Labour Weekend

I enjoyed the long weekend. Since I'm not actually working at the moment it didn't actually mean that much to me, but it was nice having Will around on the Monday. I can't remember what we did on Saturday, but I have an idea it was fairly chilled. I think we had a wander around town. On Sunday we went through a few more open homes. The quality this week was much better than last, and in fact there was one place we were very keen on, & would probably have made an offer had it had better access. There was no off-street parking whatsoever. We are nearly in a position where we can now act when we do find the right place, as Will has now exchanged on his UK house. This means that the buyers are now very unlikely to pull out, as if they do they lose their 10% deposit. Completion date (when we actually get the money!) has been set for 4th December.

Monday, despite the weather forecast, was lovely. We checked out some of the Labour Day sales at a shopping centre in the morning, then in the afternoon we went for a walk up Mt Victoria. It only took 45 minutes from our Newtown home, & the 360 degree views over the city were superb. We are loving living in Wellington, looking down on it from Mt Vic shows just how compact it is, especially for a capital city.

The photo below shows Will 'in front of' his University. It is just to the right of the top of his head. Being such prime real estate there are some amazing harbour views from some of the buildings. There is bit of a hierarchy as to who gets the offices with the views, so it is an incentive for Will to eventually try & make professor, as that increases your chances greatly!
On Wednesday I visited the zoo. Will & I had also been a couple of weekends ago. It costs $18 to visit, but for $60 you can become 'zoo crew' which gives you unlimited access for a year. With my current employment situation, & with the zoo only a 10 minute walk away, I did just that. They have various talks & features on the different animals at different times during the day, & this visit I caught the tiger talk. At the end of the talk the keeper rewarded it with some raw meatballs...

I love the cats, particularly the serval cat & the lions, both of which I saw plenty of in the wild in africa.

The lemurs, meerkats & llamas are also very cute...

Last night Will & I went to see Lloyd Cole play at Bar Bodega. He is an English singer/songwriter who Will grew up listening to. I hadn't heard much of his stuff before, but he was very good. On Saturday night we have tickets to Fat Freddy's Drop which I'm really looking forward to. I saw them play in London & they were brilliant, so I'm expecting more of the same on Saturday, particularly as Wellington is their home town.

I'm still enjoying the gym, & Exodus, where I have my current 30 day for $30 trial is pretty hi-tech. They run a system called fitlinxx which keeps track of all your workouts. You can also look up details of your exercise history on the internet. You just punch an ID number into any cardio or weights machines before you start & it records it all. For instance, it tells me at the end of my legs workout that I've lifted around 8200 kg, but when I do my shoulders/arms or chest/back workouts I only lift around 6000 kg. It is quite motivating, & if you don't reach your full range of movement it doesn't count the rep. After this trial there is one more gym I want to try before I make a decision as to which one I want to sign up for. To get a decent weekly rate you need to sign up for 24 or 36 month contracts, so I want to make sure I choose the right one!