special k

What a happy birthday looks like

2012-02-06T22:39:00.000+13:00

H kicked off his 4th birthday with a present treasure hunt. His presents were all over the house with picture clues as to the location of the next present.

I spent hours whipping up all sorts of kiwiana-style party treats. My first attempt at Rice Bubble Slice was not very successful. Lucky that onion dip is impossible to mess up.

The traditional Aunty Ange cake went down a treat. H couldn't decide what to wish for, and the letters on the candles were unreadable by the time he blew them out.

I had no idea H was so popular with the ladies.

Four

2012-02-04T21:48:00.000+13:00

Tomorrow you turn four. Four years sounds very serious. Not quite serious enough for school, but not frivolous like a three year old. My mother, your Nana, always tells me about how she and my father walked around the rose garden the morning I was born. And then I arrived with a holler at 3.20pm, in time for afternoon tea. Before you were born I would roll my eyes and groan something teenage-y whenever I heard this story; oh Mum, you're embarassing me. But I get it now. I get it because every year on the 4th of February I do the same thing. I tell you about how your dad and I went and had a last supper, well, it was lunch, at Ernesto's. We ate hash browns and eggs and hollandaise. I went to the chemist and bought the last of the supplies I thought I would need to look after a little baby. We went home and packed those few last things in my red suitcase, which is now your suitcase, and then at 5pm we went to the hospital. It was a dull overcast day, a little windy. As we came down the hill to Newtown, Christy Moore was playing on the stereo, a song I'd been teasing your dad about. I asked him how he felt. Scared, he said. When we got the hospital, your dad took photos of me beside the sign at the hospital, with my suitcase and my bump where you were. I knew I wouldn't have the bump next time I stood in the carpark. The same Christy Moore song was on the stereo when we brought you home two days later.

So it's six hours until you are four. Tomorrow when you wake up you'll come into your mum and dad's room and clamber in between us. There will most probably be a tickle fight. I will look at you and see every day since the day you were born, and when you're five, I'll get nostalgic about it.

2011 - The year in review

2012-01-31T21:21:00.000+13:00

What did you do in 2011 that you'd never done before? Where to start. There were so many firsts this year I'm bound to miss something out.

1. Went to Vancouver, Whistler and a tiny snippet of coastal British Columbia; that trip saw many firsts, like having a migraine while sea-kayaking, flying first class, encountering a baby bear, going shopping for maple syrup at 10pm with an old Kiwi friend in a suburban supermarket, and eating all sorts of amazing new foods like Arctic char, clamato juice and raw buffalo.

2. On the home front, I painted my own kitchen and made a blanket out of crochet.
3. Became a runner. I joined a women's running group, ran up hills I never thought were possible, entered a running race, got injured and had my first MRI.
4. Hung out with my cousins James and Morgan.

What countries did you visit? Canada; land of Mounties, salmon and maple syrup from the supermarket.

What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011? That elusive Canon award.
What date from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? February 22, 12.51pm. The day of the Christchurch Earthquake.
What was your biggest achievement of the year? Writing the Elsa story.
What was your biggest failure? Not finishing my first 10km because of a pesky migraine.
Did you suffer illness or injury? I had nine migraines this year, which is more than I've had in the decade. They were often at inopportune times. I have learnt to get over my panic when a migraine comes on now. I also had the aforementioned running injury.
What was the best thing you bought? My mountie tin.
Whose behaviour merited celebration? Those volunteers who dug people out, patched them up, shared facilities, raised money, and donated anything they had.
Where did most of your money go? Gardening and secret brunches at Cafe Thyme next door to the garden centre.
What did you get really, really, really excited about? The final of the RWC. Running up Mt Vic. Snow in my front yard - for three days.

What song will always remind you of 2011? The national anthem, sung with an ever changing lineup of lyrics by H R Graham. Who knew "in the bonzo love" and "God of masons" were the words? And the rainbow song, which Harper learnt from his beloved Nana.

What do you wish you'd done more of? Had more haircuts. I'm wearing a blankie of hair on my head right now.

Did you fall in love in 2011? Neh. I thought I would love the chooks, but they're a pain in the butt.

What did you want and get? Chooks. Revising that decision.

What did you want and not get? A thriving raspberry patch. A Canon award. A medal for finishing a running race.

To see 2010's wrap up, see here.

I will not complain about the weather this year

2012-01-29T20:16:00.000+13:00

Image by flickr user dmmd303

Wellington is windy. The wind's direction and strength play an integral part in this city's life. It determines whether or not a sailing on the ferry to or from the South Island is a good day out, or a dangerous and deadly event. It determines whether sitting outside on a sunny day is a lovely way to pass time, or will involve being hit in the head with flying objects. It might even determine whether you can walk or not.
The wind also plays a big part in the mood of our city's residents. It's pretty usual for the year to go a little something like this:
Autumn: at the first southerly, complain about winter coming
Winter: complain about how cold and windy it is as another 'icy blast' rolls through town
Spring: get hopes up of a good summer coming, but complain about November northerlies
Summer: complain about the summer that never came while holding down the barbecue in a northerly
It's fair to say that I do a lot of this complaining. The wind plays a big part in my life, though in subtle ways. My choice of vegetables and fruit to grow is largely determined by thewind, or at least that's the reason I give for never, ever growingrunner beans. All my crops stay close to the ground. I won't growclimbing peas, and even dwarf peas get staked. I wear my hair long, with no fringe, so that I can tie it back and not have it in my face. I check Metservice for wind strength and direction more than for sun and rain. I choose to walk home a particular way because other routes are windier.
But this year, I will not complain about the wind. Instead, I will focus on all the ways wind enriches my life.
Wind is a cheap gym. Trying running against a gale force northerly. It's resistance and cooling all at once.
Wind has a purifying effect. The air here is always clean. I don't have to worry about airing out the house, because you open a window for ten minutes and voila, airing is done. Washing takes less time to dry in the wind.
Wind is dramatic. It howls at windows. A good southerly is like a kid dancing, making all the trees and curtains and things that aren't tied down dance with it. It whips up the harbour in different directions. It sends clouds racing over hills, it makes magnificent sunsets.
Wind means no-one in this town can use an umbrella. I really dislike umbrellas. Or more accurately, I really hate being poked in the eye by the ends of an umbrella's spoke. I love to see umbrellas that have been sucked inside out by the wind stuffed into rubbish bins.
Wind makes landing at the airport a newsworthy event, though I've had far worse landings in Auckland.
If you live in Auckland or Reefton or somewhere not windy, you don't appreciate the beauty of a truly still evening like those of us who are used to being buffetted. Those still evenings when the cicadas are sizzling and people are out walking their dogs are jewels; when leaves stay on the ground, when the water coming out of your watering can goes on the plants you are aiming it at. Those times are times to sit, to watch, to admire bees bravely going about their business.
I know lots of people who couldn't live here because of our weather. Sometimes I have thought of moving somewhere less active. But there are so many great things about this place, that the wind is a small price to pay for it. I come around that corner on SH1 where the harbour bursts out to meet you, I see the city huddled into it and the ingenious ways people have created a place to live and be here, and I know this will always be home.

'It's true you can't live here by chance, you have to do and be, not simply watch or even describe. This is the city of action, the world headquarters of the verb.' - Lauris Edmond

Summer road trip: homeward bound

2012-01-20T20:27:00.004+13:00

2012: the year of spending bugger all

2012-01-20T12:28:00.006+13:00

2012 promises to be one full of challenges. This is because the Postie is training to be a primary school teacher. He starts next week. Firstly, he will be combining 40 hours of online study with his job as a postie. He'll be heading off to work at 6.30am as per usual, then coming home and studying, then picking up H from kindy and being dad for a bit, until I get home. Then he'll be back to the books. This means I will see P for approximately 0.05 minutes a day.
Secondly, there are the 14 weeks of section, or teaching practice in the classroom, to manage. P won't be able to work his usual job in this time, so we'll be down to one income. I earn enough to cover the mortgage and kindy and most food, but rates, doctors and dentists, fun and emergencies? We'll be squirrelling away some money in the other weeks to pay for that.
In order to survive this year, I have a couple of strategies up my sleeve. We already live pretty frugally, so my number one strategy is to remove the temptation to spend money on anything. I will be abandoning all blogs that feature homes being done up, fashion, new restaurants, recipes using salmon fillets or blue cheese, things for sale. I will not be looking at the 'Home' pages in Your Weekend, the magazine I write for. I will be growing as much of my own food as I can, which probably means we'll be living on weeds all year. I imagine we'll be eating a lot less meat, and I might try my hand at making mozzarella so we can indulge with homemade pizza more often. I will be boycotting any conversations that involve new cars, weddings, new anything. If my eyes glaze over when you tell me you're heading to Rarotonga or putting in a new kitchen, don't take it personally.
I interviewed some nuns a few years ago about their lives, and they don't have terribly much money to go round. One talked dreamily about the few times she allows herself to wander down Lambton Quay and window shop. I imagine in 2012 I will be a bit like that, keeping the blinkers on and staying on a narrow, well worn path. Hopefully a path I can run on, because paying for jogsquad is out of the question. I will be focussing on finishing all those projects I have started - the hedge, the berry bed, knitting projects, putting up a map on Harper's wall I had framed a gzillion years ago - and entering 2013 with a feeling that anything is possible. It will be a new era for all of us; Postie will be a teacher, Harper will be starting school and I will be in my 40s.
That's if the world doesn't blow up on 21/12/12. That'd piss me off big time.
Do you have any suggestions for making our year of spending bugger all more bearable/easier?

