Possibilities

So the Christmas party came and went. It wasn't that bad. I was very glad I missed the events of the afternoon, pictures of which formed a never-ending slide show. The food was good. I drank enough to look like I was almost participating, but not enough to put me out of commission for the next day (which, I'm guessing, is less than it once was). One of my older colleagues impressed me as she told me about her vinyl collection (5000 records). The event didn't finish till midnight and some people would have carried on at some establishment (The Establishment?) on Courtenay Place, but I sloped off at about nine. The chances are (70%?) I won't be attending next year's party.

I got an email on Friday that made me a bit more optimistic about 2014. It wouldn't take much (just one or two lowish-probability events that appear to be outside my influence!) for things get much better, and for all kinds of possibilities to open up, and break the cycle of impossibility that I've found myself in.

On Thursday night another British guy took a look at my flat. He'd seen the Pak 'n' Save ad, not the TradeMe one; the demographics of the two would be slightly different. He'd be a bit older than the other guy, maybe my kind of age. He worked as a tree surgeon and was still in his work clothes. I'd be more than happy for him to move in, but it seemed he needed somewhere a bit sooner than I could offer. I feel a bit funny showing people around (although it was easier with him than the younger bloke). Why has he got this much space to himself? Did his wife leave him and take the kids with her?

Mum and Dad will be spending Christmas with me. They're staying from the 22nd (next Sunday) to the 28th. I'm looking forward to it. My cousin wants us to go over to their place but my parents aren't that keen, and neither am I. We want to keep things as low-key as possible, especially after last year when things got high-key rather quickly.

I played a lot of MGMT on my week off. Yesterday I heard a song by Elton John on the radio called Grey Seal - luckily it was on the Sound and I was able to search their playlist and find it. I'd only ever heard it a couple of times before. Great song, even though I'm not sure what the lyrics mean. I must check out more of his stuff.


I didn't go to the cricket but I snapped this picture of the scoreboard on Friday - the third, and as it happened, last day of NZ's win over the West Indies. It doesn't make happy reading for the Windies - you can see that their last four batsmen were all bowled for a duck in the first innings, and they were forced to follow on. I note that they had both a Samuels and a Sammy on the team - there must be some joke there about playing it again.

Tomorrow the autism group have their Christmas party. Plenty of new faces have appeared this year, and some have gone too. The only male facilitator we had - the one whose football team reached the semi-finals of the Chatham Cup - left because he was too busy. That's a shame - he was a thoroughly nice bloke, and he provided some balance to the other facilitators.

Risky business

I'm feeling better now than I've done in months (probably since May) and have no real idea why. The diet, the pills (I'll be dropping back again on Friday), the long weekend, who knows?

Dad is supposed to be back now, but with the storm, I've no idea whether his flight actually took off when it was scheduled to. When someone in my family attempts to fly somewhere, myself included, a severe weather event is almost guaranteed. I gave him a ring at the weekend, and also had a longish chat with my brother who was a mixture of happy (that he's with his friends, half a world away from his horror story) and cheesed off with his financial situation, which is about as bad as mine.

Dad's trip to the UK has meant I've spoken to Mum on the phone even more than usual. I'm happy with that - we get on pretty well these days. She hasn't been feeling 100% for a while but stubbornly refuses to see a doctor. She thinks it's all down to the food she eats. That includes the rash on her upper arm that keeps slowly expanding.

The highlight of the long weekend for me was my first ever proper game of Risk. We played at Tracy's place - the same crowd (well, three is a crowd) of Tracy, Tom and me. The idea was that we'd play for two hours, and whoever occupied the most territories at that point would be the winner. I was fortunate to snag Australia early on, and it was close for the lead between Tom and me. As such, most of my attacks were directed at Tom. After about 90 minutes we felt like we were just getting going (man it's a long game) so we upped the time limit to three hours. I focused almost exclusively on the Southern Hemisphere, and as I threw more than my fair share of fives and sixes, I was able to control South America and/or Africa. But my luck ran out and Tracy, who had kept a low profile, came marauding in. At the three-hour point my yellow army still occupied more regions than Tracy's red (Tony's green army was on the wane), but with someone making such a strong fightback, finishing at that point wouldn't have been "right", so we decided to adjourn until the weekend after next, at my place. How do we do that? Ah yes, take a photo of the board. I'm not sure I can wait so long to play again - it was a very absorbing three hours. Tracy has so far had one extra turn (she started), I'm next up, and I'm already thinking what I should do with my new complement of eleven yellow plastic cylinders. Tracy said after an hour that she was doomed, but I think that was a bluff. She's a smarter, more experienced gamer than either Tom or me, and I'm sure she knows it.

