New New New New Zealand

Went back to New Zealand over the Easter break just for the four days of the long weekend. The heavens must have aligned or something because heaps of people came from all over NZ for the same period so it was like a mini reunion. Mock came from Dunedin, Ronan and Deej came from Auckland, Jess from Wellington and me from Sydney, plus all the natives who were around. Managed to catch up with heaps of people I haven't seen in ages and get blind drunk - literally - two nights in a row.

Also, I saw my family who are all doing really well. Ben and Jess have been doing some work on their house, laying lawn, extending the driveway and installing an auto sprinkler system for the garden. What busy little bees. Mum's doing good although she has a sore shoulder which has gotten worse recently and is affecting her tennis game. That's a real shame but hopefully she can get more anti-inflammatory injections to loosen it up a bit.

Dad's in his last year of uni doing law and funnily enough it turns out he's in the same year as my mate Rupert which is kinda weird. Dad and Mum are living together which is nice. Musta been a big house to take care of for Mum when she was there alone.

Saw Aunty Lorna and Uncle Russell as well. They're doing alright although Russell has a bit of a heart condition which he's going to get surgery for. He gets a really rapid heartbeat every so often which requires a trip to the hospital for some sort of drug injection. Hope the surgery goes ok.

I went over on the Thursday night and arrived just after midnight. Mum picked me up and I went straight home to her place to sleep. The Friday I hung out with the family a bit then hooked up with Gerard, John and Mock. We started at John's family's place having a few drinks then moved on to Andy V's place which we manned out. Then we moved on to Bede and Clive's place (Clive was away) and got maggot. We managed to finish all three litres of spirits I brought over duty-free. Jee-sus.

The next night we stayed at Bede's place and the others played risk while I watched. Everyone got completely trashed again, which was awesome. Haven't been that pissed in ages.

Sunday night a bunch of us invaded Rupert and Laura's place and totally forgot you can't buy liquor on easter weekend. Stupid old-fashioned laws. So needless to say we were down at the 2-4 at midnight on the dot to buy a doz. Me and Bede stayed up drinking while the others piked.

Dad picked me up in the morning and went out to Lorna and Russell's with Mum to say hi. Next stop was the airport and my trip was over :-( It was several weeks later that I remembered I didn't even go to Dimitri's or Honeypot- two of my favourite eateries in chch.