Cape Town Pics Part 4

Here at last is part four of the Cape Town Pics. I'm far too tired to write words of more than one syll now (as you can see) so I'll add the text when I'm more with it.

Kirst 'N' Bosch gards.

scuplts at work

me not at work

a view of the gards.

real pap. reeds - Hey, I'm in Af!

bird sculpt.

fish sculpt.

Doing up the house

Sorry I've not posted in a while but I've been incredibly busy. Mainly with work, but also with house restoration-type stuff. I haven't forgotten about posting the next installment of South Africa photos, but John the Floor Sander finished work yesterday and I thought you might like to see some before and after photos.

the hall floor before

and after

The floorboards aren't perfect - there are lots of old woodworm trails - but they look 500% better than the old cheapo rent-a-slum carpet. As well as the hall, we've had both bedrooms and the dining room done, so we've been sleeping on the sitting room floor for the last five days and living in the sleepout.

Well, we were living in the sleepout until yesterday, when we made the decision to move the home cinema room from the second bedroom into the sleepout, as it offers lots more space. Iain has already made the room lightproof, and we are currently trying to solve the problem of how to hang the screen and mount the projector. It will mean a lot of extra work, but when we've finished we should have a much, much better cinema room, with enough space to invite friends over to watch films with us.

As soon as the floor varnish has fully cured (in about ten days) we're going to start work on decorating the dining room. I can't say I'm looking forward to doing it, but I am looking forward to finishing!

Helen

Cape Town Photos Part 3

a view of Cape Town from the car park at the lower cable car station

a view of Cape Town from the top of Table Mountain

Wherever I went in Cape Town, even if Table Mountain was not immediately in sight, all I had to do was incline my head in a different direction or wait until the minibus or taxi I was in turned a corner, and there it was, filling the space where the sky should be, like some huge movie matte. With the mountain repeatedly ambushing me in this way, I was gripped by a determination to take the cable car up to the top.

I organised the Table Mountain trip after work one day during the second week, and managed to persuade all the non-South Africans to come along. As work didn't knock off until 5:00 it was a bit touch and go whether we'd manage to get up and down in time before the last car down.

one of the pathways on the top of the mountain

After chilly temperatures and high winds the day before, which had forced the closure of the cable car, the weather was absolutely perfect. There was not a breath of wind and the evening sun was beautifully warm.

As one of those people who only feels at ease when their feet are securely planted on terra firma, I wasn't looking forward to the cable car trip very much. The excitingly high-tech revolving floor of the car wasn't a favourite feature, but providing I stayed away from the windows, and remembered not to look down, or at the cables, which for some reason gave me that horrible twirling-falling vertigo sensation, I wasn't too bad. The same couldn't be said of another member of our party. She stood on the central, non-rotating floor panel, holding on tight to a strut, with her eyes closed. When we stopped at the top she looked close to tears. When we got off I asked her if she was OK. Apparently, someone had told her the journey lasted 12 minutes, so when we stopped after about four, she'd thought we were stuck and had begun to panic.

The top of the mountain was breathtaking - it wasn't just the awesome views that made it special. It had an indescribable atmosphere all its own, like many of the high, wild places I've been to - the Yorkshire Moors, Rannoch Moor in Scotland; the Pyrenees. Even though there were probably a couple of hundred people up there, it felt deserted, and was almost impossibly quiet and peaceful. I'd expected the top of the mountain to be barren, but it was covered in gorse, aloe and a variety of other bushes I didn't recognise. There was plenty of wildlife up there too. We saw a lizard on a rock, and there were signs pointing to the best places to see some springbok-like animals the name of which I can't remember. There were silhouettes of them on the signs.

From the top of the mountain you get a pretty good view of Robben Island. I'd hoped to be able to take the boat over, as one of our friends from Wanganui had been and thoroughly recommended it, but the trip takes half a day, and I just didn't get the time. If you don't know, Robben Island is the penal colony where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. Never mind, I'll have to go when I return, dragging Iain along.

I really must go now. It's gone my bedtime and I shall turn into a pumpkin if I'm not careful.
I'll post some more pics in the next couple of days.

Helen

Links
There's an interesting history of the Table Mountain cableway here.
The Robben Island Museum's website is worth a visit.

the view from the top, showing Robben Island

Cape Town Photos Part 2

one of the gorgeous West Cape beaches

the lighthouse at the Cape of Good Hope

Rather rashly, in my last post I promised an account of my African Adventure. So here goes...

