Captains Blog

New Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Janet) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:17:00 +0000

I've finally moved my blog over to my new domain! I hope you like it :)

You'll find it at: blog.groat.net.nz

Mobile blogging

noreply@blogger.com (Janet) — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 23:21:00 +0000

I'm trying out mobile blogging on my iPhone 4S using my voice, it's very cool but it has its ups and downs. I think for the most part it seems to understand what I'm saying and translate accordingly but there has been some issues. I'm not sure if this is any faster.

It's certainly fun to use your voice to make notes and create reminders and the Siri feature is also a great source of amusement but the functionality in New Zealand is severely limited.

I'm not sure if I would use this long-term but it certainly is good fun playing with it!

Hopefully having this new device will mean I can do more mobile blogging in the future :)

One Year In

noreply@blogger.com (Janet) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 02:31:00 +0000

Today is my one year anniversary of arriving in New Zealand. In fact I got a text message from my mobile carrier telling me I have been with them for 1 year and saying thank you.

In many ways it doesn’t feel like it’s been a year already. It certainly doesn’t seem like a year ago since I last saw my family and friends, but then I suppose that’s the beauty of the modern age where I keep up-to-date on the gossip through Facebook and Twitter and I see and chat to people on Skype.

When I think about all the things that we’ve done and achieved in this last year it feels like there is a few years worth of activity in there!

We’ve settled in really well here, we have some awesome friends, regular activities that we do, plenty of R&R, and lots of future plans. We like our jobs but we’re thinking ahead, we love where we live but we still want to buy a house at some point.

Auckland is a great place to live, there is so much to do here! There’s shopping, beaches, theatres, galleries, sports, music – everything. In fact, yesterday it was brought to my attention that in the last year I have not left Auckland once. Even Waiheke Island is part of Auckland (a very nice part it is too!). Perhaps in this next year I will venture further a field, but there is still many, many parts of Auckland I haven’t seen and explored yet. Kane (who’s been to Wellington twice on business) mocks me, calling me a JAFA and saying that I think nothing exists beyond Auckland. I’ve been up to Dairy Flats, there really doesn’t seem to be much out there!! :P

Barbequing

noreply@blogger.com (Janet) — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 01:29:00 +0000

I love barbeques! Barbeques and al fresco dining have always been a key part of summer for as long as I can remember. They were usually large affairs with family and friends turning up with lots of food to share. Most of the time they were unplanned and most of time they went on all day until we had squeezed the last rays from the sun (and in Scotland this is about 10pm in summer) then we’d eventually drift indoors and carry on partying.

I was too young to drink and therefore probably the only person to remember a particular barbecue where my parents had just returned from holidaying in Spain and brought with them the recipe for making Sangria!!

The actual barbequing area was the domain of the male head of household so that was my Dad at my house and my sister husbands if it was their houses. It was ok for one or two other males to be present in the barbequing area but only in a supporting role and the males and females were happy to drink and chat or provide a beer delivery service to the barbequing area.

So my own and my husbands knowledge and skill of operating and cooking on a barbeque is very limited to what we have observed.

We purchased a barbeque along with other things from the previous tenants of our rental home and the beautiful weather of the long labour weekend meant we would finally get a chance to try our hands at barbequing. I opened the barbeque prepared with heavy duty cleaning materials and rubber gloves only to discover that it had rusted through and one of the gas pipes had a large rust cavity and fissure (I was going to write hole and crack but that just sounds rude doesn’t it?). Not to be dissuaded from my plans that easily, I talked Kane into shopping for another barbeque and then phoned up Stuff2Go, a company that picks up junk and recycles it.

We weren’t sure how we would get a barbeque home in our small car and were contemplating wheeling it home in shopping trolleys, but happily it fitted (very) snuggly in the car.

Once we got home Kane set to building the barbeque with the cats playing on the deck in the sunshine beside him. Then we raided our cupboards to find things to barbeque!

The first night we barbequed:

Vegan sausages
Vegan burger
Burger buns (mmm toasty buns!)
Capsicum
Red onion
Pineapple
Mushrooms
Courgette

And served with salad and Tuimato sauce.

The next night we barbequed:

Vegan Schnitzel
Corn on the cob (parboiled)
Capsicum
Red onion
Pineapple
Mushroom
Garlic cloves
Carrots (parboiled)
Tomatoes

And served with salad.