My hand-me-down copy of Risk is the 1963 version. The actual copy can't be that old - it's probably early seventies, which admittedly is still pretty damn old. Even after playing one session I can see that Risk has its flaws, but it's still an excellent game, and in its time it must have been revolutionary. Board games up to that point were: roll the dice, move your counter the number of squares indicated on the dice, then do what it says on that square (if anything). Risk is a complete departure from this. Plus it does seem to simulate war rather well at times - often I was thinking, yes I took that territory but boy did I lose a lot of men doing it. I'm glad I've got this version which requires you to choose, in turn, where to place armies on the board at the start, rather than having them randomly determined. I think that choosing territories adds an extra dimension.
The instructions give me a window on what life was like in the sixties and seventies. "The rules which follow are new and are the result of continuous research and testing ... They develop strategy sooner and make for better play." So you knew the game took seven hours, but that wasn't a problem?! Wow. In 2013 a mass-market board game taking more than a couple of hours would be a non-starter. The time factor is probably the biggest criticism of Risk. Then there's the role of luck - it's hard to determine how significant that is given the sheer number of dice rolls in a game. Thirdly there's a rich-get-richer mechanism (the more territories you've got, the more armies you get, which enable you to control more territories...) - that would probably be my biggest complaint.

Before the game we talked a bit about computer programming. Both Tracy and Tom love it. "It's fun." Well, programming for its own sake, or even to achieve a goal I don't care about, ain't my idea of fun. I did a short programming course at uni but we weren't actually taught anything, as far as I could see, and the two or three people on our course who already knew about the language drip-fed the "answers" to the rest of us who were completely clueless. If, on the other hand, my program is doing something I'm interested in, you know, creating an app or something, I could see myself learning the relevant language.

On Sunday I went to sit out on the bank at the Basin, and to my surprise there was a four-day game going on between Wellington and Otago. The home side were doing well, and when one of the batsmen was dismissed for a century, on came Jesse Ryder for the first time since March when he almost died following that attack in a Christchurch bar. As it happened, his father, his girlfriend and other members of his entourage were right in front of me. I spent more time watching them than any of the players. Ryder raced to 48 by the end of the day and was out for an impressive 117 on Monday.
(Edit: I shouldn't pretend to know anything about domestic cricket. Jesse Ryder had moved teams over the winter and was now playing for Otago against his old side.)

This morning Birmingham and Stoke played a memorable match in the League Cup. With the score at one apiece, Blues had a man sent off on the stroke of half-time. Unsurprisingly Stoke, the superior side on paper, capitalised to go two goals up. Eleven minutes to go and Blues bring on Peter Løvenkrands, and what do you know, he pops up to score twice in the final six minutes to force extra time. Only three minutes into the extra period and Stoke go back in front. Blues are dead on their feet as they try to scramble another equaliser which they somehow manage in the 118th minute. It sounded far too good a game to be decided on penalties (and don't forget, Birmingham played the last 75 minutes a man down) but alas Blues missed their first two spot-kicks and that was pretty much that. For all my cynicism about football and team sports in general, this was a "feel-good" game for me, in spite of the final result.

Update: Dad is back; I just spoke to him. No problems with the scheduling, but he felt very ill at Hong Kong after an ultra-cramped Virgin Atlantic flight, and was worried he wouldn't be able to continue his journey. He vowed never to fly with Virgin again. He flew with Air New Zealand (a far less painful experience) on the second leg.

Side(burn) bets

After missing the session a fortnight ago I decided to attend tonight's autism group. I'm glad I did because we had some interesting discussion. I got lucky with the subgroup I ended up in.

