Back in Ōtautahi

Ronan and I are back in Ōtautahi Christchurch after 5 days in Melbourne and 3 days in Sydney. Our Australia trip was exponentially awesome and we plan to write a few blog posts detailing this over the next few days/weeks!

\Unfortunately I got unwell (sore throat/asthma/aches/cough/temperature) in Sydney and was still overheating on the plane back home so my ears hurt a lot as we came in for landing. They still hadn't popped back to normal by the time I went to bed several hours after returning home so I wondered vaguely if I would ever regain normal hearing or instead remain locked within an underwater audio world.

luckily i did not remain a merman and my ears popped overnight

I was pleasantly surprised to see that my bedroom hadn't been obviously tampered with considering that Jocelyn and Sophie had borrowed my bed for several nights while I was away and I was expecting some sort of trolling from my friends/flatmates (Ronan wasn't quite so lucky however as Woodham and Damien rolled his socks together in mismatched pairs and turned all of his jackets inside out in his wardrobe). In saying this, I have only been back for a day so far so some insidious trick may be biding its time to reveal itself.

this was the biggest change i could notice in my room....i guess i'll be dancing now 

In our lounge there was a much more brilliant/terrifying surprise however:

bringing new meaning to the contemporary "deadline"

Two Saturdays ago myself, Scott, Matt and Tom did a six hour rogaine (think orienteering over hilly farmland) and Matt drove us there and back. Because of this, we all owe Matt $10 in petrol money. I had thought that I had already given Matt my contribution, but it seems that both Scott and I hadn't which led to him creating this threatening chart. Matt practically lives at our flat so had been adding a bullet for each day we default on our payments (each tiny bullet has a tiny piece of blu-tack on the back). As a result of this chart Scott and I now plan to deliberately withhold our payments until after the deadline so that we can experience whatever hell Matt has in store for our insolence. It is going to be great!

Yesterday was my first day back in Christchurch and unfortunately was not very productive because I had two loads of washing to do but stupidly tried to do them as one which broke the washing machine and took hours to fix. I also had to post a letter and spent ages skating around the post boxes around the neighbourhood only to find that they had recently been cleared for the day.

did get a sweet sunset though!

As a last resort I biked to the postshop on Riccarton Road, only to find that it had been gone since June the 19th in preparation for a shift of premises. So I biked back home and posted the letter at the post box 50m from our house (to be cleared tomorrow...) Semi-Success!

There was also a new restaurant open on Riccarton Road which was nice to see...It seems that some buildings are gradually pushing their way through the bureaucratic mess of crumbled city choked in red tape (For a fairly extensive personal write up on the aftermath of the February 2011 earthquake that hit Canterbury, see here)

some movement

Scott and Woodham had been painting since I'd been away as well which is great; our lounge table now has a tablecloth (sheet) to make it look ultra fancy and has a pretty legitimate looking painting setup now as well. 

Woodham finished this awesome political piece yesterday

The traffic light is a recent Woodham addition as well

Scott also did several cool paintings as well, but they're in his room which he will surely reveal on the blog soon enough.

While I was away the spag junx lounge acquired two new chairs and finally a couch too! Before I left for Australia Rosa's brilliant mother contacted me saying that her friend was giving away a couch for free so Woodham picked it up and got two chairs as well. All three items are comfy and have square arms ideal for extra seating/drink balancing, though we may attempt to spraypaint them to add some colour. 

josh demonstrates how easy it is to moe in one of our new chairs whilst damo blisses out on the couch and i sit in the old chair so it still feels appreciated

Last night Josh, Ronan and Damien went to a Ladyhawke gig at uni and came back triumphant. They had jumped a fence after the gig, met Ladyhawke herself, had a good chat and got photos with her. Ronan celebrated by putting on his newly purchased poncho and allowing Scott to persuade him into new and exciting food combinations.

Scott claimed to have a breakthrough in sandwich invention: cream cheese and apricot chutney. Ronan was initially hesitant but quickly ordered a second serving. 

Here is a Ladyhawke song in case you haven't heard her yet (NZ indie pop):

Josh and I both proudly rocked secondhand Swanndris and are planning to start a club/gang based on this concept

We also met Confused Skier Scott last night

Will see you soon with most likely some Australia photos! 

NJOY

NJOY

NJOY