So far my favourite barbequed thing is garlic. I barbequed some peeled and some unpeeled and I didn’t notice any difference, both kinds were oh-so-tasty! I haven’t yet found anything that doesn’t taste good barbequed.

Spiders

noreply@blogger.com (Janet) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 21:31:00 +0000

I can’t remember why I have a paint brush in my car, but anyway, I was driving down the motorway when I decided that Wing-mirror Spider had outdone himself and the massive web that covered half my wing mirror had collected far too much debris and had to be removed, so I reached into the glovebox and pulled out the paintbrush and brushed the web away and popped the paintbrush back in the glovebox. That’s when I started to get really paranoid that I now had spiders in the glovebox. It took about 40 minutes before I got stopped at traffic lights and finally could check for spiders. I’m not even afraid of spiders!

Birthday Weekend

noreply@blogger.com (Janet) — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 01:33:00 +0000

I’ve had a lovely long weekend for my birthday and it’s been great!

I started Birthday weekend on Wednesday evening by wearing the birthday tiara and drinking some lovely strawberry Cruiser Wine Bubbles.

There was no long lie in for me on my birthday, I was up and ready to open pressies that had been sitting on the dining table for a several days tormenting me! I got some clothes from Zara (so I can show off here!), some Ortak earrings, a scarf, mascara, a moneygram, perfume, some chocolate bars and strangely a packet of Doritos chilli heat wave crisps. I then put up my cards and headed to get the bus to the ferry.

We grabbed some brekkie and ate it on the ferry over to Waiheke island. We then got a bus tour of the island and walked along the beach before we headed to the vineyards. There are over 20 vineyards on the island and there are olive groves as well. We headed to Stonyridge vineyard and ordered tasting glasses of all the red wines. Seven glasses of different wines were then put in front of us and we started working our way through them. We then ordered 2 glasses of the ones we liked the best and had those with a light lunch. The next winery we headed to was closed and the bus was heading along the road so we took that as a sign to head for home.

The next day we had a much needed long lie and then we headed into town. We had some lunch at the Mexican cafe and then we went to find the pub I had heard about that serves pints of Tetley's and John Smiths. After wandering up and down Wyndham Street we eventually found the doorway for the Spitting Feathers. We stayed there for a few before heading over to the Auckland SciFi meetup.

Saturday was relatively quiet and we chilled out with the cats (I have cats now) before heading out to Monsoon Poon for Hamish’s birthday. We had a lovely meal and chatted with some nice people who had been to a wedding in Crieff and had toured some of Scotland.

On Sunday I spent some quality time with my Sims and enjoyed my last day of freedom before work the next day.

A very enjoyable weekend!

Neglected Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Janet) — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 01:20:00 +0000

Ah my poor blog. It has been getting a little neglected lately and I must remedy that. The point of starting a blog in the first place was so I could store my thoughts and memories for when I forgot them and it's not going to do that if I leave it empty!

As I remember things from the last few months I will post them up here as well as keeping up-to-date with stuff.

This week I have mostly been: eating hot chips, skating, getting freaked out by meditation podcasts, snug under a blanket, wearing a scarf.

I also: went to an ice hockey game, watched the movie RED.

First Quarter

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:42:00 +0000

Looking back my last few blog posts, I can see that I have left some pretty big gaps in my activities so here is what I’ve been up to the last few months.

The first was the Big Day Out where we saw some awesome bands. I particularly enjoyed Rammstein and Wolf Mother. Iggy Pop and the Stooges were good and had loads of energy and I also enjoyed Lupe Fiasco.

I was sad to have missed Steriogram and I think it was mostly laziness that meant I missed their gig at a local venue too. I’m bad :( Walkie Talkie Man is an awesome song.

A week after the Big Day Out our container arrived from the UK and it was unboxing time. Finally I was reunited with the football inflator adapters, lint rollers, a couple of screws and the bubbles I was given in Pisa. I don’t know how I coped all those months without them :\

Then we decided it was time to be more sociable so we joined up with a local sci-fi group and met some cool people.

At the start of the month we went to the opera Xerxes which was awesome, very colourful and quite funny. This was held in the Civic theatre which is a very pretty theatre. Inside the main auditorium looks like an ancient greek amphitheatre and the ceiling above has glistening stars. People get very dressed up for the opera here and I saw more than a few tuxedos and even someone with opera glasses! I’ve got tickets for a couple of ballets and I’m wondering if they will be as dressy.