On Saturday I went tramping. We ascended Mount Climie, which was a bit of a climbie, to an altitude of 840 metres. The autism group is starting to take over the tramping club: of the seven who did the walk, three of us attend the group (Danielle, Tom who has been to my flat a couple of times, and myself). We were blessed with good weather.

I saw Julie at her rest home on Saturday evening. It was the first time I'd seen her after her shoulder operation. She was in a lot of pain - more than before - and didn't think it would improve. It was sad to see her life reduced to an eight-foot-square "cell", especially as she's still got all her mental faculties. She talked about ending her life; it's hard to know how to respond to that. She was struggling to sleep so I gave her seven sleeping pills (they were prescribed to me years ago but I never took them). She's since taken them all - presumably one at a time - but it probably wasn't a clever idea for me to supply them to her.

This third test between NZ and England has been a great battle which the Kiwis have dominated. They ran the English bowlers ragged earlier today and then held two stunning catches just before stumps. NZ now need "just" six wickets in the final six hours of play tomorrow to secure a shock series win. I hope they do it (I suppose I should have mixed feelings about that, but I don't, probably because NZ were huge underdogs before the series started).
Update: What a match, and what an absorbing last three days. Forget the "tee twenty" crap, this was proper cricket. It was a shame the Kiwis couldn't quite finish England off but both sides performed admirably today. Just when the game appeared to be fizzling out into a slightly tame draw, Kane Williamson popped up with two quick wickets to create a grandstand finish. The NZ team go to England fairly soon - it's a shame they'll only play two tests over there. To me a proper test series needs to be three matches at a minimum. And they're playing the shorter formats after the tests - what's all that about?

Yesterday I saw my cousin and her husband (I attended their wedding three years ago) with their two daughters, the eldest two-and-a-bit, the youngest just six weeks old. They now live in Auckland having returned from an extended OE in London. The puzzle stuff has given me a chink of light on the horizon; that's probably why all that family stuff yesterday was just about bearable for me.

Mum is coming up here on Thursday. My sideburns have got even bushier since she last saw them. If I were a betting man (!) I'd put up odds of 3/1 that she mentions my sideburns within the first five minutes. I'm probably being generous with those odds. I'd give at least 8/1 that she doesn't mention them at all in the time she's here. I'm looking forward to seeing her though.

I spoke to my brother tonight. He's staying with Mum and Dad, just for one night, and will be off in the morning. Until last Christmas I'd never known him to have a sustained period of unhappiness. It's upsetting to see it now. He plans to fly back to the UK, permanently, at his earliest opportunity.

Cricket pics

Today was a washout in the cricket, as was the better part of yesterday, meaning the game ended in a dank, dismal draw. Such a shame, and quite ironic given all the fire and hosepipe bans up and down the country that two successive tests should be ruined by rain. For me that's the biggest failing of test cricket. I don't have a problem with a draw in a match that goes the full 450 overs (or close to it) - indeed having to bowl out your opponents twice within the scheduled lifespan of a match is an important part of the game - but when rain wipes out a third of the allotted overs it makes everything that came before seem so frustratingly pointless. And apart from scheduling an extra day, which could cause logistical headaches, I don't have the answer.

As I sat on the bank bathed in sunshine on day one, there was no inkling of the eventual outcome, even if rain was forecast for the latter stages of the match. England were totally dominant on the opening day, and virtually all the noise in the ground came from the travelling Barmy Army. Here are a few pictures from the Basin Reserve:

There was some excitement early on as Alastair Cook was removed for 17 but the next (and only other) wicket of the day wouldn't come for another five hours.

Lunchtime; people came onto the oval, many with bats and balls in hand.

The Barmy Army complete with conductor and trumpeter who played theme tunes to shows like Grandstand that I remember from childhood. They even played the darts theme tune at one point; slightly confused by this I looked up at the scoreboard and saw England had reached 180.

A century for Nick Compton (grandson of the famous Denis Compton who played both cricket and football at the highest levels). Jonathan Trott had reached the same milestone a few balls earlier.

Compton didn't add to his 100 runs; Kevin Pietersen then came out to bat.

The duck that had been in or around the square for the whole morning session (and was possibly the main highlight for an hour or two) came to pay us a visit just before close of play.

The scoreboard at stumps. Trott was still there but fell almost immediately at the start of day two. Strangely the "overs" counter reset to zero when the new ball was taken at the 80-over mark.

My first test

I've just spent a very pleasant day watching cricket at the Basin. I can see the attraction of live test cricket and I'm lucky to have it so close at hand. Let's face it, most of the time not much happens - today I saw just two wickets fall, five hours apart. On a day like today you can just sit (or lie) out in the sun and maybe read a book during the breaks in play. Or have a beer. Or six. Even though not a lot happens, you still have to be a little careful, because when something does happen it sort of matters (it's the opposite of Twenty20 where a lot can happen in a short space of time but none of it really matters). I'll put up some pictures hopefully in my next post.

New Zealand won the toss and put England into bat only to see the Poms reach 267 for two at stumps. Most of the time it didn't even look like a wicket was going to fall. The English batsmen - two of whom scored centuries - went about their business and didn't look under pressure. It'll be interesting to see how the match unfolds - my guess is that NZ will need the rain forecast on day four to save their bacon.

I had an early start as I had to pick Julie up at 6:30 to take her to her operation. My plane leaves at 8:30 tonight, and I doubt I'll get to my hotel much before eleven, so it'll be quite a long day for me. I plan to see Bazza in Papakura tomorrow - I phoned him last night.

In other news, Mum texted me to say we've got a new Pope. A 75-year-old from South America with only one lung.

My short work week was an alarmingly slow one - all this automation has seen our steady flow of tasks diminish to a trickle. I'm slightly worried. They've got a function tonight. It's for St Patrick's Day I think. I was lucky to have a legitimate excuse not to go.

Just a sniff...

Since I last posted there has been a development with my puzzles, provoking an unusually high level of excitement in me. There's the faintest sniff of a possibility that this development could substantially alter my life, hence the excitement.

I didn't go to the autism group last night. I'd made up my mind not to go, and emailed Tracy the night before, then she texted me at half-five yesterday trying to convince me to change my mind: her dad would be there, he didn't really know what Aspies were like, and apparently I'd balance out some of the more extreme personalities on show. She failed to convince me. I went to see Against the Wind, quite a sad French movie, at the Paramount instead.

I saw Die Hard 5 with the depression group on Saturday. The movie didn't do it for me. It was good to catch up with some people though.

Julie is having an operation on Thursday, the first of two days I'm taking off from work. I'll be picking her up from her rest home at 6:30am to take her to hospital. She's hardly in the best physical condition to have the surgery but doesn't feel she's got much to lose. I'll then be going to see the opening day of the second cricket test between NZ and England at the Basin. I'm not a huge cricket fan (I've never seen live test cricket before) but because it's this particular match-up, and right on my doorstep, I feel almost obliged to go. One complaint I hear a lot regarding test cricket is "it's too long". Well yes, in the third millennium, with all our busy lives, who can afford to sit through all five days of a test match? But my answer to that is, who says you have to watch the whole thing? It's a story; what's wrong with dipping in and out, like you might do with Coronation Street? Miss an episode or two, you can catch up later. The times I've most enjoyed following test cricket have been listening to radio commentary (which can be brilliant) while doing something else.

I've been thinking about the bloke from the autism group who came round to my flat twice. Why did I find him hard work? I think it's pretty simple: very little warmth radiates from him. That must make it very hard for him to form relationships. It's not an uncommon trait in Aspies of course (some of whom do have relationships and even children) but it's by no means universal; Richard is a good counterexample.

I'll miss Richard when I fly up to Auckland after the cricket. He's going down to Rotorua for his sister's 40th birthday; he gets on well with her and should have a good time. I'll be attending the autism group on Saturday and catching up with one of the facilitators beforehand. Apart from that, my weekend is unplanned as yet.

What's the difference between a buffalo and a bison?

Answer: you can't play cricket at the Buffalo. The joke works better in a Brummie accent (see the end of this post).

