Hi all - hope you are all well and keeping warm!!! Sorry for gloating but its been a year long winter for us and its really good to feel some warm sunshine at the start of what should be a year long summer for us!!!

Still three weeks to go until Christie gets back - she assures me it will fly by but I'm not convinced.

Speaking of Christie, I guess I should update you on what she has been up to as well. Having survived her 'Bird' Flu she is currently embarking on a Tour of England, attempting to talk AT as many people as she can get to listen!

By the sound of it she is doing quite well and I understand her latest victims.... ooops i mean hosts.... have just recovered and their ears have stopped bleeding. Here's Hugh after a couple of hours - it sounds like it went downhill from there......

So congratulations to those that have survived and good luck to those who have yet to experience it - you have been warned! :DD

Well its been a busy few weeks since last writing and I am now a certified scuba diver - which is nice!

I've been doing a course over the last couple of weeks and passed the exam last sunday, meaning that I can now go diving (not quite solo) without having the instuctor getting me to swap masks and breathing apparatus with people underwater. A particular favourite was taking air tanks, mask and everything off on the bottom of a 5m deep pool, swimming to the surface and then diving back down again to put it all back on!

Its all been good fun though and I've been for a couple of dives off the Island Bay coast, which has rocks and caves to explore and lots of fish, octopus, eels and stingrays and stuff to play with.

Unfortunately (or fortunately) there's no pictures of me in my diving gear - I'll try and get someone to take one for my next posting though!

Something that will come in handy now I've done the diving course is the old New Zealand Navy frigate the Wellington which was sunk in spectacular style off Island Bay last week as a diving site.

Here's the boat arriving in the morning....

and then they set the sinking off with a bang....

and she starts to disappear....

Looking forward to exploring that sometime soon.

Thought I better mention the rugby as well - although I didn't quite manage to stay up until 3.30 on Sunday morning. I quickly left the house on sunday to go for a walk up Colonial Knob (no sniggering at the back please) in an attempt to avoid hearing the score until the replay came on in the afternoon. Fortunately the sheep kept the score to themselves and having survived the wind on top of the hill I then spent the afternoon arguing with the highly biased NZ commentators - at least the English commentators try to be impartial!

Shame about the final score but at least it wasn't embarrasing like the Wales and Ireland scores - a quick reminder of who won the last world cup soon stops the gloating!

Anyway i'll leave you with some pictures from my rugby score avoiding walk - more fantastic views of the amazing countryside and coast around wellington and down to the South Island. As you can see there's plenty more of it to keep me occupied for the next three weeks!

and finally - here's me :wave:

See ya all next time

Alan