I wasn't looking forward to travelling halfway round the world on my own, so I was relieved when I found out one of the other writers attending the workshop also lives in New Zealand, and we'd been booked on the same flights. We'd never met before, but Charlotte is the sort of person who immediately puts you at ease. She's got a wonderfully off-the-wall sense of humour, and we spent most of the journey laughing.

I'm glad Charlotte's so well-adjusted, because she certainly needed to be to cope with my attack of hysteria on the flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town. By that point we'd been travelling for almost thirty hours, and I blame my temporary loss of control on the combined effects of physical exhaustion, sleep deprivation, aviophobia* and excessive consumption of ginger.**

Earlier in the journey, Charlotte, who is an absolute treasure trove of useless information, and whom I've seriously considered kidnapping for our pub quiz team, informed me that South Africa has the most official languages of any country in the world - eleven, to be exact. Being a bit of a language nerd, I'd gone off into a reverie about the practical implications this would have. I calculated, for example, that South African road signs would have to be at least thirty feet tall.

When the South African Airways stewardess handed me my corrugated cardboard tray with my corrugated carboard-flavoured meal, and I broke open the plastic bag containing the cutlery, something about the design of the cutlery bag caught my eye. Across the length of the bag was a banner, proclaiming 'CUTLERY' in the centre, with several divisions on either side, each containing unfamiliar series of letters.

'Look,' I said, waving the empty bag excitedly in front of Charlotte, 'All eleven official languages. Msu - do you reckon that's Zulu or Xhosa?' I spotted the little sugar packet, and examined that too. 'Weird,' I said. 'The word for sugar is the same as the word for cutlery in some of these languages - hang on a minute - it's the same in all of them!' My jet-lagged mind began working in overdrive, trying to come up with a possible explanation for this.
'You eejit,' said Charlotte, 'Those letters on either side aren't translations of the word 'cutlery' - they're airport codes - look, here's CPT - that's the code for Cape Town.'
'I thought it was a bit odd that that all the words for cutlery had three letters,' I said.

That's when I lost it. Once I started laughing I couldn't stop. I was laughing so hard I was in pain, and tears were streaming down my face. It was fully ten minutes before I recovered my composure. I could sense the guy sitting next to me becoming more and more uncomfortable, and I smiled at him in an effort to reassure him, but this only made the matter worse - I could almost hear him thinking, 'Why do I always get the seat next to the nutter?'

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Our one and only day off was on the Sunday, and all the non-South Africans at the workshop (us two from New Zealand, three people from the UK and one from Nigeria) decided to make the most of it and go on a day trip. Jenny, the senior UK publisher, organised a minibus trip down the coast to the Cape. Unfortunately, I had to miss the trip, because I was suffering from a rather severe and extended bout of sciatica, but Charlotte kindly donated her photos. All the photos in this post were taken by her.

Wildlife Corner

a jellyfish

a family of baboons

penguins at a penguin sanctuary

Well, that's about it for today. Be sure not to miss the next thrilling chapter of my African Adventure, an account of our hair-raising ascent of Table Mountain.

Helen


* fear of flying - I looked it up. :-)
** I'd been popping one ginger anti-travel sickness pill per hour since the journey started.

Cape Town Photos Part 1

I finally arrived back home on Sunday night after a stress-filled homeward journey lasting 46 hours. I'm still suffereing pretty bad jet lag at the moment, but I'll write an account of the trip at the weekend, when I'm fully recovered.

Anyway, here's the first lot of photos.

Ice floes at 37,000 feet - view of the Southern Ocean, near the coast of Antarctica

Roseberry Lodge - our accommodation in Cape Town

Table Mountain from one of the suburbs

Table Mountain from the harbour

a view of the harbour from one of the restaurants we ate in

Helen

Out and About

I've been so busy the last two or three weeks, writing the planning documents required for the Cape Town workshop that I've hardly been out of the house. I finished the last document yesterday, and so to celebrate Iain took me out for an airing - shopping in Palmerston North followed by a scenic drive on the way home.