Last weekend I saw an hour or so of a four-day provincial cricket match at the Basin. It cost me nothing to get in. It's a great little ground (it is quite little) and should provide an excellent atmosphere for NZ's test match against South Africa later this month. The best part, perhaps, is the scoreboard:



Daniel Flynn brought up his hundred off the last ball (for Northern Districts against Wellington) before a short rain delay. At the top of the board is a dysfunctional digital bit which needs an overhaul. The manual bit, by contrast, works like clockwork. It comprises numerous rotating panels - the men inside change the magnetic numbers and letters every over or thereabouts. There's more to change than you think. The passage of play after the rain break was worth seeing, Flynn and Arnel hitting out and putting on 60-something for the ninth wicket.

Today was day two in my new role which I've got until 23rd April. It was much better than yesterday; it must have been my most productive day for some time in any job. I can do this job! My role mostly involves printing and sending out letters to clients: "we need you to get a blood test" or "this is your last chance if you want to proceed with this application". Some of the letters are automated and are badly presented. Mental health issues crop up regularly in the correspondence.

I'm hoping that this job will lift my mood for a sustained period. It's still nowhere near as good for me as the earthquake job where there were only a handful of people in the office, most of whom I couldn't see from my desk. My latest role still has all that performance review guff to deal with. "The bottom 10% will be managed out," I remember reading last April, almost knowing that I'd be a victim of the company's decimation policy. The last two days have given me a window on the call centre. The way people are graded on their calls reminds me of school. In fact so much of how big companies (and the people within them) operate reminds me of school. The way the three women from Accounts tried to outdo each other in their experiences of the Big Four - just like kids at school with their marks - was nauseating to me.

I really envy my dad who would have hated office politics and point-scoring just as much as I do. He's cleverly circumvented the whole system, never needing to know what HR stands for, let alone deal with anyone from that department.

I sit next to a Brummie at work. She's bin in New Zerlund four yers but gows back to Bloity in ten dies.

Work woes

Friday was my last day in my old role. Not many people there even knew. That didn't bother me. I don't have fond memories of my time on Level 25. In fact I don't have many memories at all. I do remember my last attempt at bluffing - nearly a month ago - before everything caved in on me: my big boss was talking about some make-or-break audit-whatsit called the FMR. I must have said MFR at least ten times before realising I'd got the letters in the wrong order. Perhaps that was the last straw for me. I might as well have said MFI (which is a chain store in the UK famous for selling dodgy furniture) or even MI5.

In all seriousness I managed reasonably well in the role until mid-November when my new boss arrived on the scene, creating an extra layer in the hierarchy. He was young, hungry, eager, energetic, basically all the things I wasn't (I'm not even young any more). Suddenly everything I did at work came under close scrutiny by an upstart who could quite easily do both our jobs. I was surplus to requirements. Depression set in, I became even slower and even less accurate, tasks got taken away from me, and before long I was just a body.

It was going to happen eventually, as it always has for me in a team environment. If it's just the three or four or five people in my immediate team then I can just about manage. But then people move in and out, you're expected to build relationships with people outside your team, alliances are formed, and before long I don't even know what I'm doing there any more and I end up on the sidelines. I know of no other possible outcome.

It wasn't a wonderful weekend. For some reason I could never relax. All that sunshine on Saturday did little to lift my mood. I did however watch some provincial cricket at the Basin - more about that in my next post. I saw Julie yesterday; she has her own battles with depression as well as physical pain. She takes twenty pills a day.

Today was my first day in the new role. New start. New opportunity. It would all be blissfully stress-free. If only. It was fairly menial, as jobs go, but I still had my fair share of new information to take in. I made multicoloured hand-written notes with bullet points and asterisks to help me remember. I started out OK but slowed up badly from about two o'clock when the sensory overload set in. I was wide-eyed, the ceiling lights seemingly turned up to 500 watts. It was a hugely frustrating afternoon for me - work got done, but very slowly. I'm quite concerned that I won't even be able to hold down this job for very long.

