Where to start? It's been so long...
It's been absolutely ages since we've posted anything on our blog, and I've no doubt that many of our regular followers will have long since given up on us. Apologies, and we will try harder.
We touched down in Auckland on December 7th, and had a great Christmas and New Year with the family, all together for the first time in five years. New Year's was spent in the classic Kiwi way - camping at the beach. We drove all the way up to Taupo Bay in the Bay of Islands (not in Taupo as I'd originally thought) with my brother Rod and sister-in-law Jess, and it was everything a beach holiday is supposed to be. New Year's eve was spent in deck chairs on the lawn at somebody's bach, playing guitar, singing (badly in my case) and eating crayfish and snapper that had been caught that day. Good friends, good times and an endless starry sky. I've never felt so profoundly happy to be home.
The Patterson Training team tent, put to good use in the Taupo Bay campground.
Rod (left) and Andy somewhere we rode out to on our bikes in the Bay of Islands.
Back home in Taranaki, Andy's also found the fishing bug. It's taken him a fair few goes at it, but he's started catching a few Kahawai, an ocean fish he's caught by surfcasting on the beach. Last week we sat down to a 100% home grown meal - sweetcorn, peas, cabbage and new potatoes from out of our garden and Kahawai from Andy's line. We had a good joke about living "The Good Life". Andy's now turned his hand to fly fishing, which hasn't been such a huge success. So far he's hooked up a hole in his Gore-Tex jacket, and last night caught the fly hook in the back of his own neck. So we spent the rest of the evening in A&E with the gout-ridden obese people and the kids with pots on their heads waiting to cut Andy free of his line. Hopefully he'll get his casting technique a bit slicker before he loses an eye.
Andy's Kahawai. Tasted good too. Still waiting for the trout.
Taranaki is one of the few places in the world with black sand beaches. The sand has a high iron content and is super fine and velvety soft. It gets really hot though.
Our biggest task since coming home has been clearing out the basement in my parent's old house, which is where Andy and I are now living. Mum and Dad have moved into their newly built home on the other side of town, and the upstairs stuff has been successfully shifted over, and our stuff moved out of the container and into what is now our new home. The basement is taking a little longer. My Dad is an engineer, car builder, bike builder and tinkerer of the highest realm, and his basement is 30 years' worth of tools, machinery, jems and junk. Getting it all shifted across into the new (much bigger) basement is a work in progress, and everything had fallen into disarry over the past year, but we have our bikes in now and it's looking a lot better than it does in this pic.
Andy and Dad spent four hours cleaning up so they could clear a path to the lathe and make a space for my Scalpel.
And what about riding bikes? We haven't been neglecting our bikes either, in fact I raced on January 31st in the Round the Mountain, which is a local race and this year was part of the Elite National Road Series. It's a bit of an odd setup, whereby the main field of non-elite riders goes out at 8am, and the Elite women go off at 10am. The Elite men then set of 15 minutes after the women, so for us it was a matter of keeping things ticking over until the men came past, and then trying to hang on for dear life. There were only about 15 women and 20 men, so it was touch and go.
I got in with the very lead men's group and hung with them for a bit, but when they started to attack I got spat out. I tried so hard to get back in with the group that when the next bunch came through, both men and women, I didn't have the legs to jump in with them. It was bad timing on my part, and I ended up having to work with a bunch of five women off the back of the bunch, who were working hard, but simply couldn't keep up the pace. I made a break from them with one other girl, and we had a two-person break working for the rest of the 175km race, but there was no chance of catching back up with the boys. I had a good ride but finished out of the podium placings, and I was kicking myself as I knew I was strong. Road racing is all about timing though, and I just didn't get it right this time.
We're also enjoying being part of the local MTB club, and took a women's skills day in the local forest, Mangamahoe, a couple of weeks ago. About 30 women turned up, which was a great turnout for a local event, and some of them were really keen and great riders. We spent the day working the trails at Mangamahoe, including some freshly dug switchbacks and berms, then had a barbeque in the middle of the forest with sausages paid for by Sport Taranaki. All good.
There's a race on this weekend with the club, it's a 3-hour team or solo event. Andy's thinking about going solo, whilst I'm planning on turning up on the day and teaming up with whoever needs an extra rider. You could say I'm taking it easy for a bit.
