Last day!

Yayyy!!!! After today I have a whole three weeks off work!!! I don’t normally take all my leave in one chunk like this (I usually prefer to space it out through the year with lots of little holidays, so it’s not so long between breaks), but seeing as the Outlaws are here, I thought I should take as much time as possible so we could spend some time travelling with them. And because Easter and ANZAC Day fall in the middle of my holiday, I’m not actually using the whole three weeks’ worth of leave to get three weeks’ holiday, so I’ll have a few days left over for taking the odd day off during the rest of the year.

I’m feeling seriously in need of a holiday right now – work is getting so depressing, with the threat of redundancy hanging over so many heads (not mine, luckily, but it’s still not a pleasant atmosphere to work in, knowing that your colleagues could lose their jobs), and the union’s best efforts don’t seem to be acheiving anything 🙁 This holiday is going to be exhausting (see previous entry for the itinerary), but at least I’ll be getting away from Christchurch for a while, and be able to think about other things and forget the mess here. I’ve even made a vow not to check my work email at all while I’m away (which I’d normally do) – I’ll set the out of office reply giving an email address (of someone else, not me!) to contact for urgent stuff, and anything else will just have to wait until I get back. It probably means I’ll come back to a desk loaded with urgent things to deal with, but I think the advantages of having a total break from work outweigh that disadvantage right now.

I’m hoping to get a bit of Bookcrossing done on this trip – obviously not as much as lytteltonwitch and I typically do on our bookcrossing expeditions, because I can’t imagine Father-Outlaw being sympathetic to constant cries of “Stop the car! I’ve spotted the perfect release location!” (and I certainly won’t be able to emulate Skyring’s release in the middle of the Homer Tunnel!), but I should be able to get some release opportunities when we stop for food or sightseeing. So tonight’s task will be to organise the books I want to release on the first leg of the trip and make sure they’re all properly labelled and bagged ready to go (and I suppose I’d better pack a few clothes, too…)

Talking about Bookcrossing expeditions, yes, I know I still haven’t written up the Dunedin trip yet. I really will get around to it, just as soon as I have a few minutes free…

In the meantime, here’s a few more catches I’ve had from the trip, all from Tairoa Heads (which has got to be the best release spot in Dunedin!):

• Elsewhere and the Clowns by James Roose-Evans
• The Radiant Way by Margaret Drabble
• Season of the Monsoon by Paul Mann
• Ferret by George Markstein

Currently reading: I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith