Games and beaches

The two memories I think I will take away from this little holiday is about games and beaches.

The weather has been quite cool, almost cold at times, so we know that winter is just around the corner. So we have spent a lot of time as a family at the bach, reading books and playing games. We have played checkers, chess, cards(black bitch, go fish, kings and a...holes) and board games.I'm holding my own against the kids at chess, checkers & black itch, but its getting harder each time. I'll have to enjoy the brief time remaining when I can still beat them.

The other memory is my beach walks in the morning before the rest of the family has got out of bed. Tairua has a lovely beach although it slopes up quite steeply at high tide which is when I did all my walks. It makes for a tough beach to swim at as the waves will 'dump' really close to the shore and really hard for the lifeguards to launch an IRB.

The walks were very peaceful and, while I didn't solve any of life's mysteries, I certainly managed to relax and unwind on the walks.

Yesterday we went to hot water beach to look for the hot water. Unfortunately either the tide did not go out as far as it sometimes does (neap/spring tide) or the sand has moved around. We were able to get our toes in hot water by digging our feet in the sand while knee deep in water, but couldn't dig a pool to sit in hot water. Pity, but never mind.

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Travelling books

I can't remember when or when I first heard abut traveling books but the idea has always appealed to me. The idea is that a traveling book has a note put in it to say it is a traveling book, and then 'released' into the open, i.e. left for someone else to pick up. The idea is, when they have finished reading it, they then release it. Books can be left anywhere, on a bus seat, in a cafe, or at a bach, like I'm going to do. As always there is a website dedicated to this, I found it here bookcrossing.com. The idea here is to register the books you release, then, hopefully, if people find them and read them they will register on the site that they have done so and where they released it.

So I've released a couple here at the Barnes-Grahams bach, we'll see if anyone finds & reads them, & maybe updates the web site.

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At the bach

Thanks to the generosity of the Barnes-Grahams we have been able to spend a long weekend at the bach at Tairua. I've been looking forward to this for a while as I've felt my stress levels building for a while.

Life seems very busy at the moment, I've been keeping my swimming & fitness up, which usually means a 5:30ish start in the morning, but can be as early at 4:40 if I'm swimming at the millenium. Work has also been quite full on and add to that scouting and surf life saving and the time just gets spread a bit thin.

Lifesaving season is now finished so that's one thing that will have less demands on my time, which is great.

However, I had stopped doing Toastmasters as it conflicted with Parnell swimming, with the intention of taking it up during the winter. But as I rejoined VF toastmasters was in the process of closing down. Kimson Co, a VF employee from a different Toastmaster club decided to try and keep it going and I agreed to help, so I am now the treasurer, a role I have not done before. With Kimson's energy it looks like the club will get going with a bang, some people are even worried that the club may get too big!! And I agreed to do speech 10 on our first meeting so I better start working on it.

We have enjoyed our first day or so here, really lazy time spent around the bach, playing games, reading books and doing puzzles. Went and found some geocaches and then had a very pleasant dinner.

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End of summer?

It is slowly dawning on me that summer is coming to a close. The weather is still good but it is cooling down. At 5:30 a.m. this morning it was 13 degrees.

Surf Lifesaving
Patrolling has finished now and the last thing left for the season is to finish the rookie program. There is a rookie challenge on Saturday where the rookies compete in teams of 5, we are doing some extra evening training, the last two sessions being tonight & tomorrow. Then I need to get them all through their bronze training and into the senior club.

Ross Fearon & Steve Newman have started ski training for the rookies and I have decided to give it a go too. Went out for half an hour on Sunday but spent most of my time falling off and climbing back on again.

Day light saving
We we're back to normal time now, but as I have been getting up around 5 on weekdays it doesn't make much difference to me at the moment. Other than driving home last night with the lights on.

Swimming
Parnell closed last week on Friday so now I need to work out the winter swimming schedule. I went to the millennium this morning to train with the surf club, it starts at 5:30 a.m. but other than the early start I really enjoyed it. Left my car at Constellation park & ride and then took the bus in and was in the office by 7:05. I think I'll keep this up on Tues & Thurs mornings.

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