End of the season....

... is here. NZ Gymsport Nationals started yesterday (Sat Sep 26) with the WAG L4 first up. Nationals is always the marker for the end of the gymnastic year. No competitions now till late April at the earliest, mid-May usual, when the race to qualify and be selected for Nationals starts again (for those L4 and above).
Next term all the gym clubs will be rearranging their gymnasts into who is in what level for the 2010 season, and then starting on the new skills ready to be made into new routines in the term after Christmas.

As a season finale, one last video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrnKNWTYLdw

I'll wait while you get a drink and some popcorn...

Yes, I'm back! Two by 24hours of flying and 10 days of UK architecure immersion later, here I am ready to bore y'all with the holiday photos, lol.

While it was a business trip, time zone changes meant several mornings I was awake and walking around Oxford with my trusty camera phone to kill time before breakfast was served in the Hall of New College at 8am (very Hogwarts); plus 3 days with my godmother which allowed me to visit Porchester Castle and Winchester Cathedral.

Also went to Blenheim Palace, but didn't happy snap there, just sent postcards to the girls.

So without further ado:

New College Oxford - outside view of the Hall where a full English breakfast is served every morning 8-9am.

Accommodation at New College, stair 11 Old Building - I was in room 3 which is the window on the 2nd floor on the right (under the open window).

Views of Holywell St, where one of the two entrances for New College is located.

Views of the old city wall. These sections are on Longwall St.

Various views of Oxford, including punts waiting for the students to come back, The Examination Schools, and the Bridge of Sighs replica.

On Sunday, I went to Southampton to stay with my godmother. The following are of Portchester Castle - the best preserved Norman castle in Europe (the walls are Norman, as are parts of the church; the keep is circa Richard II, if not a bit earlier). It was built on the site of a Roman fort.

On the way to Heathrow for my flight home, we stopped in Winchester - the capital of Alfred the Great's England,

and location of the fabulous Winchester Cathedral. The transept of this building is Norman, and rest is C11-13. I'd forgotten how huge English Cathedrals are!

The town itself, like Oxford, has lovely old buildings everywhere you turn.

And then it was time for the flight home.

NZ038 ready for boarding at Heathrow, then refueling (avgas and meals) in Hong Kong.

I used the flights to catch up on LOTS of movies I hadn't seen. Gotta love these new planes with the individual screens and multiple choice of in-flight entertainment!

Leaving on a jet plane

Today's the day. NZ39 departs for Heathrow via Hong Kong at 11.15pm and I'll be on it.
At least, I better be or my boss will NOT. BE. HAPPY.

Two week business trip to Buckingham, then Oxford for the IMCA part of my job. It's the 2009 Congregation, and part of my job is to be there and help make it all happen smoothly.
For the information junkies amongst y'all, check out www.i-m-c.org and have look around.
And, as a bonus, I get to catch up with my godmother, my lovely Auntie Barbara - who recently became a great grandmama.

Meanwhile, the role of the Evil Gym Mom is being handled by my dear friend Sarah. She gets to get up at the crack of dawn and organise the girls to turn up to compete at 8am both Saturday and Sunday this weekend for the last comp for the year: Auckland RG Champs, where Jess finally gets to compete her rope routine.

I'll be thinking of them!

Christmas finish

Yes - a Christmas piece. In August.

Getting ahead of myself, no?

Tis the Season by JBW Designs, stitched on 18ct aida using DMC cotton and light effects.

I'm going to give this one to Rachel, my friend who loves Christmas, to go with the Tis the Season sampler I gave her last year. Bit of theme going here I think. Will have to keep my eyes open for something similar for her next year!

August finish!

From Little House Needleworks "chart number 4" - for the lovely Floss who hosted Tamsin and I (with help from Tim and the Blondinis) over the last weekend of the holidays when we went down to CHC for Canterbury RG Champs - thanks again Floss!!
Stitched on 18ct ecru aida with DMC. I changed the colour of the large text from a rather blah light brown to the richer crimson. I thought it set off the greens better.
So Floss, guess what you get to take home and frame when you're here for Sophie to go to Nationals, LOL

Things that upload in the night...