We’ve been to a couple of Blues super rugby games which have been really good – helped by the Blues winning both times! I like the whole experience of going to the rugby games. There is usually some kind of show before hand with competitions and cheerleaders that actually do cheerleading. There’s more of the same at half time with opportunities to win stuff or get freebies like t-shirts and mini rugby balls.

a few weeks ago we went to a friends house for his birthday and ate cake and watched movies. From Dusk to Dawn was not what I expected!

I particularly liked his shelving unit make out of cardboard and styrofoam. We don’t need IKEA with kiwi ingenuity like this!

And that brings us to last weekend when we went to the Stone Temple Pilots gig. This was brilliant and they played all their best songs.

So that’s more or less the first quarter of the year!

Nothing to Wear

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 03:18:00 +0000

The nights are fair drawing in :)

It has started to be a bit chilly in the mornings when I wake up and it’s a bit dark too, but the clocks change at the end of the week and I have to try and figure out what time it is in the UK, has the clocks changed there already?

Despite the chilliness in the mornings, the afternoons are bright and warm and similar to a normal Scottish summer’s day, with that little hint of coolness in the air and it’s an easy 20 degC when I’m heading home at 5pm. This confuses me, and I usually end up over dressed for work in boots and jumpers and scarves. Even Kane, who has only worn shorts for the past 5 months, has taken to wearing jeans on the odd evening.

Selecting the appropriate clothing does require a re-education. Even though the mornings are cool to begin with, it gets warmer and it’s still not yet jacket weather. It does rain though and my goodness it rains! I’ve never seen so much rain all at once! Last Saturday I was out and about quite early in the CBD, I elected to wear my uniform of converse trainers, jeans, t-shirt and a jumper because it was raining and looked cold. My jeans got totally soaked at the cuffs and was drawing the water up while the jumper was causing me to over heat! I saw a good few people wearing vests, shorts and boots carrying umbrellas and this is now making sense to me!

I’ve fallen in with a decent crowd and I might ask them for some advice on how to dress myself but it’s likely they’ll tell me to wear my Star Trek TNG uniform or something!

One of the main reasons for moving to New Zealand was to do more, to get out of the rut and do some living and I can honestly say that I have done more in the last few months here than I had in the last few years in Edinburgh. Even with the scary earthquakes in the South Island and the tsunami warnings closer to home, I’m glad I live here.

J 2.0 in beta

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 21:08:00 +0000

When I trained for and ran my first half marathon, I was so happy to cross that finish line! I wore my medal for weeks! But I was also sad because this thing that had consumed so much of my time, so much of my life was now gone and there was nothing left to fill it. (That’s when I started training for another one.)

Moving to New Zealand has been a bit like that first half marathon. It was such a big goal that had been in my life for a long time that now it’s achieved I have nothing to focus on. (I am certainly not planning another move!)

From the exercise in my last blog post I have focus again! And amongst my goals of buying a house, looking at service delivery at work and travelling in New Zealand, I plan to run the Auckland Half Marathon. Ahh.. race schedules, how I have missed you…

J 2.0

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 04:05:00 +0000

It’s January where traditionally I create a new resolution booklet – yes a booklet – filled with the familiar headings and under each heading a list of, more depressingly, familiar goals and instructions on how to succeed.

This always leads to a kind of bottleneck, where I try to do everything at the same time and after about a week I’m exhausted from my rigorous exercise program, starving from my restrictive eating plan and broke from trying to create the “stylish new me” despite my involved financial budget and savings plan.

This isn’t working so something has to change.

Magazines and other media are telling me that it is bad for me to set such lofty goals as this has a negative impact when I inevitably fail, and instead perhaps this year my resolution should be one of acceptance or to be kinder to myself.

In my opinion, to not even try is much worse than failing! Acceptance?? What?! am I suppose to just say, this is all I will ever be?

Neither of these approaches work for me. However, I think I have an idea!

Instead of trying to change everything all at once, just tackle those goals one at a time until they are integrated, internalised, habit, second nature.

So the first goal is some personal admin of the mind. I’m going to have a think about who I am, where I have been and what has made me into this version of me right now. (One of the things I already know about myself is that too much introspection is very bad for me! so I will not spend too long on this exercise) Then I’m going to have a think about where I am going, where I want to go and what that version of me will be like.

