Marsden is Here

D "+ Guest" was invited to a very special wedding in Auckland, so last weekend I paid my first visit to this city which was not purely contained to passing though the airport.

My lasting impression was of the number of rainbows we saw, and much closer than I am used to encountering in Christchurch (at one point it seemed we were about to drive through the base of one). D was unimpressed, I guess they just become part of the background colour if you have lived in the city.

I am grateful that we did not encounter heavy traffic at any time during our visit. Even with the assistance of google maps unfamiliarity with the motorway system, and exits meant I was changing lanes at short notice more than I would have liked, sometimes in less-than optimal driving conditions.

The visit was a bit of a whirlwind, what with delayed flights it was almost exactly 36 hours between boarding at Christchurch airport and getting home. In that time we

- flew up
- found our rental car
- stopped for a slow-to-arrive lunch at a Sylvia Park eating establishment
- found our motel
- changed
- found the wedding venue (a short drive north of Auckland)
- enjoyed the wedding (with bonus cheese), at which I encountered an old acquaintance and met a few new people without embarrassing myself or D.
- it was rather a change to be the unknown partner rather than the well-known member on one of the social groups. Not an unpleasant one.
- returned to the motel via one of D's old flats to pick up some things which had been accidentally left there when she departed. Fortunately these took up almost the same space coming back as the wedding present had travelling up.
- dragged ourselves away from the motel by the 10am checkout time
- dropped D's chef knives off at her sharpener of preference (who couriered them back later in the week)
- spent some time sitting in the hothouse winter gardens.
- Met up with a friend of D's for lunch
- I was thanked for making D seem happier than she had been in a long time :)
- visited the butterflies, geckos and crocs at Butterfly Creek (the kiwis were being shy)
- returned the car unscathed
- resisted the entreaties of the saleswoman in the airport jewellery store and hung out in the departure lounge while our flight was delayed & delayed (but several others (to smaller centres) were announced as cancelled while we waited, so could have been worse).

The weekend started as planned, in that I got to the airport and parked in good time. After that things went a bit awry. It turned out that fog had prevented some earlier flights landing so (at least) three flights /out/ of Christchurch had been cancelled, including mine, due to not having the aircraft available.

( elsnippo )

To recap:

Monday: Colour of Magic & cat chunder.

Tuesday: SAGA AGM eventually managed to scrape together quorum, but then a lack of candidates and a UCSA double-booking snafu resulted in two of the committee positions and all the general business being put off until an SGM sometime in October.

Wednesday: Hosted board games for glissom and friends. Managed to come a close second-equal in Vinci.

Thursday: Work suddenly had multiple urgent jobs that had to be finished/perfect beofre I left for my long weekend. This resulted in a) mistakes and b) my leaving work an hour later than planned which was spent with the boss breathing down my neck. This in turn meant that I was unable to complete the prep I had planned for the nights game, and indeed I was sufficiently mind-fucked that I turned up to the holiday venue instead of the term-time venue.

Fortunately the residents were a) home and b) didn't rib me too mercilessly. The game ran OK once the party actually came to some agreement about what course of action they were going to take, and came up with a plan other than a frontal assault through the chaff.

Friday: Took the day off work to attend tatianitska and glissom's wedding. managed to sleep in by an hour, which was probably good for me but meant some chores I had planned didn't get done. Took photos, ate good food, chatted a bit to various people I don't see very often/haven't seen in over a decade.

Attended the impromtu BBQ at J & T's afterwards, a smaller affair. Left reasonably early to get to bed.

Saturday:
Slept in Failed to get up by two hours....
Short list:
Laundry
155 RS articles/email digests +links
Neverwinter Prep

(Gaming Tuesday Wednesday Thursday is really screwing with my schedule in a whole bunch of ways.)

Party

Slightly longer list for the weekend:
Lawns
Try to clean lounge ceiling
Kitchen floor
Blog Post
Process wedding photos