Image credit: Suburbandollar.com

Tomato emptiness

2012-01-18T20:32:00.012+13:00

If you choose to grow tomatoes in Wellington, with our chilly spring, our gale force winds and our clay soil, you are in for a hard, heart breaking road. This is the third year I've tried to grow tomatoes, the other two times have been utter failure.

This year, armed with a great deal more gardening knowledge, I have managed to coddle a few plants that I've raised from seed. I started with 14 plants - 7 cherry toms and 7 grosse lisse, back in August. I kept them inside and loving watered them, then transplanted them into larger pots and fed them with homemade liquid seaweed.

Over two weeks I hardened them off; taking them out onto the patio before work so they could adjust to the outside world, and tucking them in the house at night when I got home. My dedication was amazing, if I do say so myself.

A week after Labour Weekend I planted them out in a plot we cleared in the flower garden, a nice sheltered spot with all day sun at the front of the house. The plot had been nurtured with seaweed and compost. I ground up pumice to aid soil drainage. I sowed calendula, borage and phacelia around to attract bees. So far, so good. So good I gave away five sturdy young plants.

Harper helps plant out the tomatoes amongst the lavender in our flower garden

On planting out day, I lost one when it fell off the back of the car where they had been sunbathing. I was down to eight plants. I staked those tomatoes from the get-go, so that any pesky northerlies in November wouldn't snap them. Not long after planting out, they began to turn purple. I learned, from scouring the internet, that they weren't able to draw phosphorus from the soil because it was too chilly for them. I lost two plants completely, the others I coddled and nursed and talked to and fed with blood and bone, comfrey tea and more homemade liquid seaweed. They survived the cold spring. And guerilla attacks by the chooks who loved to scratch around in the soil near them.

Before going on holiday at Christmas, I mulched the plants, I crushed up egg shells and sprinkled them round the roots, and fed with seaweed. The plants looked lush and strong and were fruiting.

First fruit, just before Christmas

Pre-holiday tomato patch, with basil, phacelia, borage and calendula

By the time we got back from holiday in early January fat fruit were forming, the phacelia was getting so big I had to pull it out, but then I discovered black sections on the tomato stems, brown splotches on the leaves and some of the fruit on the one grosse lisse I had left was brown and ugly. Turns out it has early blight. I lost one more plant before I even identified what the problem was.

Early blight - dark stems, brown patches on leaves, dark smudges on fruit

Today, I resorted to spraying with copper oxychloride, but I think it's pretty dire. I'm tempted to pull the whole lot out and admit defeat. And maybe if I hadn't been so optimistic about how I cheated the weather and guerilla chooks, then this wouldn't feel so bad.

Please ripen before the blight gets you!

Perhaps I'm just not destined to grow tomatoes.

We are now vampire proof

2012-01-13T20:32:00.005+13:00

My trusty assistant was on hand to harvest our 14 bulbs of garlic. They've been in the ground since the shortest day, June 21, and according to garden lore, should be harvested on the longest day, December 21. I decided to leave them in the ground a touch longer, until the first leaves started to die off. I dug them up with my new garden fork which melts the soil like butter. Oh, the bliss of a new garden fork.

I also have shallots in there, and I've left them in a bit longer to get bigger and fatter. H got a bit excited though, and pulled one out.

The next step is leaving them to dry. If we could be assured of a couple of days of sunshine, I would have left them out on the soil, but we're enduring some four-seasons-in-oneday weather, so they are tied up in the shed to dry off. I can't wait to plat them and hang them in my kitchen. This is definitely a crop I will grow again next year.

Summer road trip: part three

2012-01-12T21:16:00.011+13:00

Summer road trip: part two

2012-01-12T20:37:00.011+13:00

Summer road trip: part one

2012-01-12T20:20:00.008+13:00

Spud-o-rama

2011-12-21T20:43:00.005+13:00

This is my potato patch. On the left, five jersey benne plants. On the right, five agria plants. I planted seed potatoes in September with lots of seaweed and some wood ash. The yellow flowers are just some chysanthemums that grow like weeds all over the place.

In NZ, jersey bennes are the traditional boiling spud of Christmas, though I don't reckon it's Christmas without roast potatoes. However, I thought it would be fun to try growing them just because I could. We're off to Auckland for Christmas so I thought now would be a good time to harvest the jersey bennes and eat them before we leave. My trusty assistant was on hand with a trowel.

And what do you know? A spud!

They kept coming out of the ground like pearls in the soil. Like finding more Christmas presents under the tree.
In the end we harvested just over 3kg of spuds. The most one plant had was nine potatoes.

I'm so used to having leeks that look like spring onions, lettuces that bolt, tomatoes that never ripen and carrots that look like baby fingers that this haul of treasure has me absolutely stoked.

Sweet baby cheeses

2011-12-15T16:19:00.005+13:00

In November I made my first ever cheesecake. I had thought it would be as tricky as rocket science but it turned out to be a sinch, especially as you can buy cheesecake filling ready made.

So I made another one. This one is adapted from a Jamie Oliver recipe, and rounded out a gorgeous meal of salads and barbecued sausages and haloumi with my fellow featurettes and feature-fellas.

It looked like this:

Here's how I did it.
I took 500g of frozen berries out of the freezer and let them thaw.
I took a packet of wine biscuits and 150g of melted butter and whizzed them together in the food processor until the biscuits were fine crumbs and the butter was worked through it.
I took a 23cm springform pan, greased it with butter, and spooned the biscuit butter mix into it, then smoothed it down to form the base. I put that in the fridge for an hour.
Then I got a mixing bowl and added 500g of cream cheese, about 150g of creme fraiche, a splash of vanilla essence, 120g caster sugar, the zest and juice of a lemon and whisked the blazes out of it until it was all creamy and velvety and could be eaten straight off the whisk.
When the base had set in the fridge, I spooned the cheesy filling onto it and popped it back in the fridge.
Just before serving, I took the frozen berries and 100g of caster sugar and warmed them on the stove so the sugar was melted through it. I slathered that on top.
So, so good.

Five for Friday

2011-12-02T13:33:00.008+13:00

Cousins, the love story, continues. Harper and Sweeney like to:

Get trolleyed togther

Hang out with even more cousins

Make food while being watched by freaky dolls

Hang out in malls

Play air guitar in their pyjamas

Rothfest

2011-11-21T20:15:00.006+13:00

It was my Dad's 70th birthday this month, and to celebrate, my Rothwell uncles and aunts and most of my cousins came over from Australia. It's the first time most of us have been together for more than a decade.

It's great to have family. Even if they think your accent is funny.

Five for Friday

2011-11-11T16:49:00.003+13:00

Pure genius from passiveaggressivenotes.com

The Truth About Chickens

2011-10-30T20:58:00.005+13:00

It's not pretty, but it's chook proof

So Ginger, McNulty and Lemmy have been resident at Helston Heights for five weeks. And what a five weeks it's been. Before I got chickens, people told me:

- chooks love to eat wandering willie and will devour it

- the eggs are amazing

- chook poo is great for the compost

- that having a chicken tractor would mean we could move the coop around the section where the chooks could scratch up the ground and work over the garden beds.