Buying this property (which, had I left it three months, would have been impossible) meant a new bank and more pieces of plastic in my wallet. I now have thirteen flexible friends, including those that fit into an ATM but have nothing to do with banks, and I can't keep track of them all. Most of the time I dodge the issue by paying in cash. As well as being easier for me (I find handling change much simpler than remembering which card is where), it helps to control my spending and reduce the size of my digital footprint. Regarding the flat itself, it's got a lot going for it and would be great if I was feeling better and could be confident of maintaining an income, but right now it feels like a burden. I structured my mortgage in such a way as to handle this scenario at work, not expecting it to eventuate quite this soon.

On Thursday I'm meeting Rose. Could be interesting.

My appointment with the shrink has been postponed till next Tuesday.

Tomorrow's job (apart from my actual job) is to tell Mum and Dad about all the work stuff. I know they'll be worried sick about me once I tell them, which is why I haven't as yet. Odds-on at least one of them will fly up here before the end of the month.

Here we go again

My offer on the flat was accepted on Monday evening. The vendors had come back to me at $358,000, eight grand above my initial offer. I then split the difference and they accepted. The haggle stage was quite painless. First and foremost, I just wanted to get it all sorted. Some people lose sight of that and instead of thinking "I'll try to buy this property at a reasonable price" they think "if move my bishop to this square then I'll back him into a corner and ... gotcha!" I wasn't in the mood for games, talking of which New Zealand dramatically beat Australia by seven runs in the Hobart test match that day.

Eleven turned up to the autism group. One of the older members wasn't feeling 100% and had to be taken home. This was our last meeting with the current facilitator who is moving to Auckland - she must be nuts! (Her husband has got a job up there, but still.) It's a shame to see her go, but if she gets involved in the autism scene in the Big Smoke she'll do an excellent job I'm sure. We made tentative plans for the group after Christmas - I'm hoping we can start meeting up socially outside the fortnightly sessions.

I should have been really happy after the third-of-a-million-dollar deal went through. But there are still several hurdles to negotiate and I've been bombarded by property-related phone calls and emails throughout my work days.

My mental state has been fragile since the weekend; yesterday it took a sharp nosedive. Work, life and everything became impossible. As for work itself, it was 2009 all over again. I locked myself in the loo and banged my head against the wall and the sink. I didn't hurt much at the time but I certainly felt it later. Work has definitely become trickier since my new boss arrived. Until then I was getting by, never really achieving anything but never letting that get me down. Work was just there. But my boss is very switched on and highly motivated at work, i.e. the exact opposite of me. The nuts and bolts of the job matter to him, and he expects them to matter to me, so I've been getting feelings of total inadequacy. Buying property, which makes staying in employment even more important, probably sent me over the edge.

I nearly didn't go to work today - I was going to take two days off including tomorrow's Christmas party - but I heaved myself out of bed eventually.

Putting any problems I might have into perspective, a journalist was murdered last weekend just yards from my work. He was a good man, just walking home after his night shift at Radio NZ. After a gruesome killing like this, I wonder whether bringing back the death penalty wouldn't be such a bad idea, if only you could guarantee that they get the right person. And there was I thinking I was safe in Wellington.

On a much lighter note, Birmingham play their eighth and probably final European match of the season, needing a miracle and the dodgy head-to-head rule to progress. But it's been fun.

Rock 'n' roll

Mum and Dad are staying with me for the third time in four months. They'd only just got off the plane on Saturday evening when we had to go a barbecue at my cousin's place. It was a long way from a party, but we had some unexpected rock 'n' roll as I felt my first ever proper earthquake. I was surprised by the loudness of it, and for a split second I thought it might turn into the big one. It was big enough for me anyway; as a wild guess I said it felt like a 5.8 - I overestimated by just 0.1 as it turned out.

We visited four open homes yesterday. Three of them were out of the question - one had a serious damp problem and you had to hold your nose. I'm eliminating lots of properties and not finding many suitable ones. Still, there are three currently in play.

