Well, what can I say - I have such great taste in friends, ok so I work with him too! Me and J hit the town last night, and it was steaming…. literally, I lost count of the number of bourbons and coke after the first 10 minutes?! I got home some time after 4am and that signalled the start of the worst best day of my year so far….yeah confusing huh!

So, when I woke up today (and missed the W.O.F. testing station for my car damit!!) I decided to go for a walk - this is at about 2pm. I don my MP3 player, with some ambient tunes weaving their way into my ears. I walk. No where in particular but with just one thing on my mind, the ‘now’, or rather it’s relation to coincidence and fate if any. Before I know it, it’s 3pm and I have walked halfway round Lower Hutt in a world of my own. Within myself, and yet so far divorced from the physical aspect of me, that it was really quite exhilerating!

In order to bring myself a little closer to planet Earth again, I decide to watch - ‘The Incredible Hulk’ in the cinema - and BOY what a better effort than the first reprisal a year or so ago! With some great cameo appearances including Lou Ferrigno the original HULK! (even providing the voice of Hulk!) and a short appearance by Marvels own Stan Lee who gets a little taste of his own medicine shall we say! All in all, one of those ‘yeah I’d watch that again’ flicks….

then I walk home from the cinema (since my car is currently off the road until I renew the Warrent of Fitness) which at 3km or so, takes me around 30mins, and here I am sat typing this, feeling the lack of bourbon return to my system =p

In other news I just found out that my brother’s mother-in-law just passed away, and that our own mum is back in hospital, my faith in the UK Social Services is increasingly diminishing! - what a downer!

Well, what an eventful weekend…

Apart from watching “Death-proof” - instant Tarrantino classic, and featuring a New Zealander stunt chick - Zoe Bell as herself to boot!! I must admit, he could make a 30 second advert for TV and it would be an instant classic!! The man’s a LEGEND~!

So, anyhooo - come Saturday evening, and my landlords invite me along with them and some friends to Timaru (near Upper Hutt), Speedway to take in the season finale - Stock Car races, and Demolition Derby. For $15 you get three plus hours of gritty, petrol fumed pure adrenaline! I even got to wander round the pitts during the races…TOP! The highlight of the evening was seeing the Super-Saloon Class racing, all these soop’d up slick cars, AND a Mini!!! The Mini held it’s own however - I even had a chat with the driver; since he’s the nephew of one of my landlord’s friends?!

Goood times!

Here I am… “busy” at work, and I have just realised that as of next Tuesday I will have been here in New Zealand for a whole six months!! That’s like half a year man! I’m a little fragile today too, as my partner in crime(s) Jason dragged me out last night, for a couple of scoops (unfortunatley niether of us can count to two so we lost count of how many bourbon and cokes we had)….

Slowly feeling better, not sure I’ll be out again tonight, that would be asking for trouble! I seriously need some sleep when I get home later…

This last ten days has been pretty cool, whilst I didn’t go out and party “every” night like some of the younger chaps and chapess’s in the band, I did manage to do quite well, finished reading Manda Scott’s “Dreaming the Bull” from the Boudica Series, now I am on the final installment! I also managed to meet up with Nicole who used to work with my sister in Hong Kong. Rather than rattle on though I’ll share a couple of pic’s from my trip with ya!

I guess I have a thing for architecture, especially if it’s something not quite of the norm! This building in Brisbane just kind of stood out to me as worthy of a pic!

This was taken on the South Side near Victoria Bridge facing North, one of the many bridges that spans the river that meanders through Brisbane. In this photo you can see the mix of old and new buildings in this metropolitan place.

This interesting walkway is what I believe to be the entry to the South Bank Parklands, you can almost imagine a line of Elephants rasing there trunks!

This is a picture taken of Burleigh Heads, which is about 25 mins South of Surfer’s Paradise, where I had a bite to eat and strole with Nicole.

This is a little way up “The Heads” looking out across to the Surfer’s Paradise area, ok techincally I think we are looking at Broadbeach but I won’t split too many hairs…

Not sure if you saw this guy in the last pic, just a quick reminder of some of the nasty creepy and possibly dangerous things that live in Australia, apart from Dame Edna of course!

These are the not so dangerous, but strange enough to see roosting up a hill in a tree?! A bunch of “Bush Turkeys”, well it ain’t no Koala but it’s something I guess?

This is the view across to Surfer’s Paradise from Burleigh Heads, and ok ok! It was a bit of an overcast day, so I’ve done a little photoshopping to spruce the pic a bit, coz it was looking a little lame =p

Finally a pic of me and Nicole, I’m showing what’s left of my spare tyre round the waste, but the weight continues to drop~! Thanks to this break I have finally gone below 16 stone! Which = about 100Kg for the Imperially Challenged =p Not bad considering I was near to 120Kg when I moved out to NZ huh!

A couple of rather conspicious highlights from my break - ordering three bottles of wine and a bottle of bubbly on room service in Brisbane after we won the B Grade, and I still am unable to remember when I lost consciousness…o.O

And getting lost somewhere in Surfers Paradise, and not getting back to the appartment till 5.30am - if that wasn’t enough?! I was still a bit tanked and boosed, and lost ALL ability to use a key, in the end I resorted to climbing the balcony to open one of the patio doors, this worked but only after to tenth attempt.

Good times!