was crazy busy, which was a good incentive to make quick decisions & then scarper. I spent a bit of time recovering by people-watching & reading more of my book. More aimless wandering took me under Marble Arch to Hyde Park, further around the West End & then north all the way to Regent’s Park to kick leaves around. More reading until it got too dark & then back on the tube to head up to West Hampstead to meet Micah, a uni classmate, for a couple of pints. Great to hear how he & Hayley are doing – not to mention the places they have been around Europe recently.

Much more catching-up to be done when I met, Te Puke & school mate, Levi in Covent Garden. As I knew it would be my last chance to get something resembling poutine for a while, we headed for the Maple Leaf. Disappointed that I couldn’t have a drop of Rickard’s Red, I was appeased by the poutine (although some proper cheese curd wouldn’t have gone amiss), the wings, ribs & proper onion rings. More good stories, Marki turned up & the night progressed to some other bar near Tottenham Court Road tube before I had one last walk back to Charing Cross & just managed to grab the second-to-last train of the night home (the last one is never much fun as the proportion of intoxicated passengers is quite high).

Saturday was supposed to be set aside for packing, but between my book, the Four-Nations rugby league test & the new season of Chuck it was just as well that it didn’t take as long as I expected. Trish went to great effort for a farewell dinner, Ray & Jill joined us & said their farewells. More goodbyes as I left Sunday morning, yet another home to leave behind & miss. The day cleared nicely as I neared my new home, things looked good & I was pleased. More mundaneness of moving – unpacking (but I do have my room just so) & that first big grocery shop. My first day at work today was pleasantly short to ease me back into it & I met an awful lot of people of course (I shouldn’t go too wrong if I’m stuck for a name just going for John – it felt like I met plenty). Now to sort some lights & mudguards for my bike so I ride the short distance & the car can stay put.

bikes, friends, GPS, MTB, UK

A good, but sad, Quantocks ride

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I finally dragged myself in to London to watch a Rugby World Cup game with a bunch of black-clad Kiwis. The final deserved such commitment (getting up at 6.30 on a Sunday) & it was great to meet up with Anna (a family friend from Te Puke), her boyfriend Luke & an assortment of their friends for the occasion. It seemed that I would finally visit a Walkabout pub, but the line outside dictated otherwise & we ended up in a pub around the corner. It was good fun being surrounded by rather excited Kiwis, even if the game didn’t exactly go as planned & was rather tense in the later stages – the celebrations were worth waiting for. Over brunch it was neat to catch up with Anna & Luke and share various travel & living-in-the-UK stories. With a drive across the city we parted ways & I headed home to pack wet-weather riding clothes & my bike in the car & head west to Taunton for a few day’s riding – my first MTBing since the last shoulder incident.

As always, it was great to see John, Anna & their young twin daughters. Richard had also travelled west for some riding; unfortunately for us, there was a heavy rain warning for the west-country on Monday. But most of the rain seemed to fall during the night time so we were left to watch out the window as light rain fell & we hummed & hawwed about when to go out & ride around the Quantocks. Eventually we got out the door & managed to ride for about three hours with little rain falling on us. We still managed to get quite wet as the ground was still wet from the previous night’s rain. As it was extremely blustery on the top of the hills, we spent most of our time riding down in to & up out of the coombes in amongst the trees. It was a nice little 24 km ride, with nothing too technical or steep to test my lack of biking.

It was with some surprise that I looked down at my bike during one of our many rest/chat stops to see a crack working its way around the top of my top-tube. Closer inspection showed that it had started on the bottom of the tube at the weld to the down-tube & propagated up both sides of the tube. My bike was dead & there was to be no more riding for me this week (or for a while – it’s terminal) – I did manage to get up the last hill & back to the van, when fittingly the heavens opened & further dampened my spirits. Various plans were hatched on the drive home – basically, I’ll get a hardtail frame & ride that around flattish-Hampshire when I get around to it. But with dealing with a new car, moving city, finding somewhere to live, starting a new job & waiting for that first pay-packet – it’s something that will be on the back-burner for a while.

Whether it was in deference to me or John & Rich were also a little tired from Monday’s ride, there was no riding on Tuesday. Instead we took the van down to Sidmouth through the beautiful Somerset & Devon countryside to pick up a table from Johns’ parents. We managed to eventually find our way down on foot to the nice little town center & the non-commercialised seafront & spy the mouth of the Sid (strange name for a river that). We managed nicely with the weather – that is until halfway through fish & chips on the shore it started raining on us. We walked home much more directly.

John & Rich went out for a much longer ride on Exmoor yesterday, but I was happy pottering & amusing the girls – even if Esther was rather poorly. I broke the drive back to London up visiting family & then having dinner on the side of the Avon with Andy.