Well i sit down to write this at the end of a really great day! After some seriously WINDY weather for the early part of this week - we have had the loveliest weathe today. The sun was out and we had a clear day yesterday too but it was still quite cold - today however the sun was out and it was warm - although apparently not as warm as the sun that come to welligton in the summer! I cant wait!

It is the school holidays so i have time off swimming teaching. I could have worked for the holiday program but i opted not to!!! We are at the end of the second week of the 2 week holidays now. The first week i was coaching diving for the first part of the week and then we had a long weekend in Hamilton (aka hamiltron!) for the 'Merv Campbell' diving competition. Its a really good meet - happens every year and is a national event. Merv Campbell was known as the godfather of diving in New Zealand and apparently brought the sport forward quite a lot in his time. He was based in Hamilton hence why the comp is hosted there. James says Merv was a Gobsh#$e!! haha! James and me took a team of 15 divers up. I had a great weekend - it was very good to hang out with my brother. When a dive team travels away we have team managers to oranise things like accommodation and travel and food andpretty much looking after the divers when they are not training. We had great acommodation on this trip - James and me had our own unit right on the end of the block where all our divers were staying - perfect!! We flew up from wellington to Hamilton and the weather was pretty good when we arrived. We arrived on a thursday morning, had training thursday afternoon and evening and then had plenty of time for team dinner and hanging out before the first day of competition!! Friday morning was an early start - we were at the pool by 7.30am ready to rock!!! Friday was a a tiring day bt went really fast - i had at least one diver in every event so i was going all day! On friday evening james and me got invited to a coaches dinner - which was to honest - quite painful as there is always typically - all the politics (that i guess goes with every job) to discuss with those coaches who want to have a moan abot evrything and talk about diving eventhough we've all been working and talking diving allllllll day!!!!! I did however come to realise how well shielded from all that i have been since i got here - James always deals with everything at Wellington and doesnt put me in situationswhere someone will chew my ear off!! James is quite well respected in diving in New zealand and Australia so now im finding when people know im his sister they want to talk to me and sometimes be overly nice (usually when they have a diver that may be up for selesction onto the NZ team for an upcoming event - as James is sometimes aked to be a selector for DNZ!!!). Moaning aside though it is nice to meet everyone. Saturday was the second (and final) day of competition and another early start! It was another good day and James divers picked up quite a few medals, a couple of my divers got PB scores! yey! We went out to the competition dinner and award evening. We had decided that after the dinner and after all of our team were in bed we (adults from wellington - team managers andsupporting parents) would all meet up in James and mine unit for a couple of drinks and relax. The team managers took all the kids back first and got them sorted and ready for bed. I headed back before James and brought some of the older divers back. When i got back one of te parents had already had a few too many drinks and was waiting outsied our unit for James to come back and 'start the party'!!!! oh dear!!! i had the key for our unit but didint fancy handling that on my own so i went straight back to the team managers unit and explained - so i said i would just wait there until James got back. This parent..... wanders up to that unit too!! comes wandering in and is talking to us all - but has got to that stage of drunkeness where he was constantly in everyones personal space and wont stop talking!!!!! Kathy, Amy (team managers) and myself were trying opur best not to laugh and also to get rid of him! Eventually he left the unit because he wanted to go and get another beer. So we took advantage and closed the door and.... (gosh we sound so horrid) turned all the lights out. Thinking that would deter him for a while we quietly relaxed abit - but then we heard him walking back down towards the unit, so we all hid - oh it was so funny, Amy hid in the bathroom, Kathy under a coat on the sofa and i hid below the window thinking that if he looked in he wouldnt see me!! But oh no.....he just came walking right back in!! queried where everyone was and turned the light on!!!!!!!! I wish i could see it now - Kathy with hands and feet poking out from under a childs coat amy sniggering in the bathroom and me...well... i was literally just crouching down on the floor by the window and he was looking at me!!! the bext bit then though was that he didint even question what i was doing!!!!!!!! he just looked and started talking asking where everyone was!!!! Kathy pretended to be asleep. Then Amy came out of the bathroom and i still hadnt moved from the floor! Amy was beside herself i couldnt stop laughing and Kathy...comtinued to pretend she was sleeping!!!!!!! i stood up and tried to help Amy out! Then we heard James coming back! Thank goodness. We all went down to James and mines unit together and James didnt look overly impressed with this parent or his conatant conversation! So then everyone was trying to get rid of him from our unit. James said that i was running a local marathon the next day and should go to bed,; so everyone left to allow me to get a good rest! This guy really bought it and started to tell me how many marathons he had run and how he hadnt realised there was one on or he would have joined me 'team spirit'!!!!!!! Then he left. 5 minutes later James text everyone to say coast is clear come back again - and then we heard all this vibrating and buzzing.....they had all left their phones on our kitchen table!!!! hjahahaha! So James then had to sneak out and knock on all the doors to get them all back! the evening continued to be a good one - but seriously i havent had such a good abs workout in a while - i laughed so much!!!!!!!!

The next day (sunday) we all went rock climbing together. The pissed up parent had driven back down to weellington early that morning as they had a family commitment. Rock climbing was great fun - i have never done it before. it was really hard work on my arms but cant wait to go again sometime!

That night for dinner we had bacon and egg pie homemade by Amy! She is an awesome cook. Francie (one of my divers - 12 years old) made pastry letters fpor the top of one of the pies to spell out - NAT IS KOOL - she got me so she could show me - how cute i was touched. Later on when dinner was served and the pies had been cooked - it appeared that there had been an ammendment to the pie...it now read NAT IS KOOL..ISH!!!!! Francie's mum said i was doing well because to Francie anyone over 19 is not cool anymore!!! haha!