Monthly Archives: April 2011

Today was too rainy to work and so I had to spend the day at home. The long weekend has been made even longer though and of course no picking means no money. At least there is finally internet in the apartment and I don’t need to sit out on the terrace to use it anymore. I did get an excuse to leave the house tonight though – I had the first lesson of a six week salsa course. I haven’t danced salsa in years but I really enjoyed it and the people there were nice so I think it will be good fun. I even stayed up afterwards and called M. Usually I’m so tired in the evenings that I’m in bed early and can’t do anything, so it was great to be able to go out dancing and then even stay up later talking. It was nice to … Continue reading →

Today I was invited to a reunion lunch for the 20th anniversary of the National Youth Drama School. I expected it to be thoroughly boring with endless speeches and nothing fun, but the promise of free food and wine was enough to convince me to go and put on a smile for a couple of hours. As it turned out it was a wonderful afternoon. Apart from the delicious food (prosciutto, and good cheese!) and good red wine the whole day was quite entertaining. Even the serious speeches were given with good humour and with style, and in between everything there were performances from tutors and students past and present. For the second performance, the Musical Theatre tutor who had been sitting at my table quietly and calmly took to the stage before taking the microphone and suddenly bursting in beautiful song. His voice was strong and melodic and he … Continue reading →

Despite being a holiday weekend we ended up picking on Saturday. It wasn’t great to be picking in the middle of the long weekend but at least everyone was in a relaxed, laid back kind of mood. To make it even better we were picking Granny Smith – a big apple that is all just plain green. It’s not exactly hard to fill your bin when you hardly even need to look at the apples and so I had 3 bins before lunchtime. In the middle of the morning we all stopped together for an official smoko and the owners of the company gave everyone a chocolate Easter egg. After work I got to go rabbit hunting again and got another two rabbits. It’s nice to be able to put really good meat in the fridge for free.

Yesterday I went with friends to a local bar that runs poker tournaments in the evening. They all expected me to play (I had of course profited $8 playing online already!) but at first I declined. Once the game got started though I found out that standing around watching poker is actually rather boring. I watched for a while and then had a chat with the guy behind the bar. Once the first few people were out I found someone to play some billiards with. The guy running the tournaments came and found me and tried to convince me to play the second, cheaper, game that would be starting soon. I decided to try my luck and agreed to play. Unfortunately my cards were pretty terrible and the only real hand I played lost. Still, I survived half an hour or so and got to experience live poker. Things went … Continue reading →

What an awful day! Picking was shit, didn’t shoot any rabbits and my mood is more than bad!

Working on Saturday makes the weekend so short! It was still a good one anyway – I got lots done in the afternon yesterday and tonight a German couple, who are colleagues in the orchard, visited for dinner. It was H’s birthday and we cooked a nice barbecue with fresh baked bread, rabbit, veggies, cheese and salad. We even got to light the brazier once it got dark and we sat around talking and having a few drinks. C. stopped by as well and we all discussed the differences between NZ and Germany. We talked about the beauraucracy in Germany – things like how much more difficult it is to get your drivers licence or your firearms licence. In New Zealand they can start learning to drive at 15 and anyone with a full licence can teach them. You can get your firearms licence at 16 and it takes about … Continue reading →

Last night I went and visited J. Everyone there was sitting down in front of a computer playing poker. After watching for a while I got bored and decided that it was my turn to play. I jumped on a spare laptop, made someone give me an account to use, and started playing my first online poker games! I played three $1.10 games and came out with a profit of about $8 – not too bad for a beginner! It did mean that I had played until almost the end though and didn’t finish and go home until after 1am, leaving me just a little tired for work today. Fortunately though I only packed pears which is a little easier on the body than picking, plus I got to go home in the early afternoon. I used the afternoon to go and try another scrap metal place and managed to … Continue reading →

Got my first wages for the last week’s work! Hopefully I won’t need to use my savings anymore!