This is one of my favourite exercises. I learned this reading Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Imagine it is 5 years from now and you going to a social gathering. You get yourself ready and head to the venue. You arrive and see that all your family, friends, co-workers and people from your community are there. You then come to realisation that this is your funeral and a key member of your family stands in front of everyone and begins to talk about you. They reminisce and talk about what kind of person you were, what qualities you had and achievements you made. Next a friend stands up and talks about what kind of friend you were. Then a co-worker stands up and tells everyone what kind of person you were at work and your achievements and successes there. Finally a person from your community or other group you are involved in that gives some kind of service stands up and they tell everyone what kind of contributions you made or of your involvement.

This exercise gives a good template for who you are, the best version of yourself, and of where you want to be heading. It gives you insight into your values and of what matters most to you and these are the things you should be giving the most of your time to.

One Month In

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 01:37:00 +0000

We have now been living in New Zealand for 1 month! And what a month it has been :)

In the first few days we picked up our rental car and had all the flurry of buying kitchen appliances etc. Once we had the essentials; food, cooking implements, something to eat from, something to sit on and something to sleep on, we were good to go.

My advice to anyone else doing this – register for FlyBuys, we could have gotten so many points :(

Furniture here seems very expensive at first glance. I’m an IKEA girl and I feel at home with veneer and fibre board and a cheap price tag. However, things are actually made of solid wood here, mostly New Zealand pine with a nice stain or super glossy. Once we got our heads around that, we started to see furniture as an investment and not just something that will do short term.

We took our time figuring out what bedroom furniture we wanted, shopped around and managed to get a really good deal on a bed and mattress. We got a duvet, pillows, covers and sheets as part of the package deal. We were really happy to find our IKEA double duvet fits our queen size bed snuggly, which was something we were concerned about. I think standard UK double duvets would be too small. I managed to get some money off a matching chest of drawers too. I also asked how long they are likely to have that particular furniture set. They have had it for the past 10 years and are not planning to stop or change it, so I hope this means once we’ve saved up some money we can get more matching chest of drawers and dressers.

Another thing that is very expensive here are second-hand cars. They hold their value very well. I’ve only ever bought a second-hand car once and that was the 1977 Volkswagen camper van. We had good times in that van, but also too many break downs! I think it put us off second-hand cars for life!

We shopped around and decided to buy the cheapest new car available in New Zealand! We have a Holden Barina Spark CDX (in cocktail green). It’s definitely not in the same league as our old car but I do love my new baby :) The salesman was just awesome and if you are ever looking to buy a new car you should find Richard Thomson at Schofield Holden in New Market and talk to him. He reminded both Kane and I of Dick Van Dyke. He is such a nice man, kept me updated with the progress of my car, I picked it up on the scheduled date and he introduced me to the staff in the service centre, made sure I was familiar with the car and then a few days later called just to check everything was ok and I was still happy with my new purchase.

I’ve found people in the service industry much nicer here. Even I’m nicer here. The other day a man dropped something and instead of giving him a kick when he bent to pick it up, I picked it up for him!

Anyway, the day I got to pick up my nice new car, I got offered a job! I applied for a number of jobs and got replies back from 2 agencies which I registered with. Colin Munro from MTR took me under his wing a bit and gave me some excellent advice on my CV. CV’s here are really long! In the UK you shouldn’t go beyond 2 pages, but for someone of my experience I probably should have a 5 page CV!! I totally reformatted my CV and I now have a 3 pager. This seemed to help and I had 2 interviews very quickly, the next week I had a second interview and started my new job almost straight away. Colin and Andy at MTR are awesome!

I’ve also found a new pole dancing class that I go to on Saturdays and lately I’ve been spending the weekends sourcing new clothes for work. I packed a small work wardrobe which was good for interviews but a bit too formal for work. I’m disappointed that my belongings haven’t yet left the UK and I’m looking forward to being reunited with them … eventually.

It would seem that Tesco’s have ruined me when it comes to my price expectations of tights. A single pair of tights here costs about … hey there’s no pound sign on my keyboard! and I thought it was just the @ sign, the “ marks and the \ that was in different places – I never noticed the absence of the pound. Anyway, a pair of tights costs about 2 GBP and in Tesco you can get a value 5 pair pack for that price.

To provide some balance though; avocados, mangos, pineapples and the good NZ wines are all cheaper and tastier I think :)

So tonight, after work, I’ll drive home, have some dinner out on my deck with a nice glass of white wine and then later either watch the Event, go to the cinema or watch a DVD if a new one from Fatso has arrived. So not too different from normal, but different enough for me.