Sounded ideal - we have an overwhelming swathe of wandering willie and I wanted to get the rid it without resorting to Roundup. So we got chooks. We love the supply of eggs, their gentle clucks in the morning. I love watching them on a sunny Sunday afternoon walking as a group around the backyard, pecking at the grass, dust bathing in the sun. And I'm a gardener, so I think chook poo is gold. However, there have been many moments in the last five weeks where I've fallen deeply, deeply out of love with the chickens.

First of all, let me dispel some myths about chooks:

- yes, they love wandering willie leaves. But they'll ignore the stems. Which, if you are trying to get rid of wandering willie, is the most important bit to eradicate.

- they will dig over sections of the garden, but only bits they like. Unless you erect Fort Knox over your garden beds, say goodbye to your lettuces, but not your weeds.

Twice now, we've rigged up fences that we thought were impenetrable only to have the chickens perfect the science of teleportation and appear outside their run. They have:

- dug up my garlic bed (I managed to get there in time, I bet the neighbours thought me running across the yard yelling at Ginger was hilarious)

- pecked apart a blueberry bush

- eaten my lettuce crop

- dug up the tomatoes I coddled and planted out last weekend (I was able to save them, I think)

So if you are thinking about getting chooks and have a vege or fruit garden, don't even think about having them free range. Building a run should be the first thing you do for them. And don't expect chickens to be a magic bullet in the garden.

Lucky for the girls they're laying like chickens possessed.

A long weekend

2011-10-25T21:40:00.004+13:00

At the weekend, we watched with hands over our eyes as St Piri flubbed a few kicks at the final of the RWC.

But in the end, the All Blacks won by one point. I'm still a bit deaf in one ear from all the yelling.
The next day, we went to the Wairarapa and visited our pals Al and Rose at The Crate Outdoors.
Then we rode a new bike trail.

The End.

I love France, but not that much

2011-10-23T15:14:00.006+13:00

Been thinking a bit this week about the France/All Blacks showdown on tonight, in which the winner of the Rugby WC will be determined. If it were any other country in the final with France I would be supporting Les Bleus to the hilt. But it's not.

If we were all, say, a series of doors waiting to be opened; our memories, experiences and loves behind each one of them, then behind one of my doors would be France. I've been there on four different occasions, each one a revelation. The last time I went there I spent three months in an old campervan on my own, wandering aimlessly from village to town to city, discovering that while some of the cliches of French life exist, it's also possible to find badly dressed women, to find supermarkets full of processed food, to hear that beautiful language used to discuss such unglamorous subjects as banking and parking tickets, (gonflage, the place at a petrol station where you pump up your tyres remains my favourite French word), and drink wine that can only be described as utter crap. I also saw no trace of that supposedly Gallic trait, arrogance. Instead I found friendliness, curiosity and an ordinariness - much like you find in New Zealand.

On that last trip, nine years ago, I worked for a week picking grapes on a vineyard in Burgundy. My French being also pretty rubbish, I barely spoke to a soul. But those who knew I was Neo Zelandaise, not a deaf mute as one girl thought - or worse, English - tried to engage with me and teach me some French words. Moutarde, panier, sang, caisse croute, porteur; some words were learnt out in the vines, autumn sun turning the scene golden, others over the daily long lunch of five courses and wine, then a sleep in the sun. The village church bells signalled lunch time. Hearing people talk was like my high school French lessons come to life. It was all too beautiful. Except when it rained.

So France, though I love that you brought us gratin Dauphinoise, the croque monsieur, Champagne, Matthieu Kassovitz, wrapped sugarcubes, broiche and Le Tour, I am hoping that tonight you'll forgive me my lapsed nationalism. Go the All Blacks!

Indulged

2011-10-14T12:18:00.006+13:00

One of my tasks as a feature writer is to come up with interesting people to profile in various set pieces we have in our magazines. One of these set pieces is Indulge, in which we ask people about their indulgences, what they can't live without, and how they spent their weekends. A lot of people answer the same things; red wine, chocolate, 'my family' and coffee come up again and again. Sometimes you get one that's a real corker, like tomorrow's one in which I talked to New Rags market founder Abbie McCall about her love of retro chairs. I have often wondered if I would make a good Indulge subject. What do you think?

My indulgence is: Time by myself. I've spent a lot of time by myself in my life - sometimes too much time. But it's the one thing I crave when the noise of the world, work and home clogs up my brain. I need time to daydream. I was thinking the other day about one afternoon when I was temping in London at a lawyer's office. I had the glamorous task of photocopying pages of exhibits for a trial. The office was somewhere in a leafy part of London I had never been before, and it being summer, was gloriously warm and light after work. I walked to the tube station through streets I'd never seen before, and when I got to the tube, I just kept on walking, all the way home to Earlsfield. I loved the idea that I had no place to be and could just take my time.
When I do get time by myself, I like to op shop, or sit in a cafe with the paper and a cuppa. Running is one way I get to have time by myself. I have little mantras I chant to myself to get me up hills or to last the distance. I find it really hard when someone in jogsquad wants to chat while we're running - I love having someone to run with, but I can't do that and talk too.
Sometimes the only time I really have to daydream is on the train. Everyone around me has they're ipods plugged into their heads, or has a book or is playing on their phone. I like to stare out the window. The harbour puts on a display each morning I find hard to resist.
I can't get by without: a cup of tea within the first ten minutes of waking. Nothing tastes as good, as cleansing, as refreshing as that first cup of tea. I spend the rest of the day trying to make tea feels as good in my mouth. It's like a junkie trying to chase that first high.
At the weekends I: am concerned first and foremost with getting my laundry done on a Saturday morning. Then it's off to the toy library to take back toys and get new ones, and I usually have to bribe Harper to leave the toy library with the prospect of a fluffy at the mall. The rest of the weekend is a melange of chores, cooking, gardening, visiting people, and going to the dump shop, all of which is done at Harper-speed or not at all depending on his mood. I often feel tireder on a Sunday night than I do on a Friday night.

Photo: A rare bit of by-myself-time at Madeira Park, British Columbia, late on a spring evening

The international tournament of the unusually shaped ball

2011-10-12T20:17:00.005+13:00

If you aren't in New Zealand, you might not know that we are currently hosting the World Cup of rugby at the moment. Expectations are high that the All Blacks, NZ's rugby team, will win the tournament and see us pick up our second cup since the very first one in 1987.
I'm not one for getting all nationalistic on it or anything, but I have to say I am LOVING the RWC right now. I love the flags on cars, I love the haybales in a Carterton field made into a family of All Black supporters, I love the somewhat fanatical way they're pushing it at Harper's kindy. I even love that he owns an All Blacks' supporter's t-shirt and that I know who the players on it are. I love Piri Weepu kicking off the haka like he thinks sparks are coming from his fingers. I love Conrad Smith who has the same wonky teeth as me. I love that small towns have adopted international teams, like how the Wairarapa district adopted Georgia.

I love going round to Rebecca's or Matt's and eating crap and watching the game. I love that I woke up Harper in the next room from screaming at the telly when Ireland beat Australia. I love that there are loads of players who hail from Tokoroa. I love it and will miss it when it's gone.
I saw a clip the other day of the 1995 final where South Africa, the home team, beat New Zealand. SA captain Francois Pienaar got down on his knees and cried with happiness. I really want that for the All Blacks. Is it strange to say that? The weight of the entire country is with them, but so is our support.

Fingers crossed

2011-10-12T19:46:00.004+13:00

I have high hopes for this year's lot of tomato plants. Last year, I attempted to grow some from seed and had them in a plastic growhouse that heated up like the surface of the sun on hot afternoons and the little seedlings fried. The year before that, I bought six Early Girl plants. Five of them died from mysterious causes, and the one that survived produced fruit but none of it ripened.

This year is going to be different. I've got about eight grosse lisse and four sweet 100 toms that I have nurtured, possibly more than I did my own baby, from seed. They are all still alive, and sit on the windowsill in our lounge. They've survived being pricked out and repotted and now all I have to do is harden them off by putting them outside during the day and in again at night time before I finally transplant them to their new home in the front flower garden on Labour Weekend.

There is just something about home grown tomatoes. I love walking around the garden at Postie's parents place in Auckland pinching out the laterals, the smell of tomato plants on my fingers. The smell is absolutely divine, and like cut grass, really evokes summer for me.