These photos are of the Pohangina (paw-HANG-eena) Valley. We were planning on walking one of the trails in the area, but it was closed due to lambing, so we had to be content with a short stroll by the river. Iain's going to organise a walking trip for the first weekend after I come back from South Africa. I'm looking forward to it.


There was a weird warning on the radio yesterday. It said we were going to have a low ozone event this weekend. Sounds like some sort of supermarket special offer, doesn't it? What it actually means is that the hole in the ozone layer will be passing directly over New Zealand, and consequently, UV levels will be far higher than normal. As the normal levels of UV radiation here are the highest in the world (40% higher, on average, than in the southern Mediterranean) then it's something worth paying attention to. I slapped on the factor 30 on every exposed area of skin, and even though we only spent a short time outside today, I feel all 'glowy' now, like I used to sometimes when I was a kid and spent all day in the garden, running around in my swimming costume.

Walking along the riverbank, with the sun warm on our backs; the only sounds the raucous call of the pukeko birds
and the gentle burble of flowing water, we began for the first time to get an inkling of why some people enjoy fishing. Fishing doesn't really cut it as an adventure sport, and it doesn't pass my rigorous animal welfare standards, either, but it does seem like a good way of spending time enjoying the outdoors. Iain is toying with the possibility of taking it up as a hobby at some point. It certainly has the 'farting about doing bugger all' factor, so it should suit his temperament perfectly!

I fly from Wanganui to Auckland tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon, and then on to Cape Town (via Sydney and Johannesburg) early on Monday morning. Very early. I have to check in at 5:30 a.m. Gulp! The journey takes 39 hours altogether - almost 21 hours of that spent in the air. Although I'm looking forward to the workshops I'm not looking forward to the journey at all! I'm not a happy flyer.

I'm taking a one-use camera with me, with the intention of taking some snaps on my day off, so hopefully I'll have something to put on the blog when I get back.

I'm off now to start packing.

Helen

The Sky at Night

We bought a telephoto lens for our camera several months ago, but hadn't got round to using it. Well, now we have.

Here's a photo of the full moon which we took last night. The image is not quite as sharp as we'd have liked, because there was some high cloud, but it's not bad, and is proof positive for all you northern hemisphere people that the moon does look 'upside down' down under!


Helen

All your Christmas present problems solved!

There must be at least one person amongst your family and friends who's a bit of a bibliophile. If you're wondering what to get them for Christmas this year, why not buy them a book or two from my online writers' forum, The Write Idea?

'The View From Here' - edited by Alan Jackson

Hot on the heels of our poetry anthology, Oi!, we've just released a new collection of short stories, entitled The View From Here. Both volumes are professional quality productions, and are very reasonably priced at under £9 each. The royalties we receive go towards the costs of running the forum.

Here's a link to our storefront at Lulu, where you can find out more about both books.

Check out our books here!

Helen

Hard at work

I'm sitting at work, planning next weeks lectures.

In theory.

In practice, I'm surfing the web for 10 minutes - and I just came across a cool site about NZ . Loads of info, even Wanganui gets a mention.

The Title Thinker-Upper Is On Strike

If I lapse into inarticulateness (is there such a word?) during this post, please forgive me. It's late on Sunday evening, and I was woken by Pookie (or 'that sodding cat' as she's affectionately known) at four o'clock this morning, so I'm feeling a bit fuzzy round the mental edges.

It's been a funny old week.

Despite it being late winter here rather than late summer, and despite the fact that no-one is away on holiday, New Zealand seems to suffer the Silly Season at the same time as the U.K. The following story made front page news in the local newspaper, The Wanganui Chronicle today. The story is reproduced without permission of any kind. So sue me.

Rescued dog returns the favour

26.08.2006

A VIGILANT rescued dog turned rescuer this week, saving a Wanganui home and her master from a potential electrical fire.

Shona Williams, of Roberts Ave, Aramoho, switched on an electrical jug in her kitchen to make a pot of tea and returned to the lounge, where she was spending an evening watching television with Tori, the family’s female Samoyed pet.

Mrs Williams became distracted and after a while Tori suddenly got up from her fireside rug and left the room. She quickly returned and with agitated body language made Mrs Williams follow her into the kitchen.

The jug had nearly boiled dry after its automatic cut-off failed leaving the kitchen full of steam.

Mrs Williams quickly disconnected the jug’s plug.

“I don’t know what might have happened if Tori had not alerted me to the problem,” Mrs Williams said.

