Landing

Hello readers!

Apologies for the lack of posts and patchy availability of the weapon during the last week – it’s in the middle of being moved as the hosting company wants me to start paying them.

So what’s been going on?

Last weekend was a weekend of sport. Lions beating North Harbour on Saturday, Phoenix losing to Newcastle (an Aussie one, not the UK one) on Sunday. An odd experience at one of the stadium bars, too:

Ben: Four Tui, please
Barman: Can I see some ID?
Ben: Um… I have a UK drivers licence?
Barman: Why don’t you have a kiwi one?
Ben: Is this a trick question?
Barman: Sorry, I can’t serve you
Ben: I’m thirty one
Barman: I can see that
Ben: Err… rightoh. I’ll be off then.

Fortunately there are many other bars at the stadium. A match isn’t a match without a plastic bottle of Tui.

Went to the swimming pool in Porirua again in the week. Again, a lane to myself, followed by a jacuzzi and a sauna. Went to a Denny’s for dinner afterwards, as there are no other restaurants in the ‘rua. JJ liked it, as she likes american food. I didn’t, as it’s crap. Picked a steak, as I figured they wouldn’t be able to bugger it up. Not so. Cinema in Porirua is good though – like the swimming pool it’s pretty underutilised.

Andy-the-tri had an operation on his finger to stop it looking like a claw (the result of a mountain bike accident) on Thursday and stayed over Thursday night so we could keep an eye on him. All went well and he doesn’t seem to be in much pain, although he does have an inconvenient splint on it which is awkward and is keeping him awake.

Gliding continues apace. I’ve done 29 flights now and my landings are coming along nicely. There have been plenty of rough ones, but a couple of good ones too. JJ came along to the airfield yesterday, lured by the promise of Malay’s greyhound (which didn’t show up), and has created a short film, complete with musical accompaniment, of one of my flights. She’s still adamant that she won’t fly though. Still hoping to solo before 40 – I need to do some more good landings, a simulated low-level rope break, and some more work on stall recovery, and then I’m good to go, I reckon.

Watched the ABs hammering Portugal last night with Andy. We tropped down to the Sandbar, assuming that we could watch it on the big screen. However they were showing an arbitrary league game, and had a band in, so we repaired to the Ben and JJ arms and watched it there.