A sporty, jazzy, muddy week

The Lions-Blues game and Carmen opera provided diverting mid-week entertainment. The defeat of the Lions was unfortunate, but the good company (Rich and Lucy and flatmates), delicious hotpot and fact that Rich was wearing his Lions shirt for the first time made up for it. Carmen at the St James Theatre, courtesy of Tim and Sophie, was suitably sultry and intense, with a set of huge moveable white walls and rickety staircases. Sophie and I did come up with a better ending though, so I'll be letting Bizet know.

This week we launched the electric road trip videos that I've been working on for several months, including on-location filming (sometimes, when you can see the car but not the driver - that's me). The Wellington episode is above (1min30). If you would like to watch all seven amazing hilarious and key-message-nailing videos, head to https://powertrip.meridianenergy.co.nz/ and please watch each one for at least 30 seconds (so it's recorded as a 'view'), thanks!

Guerrilla jazz with stuffed wallabies

On Friday we went to some Wellington Jazz Festival jazz with Matt and Phoebe. It sounded really edgy and exciting - guerrilla jazz with a semi-well-known drum & base drummer. Like much edgy music these days (i.e. as we approach 30), however, it turned out to be quite loud and repetitive. We still had a good time photographing the taxidermied wallabies in the venue though.

The jazz was simply the warm-up gig for Matt and Phoebe's housewarming on Saturday. We'd limbered up (Roger's football team won 4-1 and I swam 1320m) so we were fighting fit for beer-pong-themed drinking games and cheering on the Lions, who won against the Crusaders (phew). The house is now well and truly warm (and slightly beery). 

Photo credits: Lucy

Alarmingly early on Sunday morning Roger went to run the final Xterra trail race at Makara mountain bike park with Tim. A few hours later, sustained by Tinakori Road brunch, I joined Lucy for a mountain bike also at Makara. We slogged up to the summit, via the new swing bridge (left), for the view (right) and for the downhill on Peak Flow that was generally fast and awesome and then quite hairpin-y at the end. Muddy but proud.

Roger cooked a huge pork roast with his second-best-ever crackling, perfect parsnips and impromptu apple sauce.

And we started plotting next weekend...back to the wilderness (the wilderness close to Welly that is).