okay so it's 3am, I may or may not have been out this evening indulging in some music and mayhem so forgive the typos. I shall rely on Evan to edit this sensibly - ahem!

So what we forgot to tell you last time was that on the Monday that Cecil surprised us with his arrival - we were burgled - yes burgled - but all the nasty thieves took was food, including evan's sandwiches for work, and more to the point my absolut kurrant vodka!!!! I was gutted... until Graeme the hostel owner took pity and supplied me with his own absolut bottle as compensation - everyone was happy once again! (except me, they stole my bloody sandwiches, i hate making sandwiches, it gives me a headache, but i'd soldiered throuugh the whole horrendous process purely due to the joyous sensation i have upon eating great sandwiches 16 hours hence... silent victim me no more!)

We spent most of this week working, me working at Crane in the commercial team helping put together a catalogue of bathrooms called imaginatively the Bathroom Book. This involved many excel spreadsheets and I know now the difference between a profit margin and a mark up and I can do complex things in excel so it's all good. Most of the week we were looking forward to Evan and Gavin's birthday party. On Wednesday night we met up with Googs from Blenheim and as a speciallly lovely surprise he brought along Rik - hooray!!! who had arrived back from his travels just that very day. So we went to the asian food court for some foodage, then some cheap poolage at Mickey Finn's feeling warm inside becuase our friends were back among us!

Saturday dawned which was the day of Gavin and Evan's birthday party. This was a night of legend. We began the day with a trip out to Lyttleton which is a harbour near christchurch, and wandered round in the drizzle before heading back for hte main action of getting a party ready. Me, Beth and Coti had done invites and were now blowing up balloons and making cakes and vodka jelly. As the night began, we all looked very dressed up, said hi to the returning guests eg Liz who had been away in Queenstown, and started playing the chocolate game - cue much hilarity. Googs, Sven and Marion showed up with a random guy in tow... no probs there until we realised he was a dodgy person with suspicious background. At which point, ever the assertive and diplomatic person I am, I told him he wasn't to come back into the house after a fag break. Sven, with me at the time, backed me up and we were doing really well in the midst of much abuse when Eugene showed up to tell him he had one minute to get off the property. The police arrived shortly after and the guy now has a restraining order on him ... drama drama! Anyway, much vodka later we went to the grumpy mole,( alas this isn;'t just a local mole who is a bit grumpy wo sits around on a tree stump, oracle like. alas alack, it's a bar)  ... don't remember so much of this...(ha! i do, we had a few drinks and a chat, there was a smattering of dancing, usual) then Sullivan's an irish pub where we danced the night away to a band who played such classics as the proclaimers... now I don't exactly remember this but apparnetly this is what happened so I shall rely on evan to fill inthis bit of the night .... it was all great fun anyway... aheam...

the band were a mixture of geography teacher looking people, young hoons, mop haired grandads, the homeless and a dwarf, (i think we have a picture on to illusatrate this) they were quite good as jennifer says, the bar was pretty busy , good vibe, me and MArtin stood around noticing that a bez like dancer who'd joined them on stage looked like the caddie to happy gilmore in the film of the same name. then the band finished, tunes started up, leg guitar was played to guns n roses, fairly typical night, Jennifer became huggy and we all left.

Sunday was a right off... say no more.

another week of tedious calculations on excel for this bathroom book, I saw harry potter on film on my own ( actually going to the cinema on your own is quite fun) and read the book more to the point - very excellent. We said goodbye to Rik - very sad - who is now in Australia doing some excellent research into the take away establishments of Glebe Point Road as instructed by me. we shall see him in the Porter Cottage in Sheffield anon... and Gavin who we drove to the airport this morning. Today we spent a very productive day shopping, and tomorrow we shall, hangover permitting,( i didn't go out and feel perky as a bean) be cultural and see the art gallery. It may be the time to point out that it is the arts festival in Christchurch at present and on Thursday night we ventured into town with Andreas from our hostel to view the advertised fireworks at 5.30 only to wait until 7pm before anything resembling a firework went off, and then it was basically a man in a tent waving a sparkler... or fireworks to that effect anyway... not impressed, but we did get to see the prime minister at close quarters whcih was fun, (she's like a cross between Margaret thatcher and ann widdecombe, physically anyway , not sure about her politics) when would that have happened in the UK without eggs being thrown?

I must go to bed now, but I'm sure Evan will make sense of my ramblings in the morning! (done and done)