“She made me follow her into the kitchen. There could have been a fire.”

Five-year-old Tori is a rescued dog the Williams family received two and a-half years ago.

She had been returned to her breeder by a veterinarian after her previous owner had starved her and kept her in a muddy paddock without shelter for months.

The breeder offered her to the Williams family after their previous Samoyed died of old age.

Now Tori, who is in perfect condition, is a rescuer herself.

“She’s got a very keen sense of hearing, especially earthquakes before they happen, thunder and lightning and, of course, cats outside,” Mrs Williams said.

The thing that surprises me most about this story is not the fact that the incident happened, nor the fact that things were so slow in downtown Wanganui that the newspaper editor thought the story merited front page status, (it really is VERY quiet here), but the fact that the first thing Mrs. Williams thought of doing when her dog alerted her to the fact the kitchen was full of steam, apart from to turn off the kettle, was to telephone the local newspaper offices. I mean, just how much of a drama queen must this woman be? Probably the sort of person who rings the emergency services when they've lost their keys.

Anyway, what else has been going on in the buzzing metropolis? (That's a hard word to spell when your eyes are starting to cross!) Well, I've been getting myself jabbed up with various inoculations, in preparation for my trip to South Africa. I've had a tetanus booster and a Hepatitis A shot, and I should have had the typhoid vaccine as well, but I reacted very badly to that the first time I had it, when I went to Italy as a teenager, so the doctor decided I shouldn't be given a booster. Apparently I won't need malaria tablets, which is a relief. I've heard nasty things about their side effects (although they're not as nasty as malaria, of course.)

Unfortunately, the details of the project I'm going to be working on are confidential, but I've been invited to play a leading role, and it involves a minimum of six months' full time work and an all-expenses-paid two-week trip to Cape Town. As my normal wardrobe consists exclusively of jeans, tracksuit trousers and sweatshirts, I've also splashed some cash on some new clothes. Iain and I went to Palmerston North yesterday (the nearest 'big' town) and I got togged up. Iain was amazingly patient while I tried stuff on and didn't do the 'fed up bloke' routine once. I was mightily impressed. I don't normally 'do' clothes shopping, but I actually rather enjoyed myself yesterday. If you're going to have an addiction, I think an addiction to clothes shopping is probably the best one to have. Sure, you're in debt up to your eyeballs, your family has abandoned you, you've lost your house and are sleeping rough on the street, but at least you look fabulous while your life is crashing down around you.

I am so tired now I can't see straight. I really have to stop typing, and anyway, the battery on my laptop has gone onto the red, which means any minute now my computer will shut down. I'll try to make sure next time I post an entry I'm at least partially compos mentis.

Goodnight all,

Helen

Oi!

thanks to Rachel for the very cool cover design

Great excitement today - my inspection copy of Oi! (the poetry anthology I compiled for my writers' forum) arrived this morning, and it's turned out perfectly. So I've now made it available for purchase. The anthology showcases the work of eighteen poets, including me.

Here's the 'blurb' from the back cover:

Oi! is the first collection of poetry from members of the online writers’ forum The Write Idea.

This eclectic mix of poems, ranging from nonsense verse to Spenserian sonnets, from nursery rhymes to erotica, will take you from B & Q to the planet Mars, from bronze age Britain to contemporary Spain. Your travel guides include a cow, a sheep and a woolly mammoth.

Arresting? Original? Witty? Always.
Boring? Never.

Check it out here.

P.S. If you view the preview pages, don't be put off by the weird, irregularly-sized font. I think that's a deliberate ploy by Lulu to prevent people simply printing off the previews for nothing, and not buying the book!

Helen

Kiwi Quiz

How much do you know about New Zealand?
Find out with this Kiwi Quiz I've put together.
The answers are at the bottom of the post, so no peeking and no googling.
Are you ready? Get set, GO!


