You wouldn’t believe from this pose that she’d just finished off a chew then been served up her dinner would you?

My 3 month mini-retirement is now at an end, with Monday seeing the start of (hopefully) a long term permy role.

I was all set to sign on with a law firm, accepting that I would have to return to a 5-days-a-week commute into Wellington, when a company I had previously interviewed for – and missed out on – came back to see if I was still interested. Heck yeah!

They are closer to home (20 min drive and within the limited range of my elderly EV) and offer 2 days a week from home.

Work wise I will have a lot of learning to do for the next few months – not least getting to grips with DevOps theory – but the team I’ve met are all cool and it should be interesting to see what I can offer.

I must admit though I am fully retirement-ready, apart from financially. The lack of alarm clocks, the leisurely dog walks, guilt-free daytime naps, all great! Just another 12 years to go…

We are finally committed to getting a pergola built after years of procrastination and false starts.  Reliable tradies are hard to find in NZ and we have thankfully found a unicorn to do our build.

He seems to follow Dad’s DIY ethos of “build it solid”, with several tree’s worth of wood.

There is still a polycarb roof to be added and some decisions to be made around flooring but The Duchess has the styling all planned out so I look forward to seeing that in time.

The last few weeks has been a grind of self-study, regularly disappearing off to the library or a cafe with the laptop when I needed a change of scene from the home office, prepping for a tough Microsoft exam to get formal certification for the years of Azure admin experience. (For The Oldies’ benefit Azure is Microsoft’s cloud service so it’s all about how to set up and secure things “stuff” in the cloud instead of on a company’s own computers).

I sat the exam on Friday morning (from home) and was surprised and relieved to see the “Congratulations!” page at the end, scraping over the bar with a pass of 744.

In other news on Tuesday I had a face-to-face interview for a role at a law firm – and actually enjoyed it! I thought I presented well, the interviewers were friendly and the role matches my skillset well so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for feedback next week. It was refreshing to be asked real questions by engaged human beings, rather than be peppered with tough behavioral questions from a script.

If I’m lucky enough to secure the role it would mean digging out the suits and ties and returning to the office most days, however providing The Duchess can manage most of the weekday dog walks (or we can find a good doggy day care again) I’m fine with that – getting back on the train will do wonders for my books read count! (Currently on 7, about 100 short of my friend Holly’s current tally).

If that role doesn’t come off it’ll be back to the study, this time for the Solution Architect exam, which is even tougher.

Went back to the World of Wearable Art show again this year, this time taking The Duchess with me to enjoy the music, dance and crazy, creative outfits. She loved it (as I suspected) so this might become an annual tradition now.

Here are some highlights from last year’s show to give a flavour, though it’s much more eyecatching being there!