So please pray for the health of my tomato plants. I am hoping that they will escape disease, survive the wind, evade pests and not smell good to the chooks.

Morning train

2011-10-10T20:07:00.002+13:00

Even commuting can be beautiful:

Yes, I wear my running shoes with stockings.

Wish list

2011-10-05T19:44:00.005+13:00

I've been having an unintentional break from reading fiction. I usually read on the train or before I go to sleep, but because the Postie goes to sleep so much earlier than I, I'm loathe to keep him awake with my lamp and noisy page turning. And when I'm on the train, I've taken to staring out the window in a daze rather than concentrate on a book. Frankly, there just hasn't been much fiction that I've been desperate to read. All my reading lately has been about gardening or running or chicken keeping. I really enjoyed Nightwoods by Charles Frazier that I read to prepare for an interview with him, but I had to force myself to pick it up.

My love of fiction is coming back though. I went to the library to have a look and see what took my fancy, but I should have prepared by thinking about what I wanted to read. There seemed to be nothing on the shelves but chick lit and Dickens. But eventually I found Louis de Bernieres' A Partisan's Daughter. I adore LdB. I've read Captain Corelli's Mandolin, the amazing Birds Without Wings, the one about Senor someone and the Coca Lord (which was actually kinda average), but my favourite would have to be Notwithstanding, a collection of short stories set in a small Home Counties village in England.

I had a look at Michiko Kakutani's top 10 books from last year the other day, and was inspired by some of her choices. So I'm going to keep a wish list of books to work my way through, so I'm not stuck in the library next time.

1. Jonathon Franzen: Freedom

2. Zachary Mason: The Lost Books of the Odyssey

3. Charles Frazier: Thirteen Moons

4. Albert Brooks: 2030

5. Anne Enright: The Gathering

What books are on your wish list?

Baking day

2011-10-04T19:58:00.003+13:00

How to make banana muffins, by Harper
First, mash your banana:
Then get your tools. Mix up the ingredients until you get them on your face:

And spoon the delicious mixture into the muffin tin:

Voila, tasty muffins:

Goodbye wandering willie

2011-10-02T20:07:00.004+13:00

When we bought this house, we inherited a lot of weeds. We've dealt with the agapanthus, and now it's the turn of wandering willie to make an exit. Wandering willie is an evil weed. You can pull it out, but its vines are like a string of lego pieces stuck together that come apart when you pull it, leaving the roots in the ground. It's also a creeper that grows new roots along the length of its vine that grow into the ground wherever it touches soil. It grows in huge swathes that smother the ground, stopping native and wanted plants from growing and germinating. The only way to really get rid of it is to poison the bejeepers out of it, or get chickens.
So on Saturday morning, Ange came over and pulled out as much of the green vines as she could, leaving dirt and roots and bits behind. I forgot to take a 'before' picture. But this is after she'd got in there and dredged up all the vines.
Then we took that to the dump and let the chooks in to start their work. They love digging and scraping through the dirt, so for a month or so, this will be their new turf, or lack of it. Hopefully, they will leave it root free, manured, friable and ready for the kawakawa, ponga and panuka I'm growing to plant in there.

Introducing les poulets jolies

2011-09-26T19:01:00.004+13:00

We have chickens! These are their first eggs, which took about an hour of scratching and a whole lot of clucking

Made by the girls: Lemmy

Ginger

and McNulty

Adventures in the central North Island

2011-09-23T21:39:00.003+12:00

Three weeks ago, we went on a little roadie up to Kinloch, near Taupo. We ran a race, and two out of four us completed it without hurting ourselves. One of us didn't finish. Ahem.

But the weather was lovely, and I came home with a big bag of pumice and two bags of leaves for the garden. So not a total waste of time.
Harper's first portrait of his parents

Goodbye and thanks for all the hits

2011-09-23T20:46:00.001+12:00

Just because

2011-09-21T20:37:00.003+12:00

Putting one foot in front of the other

2011-09-13T20:34:00.005+12:00

So, a few weeks ago I ran in the Quarter Marathon in Kinloch. It was a marathon effort to get to the start line. First, I had a niggly injury in the back of my leg that kept coming and going. I would rest it, it would decrease, I would run on it and it would flare up again. I hadn't trained as much as I would have liked because of the injury, but still felt pretty confident. Second, the person who was going to look after Harper while we ran pulled out the weekend before, so I ended up finding a high school student I'd never met to babysit. Then I got a cold.
By the time race day came, I was taking more drugs than William Burroughs, and a bit nervous not only about the 10km, but about some random stranger abducting my baby.
Race day was gorgeous. The babysitter turned up and she was awesome, Harper adored her instantly. I headed down to the start line with Bram, Anita and the Postie who were running the half marathon. As they went off, I warmed up by walking around Kinloch and doing some stretches. Feeling good, feeling fine.
The first few kms of the quarter marathon, I couldn't really cope with the number of people I was running with. There was some hugely barrel-shaped guy hoicking right in my ear, who over took me on every flat bit, but slowed down to toddler speed on any incline, and was almost impossible to get around. At one point, just before half way, a couple of women in their mid 40s were behind me. I know this because one of them talked incessantly about how old she was. Their conversation just did my head in. It went a little something like this:
Colleen: My sister in law works at Taupo hospital
Other woman: Gasp, gasp. Oh yeah?
Colleen: Yep.
Other woman: Gasp, gasp.
(Colleens picks up the pace and passes me)
Other woman: Oh god Colleen! Gasp gasp.
It was PAINFUL to listen to. They stopped and took off a bunch of clothes, so I passed them, then they sped up and passed me. I was glad to see them disappear around a bend.
It wasn't until halfway that I felt comfortable, had my little "I can do it" mantra going on in my head, and at 35 minutes was right on track for my time. So imagine how crap I felt at 40 something minutes to be greeted with a little shiny blob in the middle of my vision, heralding a migraine.
When I get a migraine, or more accurately, get the aura and blindness that comes with a migraine, I panic. As I ran, trying to keep calm became impossible. I couldn't see, I couldn't breathe. I blubbed. I don't really remember much about what happened next, I certainly couldn't see much of who I was talking to. A marshal called someone with a truck to come and pick me up, a girl with a sprained ankle sat in the front. I was taken to the ambulance back at the finish line, and the worst moment was having my blood pressure taken while seeing the people I had run near crossing the finish line. Poor Postie finished his half marathon to the sounds of his name being called over the PA to come to the ambulance.
So I didn't finish my Quarter marathon. I'm bummed about it, and spent a long time regretting that I hadn't just boxed on, but more drama was to come.
My niggly leg injury has flared up and my physio (I now have a physio..) suspects it's a stress fracture, which means being off my feet as much as possible for 6-8 weeks, then slowly getting back into walking and running. So I'm back to square one. I almost feel as if the universe is trying to tell me, in all ways it can, that running is not for me.
The universe is wrong.

Why living in Jville is better than the city

2011-08-15T20:48:00.005+12:00

4.30pm

4.35pm

4.40pm

Happy o'clock

Harper's eye view

2011-08-14T13:26:00.004+12:00

How a three-and-a-half-year-old sees the world.

Gonna Fly Now

2011-06-30T10:57:00.005+12:00

Postie has signed me up to do a Quarter Marathon in Kinloch, near Taupo. I feel like such a dick saying 'quarter marathon'. It's really just a 10km with 500m added on. I have until September 3 to whip this lardy butt and lazy legs into shape. I've been off the running wagon for months, and chosen perhaps the toughest part of the year - freezing southerlies, dark nights, overwhelming urge to hibernate - to get back on it. But then, come spring I shall be fit and fab and ready to take on a half marathon in the summer.

I do a 4km loop from my place, up a big hill (there is walking involved) and round past the college to the shopping centre. Then I turn around and do it in reverse. I look a bit like Rocky when I'm out there - hoodie, gloves, trackpants. Sometimes when I get to the top of a hill I raise my arms in celebration, and hear the Eye of The Tiger in my head. The whole thing takes me about 45 minutes, then I come home, rip through the pantry looking for chocolate, lay gasping for breath on the couch, and let the endorphins pulse through me.

A kitchen miracle

2011-06-29T09:50:00.007+12:00

It used to look like this:But now it looks like this:

However, along the way, it looked like this:
I was going to wait until all the little jobs had been done, the floors sanded, the cute things arranged neatly etc, before taking pics. But no-one's kitchen really looks like Home and Garden, do they?
PS I burnt the porridge while I faffed around taking this picture.