1. What are these called in New Zealand?...
a) fries
b) crisps
c) chips
d) waffles

2. ... and what about these?

a) gumboots
b) booties
c) wellies
d) rubbers



3. Which city is the capital of New Zealand?
a) Auckland
b) Wellington
c) Christchurch
d) Rotorua

4. What is the population of the capital city?
a) 1.2 million
b) 375,000
c) 164,000
d) 79,000

5. What is the national netball team called?
a) The All Blacks
b) The Tall Blacks
c) The All Whites
d) The Silver Ferns




6. What is the national dessert of New Zealand?
a) peach melba
b) pavlova
c) kiwi cheesecake
d) spotted dick

7. What nickname do New Zealanders use when referring to Australia?
a) God's Own
b) The Mainland
c) West Island
d) Rooland



8. Where do Kiwis buy their lottery tickets?
a) at a newsagent's
b) at a dairy
c) at a corner shop
d) at a five and dime

9. What are holiday homes called on South Island?
a) cribs
b) baches
c) barks
d) scratches


10. The flowers of which New Zealand native tree produce a honey renowned for its antibacterial properties?
a) pohutakawa
b) manuka
c) rimu
d) nikau


Answers below...



























1 c, 2 a, 3 b, 4 c, 5 d, 6 b, 7 c, 8 b, 9 a, 10 b

How did you do?

Helen

Excitement and adventure and really wild things...

...well, sort of.

the delight of drains

The Drain Man arrived on Wendesday and duly replaced our old ceramic drain, circa 1910, with a new plastic one. Hopefully that'll put an end to our drain problems for a while. Iain replaced the soil yesterday, and it was going to be my job to re-lay the paving stones today, but fortunately it's been raining all day, so I've been given a reprieve. The only other thing left to do is to dispose of the pieces of old drain. Iain favours chucking them over the fence into the stand of bamboo in the empty section nextdoor, but I've vetoed this. I quite fancy recycling them in some way. I've thought about breaking them down to use as mosaic tesserae (once we've given them a thorough wash, of course!), but I think they're going to be far too thick to break. If you've got any ideas for ways of recycling old drainpipes, please let us know!


more mad flowers

When I was blabbering on in my last post about the weird combination of things in flower in our garden, I mentioned a snowdrop and a rose. Realising you may find it hard to believe these two are flowering simultaneously, I've collected some photographic evidence. These photos were taken within minutes of each other. Weird, or what?!

snowdrop flowering on 2nd August

rose flowering on 2nd August

work developments

I've been invited to take part in an international project, which will involve a trip to Cape Town, as well as at least six months' full-time work. It all sounds very exciting. At the moment I'm waiting for further details, but I'll keep you posted.

holiday plans

Since my last post we've booked our summer holiday. We've wanted to go to South Island ever since we first arrived in New Zealand, but the month-long tour we'd planned had to be cancelled due to work commitments. Iain's got some time off over Christmas, so we've booked the ferry for a two-week tour of South Island.

one of the Interislander ferries

We're setting off on December 27th, the day after the Boxing Day 'Cemetery Circuit' motorbike race, and returning on January 10th. We've booked the cats into a cattery, and, as we're going to be camping, it's possible that their accommodation for the fortnight will cost more than ours!

During the last few days, in order to begin to think about putting together a rough itinerary, we've asked two people who have travelled extensively on South Island which places they would recommend seeing. And they both, independently, gave us the same answer: 'All of it!'. Which was not very helpful, but nevertheless very encouraging. Given our mutual love of wild places, Iain's obsession with mountains, and my childhood dream of being Heidi, I think it's possible we may go and live on South Island at some point. So the journey won't just be a holiday, it will also give us the opportunity to look at some candidates for future places to live.


Helen

It must be spring!

It's the first of August today; the Southern Hemisphere equivalent of the first of February, and it has been a beautifully warm and sunny day. It really felt as though spring had come already.

I did a tour of the garden this afternoon and couldn't believe the number of plants that are in flower at this time of year. I also noticed that none of the non-native plants seem to know what season it is. We've got snowdrops blooming at the same time as roses, for example.

Here are some of the other plants in flower at the moment.

blue daisy-type thing


bush with pink flowers


wild tree-bush with yellow blossom

And finally two I actually know the names of...

Honeysuckle

Lavender

Helen

Ski Photos Part 2

Sorry not to have posted part 2 of the ski photos earlier, but all my free time this week has been spent compiling Oi!, an anthology of poetry by members of my writers' forum, The Write Idea. I'm hoping to have it finished within the next couple of weeks. I'll let you know when it becomes available to buy, in case any of you fancy purchasing a copy (hint, hint!). ;-)

Okay, here goes.

