Hi all,

Since I last updated you quite a bit has happened.

Me & Emma drove the colonel to Glenorchy a very beautiful (if non-existent) town near QT. It's an amazing drive, so scenic, but not so great on the stomach, especially with a hangover! We both arrived feeling very queezy!

Me & James also drove the Colonel to Arrowtown, a very quaint town which had it's autumn festival over the weekend. Even then there wasn't much to do, we looked round the art exhibition, which had some really nice local scenic works by local artists, and we quickly looked round the mining museum (and I do mean quickly!) There's only one main street in Arrowtown, and most of that is restaurants, so we had lunch, then headed back!

The next week was Emma's Bday. We got her lots of little gifts, and hid them around the house with little clues to find them. The boys spent all day writing rhyming clues, most of them pretty poor, but amusing, once the rude ones were vetoed!!!

That night we went out for dinner & drinks with Anita (my boss & em's v good friend - right), Tama (Kiwi who used to live below us, a real dude!) and his girlfriend Stella(left).

On the weekend, Emma & Katie (a crazy, hyper girl who used to work on reception with me) had a joint Bday party at a v hip & trendy bar! Good night, altho we did have to escape the drunken Katie pretty quickly!

The next day I had organised for me & em to go horse riding in the afternoon, by which time I thought Emma might have recovered from a hangover. Unfortunately her hungover got worse during the day, so the drive to Glenorchy was pretty bad for her again!! But she arrived in one peice and still managed to get on a horse!

It was em's first time on a horse, but she enjoyed it, even tho she wasn't a big fan of trotting!!

The area we hacked through was amazing! It's called Paradise valley, and it really is!!! We hacked down in the river basin, and the views were stunning, it was a fantastic day for it too:

The next week was James last week in QT, for a little while at least, as he had to go back home for a month to see his family. We decided to spoil him a little before he left. Me, James, Jon & Matt all went ice skating at the local rink, something none of us had done since we were kids (broomball doesn't count as it's not on skates!) We were all pretty terrible at it, except James, who I think must have been some kind of figure skater as a kid (definately not a hockey player!!)

On my day off, me & James hired a car (by this time the Colonel had failed its WOF - NZ version of an MOT - unfortunately!!) and we drove to Wanaka for the day to do some shooting!! We did Clay Pigeon shooting, which I sucked at, and James kicked my ass! But I beat him at the rifle shooting, I knew I could have been an assassin!!

On his last day I took him on Shotover Jet, the rival Jet boat to the one Rob works for!! It was pretty cool tho, they drive through shotover canyon, which is beautiful, and they get really close to the rocks, slightly scary! And we got pretty soaked by the splashes, James looked like he'd wet himself!!!

We then drove up to Christchurch for James' flight home, in another hire car, this time it was pink! James was not amused! We stayed for a night in Christchurch and it happened to be the big night out in Christchurch! It felt like I was back in Harlow with the amount of young girls in rediculous skirts!! We managed to make it to Shooters tho, cheap drinks, dirty girls and drunken guys, wahoo!!!

Then I had to say bye to James and head on the long drive back to QT! At least my room is tidy now!!