I live a crazy but balanced life

It's Arts Festival time again and I have tickets to chamber music, theatre and comedy amongst other things. To balance that out I have my season ticket for home rugby games. That on top of a massive August with work functions. Who needs to sleep when all this is going on!

My brush with fame

I've just got back from the i-Site (tourist information) conference in Wellington. Basically I only saw the airport and the inside of the hotel but still...

we got to walk the red carpet at a Wellywood dinner...I got my name on the walk of fame...and heard from Phil Gifford; sports journo, biographer, fabulous storyteller and self confessed rugby tragic. Oh and the other guy is the prime minister.

Winter is finally here

I've been upgraded!

For the first time ever - sooo exciting! As a result of having put in some serious air miles over the last 12 months (yay for work meetings in other places) my frequent flyer status has been upgraded to Silver. This came with a couple of Koru lounge passes (nice) and an ePass. I have seen one of these in action at a boarding gate and my inner geek girl was more that a little jealous. You stick it to the back of you phone or anything that you regularly carry with you, get it close enough and it identifies you to the network. No more swiping cards or barcodes. Now I have one of my very own to waive at checkin machines and boarding gates I can't wait for my next flight.

Taking wild to a whole new level

The west coast is well known for it's wild weather but no one told me about the tornadoes!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/taranaki-daily-news/news/5165054/Tornado-takes-familiar-pathway

Looong Lunching

This last weekend I spent with friends, food, wine, music and dancing all together in one very large, a bit posh tin shed.

Victoria is a long way to go for lunch but it was totally worth it, even dodging Chilean volcano ash on the way home.

Whales and Weather

I had a wonderful weekend before last with family celebrating Dad's birthday. We went to Port Stephens on the NSW coast, right on the whale highway. We spent Sunday afternoon out on the water. There was a lot of this...

Then quite a bit of this from two humpbacks at a safe distance...

and then this!!!