Photos from our skiing trip

'Happy Valley' beginners' slope on Mount Ruapehu - this is where we went skiing

a view of Mount Ruapehu from the central plateau

Mount Ngauruhoe (AKA Mount Doom), Mount Ruapehu's nextdoor neighbour

Non-skiing photos (warning - may contain traces of cats)

Pookie in tree-climbing mode

Mo in fluffy mode - her hair just keeps on growing!

The dreaded trench

Drain Blokey is hopefully coming to replace the dodgy drain some time next week, and then we'll be able to start putting the patio back together. I can hardly contain the excitement. ;-)

Bye for now,

Helen

Ski Photos Part 1

Iain carves up the slopes

Helen in action

Ski Sunday

Remember Ski Sunday?* Well, we had our very own Ski Sunday yesterday.

Yesterday, on our fourth attempt, we managed make it to the Whakapapa skifield on Mount Ruapehu, New Zealand's most active volacano. Our previous attempts have been scuppered by adverse weather conditions, virulent viruses and landslides. When we got up early yesterday morning we were half expecting to hear news reports that Ruapehu had erupted during the night. Fortunately, the mountain was still intact and there wasn't even a hint of black cloud rising from it. We decided it was probably saving the show for when we got there. The road north out of Wanganui was still closed due to landslides, so we had to take the long route to get there, and the journey took three hours instead of the usual two.

Iain had never skied before, and although I had it didn't really count. It was during a trip to France with some school friends at the age of 17. Everyone else could ski, so they went on up the mountain and left me on the kiddies' slope for three hours. I probably only managed about three minutes upright.

Yesterday Iain and I had a two-hour lesson to introduce us to the basics. It was great fun, but I was a bit alarmed when our instructor said we'd finish the lesson by skiing all the way down to the bottom of the slope. It was about twenty times as far as we'd skied so far and at least three times as steep. We all fell over several times on the way down, but amazingly no-one got injured.

Over the course of the day our skiing superhero personae** revealed themselves. They are Random Flailing Man and Abject Terror Woman. It struck me that we approached the challenge of learning to ski the way we approach life in general. I'm overly cautious, overly analytical, and need time to recover after a knock. Iain's less timid, more relaxed and gets up again straight after a fall. Guess who made better progress with skiing?

There was one after-effect of skiing that we weren't prepared for. The smelly feet. After spending five hours in plastic boots that had previously been worn by hundreds of other people, our feet stank. I've washed my socks three times so far and they still smell. I'm seriously thinking of throwing them away.

We took some photos of our skiing adventure with a single use camera, and we'll post some as soon as we get them developed.

Helen

*I bet you'll have the theme tune playing in your head for days.
** The Burton crowd will know what we're on about!

Only in New Zealand

We had to smile when we spotted this story in our local newspaper The Wanganui Chronicle.

Pie Stops Traffic in Wanganui

Helen

Fun weekend

Last weekend we trooped off to Wellington for the day to see an exhibition, and catch a show.

The exhibition was a Lord of the Rings display at Te Papa museum. Very cool it was too. For the sad anoraks amongst us who've watched all the 'making of' dvds, it was amazing to see all the costumes, props and models in the flesh. The detail and quality of the set props is just incredible. They had the models of Minas Tirith, and the Two Towers as well. Minas Tirith was HUGE.

After Te Papa we went to see Stomp, the dance/drumming group who use junk and scrap metal to make sounds. I'd seen the odd tv clip of them in action, but didn't know what to expect - the first routine involved the group sweeping the stage with brooms, gradually making more and more complex sound patterns with their brushes & hobnail boots. I thought "Very clever, but an hour and 45 minutes of this is going to stretch my limited attention span to the max". 1 hour and 45 minutes later I would have gladly paid another 75 bucks to watch the whole thing again - right there and then! Hugely impressive. How they sustain the physical effort & coordination needed for the show I don't know. The drumming/dance routines were neatly mixed in with a healthy dose of comedy (no words though - throughout the whole show) and it was a truly exhilarating spectacle to watch. We left the theatre on a real high.

Stomp in action

This week was supposed to see a visit to the skifields, but I'm currently nursing the mother of all colds, and got sent home from work under strict instructions not to come back until after the weekend. Fortunately the students are on recess & I'd blitzed all my paperwork before the lergy got a full grip. Not looking good for skiing though.