The three of us played Scrabble last night. Mum is pretty good at Scrabble really - she's got a good brain and (not wanting to criticise) could make better use of it. I won a nail-biter by three points, 240 to 237. Those scores aren't bad for a three-player game involving none of those silly but useful two-letter non-words. Dad's 164 wasn't to be sneezed at either. Mum went first and got FoRAGER straight away for 64; I responded soon after with ENTRIES (lucky to have that combination) for 63.

I found this article (well, survey really) from the Guardian today. It paints a bleak picture of Britain's future, and probably the future of Western society as a whole. I've been thinking for a while about how technology is killing jobs. Check in your baggage at the airport, or even do your grocery shopping, and you'll see man increasingly being replaced by machine. Jobs are vanishing. "Get a job" is something you hear a lot, but when there are fewer and fewer jobs out there, what do you do? Find something you're good at and "create" a job yourself I guess.

I followed bits of a cricket match at the Basin yesterday. I could only really see the scoreboard from my flat, and there weren't many people in the stands, but the match was almost as close as last night's Scrabble - Wellington lost to Otago by six runs. By the way there's a flat for sale four floors above me in the same apartment block; that's one of the properties currently in play.

Some Wellington pictures

Wellington's winter wonderland has at last disappeared, making way for a mild, sunny last few days. Here are three pictures taken (on a grey day) very close to where I live. The first is a view of the Basin Reserve, probably the most famous cricket ground in New Zealand, snapped from the ninth (and top) floor of my apartment block. I can see the scoreboard from my flat, so if an exciting situation appears to be brewing I'll be able to watch the action for free (with the help of binoculars) from the top floor. That's if I'm still living in this flat when the cricket season comes around.

The other two photos are of graffiti, street art, call it what you will. There's no shortage of it in Wellington, and if you can get past the mindless tagging, some of it is actually rather good. Both of these examples are by BMD whose fantastical animals make him (as far as I'm concerned) the man. The second "arms race" piece is fifty feet across.

An in-tents end to 2010

I've just been camping for the first time in a very long time. Mum and Dad took their caravan to Lake Camp, which is next to Lake Clearwater and not very far from Mt Somers. My aunt and uncle parked their bus next to my parents' caravan, while I slept in a tent. We spent two nights there. Caravans seem like a lot of hassle - there's the fag of hooking and unhooking them to the car (and you really need a bigger car than my parents' two-litre Honda CRV) as well as everything that can go wrong with power and water. And then there's the loo. Your business goes into what is known as a cassette. Cassette? I'd dread to think what happens when you push fast forward. Campervans and buses seem more convenient than caravans, especially if you're touring the country, but they're expensive options.

As for camping, well I enjoyed that as a kid. When we were tucked up in bed we used to tell stories; my brother would inevitably change the subject to tortoises or crocodiles. This time, in my one-man tent, there were no stories although I did have some unusually vivid dreams the first night. Yesterday a whole raft of kids half my age turned up, intent on shouting, swearing and getting hammered. My family didn't enjoy this sudden influx of Generation Who-Gives-A-Shit, and neither did I to be honest. The second night, unsurprisingly, I didn't sleep so well. If we'd stayed there tonight (New Year's Eve) it would have been horrendous I'm sure.

Yesterday we went for a walk around Mt Potts and Erewhon stations and saw Mt Sunday, on which a castle was built to great effect in the Lord of the Rings movies.

I've thought about getting my own tent and maybe going on a camping trip with some friends. It could be a lot of fun, but the problem with any holiday (unless you go alone) is that you're in each other's pockets, and camping only makes that worse. I'll have to think about it a bit more.

I watched a fair bit of the Boxing Day test match from Melbourne (Mum and Dad have Sky) and enjoyed seeing England give the Aussies a good hiding. Cricket is perhaps unique among modern sports in that winning isn't quite everything. There are all kinds of subplots and mini-contests going on - sometimes they can even take centre stage. England have already retained the Ashes, but there's still a lot resting on the fifth match in Sydney.

Just a few hours of 2010 remain. It's been an up-and-down kind of year with some happy times as well as some very sad ones, the loss of Emma being the saddest of all. However I am more positive about the future than I was a year ago, and guess what, I haven't been depressed for months. I'm not naive enough to think that my depression won't return, but for now I'm changing my blog title.