Finally got around to getting the videos off the camera and onto the pc and then Youtube. For some reason my "wonderful" Telecom broadband takes hours to upload anything. Fortunately Youtube's upload queue system means I can leave it running while I sleep.

Video of Tamsin's freehand routine at the Canterbury RG Champs held at Bishopdale YMCA on the weekend of 17/18 July (filmed for me by the wonderful Floss):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-klUlKQO38

When I can get the clip to work properly, I'll post the link for Jess' freehand routine from the Midlands RG Champs. At the moment it shows a blank screen while the soundtrack plays, and I have no idea why.

UPDATE: all fixed, so here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mL5owHX5ERg
And you can see why I won't be giving up my day job to run away to work in the film industry! I did such a hopeless job of it that I decided to not film Tinkerbelle, and to just sit and enjoy watching her. I knew I'd have another chance next weekend at the Shore RG Comp.

Evil Gym Mom gets to brag...

I know I know, long time no post. My excuse?
Well, I have several:

1. busy reading my favourite blogs (includes icanhascheezburger)

2. actually doing some stitching

3. busy doing Evil Gym Mom stuff

Anyhoo, here's the update.

First weekend in July was Spiralz RG Comp in Te Awamutu, for Tamsin. Her coach shocked her by saying she could compete the Freehand routine she'd only finished learning the previous week.

We told her it was ok to forget bits of a routine the first time it's competed - so Tamsin took a deep breath and competed it.

Then came the snafus. Don't worry, none of them were Tamsin's doing!

She's the first competitor to go and they play her hoop music - only it's her freehand she's meant to be doing. Nevermind, the judges say she can do it again, after the last competitor.

Then she gets announced out of order to do her hoop routine. Tamsin comes racing out from the warm up area, presents and waits in her start pose....only for them to play the music for the girl they should have announced. So, off she comes and waits patiently for her real turn to come round and competes hoop.

Then waits again until after the last competitor so she can do her freehand routine.

It did rattle her somewhat, but Tamsin kept her cool and improved her scores from Counties, finishing lower mid-field, as is usual for Tinkerbelle.

Then it was the school holidays - filled with rhythmic gym classes, artistic gym classes and ballet classes, at all times of the day at 3 different venues. We were sick of the inside of the car, I can tell you.

But it was worth it cos the reward at the end was the most awesomely cool 3 days spent with Floss and her family in Christchurch over the last weekend of the holidays, attending gymsport comps.

Then it was back to school, and the normal round of rhythmic, artistic and ballet classes. We continue to be sick of the inside of the car.

However, I am getting some stitching done while waiting for the girls at class - a finished pic is maybe a week away? Hope so, cos I want to send it to its recipient sooner rather than later, LOL

I also managed to make 3 - yes THREE - rhythmic leotards, and that includes blinging them.

The one not shown was just a tester and won't be worn to compete. I'm so glad I gave it a go, it's lots of fun.

These were taken at the Midland Rhythmics Champs, held at the same venue in Te Awamutu, early this morning (Sat Aug 1).

The venue, Te Awamutu Events Centre, is quite new and very nice. The comp, like last time, was well run and very pleasant to attend - yay for Spiralz club. Also, the music snafus didn't happen to Tamsin this time!

AND Jess competed RG for the first time. Six weeks after starting rhythmic she did a very nice L3 freehand routine and scored 15.525. She's really pleased with that, as the RG rules are a tad different to WAG. I thought it was lovely. Rope routine still under construction (maybe at AKL Champs at the end of Aug) and ball routine yet to be started.

Tamsin went out, did clean routines, no oops, no memory losses and finishing on time with the music. Plus, she increased her scores. Nothing flash: freehand 14.225 and hoop 13.242, but she was pleased with them as her previous high score was a 13.400.

Then we waited through the L2 session and lunch for prizegiving and spent money at the canteen, as you do, LOL.

And to our stunned amazement we get:

First overall, 1st freehand, 2nd hoop.

Way to go Tinkerbelle!!!