Chinara’s
Monday, February 4: Raining, clearing briefly around lunchtime, but returning in the evening.
Monarch on Feijoa
Slept a good eight hours until the cars were removed from the garages; then waited until the bathroom was free (and everyone out of the house) to make myself some breakfast (coffee, muesli, toast).
Then I decided I needed a couple of extra slides for tonight, so I got those done & practised the presentation once. Now the blog had to be updated, as there had been no publication last Friday. First that gap was filled, and then the blog for tomorrow was scheduled.
With that out of the way a first shopping expedition was undertaken to try to get some jandals, and then a mince with cheese pie for lunch that I ate at Chinara’s.
Time to try contacting Tom again. Once again I attempted a test call via Skype which this time seemed to work quite well, so I put a call through to his mobile, but he was in a meeting so I called him back half an hour later. In the meantime I chatted with Andrew Freidin on facebook, who said he liked my landscapes. Agreed with Tom that we should try meeting on Wednesday after my hike. Will call him when I get back & he will pick me up from here.
The afternoon shopping expedition was a little more extensive & intensive as well. A set of bedding can be bought for about $50; but the dunas seem to be very “naked”, i.e have no inner cover; the ones that do are too expensive: Anyway it’ll only be for a few weeks & in the end the stuff can be junked.
Came back home and packed a very heavy rucksack for the evening, then went out for the first fried rice of the season ($9.90 at Noodle Canteen), then stood around a bit for a bus. Bus to the uni didn’t seem to be wanting to go via downtown, but the driver ferried me to the next stop anyway. Rain was starting up again, and, as the downtown stop was the Sky City building there was a longish walk down to the wharf and along the street to Britomart station, where I waited a bit for Rayna. We had to get into the car quickly as this was the stop-and-kiss area, and were soon on our way to Kathy’s who had offered her 42” telly for the event. By this time it was cats and dogs so the rain gear was necessary to get to the house.
Started setting up my equipment while Rayna spread some lollies around and poured the two of us some iced lemonade. No one else arrived so I gave the almost CHDK-free version of the lecture, interspersed with almost commensurate commentary and interrogation from and by Rayna (both of which seemed almost commensurate in themselves) and Kathy. Ended with a demonstration of bracketing and enfusing by which time it was rather late, still raining, and there was yet to be an end of the conversation in sight.
Eventually, Rayna offered to take me home where after a long conversation with Chinara I got to bed just after midnight.