Take care everyone xxx

The Big Move

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 02:42:00 +0000

We’ve been talking about it for so very long and have taken our time over the process of moving, it feels so good to finally be here in Auckland, NZ.

Prior To Leaving

Before we left, we visited Kane’s parents in Orkney for a few days. It was nice to see them and Kane enjoyed being home for a few days. Leaving was a little strange because although we all know it won’t be our last visit to Orkney it will the last for a while and we have become more regular with our visits over recent years (mostly due to having such a good car).

We then had a nice visit with Kane’s Grandparents, who made us feel guilty for leaving it to the last minute.

After we arrived back at my parents house we had a very short time to finish anything outstanding and then we sold our beloved car.

On the Saturday we had nice visit from our friend Craig followed by a fancy dress hallowe’en party at my sister Jacqueline’s house.

The next day we were frantically finishing packing our stuff before we went out for a big family dinner at the local pub.

We still had some packing to do after the dinner too and we had to make some tough choices about what goes and what stays. We had phoned to find out about the excess baggage charges as we were only allowed 1 bag each of 23kgs and any extra on our Edinburgh to London flight would be £9 per kilo plus £10 per bag! Additionally Air NZ would charge us £35 per extra bag. We had 4 bags between us and had grudgingly accepted that we would have to pay lots of money to take these things so we spent some time trying to weigh up if each item was worth the money.

After we finished packing we enjoyed some champagne with my family before heading to bed for an early night.

Day of Leaving – Monday

We were up early-ish to finish up packing and to check we had everything we intended to have. My nephew Sandy had come to give us a hand and to see us off (although I think he just forgot to adjust his clock for daylight savings and that’s why he was early!)

My sister Elizabeth, my BIL Jim and my niece Hollie then came to say goodbye to us at the house before we jumped into the car and headed for the airport.

At the airport I said goodbye to my parents and to Sandy and Hollie and it was a bit weird again because I knew I would see them via the computer and talk to them all the time and we would all visit when we could.

After they left, we got checked in and surprisingly we weren’t charged for excess baggage! I even queried this (how honest am I?) and was assured we were allowed 2 bags each. I’m not so stupid as to question it any further so we were very happy with that! Probably could have taken more stuff.

Then Kane’s sister Alison and her husband Ross arrived at the airport and we had a drink and a chat with them before we went through the final security checks and on to our gate.

Flight 1

Edinburgh > London flight was good and uneventful. I think I dosed for a little while and was disappointed that they didn’t feed me. We arrived a little earlier than expected in London and got ourselves to the next gate for our Air New Zealand flight to Auckland via Los Angeles.

Flight 2

London > Los Angeles was a very good flight and I tried to set myself to New Zealand time by trying to stay awake as much as I could during this flight. I had the middle seat so Kane could have the window whilst it was daylight. I watched plenty of movies! We got given a snack of some vege crisps and I got an L&P and then a little later we got a nice meal and I had some white wine with my meal.

Someone near us, and I think it was the man I was sitting next to, kept farting every 20 minutes or so and it was disgustingly smelly. I nearly choked once. I started putting my nose and mouth under my jumper after a while. I really hoped he was leaving us in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles In Transit

I have a love/hate relationship with Los Angeles. They always seem to do their best to scare the crap out of me but this time it was really nice and easy. We got our passports stamped and grabbed a packet of crisps and some juice and got the free wifi password and updated facebook :)

Flight 3

Unfortunately the phantom farter had returned aboard, however it did get less as the flight went on. I had swapped seats with Kane so I could get comfier to have a sleep and after I finished watching my movie and had some more food, I had a nice long sleep. I woke up a couple of times convinced that I had missed a meal but Kane assured me that I hadn’t missed any meals. I was so glad to get my breakfast because I was so hungry but at the same time I was worried that this would start off the phantom farter again.

Arrival Day – Wednesday

We arrived a bit earlier that scheduled into Auckland we got our bags and headed through customs and bio-security. I was disappointed that there wasn’t any Border Control camera crews about.

We got through and then we bought ourselves 3 mobile phone sim cards and top ups. One each for Kane and I’s mobile phones and one for our mobile broadband dongle. That was really easy to set up and we did that over some hash browns from McDonalds at the airport. We then saw who I think was the rowing team do a haka at the airport before we grabbed a taxi to our B+B.

