Jim & Karen

If you remember from a previous post Karen bought me an intro day’s Paragliding course for my birthday.

The course was with Numbus Paragliding and it was absolutley fantastic.

Paragliding image 1

There is a lot to take in and, just like learning to drive, there is a lot to try and remember to do at the same time. Steve, the gut from Nimbus has been trying to arrange the session for a while now, but the weather had prevented us from doing it when I was available. We almost did it a few weeks ago but the wind was a bit too strong for a learner. He did that time however take me up for a free tandem flight which was briliant.

Got the call yesterday (Sat) was I free, yes I was so off I went. The course is for

paragliding2

one day and is in three parts. The first part is learning about the Glider and taking some short runs to get the Glider into the air, but without actually taking off. The second part is some short flights from a low hill, and the third part is flights from a higher hill which give you about 3 mins in the air. By the end I was begining to be able to control the Glider better and start to look around as well as fly it to a decent landing.

paragliding3

An absolutly fantastic experience, and well worth waiting for. All I have to do now is persuade Karen to let me have some more lessons!!

The pictures here are not me but they give you some idea of what it looked like.

More soon….

Went off for a walk to Lake Coleridge at the weekend – Pictures are in the gallery. Great fun at a lovely location but it was very windy while we were there. We went with Ben, Claire & Sam. it was Sam’s first trip Walking & Camping but he put some of us to shame….

In the Morning the weather looked like it was going to start raining, so we packed up the tent and went to a local Golf course for a lovely cooked breakfast – hard life init..

More soon………

Karen and I went to the races the other day – but not together!

Karen had arranged to go on a day out to the Christchurch Cup Day with other nurses from the ward. After that was all arranged I got invited along to a freebie day out by a firm that supplies computer services to Ballantynes.

Karen at the Races

The race meeting is a bit like Ascot – it’s the big race day of the year and everyone dresses up.

It’s not horse racing like in the UK, it’s called Trotting and the horses pull carts as you can see in the pictures. The big race of the day was the Christchurch Casino Cup and is the final of a series of races .

Firstly, sorry for not updating here as often as maybe I should. As we are settling in and time goes by, things are becoming more normal and therefore do not prompt me to make special note of them.

One thing we have done – just before the end of the season is to have a go at Skiing. Ben and Claire very kindly took us up to the Mount Hutt ski field and we had a go at the beginners session.

Karen Skiing

It was a beautiful sunny day with clear blue skies and that made it much warmer than we were expecting. Karen had trouble with the Ski boots hurting her feet and therefore did not enjoy the experience very much, but she says she will have another go next season. I thought it was pretty good and could ski down the “nursery” slop going in the direction I was intending and also managing to stop where I wanted as well. Next time I want to have a go on a snowboard to see if I like that better.

Top of Mount Hutt

At the end of the session we got the chairlift to the top of the Moutain and the view was stupendous,

More pictures of the Skiing in the gallery.

The garden is starting to go into overdrive now with everything bursting into life and there are flowers everywhere I can see that trying to keep things tidy is going to take a fair bit of effort. I am going to get together with one of the neighbours to trim the bushes at the back of our house as they are starting to get too tall. We are in the middle of a debate about seating for the patio. We want something that is comfortable and are not sure whether to buy something or if I should have a go at making some myself. Of course the chair & bench set that we really like is far to expensive hence the thoughts of DIY. It seems strange that with all this talk of better weather and things growing that it will soon be Christmas.

Garden

More pictures of the garden in the galleryon the right