We have arrived at Manly for our 10 full on days of training and we are pumped after our 'lull' Suz described!

After making friends with the kindly man sitting next to me on the plane, we found out that we were all heading to Manly beach and at the end of our flight he kindly offered us a ride in his Taxi! So again, the friendliness of a stranger has saved us not only money, but the struggle of maneuvering our suitcases in public transport! THANKS!

Often at this time of year Anna or I, or both of us can have a "lull" feeling which comes after the last event of the tour. It is almost like the winter blues or end of season blues except we are far from the end of our season and we never have winter:) However the lull doesnt last long as we have an exciting time ahead of us after nearly consolidating our calendar for the season and we are also off to Manly to train for 10 days on Sunday.

Im just not feeling the Christmas vibe yet, but I have another week to get into it I guess. The lack of Christmas feeling could be due to my resistance to be part of the madness in the shops at this time of year. But to please my loved ones with pressies I have to get in there :) However there is one thing that lets me know Christmas is near each year.........the Pohutukawa trees and I love seeing these each day along Tamaki Drive. Thats a unique NZ Christmas sign just for us:)

The Last month has been a very successful one for us. Our 13th in Sanya and 17th in Phuket, although due to a crazy draw we had a pretty hard cross over vs Greece (7th in the World). But that is the way the cookie crumbles! With these results our World ranking will sit at 33rd going into next year! Not too shabby coming from 62nd at the start of the year. On top of that, we have been accepted by SPARC for a grant! This has been a huge relief for us! It means that along with LG's support we can actually continue next year and we now only need to find money for a coach!!!!

Anna and I are currently in Sanya, China for our second to last World Tour event of the 09 seaon. We have been preparing well in Auckland through the cold snaps, the rain and the start of the summer sun.

We were thrown a slight curve ball prior to this event with the introduction of a new ball, but only for this event. We had not been sent this new ball to train with like the majority of the other teams here and it is certainly different!! Its floating capabilities and texture make for some crazy serve receptions!! Its all lined up one second and not there the next.

First things first... sorry for the lack of blog entries since Suz's last one!

It has been a while since our last entry because we have been busy competing and have now passed half way of the 8 weeks of continuous competition.

So Id better go back a few weeks. Marseille was a strange event with a bye through to the main draw for us, wind delaying play and fire in the hills. Our first training in Marseille was not a good exhibition of our skills, but after moving to a more sheltered court for the next training I was feeling more positive.

Woops, we missed last week!

I guess time flys a lot faster when we are in competition and travelling more frequently!

Last week was the first of our 8 back to back events. We played in Gstaad, Switzerland and it was BEAUTUIFUL!

Playing wise, we had a good first game and even though we lost our second, there was some really good stuff. We had to play the very experienced, crafty team from Canada. It was very close and it was a couple of our mistakes that lost it - all it takes aye.

 We have arrived back in Hamburg after completing 8 days training in Munster with another German pairing (we are making the most of the depth in the German players:). I now have my passport in my hot hands after being separated from it for 2 weeks while it got a Russian Tourist Visa back in NZ. It's bizarre that my passport has done more travelling that me? It was rather scary handing it over at the post office, entrusting it to the international postal system!!!

As in the Osaka event, a lot of top teams are playing in these last 2 events before World Champs. We were back in the qualifier in this event too, but unlike last year, being ranked 8^th instead of 30^th shows the progress we are making! We meet a Spanish team first, should have won in 2 sets but I have no problem in admitting that I was struggling with being quite tired as well as dealing with the midday heat! We won and had a good break before we meet a Russian team, our last game top make it into the main draw.

This win meant that we played against one of the Great Britain teams who we regularly train with. We won the first set and had our chance to win in 2 sets but lost the lead, and again the set stretched out to 26-28 to take it to a 3rd set. We took the 3rd set 15-12 and believe me, the high and relief of qualifying never ever gets old. In many ways when you play in the qualifier before the main draw it can feel like two separate tournaments. It was an extremely satisfying day to end with a qualification, but my goodness we can make hard work of it sometimes:)

As Suz wrote last week we have been staying with friends in a nice city called Suzuka. But yesterday we had to leave and head to Osaka to prep for the event here starting on Wednesday.

Well our first World Tour Event of 2009 is done and dusted!!

A 17th is a good result for us in terms of our goal of qualifying for world champs at the end of June, but we were a little disappointed with our last game especially.

Its just after 5am here in Shanghai and for the second morning in a row I am wide awake before the birds. Its a frustrating part of travel and often something we cant control. But I dont feel as sleep deprived as I did yesterday morning when I woke after 4 hours sleep. Last night I achieved 8 hours, I just feel asleep a bit too early.

We are getting closer and closer to our first World Tour event in Shanghai which will start for us NEXT Thursday (instead of Wednesday) as we just found out today that we are in the Main Draw and ranked 17th! Very exciting news! Shows that we are moving up in the beach world and to start the year without having to play the cut throat qualifier the year continues to look good!

We are staying a massive beach resort here in Antalya, which is in the south west of Turkey and so we train next to the Mediterranean Sea! I can not yet say I have been for a swim in it as I am not actually a big fan of the sea, but it is more because the weather here is not that warm!

They are moving into spring and there is still snow in the mountains inland and so temperatures and weather has been similar to back home. We are training with a German team and the top Switzerland team and so far trainings have been fun and are going well.

It was pretty much a week full of trainings and study last week.

After another very intense week of training and study! We were treated by our host Tim Wyld to a trip to the Cleland Wild Life Park! I was blown away by this park as we were able to walk into paddocks where kangaroos, emu's and wallabies were hanging out and feed and pat them! It is crazy that with the number of times i have been to Australia, I had never patted either a kangaroo or Koala! Very cool experience!

After a delayed departure from New Zealand due to my broken finger and surgery we have now made a start on our six month journey and the first port of call is Adelaide, Australia. After no rain here for 90 straight days we have brought the rain and some cooler temperatures with us, much to our disappointment.
 
We are glad to be here and training with the Australian Institute of Sport teams who give us the quality competition and training we need before our first event in Shanghai, China at the end of April.