We checked into our B+B and had a cuppa and chat with our host Bryan before we headed out to get the keys to our rental house.

We were a little disappointed with our rental place initially because it didn’t have any carpets down just some vinyl in the kitchen and bathroom, the power wasn’t working and the front and back doors weren’t opening and closing properly. We did the inspection and our landlord said he would get the power sorted for us and get the doors fixed.

We then headed out to find the shopping centre where our bank is and on the way we were asked by a nice old lady to help her sort out her washing line. She had a super friendly cat called possum. We chatted with her for a while and then headed to the shopping centre.

We went to the bank to get our accounts sorted but the personal banking person wasn’t there so we made an appointment for the following day and we checked out the other shops that were in. We then went to the library to use their free wifi and then checked out some other shops at the retail park across from the shopping centre before heading back to our b+b totally knackered.

Day 2 – Thursday

This was a very productive day. We had breakfast at our b+b and chatted to the German couple that were staying there also. Then we headed out to get a bus to Parnell to pick up our rental car. The google maps app on my ipod touch is great, it told me which bus to get on and when it was due, everything! We got to the car rental place picked up our little car and then I drove us back to the b+b. We then got our cases and checked out and headed to the new house. We were very pleased to find we had power and that the doors had been fixed and after faffing about with the water we found out how to get us some nice hot water too.

We headed back out to the shops and again checked the prices of everything we wanted to buy. Farmers had a one day half price sale on so we bought a whole dinner set. We got our appointment at the bank and got that all sorted out and I was amazed that they could give us bank cards right there and then that we could use in the shops!

Naturally we then went to the shops and bought lots of stuff! We got an air bed, pots, cooking utensils and some groceries and then we went back home and sorted all this stuff out. We then had dinner quite late, about 8.30pm and then we crashed out for the night.

Day 3 – Friday

We phoned our parents in the morning and then we set about getting more furniture. We tried Target and the Salvation Army shop but we couldn’t see anything we really liked. We then went to Noel Leamings and Dick Smiths to look at TVs and we bought a new TV from Dick Smiths and I was cheeky and asked for a free DVD player and I got one!!

We bought a fridge freezer and a washing machine from Noel Leamings and I asked for a free vacuum cleaner, but I wasn’t so successful that time. We did get 3 pairs of socks for free though :)

We also got ourselves some chairs at Farmers that were on special, buy one get one free so were were able to relax in the evening and watch the Mentalist on DVD.

Day 4 – Saturday

After some initial set up hiccups, I had a very successful skype video call with the pickle party this morning. And since then I’ve just bee lazing about. There are road closures today because of the rugby match that’s being held at Eden Park and because we fall in the zone, we have 2 free tickets! So we’re going to that soon. It will be cool to go into the new stand that they’ve been working on.

What’s Next

I’m going to chill out this weekend and then on Monday start the job search. I’ll let you know how I get on!

Intermediate Pole Dancing Graduation

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 18:17:00 +0000

Ok, I'm finally getting around to posting up my intermediate pole dance routine. The video's a bit rubbish since I filmed it myself and I managed to cut the top off everything and the routines a bit rubbish since it was totally last minute. But I did it and amazingly I passed so here you go:

JogScotland 5k

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:22:00 +0000

And yes, I did manage the JogScotland 5k. I did it in 34 mins and 48 secs. Not fantastic but what I was hoping for. I took part in this along with my work colleagues.

The before and after pictures:

Europe Holiday

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:17:00 +0000

I have so many things I need to post but since my DH has done such a good job of blogging about our Europe holiday, I can score that off the todo list and just link to his blog! Read all about here: http://statanomaly.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html

I’m Back

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 10:54:00 +0000

Yes, I'm back from my excellent European vacation and I will have to write up a separate post about that!
I've been back at work for just over a week now too and things are quiet and going well.
I'm back running and tonight I'm taking part in a 5k race. I'm not as speedy as I had hoped to be, but I'm still looking forward to it.
I'm back at pole dancing classes and they are hard work and quite tricky!
I'm back to making plans, but not the important ones, I've a few things to sort out first.

Happy Days

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 13 May 2010 15:29:00 +0000

Hubby and I have just booked a 2 week European vacation which I'm very excited about!