Shouting is the new smacking

2011-06-28T15:37:00.003+12:00

I still can’t quite believe what happened the other day at Tawa Pool. Harper and I were there for his swimming lesson, and then a muck around in the toddler pool. There’s an area near the toddler pool that families often book for birthday parties and alike. The last time we were there, there was a big swag of people with lots of children and littlies having a swim and a party. Pizzas were delivered, kids were in the pool and everyone was having a lovely time.
There was one adult in the pool with the kids, lying in the shallow water just kind of hanging out. He was probably about 30. A little boy was kind of leaning on a tap that shoots out water across the toddler pool and he was so small that when we leaned on it with his tummy, his feet left the floor. He was just hanging out there, on his tummy, his feet dangling. A couple of other kids had their back to him and were playing underneath the tap. This was all going on about four feet away from me.
I hear the adult, let’s call him Big Man, say ‘Oi, kid, come here.’ He made a fist and kind of shook it at the little boy. The little boy dutifully wandered over to Big Man. Big Man took Little Kid’s foot in his hand and smacked his leg. I felt the smack like a punch in the stomach. ‘Don’t kick people,' said Big Man. Guess Little Kid’s feet hit another kid’s head, though I didn’t see it. But I did see an adult whack a child, and though I was shocked, I didn’t do anything.
Later, when it was time for us to leave, Harper became the devil incarnate, and ran away from me. He wouldn’t listen to what I was asking him to do, getting hysterical at the idea of leaving the pool. He’s been doing this a lot. Just getting him out of bed somedays results in hysterical screaming that I can’t handle. So I ran after him at the pool and grabbed him, kicking and screaming, back to where his clothes were. He hit me in the face. I yelled at him. I lost it at him.
So there are two things troubling me. One, that I was too gutless to say anything to the man assaulting his child. And two, that I assaulted my child, but in a different way. Sometimes, it seems to me, Harper is just doing what three-year-olds do; pushing the boundaries, seeing how far he can go. He’s trying to assert some control over his own life. And I respond to all this by becoming an ogre.
Mornings are the worst. Evenings are also bad. Anything that involves getting dressed, eating food, me asking him to do anything, going to bed, getting out of bed, or getting somewhere on time all result in something that looks like Bosch’s scenes of hell. He screams. He hits me. He yells No! I try to be zen, I try to stay calm, I talk in a low, quiet voice. I try to remember I am the ultimate rock star in his life, but somewhere along the line, a switch goes off in my head. I yell back, louder, angrier. I hate myself. I am sure he hates me.
I read blogs where the mothers and children and houses are always perfect, and I think, “what’s wrong with me? Why can't I be like that?”
Is there something wrong with me? Or do other parents hang on by their fingernails too?

More Canada action: feet not included

2011-06-10T14:20:00.003+12:00

Roberts Creek Princess Louisa Inlet

Egmont marina

Vancouver

Sechelt

Whistler

Mildly extreme makeover: Kitchen edition

2011-06-09T17:10:00.004+12:00

In Helston Road, there's a little hive of activity going on, involving one postie, one writer and a whole lot of old wallpaper.

Here, the dulcit tones of the sander can be heard of an evening.Meanwhile, the things that usually live in the kitchen have been exiled to a refugee camp, aka the spare room. Hopefully, they and the knitting needles get on together.

Miss you

2011-06-09T11:09:00.003+12:00

Christchurch, three months on

2011-06-09T09:20:00.009+12:00

The boys, Ange and I have just spent a long weekend in Christchurch with Nana. It's the first time we've been there since the earthquake three months ago. While we were there, there was a rather long aftershock, long enough for me to get out of the shower, put on a towel and clamber out to the lounge to check the boys (and Nana) weren't freaking.
The central city, aka The Red Zone, is still cordoned off and eerily quiet. If you didn't know there had been an earthquake, you'd think this was one run-down, sad city as you drive around it, with many brick buildings looking as if they have been peeled. Then there are the flapping tarps and struts holding up houses, the roads that have been torn up, and the sections where houses and buildings have been demolished; some complete with piles of rubble, others just devastatingly empty. Ange and I went to the western edge of the red zone, by the river, and joined a small band of quiet, almost reverent onlookers trying to get a glimpse of the city they've known. We met a woman in Sumner who said it's taken her three months to come and see some of the damage. It's all rather a lot to take in.

Lyttelton

Shipping containers to prevent rocks falling onto the road between Sumner and central Christchurch

A post about knitting

2011-06-08T10:20:00.002+12:00

When someone knits something for you, it's a way of saying they love you. Knitting can be incredibly naff, I'll admit. There are some awful, awful patterns and yarns out there.
I will never knit a pair of trousers, or a bikini, or a skirt. You will never see me knit anything with a reindeer or bobbles in the pattern.
But baby hats and cardigans fall from my needles like petals; little tiny garments for little tiny people whose very existence revolves around milk and sleep and love. And when they are adorned in something knitted, they are wearing that love, literally.
Knitting is a winter activity; it's for sitting in front of the fire, slippers on, hot tea on the coffee table. It's what hot biscuits out of the oven and costume dramas were invented for.
At lunchtime on rainy weekdays, I crave going to the knitting shop. I'll look at all the yarns, browse the patterns, but hardly ever buy anything. I have a big enough stash of gifted yarn and leftovers at home that should keep me going for some time. And I can honestly say I don't mind if it's raining on the weekend. That just means less work in the garden and more time inside knitting.
Knitting has its own objects of desire. For me, only metal knitting needles will do. Old, slightly bent metal needles found in a tin at the Sallys are like gold to me. They're my treasure. I have more pairs of needles than I know what to do with; it drives my partner crazy. I've put them all in an old jug, where they stick up like petal-less flowers.
Knitting doesn't have to be a practical thing, like a piece of clothing or a blanket. I've met women who knit everything under the sun from "tree cosies" to genitalia. I recently saw a Dylan Thomas poem knitted by more than 1000 people who contributed a letter each, and in the United States a group of knitters covered an entire petrol station in blankets, turning it into a fluffy piece of art.
I'm a relative newbie to knitting, although my mother taught me the basics when I was a child. She's an exceptional knitter, as if she was born with needles in her hands. Knitting has a language, you have to learn it. Reading a pattern is at first like looking at hieroglyphics or a code to be broken.
It wasn't until five years ago, with the imminent birth of my nephew, that I knitted my first garment. When my sister was still pregnant, we visited an aunt who had piles of ancient knitting patterns. Something in that pile of patterns inspired me. I didn't remember which was knit and which was purl; I borrowed a stack of patterns and got my sister to re-teach me.
The first thing I made, from a 1970s pattern, was a striped red, purple and brown jersey that my nephew wore for about five minutes before it was too small. It took months to make, with lots of unravelling, swearing and reknitting.
By the time my own son was on his way, I was getting pretty good at this knitting lark. So far I've knitted him cardies and jerseys, a hoodie, a hat and a toy bird.
Most of what I make is for babies - me being in my 30s, lots of my friends are having children. And I get bored making anything bigger.
Recently I made a hat for a friend who was undergoing a course of chemo. The best way I could help her fight her disease was to show her I loved her. So I knitted.
Last year we bought our first house. It used to belong to a woman who had lived there with her husband and three children. Over the years, the husband had died, the children had grown up. And when she died, the house was put on the market. The first time we went to see it, her things were still inside. I admired the neatly ordered rows of crochet in a blanket spread smoothly over the spare bed, the unfinished projects in her knitting basket. It was clear, this woman had a lot of love.
Recently, my love of knitting has extended to crochet. One of my most treasured possessions is a crocheted shawl made by my father. It represents hours of time and love and care.
I met a woman on the train one day who, as soon as she sat down next to me, took a ball of wool and a crochet hook out of her bag and began stabbing at a scarf she was making. "It helps with stress, " she told me.
Soon after that, I started work on an epic project - a blanket made from 315 crocheted granny squares for my son's bed. I taught myself how to crochet, and gradually the piles of squares began to grow. I finished it just as the first cold southerlies of autumn came to town, and now when I tuck my little boy in at night, I pull this blanket up around his chin.
I might leave the room then, but my love stays wrapped around him.

*This story appeared in The Press and The Dominion Post's Your Weekend magazine on June 4.

