Full on!

When I was in Scotland I remember saying to a few of you that I was going to New Zealand to slow my life down, have fewer friends and stay in more...most of you reacted in a similar fashion; saying "yeh, right Ayley!" with a wry smile and an unconvincing nod. Well of course you were all right; my life continues to be pretty non-stop and I'm starting to wonder if it might be something to do with me? Hmmmm...well anyway here is a quick up-date of what I have been up to over the last few weeks:

Guy Faulks night was excellent, my friend Helen invited me to a pre-fireworks party where I met some of her class mates and got into a conversation with someone who knows people that I know in Uzbekistan (!?). We watched the fireworks at New Brighton, which were set off from the pier; every time they exploded there was this amazing reflection in the sea and all the people on the beach were lit up creating this funky image of silhouetted bodies all along the beach; hmm, nice.

Over the last few weeks I've spent quite a bit of time with this lovely Romanian girl called Gabriela; we are reading through the gospel of John together and she has a lot of questions about life and God that I try to answer although I'm not always able to give answers since some of her questions are pretty deep and complex, anyway we have a good time trying to figure out the meaning of it all together! Gabriela's parents are having a really tough time at the moment and this is quite hard for her, so sometimes we talk about that as well.

Three weekends ago I went away with the rest of the Navs leadership team to reflect upon how the year had gone with the students and make plans for next year, which was good although we were under pressure to get through the agenda in time to watch the All Blacks and Scotland play in their respective quarter finals! I tell you this country is rugby mad!

My friend Ian Braithwaite arrived on Monday 10th November bringing gifts of Proclaimers CDs and wine, both of which were very well received! On his first day he discovered that the Christchurch school of Jazz was having a concert (which is typical of this enthusiastic bass player) and so we went along to the end of year concert that the diploma students were staging, which was very entertaining!

Two weekends ago we went to a beautiful place called lake Tekapo (sounds a bit like take-a-pooh!?) which is an amazing turquoise lake surrounded by snow capped mountains that has to be seen to be believed. There was four of us, my flat mate Marie, my friend Zane, Ian and myself and we hired bikes and cycled along the side of the lake which was quite spectacular; the weather completely changed for us, when we woke up it was pouring with rain but by midday the sun came out and literally dried up ALL the rain! I even managed to get sun burned!...a God present, I do think.

Well I think that up dates you....miss you all, especially sorry that I couldn't be at Rach and Cal's wedding but I have heard all about it from mum and dad who have even sent me photo's!

Lots of love to you all from Ayley