It's an organised group tour so most of our activities are already planned and I have the itinerary printed off and almost committed to memory. Since this means I don't have too much planning to do, I've turned all my attentions to my holiday wardrobe and packing list.

I've decided on a colour palette of gray, pink, purple and green. Of course none of my existing clothes are suitable so this means shopping!

Like most females in the run up to a holiday, I was hoping to lose a few pounds, but since my holiday is very close I can't imagine that I will lose that much to make any new holiday clothes not fit me so I'm taking the chance and going shopping this weekend.

Maybe I'll put together a collage of my holiday wardrobe?

As if the holiday wasn't enough to keep me smiling, my pole dancing classes have started up again.

The first lesson of the intermediate classes was last night and there are 3 other girls in the class. Everyone seems quite friendly which is good.

Most of the lesson was a refresher of things we had done in the beginner class that we'll be building on in this course. We practised climbs, sitting on the pole and a spin we did with both hands in the beginners class we did one handed. The first new thing we learned was how to go upside down. I've tried this myself at home and it's a bit hit or miss if I manage it, so I was really pleased that I managed it both times! The only thing I couldn't get was a move called the crucifix. This really frustrated me as I've managed it in the past.

I'm pleased that there are no bruises. I saw a glimpse of the lesson plan though, so I know there are bruises to come!

I've also said that I'll take part in a 5k race in June with some work colleagues. I've now got the fear that I'll be rubbish so I had better get in training, maybe after the shopping this weekend ...

Holliewood's Pole Dance Routine

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 07:55:00 +0000

I’ve become a pole bore!

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:56:00 +0000

Pole Dancing. It's all I talk about now and I'm really sorry to all the people I bore senseless yapping on about it.

After I finished the beginner course I signed up for the intermediates, but it's been postponed and is now due to start on the 12^th May. So I decided to buy a DVD to keep me going and I ordered Pole Peoples The Art of Pole Dancing Vol 1 and Vol 2. But my back luck continued and they are currently out of stock of Volume 1 but that should arrive by the end of the month.

They've sent me Volume 2, which is for the more advanced dancers and it looks awesome but it's made me aware of how much strength and flexibility is needed to really do these moves. I've done a couple of the ones I can do and I'm still learning how to make them look good.

I've also been trying to go upside and I've been pestering my colleague who knows a teacher to drill her for some tips on how to go upside down and bless her, she really pulled through. (I can now get upside down, but immediately start sliding and can't figure out how to stick!)

Again, loads of core strength and flexibility is needed to get it right so I attempted to go to a Yoga class, but as is my luck, it's postponed for 2 weeks and I've signed up for a Pilates class that starts next week (hopefully!).

Most of the time I'm learning or practising pole tricks. I'm also working on a new dance routine because it's really fun to do. I've been doing a bit of jogging for about 20 – 30 minutes a couple of times a week and some core work, just not enough I think!

I'm thinking about making a video catalog of the pole tricks and moves that I can do.

Anyway, I'm really aware that I've become a pole bore but I'm trying to correct this!

My Pole Dance Routine

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 08:47:00 +0000

Yay! I completed my pole dancing beginners course. For graduation we had to put together a routine to showcase all the moves we learned and below is the video of my routine.

I picked AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long to dance to because it's a great song to dance to and I hope you think I did a decent job at fitting my dance moves to the music. For my costume I choose a school girl outfit as a nod to Angus Young. It was a bit nerve wracking dancing to an audience too but in some ways the whole experience reminded me of the (very) old days when I was in the majorettes.

I'm already selecting my song and costume for my next routine - this is so much fun!

I realise with the AC/DC soundtrack and the aussie flag in the background you maybe confused so I just want to clear this up:

Ya Wee Dancer!

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 15:29:00 +0000

I'm about to complete the beginners pole dancing course. It's been great fun and hard work; very hard work at times, so much so that my muscles were shaking with fatigue, but it's been great learning something new that's so different.

I excitedly tell people about my new activity and try to describe the athleticism, strength and agility that I, yes *me* somehow, I managed to pull it off and do a wonderwoman into dizzy first time and almost no one gets it first time!

But sadly I say "pole dance" and some people hear "sex industry".

I expected a few people to poke fun a little bit in a friendly banter way, and I can laugh along with that, but others go too far. They audibly make assumptions about my sex life, some confuse pole dancing with stripping and lap dancing, others inappropriately ask me how much my husband enjoys my pole dancing and someone even suggested to a male colleague that I perform at his bachelor party!

