Alcohol, in summary.

I've had a great end to the week with my friend Sarah coming to stay from Tauranga for a few nights. Sarah used to live here in Wellington but moved away last year, so it's always super exciting to see her. She's the first young person I met with a form of arthritis, and we've become great friends. On Thursday we held a long overdue meeting of the Super Young Arthritis group at Southern Cross and it was great to meet a few new people. Technically I guess I'm the person who should arrange our meetings down here, but you guys know how much I suck with strangers! Will make a bigger effort in future though I think, because I know how much the newer members appreciate meeting others who understand what they're going through.

Last night (Friday) we went out for dinner with a bunch of Sarah's friends at Hog's Breath. Their meals are insanely huge, and I was stuffed after eating only some garlic bread, mushrooms and mashed potato! Afterwards we headed over to Mac's Brewery and watched Australia beat Wales for third place in the Rugby World Cup, on the big screen there. I have little interest in rugby (though I'm looking forward to the grand final tomorrow night) so went along with what seems like the rest of the country in supporting Wales. For some reason everyone I know adores Australia, and a large number of us New Zealanders have already migrated there or dream of doing so. But when it comes to sport, we'll generally support any nation coming up against them. It's pretty bizarre. After the game we went to a bar in town for a couple of hours, and got a lot of sympathetic looks at our Wales flag facepaint haha.

The SYAOW meeting, with 'representatives' of a bunch of autoimmune diseases including ankylosing spondylitis, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.