Oh, Canada

2011-06-05T12:43:00.005+12:00

Jervis Inlet

Princess Louisa Inlet

Howe Sound

Chateau Fairmont, Whistler

Peak 2 Peak, Whistler/Blackcomb
Cockpit of floatplane, Sechelt
Lost lake, Whistler
Grouse Mountain, Vancouver

I'm back from a week long journey through British Columbia, Canada. In that time, we managed to pack about a month's worth of travelling in; visiting three skifields, going sea-kayaking, canoeing, bike riding, spa-ing, zip-lining, eating sumptuous meals, drinking divine cocktails, spying two species of bears, and riding in gondolas galore.

More soon.

Friday goof off

2011-04-29T13:55:00.002+12:00

What with some wedding going on in old Blighty, I've been thinking a lot about the time I lived there. In particular, the music I listened to, I was absorbed by music all the time. And that was before I got an Ipod. I listened to lots of bands that graced Q Magazine covers - Coldplay, Travis, Faithless, Chemical Brothers, Stereophonics, Basement Jaxx etc. But it's this song that will always remind me of Clapham Junction on a rainy afternoon.

Craft brag

2011-04-19T21:21:00.005+12:00

Remember ages ago when I said I was making a single bed blanket for Harper? I needed 315 crocheted granny squares. I gave myself a year to do the project in, starting with learning how to crochet a granny square.

Nine months of crocheting, playing with designs and sourcing wool later; ta-dah! The finished blanket. I think it looks glorious.

But then, I am biased.

In other news, I whipped up a few bits for a new baby at the weekend while it was raining. It was rare for me to just sit and knit. Usually, we're outside, or doing chores, or something.

Hope she likes them.

Cousins: A love story

2011-04-13T21:47:00.008+12:00

Harper and Sweeney are cousins, born 19 months apart. They have a rather special bond. They love to: wear matching shirts wear cowboy hats

have a larf

read books have a splash

dry dishes

do topless construction jobs

sit beside each other

hang out at home

be with beautiful women

go fishing

goof off

and when that's all done, crash out together

thanks to Aunty Ange and Nana for pics.

Let there be light, and landscaping

2011-04-12T18:52:00.000+12:00

When we bought our house, platoons of agapanthus had dug into their positions, taken over vast tracts of our section and completely covered a path along the side of the house. Trees were also blocking light from the house and the backyard was somewhat soggy and shady.

So we (and a working party of long-suffering family and friends) got rid of them. Nine trailer loads of agapanthus, enough branches and prunings to keep an industrial-sized mulcher going for an afternoon, a broken clothesline and many hours of weeding regrowth later, it's now time to build actual, permanent garden beds for our attempt to grow our own food. I've had a couple of temporary plots with zuchini, lettuce, leeks and peas going, but this is, like, actual landscaping, yo.

The soil under this former bed of agapanthus has been dug over for weeds, gypsumed, zoo-dooed, homemade composted and cultivated to bits. And it gets great sun - now that all the foliage has gone from the north side, light can get through. A victory.

* Only the clothesline was hurt in the making of this post.

A recipe

2011-04-11T19:20:00.007+12:00

Take one room. Strip wallpaper. Sand until smooth.

Add lick of paint,

and a few personal touches. A toy box and baby shawl made by Grandad D will do nicely.

Decorate with pictures of your favourite people,

and a snuggly bed to curl up in.

Season with something white and fluffy.

Voila, one small boy's room.

Three birthdays

2011-03-02T21:44:00.005+13:00

You only turn three once. Or in Harper's case, three times. Once at home with your birthday twin AuntyAnge; then again at 238 in Auckland; and then again at Bramfest in the Wairarapa. Talk about spoiled.

Thanks Rona, Ange, and Billie for the deliciousness.

Christchurch

2011-03-01T12:24:00.005+13:00

So much has been written and said in the media, twitter, facebook and blogs in the last week about Christchurch's 6.3 magnitude earthquake, that what I've got to say about it seems insignificant. The first I knew about it was when one of those annoying emails from the IT department arrived in my inbox, telling us The Press building had been evacuated because of an aftershock. It took me a long time to register that this quake wasn't just a jolt, and that perhaps people could have been killed. It transpired that The Press wasn't evacuated in the traditional sense; the building had fallen down and people were trapped inside. Death and destruction doesn't happen in little old NZ, especially not on a sunny Tuesday afternoon. Or at least, that was my naive view of things.
I was glued to the newsroom TV as it was happening, as chunks fell off the cathedral and we hoped for a glimpse of The Press building. To see the cathedral without its glorious spire was like seeing Samson without hair. The idea that it could be destroyed, with people trapped inside it, still seems unfathomable.

I went home and hugged Harper extra hard.

Image from here.

In the far, far north

2011-02-21T20:40:00.006+13:00

We've been on holiday, to a little paradise called Coopers Beach. Think long sweeping bay with centuries old pohutukawa trees reaching their limbs out into the sand. Think clear sunny blue skies. Think hot sticky roads and well deserved icecreams on the way back to the house.

Harper spent a night in Whangarei with his pals Monique and Myles while his dad and I scarpered up to the beach, then they all came up to the beach for fish and chips at the Mangonui Fish Shop the next day.

There are other highlights:
- driving up the Karikari peninsula to Matai Bay
- Harper catching his first fish - a baby snapper which we promptly threw back to its mum and dad
- eating freshly gathered tuatua with white wine and garlic
- walking the beach at high tide as a full moon came out
- clambering over the rocks with my grown up boy as the sun set - it's very rare for both of us to be out playing at night time
- seeing whanau in Auckland, meeting two-week-old Bonnie Mila, and catching up with my journo girlz Amy and Maggie and their pregnant pukus.

It's always better to read magazines in person

2011-01-19T21:24:00.005+13:00

This arrived, along with some freezing cold Northern hemisphere air, on a Saturday morning. Just in time for me to put the kettle on, get H into bed, and lie on the couch nibbling Green and Blacks while perusing the Observer Food Monthly. So much better than gazing at it online.
I spent an hour or so in complete and utter Bliss.
Thank you Sas for such a bang-on, what-Special-K-needs-right-now-package.
When someone asks me why do I blog, this should be the post I point them to.

My year of craft

2011-01-05T21:09:00.007+13:00

2010's craft quota was mostly taken up by a rather ambitious project to crochet a single-sized blanket for Harper's bed. This was ambitious because:
1. To crochet a single sized blanket, you need approximately 300+ crocheted squares.
2. I have never crocheted before.
I was inspired by this blanket, made by my Aunty Mona, which used to grace my bed when I was a youngun. It's in pretty rough nick now with some of the stitches coming apart and the yarn disintegrating, and we use it in the lounge these days. I'm also not much of a fan of the multicoloured granny squares.

So I got me a book for learning and learnt me how to make a one-coloured granny square. Turns out it's pretty easy.

The main colour, a lovely mid-blue, is leftovers that my mother gave me ages ago. She had heaps and heaps of it, and I figured even if all the jersies I ever made for Harper were in that yarn, I'd still have loads of it leftover. The red is from a cardi I was going to make myself but gave up on, and the other colours have been bought in dribs and drabs on sale at various times. My stack of completed squares has grown and grown. I mainly crochet on the train on my way to and from work. I'm often the only person who has a seat to themselves on the train. Sometimes I wonder if the crocheting is the reason.

I also whipped up a few baby cardis this year, and fell in love with this simple raglan sleeve pattern. I've got another one on my needles at the moment; the fronts and back took one afternoon.

But this little number below took me months, mainly because I am rather a useless knitter and made so many mistakes it wasn't funny. I started it when wee Lyla was born in May, and finally sent it off to her when she was about five months old.

How we do Christmas at Helston Heights

2011-01-05T20:55:00.004+13:00

Start the day with a shave.

Then get stuck into the presents,

and the kai.

Perhaps later, do a little tidying up.

Fromage!

2011-01-05T20:48:00.003+13:00

The Mbengueles from Hamilton came to visit. Here we are all in various stages of saying 'cheese!' Was lovely to see my old pals Benichou, Brigitte and Feldi, and meet Alexa and Ryan for the first time. Sweet.

The Postie ...

2011-01-05T20:38:00.004+13:00

in all his glorious forms.