These comments are often embarrassing for me but it also belittles what I'm actually doing. I'm fairly certain that if they ever tried pole-dancing they would soon realise that it's not just doing a sexy strut around a pole, I work hard to learn the spins and moves and some of them are complicated and others just hurt (have you ever pulled your body weight up a vertical pole and then wrapped your legs around it and let go?).

Because I get wound up and frustrated by the sole focus on the sexy side of pole-dancing I tend to argue to these people that pole-dancing is not sexy and instead is a vigorous strength and endurance workout. And this is true, I've certainly received lots of comments and compliments about how much trimmer I'm looking, but I should not deny the sexy side of pole-dancing.

Dancing is sexy.

Throughout history dancing has been used for a whole bunch of things and sex is part of that. Even cave people used it as a means of wooing a mate and things haven't changed much (been to a night club recently?)

For graduation I have to put together a routine to showcase all I've learned. I'm going to embrace the sexy side of pole-dancing and if I can pull off those gymnastic moves and still look alluring and confident then I'll have accomplished something to be proud of.

A New Activity

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:22:00 +0000

I decided to try something a little different last night, to break out of my comfort zone. It's something that I've wanted to try for a while – Pole Dancing!

After a quick Google search I found Pole Hunnies and got in touch with them.

I roped in my niece and we both went to a taster class to see what it was all about. I wasn't sure what to expect. There were two instructors one was average height and very lean, the other was short like me and told us she was 14 stone (89kg). The shorter girl had an injury (not from pole dancing!) that meant she wasn't supposed to demonstrate any of the moves (she did show us one though). The other girl did most of the demonstrating and she wore ordinary workout wear that I would wear to the gym – except for her amazing flashing high heels of course!

There were about 8 of us in the class and we started with walking around the pole to get comfortable. We then learned a few moves, a couple of different spins called Fireman and Dizzy and then we learned how to put it all together as a routine.

Most of the time we were either concentrating on what we were trying to do or laughing at ourselves doing what felt like ridiculous things. It certainly wasn't at all sexy! It was however, a huge amount of fun and gave me a laugh. And even though every muscle in body aches today, I'm going to sign up for more classes – I just need to come up with a Pole name ???

Ae Fond Kiss

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 14:35:00 +0000

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, and then for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.

I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy:
But to see her was to love her;
Love but her, and love for ever.
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met-or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.

Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure!
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.

I must be crazy

noreply@blogger.com (Jay) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:02:00 +0000

There's got to be something wrong with me that I thought it was a good idea to get up really early on a cold winters Sunday morning, dress up in a Santa outfit drive for an hour out to Glasgow and then run round a loch. Did I mention that it's winter here in Scotland? My hubby was shivering so much it was a real challenge just to get his race number pinned on.

We first saw a couple of Santa's getting out of a car and then soon we saw lots of Santas, reindeers, a few angels, a snowman and lots and lots of tinsel and we knew we were in the right place! I'd got my outfit out of Poundland and I think about half of the other runners did too!

If there is something wrong with me for doing this then I think it might be some kind of epidemic! There were 446 runners that took part and the majority of them were dressed up.

I entered this race to give myself a prod. My running has been irregular at best and although my times have been improving for both the mile and the 5k, I'm still building up to running without the need for walk breaks. I'm a work in progress.

This race was organised by the lovely people at JogScotland. Their races always pull a varied crowd from the serious club runners to the beginners still building on their walking programmes. This makes a good race for beginners because there will always be lots of other people jogging and walking too. So whilst I wasn't as prepared as I have been in the past when I race, I really enjoyed it and realised how much I miss racing.

Another good thing about this race is that it had chip timing. As a beginner runner who is still at the jog/walk level, I would never position myself close to the start line as that's for the more serious and competent runners. If I did that, I would just be in everyones way and besides, it's a bit demoralising being overtaken by hundreds of people! I find it much better to be closer to the back with others that have a similar pace. This often means that it takes some time to get over the start line. In this race, it took 1 minute for me to cross the start line. Those 60 seconds can make a big difference to how you feel about your performance.

So I thought it would be a good idea to enter another one in 4 weeks, same distance but this time with a rather humongous hill.

For anyone interested, I ran the JogScotland Christmas Cracker 5k in Strathclyde Country Park in a time of 35:29 – like I said, a work in progress!