Weekends Off

Contrary to the image I probably create we do have to work out here, and we work very hard. My new role as clinical charge nurse has seen me step up a bit, though I am not the bossy, controlling freaky workaholic I once was. I've been enjoying getting to grips with the appraisial system and the portfolios that have to be submitted every three years. The senior team are great to work with and we've been planning what to tackle in 2010. They have a fabulous database of admissions and I have been loving creating slides, graphs and charts, that stir up interest, ask more questions and show the varied and fascinating world of a cardiac care unit. I also was at an amazing study day yesterday on adult congential heart disease, my knowledge has expanded loads - but then I actually knew very very little before!
Plus it is shift work, now I'm still useless at getting up for a 7am start but12 hour shifts have many benefits. We don't usually request weekends off, but we seem to have had quite a few lately. This is a novelty in many regards (though why are the shops so busy!) and we've been out and about. We visited Adams brother - who being a Mon-Fri worker only gets the weekends off. He lives in Whangarei and is having his own house built - very exciting to go and see that.

We went further north to KeriKeri and followed the art trail - Emma how I wished you had been with us. I will return and buy you lots of gifts, it was fab. I didn't buy you anything this time because I am very selfish and fell in love with a piece of art. It made the ladies day at ArtShed when I purchased it.

So, sorry Em, you'll have to wait for our next trip.

On our next weekend off we joined the throngs of people at Woodhill Park Mountain Bike Park. I should have no trouble completing number 18 on The List, as even the beginners course here scares me! What is is with getting older and fear - or is it all about control. Either way, I don't like going downhill, uphill kills me and I looked so red faced at the end of one run that Adam said we should call it a day! But it did mean that we had finially brought our bike racks and managed to get the bikes on.

So after our rather wonderful picnic at the bike park we headed to a few winerys for some sampling and purchasing! Seriously if anyone ever come to visit, this is what we'll do. It so great, very easy and most have food of some sort, or you can take a picnic and enjoy their wonderful grounds. We do this locally fairly frequently and while you do pay more for the wine, there is a better choice and you usually end up chatting to the owners or winemakers themselves. This time we visited Westbrook, where we purchased a few wines from their BlueRidge selection. Then onto Soljans where we came away with two bottles of rather fine Barrique Reserve Chardonnay.
Then of course I still have to put some gardening time in. I've cut the broad beans down, they didn't look happy anymore, but I have one tomato that is changing colour and I'm very very excited about that!