It's a wrap on 2010

2010-12-23T13:08:00.005+13:00

What did you do in 2010 that you'd never done before? Saw a lawyer. For lawyer purposes. Sang along to Gigantic with Kim Deal.
Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I didn't make any NYRs last year, or have any goals. This year I would like to finish Harper's blanket, run a 10km, and do a head stand.
Did anyone close to you die? No, I'm happy to say.
What countries did you visit? Does Johnsonville count as another country?
What would you like to have in 2011 that you lacked in 2010? An overseas holiday. Somewhere sunny and warm and with easy access to Pimm's.
What date from 2010 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? September 4, the day fo the Cantebury Earthquake. I thought it was just a small one, until I turned on the telly.
What was your biggest achievement of the year? Running for 20 minutes on December 11. The last great thing I did as a 37-year-old.
What was your biggest failure? Not running 25 minutes on December 22.
Did you suffer illness or injury? Actually, I've only had one cold this year. Touch wood.
What was the best thing you bought? Helston Heights.
Whose behaviour merited celebration? The parents of wee Nayan Woods, the four-year-old boy killed when a car hit him. His parents forgave the driver, and the driver spent time getting to know the family.
Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? Sarah Palin. Just. Go. Away.
Where did most of your money go? Helston Heights. And will do for the next gzillion years.
What did you get really, really, really excited about? When we won the tender for Helston Heights. It was our seventh offer on a house in two years.
What song will always remind you of 2010? There are so many, but as I gaze out my 5th floor window, Jay-Z's Empire State of Mind comes to mind. Also, the theme music to The Wire.
What do you wish you'd done more of? I wish I had discovered running sooner. I was also rather slack on the blogging front...
Did you fall in love in 2010? Does Jimmy McNulty count?
What did you want and get? I've wanted to see Pixies live since I was 18; I've wanted to see Pavement live again since I first saw them in 1997, and seeing U2 again was a really fun night out in the big city. Thanks Liz!
What did you want and not get? Still haven't won lotto, or set up River Cottage style gardens at Helston Heights. Yet.

To see last year's wrap up, see here.

Hole ...

2010-12-06T16:58:00.002+13:00

... where this little guy used to be.

He's having a riot in Chch with his nana popping fuschias in the garden, assisting in the very important task of taking out the wheelie bins, and developing a love of peas straight from the pod.

Meanwhile his parents are sanding and plastering and scraping and painting and waterblasting.

Two weeks to go till he comes home. In terms of getting chores done before he gets back, it's not enough time. In terms of how much I miss him, one minute is too long.

Running

2010-12-06T15:25:00.002+13:00

Brace yourselves: here come some words I thought I would never, ever, not even in a grillion billion light years say.
I have taken up running.
It's been a month, four weeks more accurately, since I set out one sunny evening to conquer a gruelling training regime consisting of one minute running, one minute walking, repeat 9 more times. A minute, back then, seemed like FOREVER. Then I upped it a minute or two a week, and I'm up to a massive 7 minutes running, 3 minutes walking x 4. It's torture. According to my regime, I'm supposed to run 20 minutes non-stop this week. I'm petrified.
However, there are benefits. I feel pretty good after the run, you know, the bit where your lungs stop burning and you can see straight?

Five more things

2010-11-23T14:08:00.003+13:00

What I've been up to, in no particular order:
1. Reading Dead People's Music by Sarah Laing. That woman is a genius writer. She's so totally nailed teenage girl dialogue.
2. Stripping wallpaper. We're onto room number two of the Great House Renovation Project - Harper's room. Meanwhile, the garden is being overrun with convolvulus.
3. Running. I know - hilarious.
4. Knitting up a storm. I have four, yes, four garments on the go right now. They're all cardigans/jersies for babies yet to be born.
5. Thinking about the good folk in Greymouth.

Three good things

2010-10-26T14:42:00.002+13:00

Man, Labour Weekend was a bit of a let down. We were promised, nay guaranteed ten days of fine weather. What did we get? Three days of cloud, one and a half of those with blustery winds. Grrr. *shakes fist at weather gods*
So for each one of those crappy days, I am thinking of something good to counteract it.
1. It's sunny now. Doesn't matter that I'm inside and not at home doing in-the-sun stuff.
2. My sun block budget is definitely in the black this year. I've also not had to resolve that tricky buying summer clothes issue. I dislike shopping a lot.
3. I did manage to get a strip of garden dug over with gypsum, compost and horse poo. I've sown mustard on it to get some green manure going, and will plant it next spring. My homemade compost is also coming nicely. Progress!

La maison

2010-10-06T20:38:00.006+13:00

We have some interesting wallpaper in our house.

And the flooring's pretty neat too.

Things I would like to have in my house in which to hold stuff

2010-09-15T16:20:00.002+12:00

I don't know where these pictures came from, but thanks, whoever you are.

Shaken, stirred

2010-09-15T14:33:00.004+12:00

When I call Mum at 8.05am on the Wednesday morning, I can hear the earthquake in her voice. I've just read on Stuff that Christchurch has been hit with yet another aftershock, this one 5.1 magnitude. It's left a crack in Lyttleton Tunnel, not to mention Mum's nerves.
"I'm not sure if it's me shaking or the ground shaking," she says.
I’m worried about my mother. She lives alone, has no transport, and is getting a bit frail. She tells me the neighbours have been checking in with her regularly, but I want to make sure myself she’s ok.
I'm at the airport a couple of hours later, watching weary-looking Cantabrians arrive in Wellington. Two primary school aged girls are greeted by their nana. She hugs them like they've escaped from a war zone. "It was the scariest thing ever!" says one, while the other one bursts into tears.
Our flight to Christchurch is barely a third full. But the scene’s quite different at Christchurch airport. The departure lounge is packed, with people queueing up the stairs. Babies are crying, everyone is talking. It feels like an evacuation. The last plane from Saigon.
“Welcome to shakey Christchurch,” says the woman sorting out my rental car. She’s eager to tell her story, as everyone here is. There are stories about shops closed, houses condemned, roads torn up, volcanoes of silt. It’s like 9/11 or the moon landing – in years to come Cantabrians will ask each other, ‘what happened to you when the earthquake struck?’
Out on the road to Mum’s place Christchurch is demure as ever. Blossoms are starting to peek out on Dean’s Ave, there are daffodils everywhere. But suddenly there’s a block of semi-demolished shops, or a caved-in roof. The gentile houses of Avonside Drive have bright orange portaloos parked outside them; sewage services are still in tatters.
Mum’s house has been left pretty much untouched by the big one, on the Saturday before; just some crystal glasses broken and an old metronome that’s slid off a table and smashed. But the aftershocks have her worried. She has every drawer locked down, the remaining crystal is laid out on the floor. She hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since the earthquake.
The safest part of the house, she says, is the hallway. “It’s like a cocoon”. So she’s put a chair in there with supplies on it should another big one hit. Water is boiling on the stove to make it safe to drink. Whenever there’s an aftershock, and there are quite a few, she bolts into the hallway.
Early in the evening, Bevan calls round. He’s Mum’s neighbour from across the road and he’s been keeping tabs on Mum and a few other neighbours in the area who live alone. “You alright?” he asks. They talk about the aftershocks; they’re no more of a jolt than we get in Wellington from time to time, only a few seconds long, but they get the heart pounding.
This scene must be played out all over Christchurch – neighbours checking in on each other, telling each other their experiences. It’s all there is on the radio, it’s all anyone talks about down at the supermarket. Everyone’s so grateful they’re ok, even if, as one man told me, his restaurant lost $4000 worth of alcohol and may be condemned. There’s a sense of community that perhaps only a crisis can bring to the surface, a shared experience on a major scale.
Bevan calls around again the next morning. There were three afershocks in the night. Same patter, asking if Mum’s ok, and if she needs anything, to sing out. She tells him she’ll be fine. Then she goes back inside to hear updates on the radio.

Picture credit: Stuff

Knuckle head

2010-09-13T12:24:00.004+12:00

Bet you thought I'd forgotten I even HAD a blog, diddincha?

Anyways, I get sent some strange stuff at work, stuff promoting TV shows, exhibitions, skin care, food, etc. Sometimes it's a sample of some product, which is awesome. I have lots of books that are ex-review copies and I haven't bought shampoo for ages. My mouse pad is a promo for Miami Vice. But the coolest thing I've been sent so far has to be this ...

It's a money bank, and his head wobbles. Now that's classy.

