16 July was my last flight, until today. Boy, what a month it has been.
I spent most of August away from home; the usual once a week Wellington trips, but I also had a week running a new course up in Linton, and followed that up immediately after with a week in PNG.
PNG was an amazing time. I headed up a team of three running a leadership seminar for the Chief of the PNG Defence Force, his top 28 or so officers, and the heads of PNG's fire service and correction service.
It was an amazing experience because these very astute and wordly wise senior leaders gave us their complete engagement, and consequently we achieved some outcomes that no one had dreamed possible. A humbling, draining but so rewarding time.
Then of course there has been the earthquake, or rather, all 200+ of the magnitude 3 plus ones that have been documented/recorded. Its quite stunning to think that our house is but a few km away from the fault line. Along with everyone else in Canterbury, waking at 4.35 am to a heaving house is unlikely to be something we ever forget. I honestly don't think life will ever quite return to where we left off. I think our "natural disaster" innocence has long gone. I also don't believe that anyone who has not been through a similar experience can really appreciate that feeling of suppressed anxiety that we keep under control, as we wait for the next big aftershock.
So its been a great weekend chilling, recreating and doing family stuff. We farewelled Teresa who's off to the US and UK for the next five weeks - although as Jordan and Corrie say we will hardly know she is gone as Teresa has long retired from cooking, cleaning etc.
I cleaned out our tunnel house with Jordie yesterday, planted the summer crop of food, and dug over the outside gardens ready for some outside planting in another few weeks.
Today was the boys' day. Corrie and I got up for an hour in one of the Warriors, and I put him through some max-rate turns, stalls in the turn, and steep gliding turns. It was fun after seven weeks away from flying to throw the aircraft around the sky. Matt's away in Fiji for a few weeks, so the Commercial syllabus is on hold until he gets back.
Finally, Corrie and I put in a solid three hour mountain bike this afternoon. Up Rapaki, then along the tracks to Sumner, and home via the flat. It was a great ride - I'm really impressed with Corrie's strength and endurance, not to mention his technical skills in the rough stuff. Its great being able to train with him, and three hours of riding is a decent ride in anyone's book.