Bought

2010-07-23T12:18:00.004+12:00

See that house there? The pale minty one? That's our house. We moved in last weekend, and I promise there will be lots of photos of aged carpet and wallpaper, disintegrating oven seals, platoons of trifid-like agapanthus taking over the section, and perhaps one or two of the planes that fly within metres of the roof during a southerly, coming up over the months, as this aged lady is transformed into a radiant beauty queen, with River Cottage-like kitchen gardens.

Breaking news: New Zealand doesn't lose

2010-06-16T09:42:00.005+12:00

New Zealand's football team, the All Whites*, made it by some miracle from the football gods to make it to the FIFA World Cup tournament, the first time since 1982. We're ranked something like 75th in the world, so it's quite an achievement and you'd have to be living under a rock right now not to know about it (if you live in New Zealand anyways). The All Whites had their first match last night versus Slovakia, and another miracle has taken place - we didn't lose. A New Zealand goal scored in the final seconds of the game - and I'm not being dramatic, it really was in the final seconds - made the scores even at one goal all. You would think, though, from the reactions of the players and media, that we'd won the entire tournament. Apparently, it's the first time New Zealand has scored a 'point' in the World Cup competition. We were absolutely slaughtered by everyone we played in 1982. I have to admit I make extremely loud squealing noises when we scored and love that everyone's so happy about something other teams (including the poor old Slovaks) would be gutted about. Now if we could just apply this same sense of celebration to the Rugby World Cup next year ...

*No, not an Aryan team, just the opposite of the rather famous NZ rugby team the All Blacks. It's the shirt colour we're talking about here. Most NZ sporting teams have some sort of play on this theme; the Tall Blacks (basketball), the Black Sticks (hockey), the Black Caps (cricket), the Black Sox (softball).

I am TV

2010-06-15T13:32:00.002+12:00

Some of you may know, as well as writing amazing stories for a certain newspaper, I also edit that paper's TV supplement. So I've been reading about and watching a lot of telly lately. And after reading Helen's blog today on what her TV station would screen, thought I'd copy her idea.
If I ran TV, there would be no ads, and I would show these programmes on high rotation:
* Twin Peaks - got me through my first wisdom tooth extraction. I spent many happy hours on the couch high on painkillers watching the Coop, my chipmunk-shaped face safely hidden from public view.
* Band of Brothers - who doesn't love Withers and Nix?
* Lost - I could easily watch a season on DVD in one sitting. It's low brow high brow.
* Survivor - yes, I'm that lame.
* Six Feet Under - Best. Finale. Ever.
* River Cottage - Hugh could be making pikelets out of sawdust and fossilised pig snouts and I'd think it was amazing, inspiring telly.
* The Sopranos - bada bing, bdad boom. I won't tell you how it ends because I, like everyone else, don't know.

An offer

2010-06-10T15:25:00.003+12:00

I want to grow food and plant trees in this garden: I want to cook meals and make pots of tea in this kitchen:We've had an offer accepted on this house and now we just have to go through the process of hoop jumping, red tape cutting and box ticking.
And then it will be ours, wah ha ha!

All I want for Mother's Day is ...

2010-04-14T13:44:00.002+12:00

1. A breadmaker - so I don't have to faff around with yeast rising and buns proving to have fresh tasty bread.
2. A pasta machine - so I don't have a faff around rolling the bloody stuff out by hand, ending up with it too thick and coming out of the saucepan like tyre rubber. (Don't mention Sunday night.)
3. A lie down - now that H has given up his day sleep (but only at weekends), the days are awful long. There's only so much train track building and demolishing a girl can take.
4. Something from Oxfam unwrapped, like the chance for another woman to have a baby safely.

Feet, meet grass and sand

2010-03-14T13:50:00.007+13:00

Hi blogworld, it's been a while. I've been taking a break from the screen in my non-work hours and having a little holiday, playing around in my garden, and catching up on some knitting. Don't I sound 148 years old?

Here's what I've been up to:

Harper turned two

My wee boy is now two years old. I can report he has embraced the 'terrible' in terrible twos somewhat, but as his vocab and mimicry of grown ups increases, so does his charm. Il est tres charmant. We celebrated his transition from infancy, where we now have to pay for him to fly on a plane, with a party. It was awesome. Our lounge was full of people, toys and food, and though the day started off a bit cruddy, it fined up and the little ones could do a bit of freeranging out in the yard. We were so chuffed so many people made the journey to K-town to see us, and H was chuffed with his swag of presents, so thanks everybody! Shame the kids didn't like my cupcakes as much as the icing I plastered on it - I was still finding cupcakes with the icing scraped off them the next day.

We went on holiday

Being on holiday means forgetting about; the work shoes, what day it is, the news, being on time, washing nappies, making lunches the night before.

And means embracing: barefeet, bare bums (if you are two), snoozing on the couch, grass, hot dogs on a stick with sauce, laying yourself out to dry.

We did all this in spades as we drifted north to Auckland, Whangarei and the Bay of Islands for two weeks off.
And wore my ear drums out.

I went and saw Pavement play their first gig in ten years with The Bram at the Auckland Town Hall which was awesome and nostaglic and fun. They sing one of my top five favourite songs of all time.

Two weeks later I was back in Auckland for the Pixies gig at Vector, which was really fun too, especially as I was there with some really great pals; MatnNat, The Bram, and Ange. Thanks dudes.

Where I am

2010-02-19T11:45:00.003+13:00

Right now I see:

sun streaming outside on the paddock where cows gently graze

Monique chomping furtively on some home grown corn

wide open windows

curtains ruffled by a slight breeze

my own barefeet

I hear:

Monique furtively chomping on corn, talking to herself about not having any ripe avocados

the ever-present blistering of cicadas

some native bird I'm not familiar with

the space where the sound of the newsroom, the toddler and the cars should be

And I smell:

toast

sunblock

homegrown tomatoes roasting

Bliss.

End of the tunnel

2010-01-14T09:43:00.002+13:00

As of yesterday I finished the bulk of a huge project that has had me tied up evenings and weekends for nearly five months. It's been a good project but very challenging in places, especially when the evenings have been long and light and all I've wanted to do is sit in the garden watching my plants grow.
The strain on poor Postie has been immense - I have barely cooked a meal or washed a plate for ages. We've been like ships passing in the night. By the time I get to bed, P has been asleep for a while, and when I wake up, he's already gone to work.
So with Harper up in Auckland until Saturday with his grandies, P and I have a couple of nights to just be. No chores, no work. Tonight, I may even take a walk in the hills, and sit in the garden listening to my plants grow.

Stretched

2010-01-05T16:57:00.003+13:00

Today marks a year since I became a Working Mother (TM). Now don't get all offended you stay at home mums, I'm not insinuating that you don't work, or have a rough time of it, cos I know. But working outside the home fulltime is a special kind of compromise. Not a day goes by I don't feel the pull.
However, I am also treated to something really quite wonderful when I get home from work; that tiptap of his slippers, or the padpad of his feet on the kitchen lino as he half runs to meet me.

2009: The Verdict

2010-01-01T12:38:00.004+13:00

What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before? Wore high heels to work on a consistent basis. Made bread.
Did you keep your new years' goals, and will you make more for next year?
No, but not because I didn't work at them. And no, I don't think I will. I would like to have a year without trying to do anything.
Did anyone close to you die?
Yes.
What countries did you visit?
Um, I barely left the city all year, except for this time, and that time.
What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Time to craft.
What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Sorry, there isn't one.
What was your biggest achievement of the year?
The few stories I wrote that were actually really good, like this one and that one.
What was your biggest failure?
Not convincing certain people that even though there was a recession on and money was tight, spending $1500 on an outrageous great idea I had was worthwhile.
Did you suffer illness or injury?
What haven't I had this year? There are the umpteen colds (I have one now), the viral labyrinthitis, a gastro bug, etc.
What was the best thing you bought?
Sukin products. Especially the conditioner. I was hoping that I could have said "an awesome home for me and my family" but alas, no.
Whose behaviour merited celebration? Ange's. I would never have survived a year like she's had and still been able to make stupid jokes about it. Yey for Sweeney's Mama!
Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed? Those clowns at Copenhagen. Vendors with closed tenders and buyers with big chequebooks.
Where did most of your money go? Savings. *yawn*
What did you get really, really, really excited about? Buying that house in J'ville. Then having it ripped out from my grasp. And Harper's first steps and words (gone, blankey, milk) were pretty amazing.
What song will always remind you of 2009? This Tornado Loves You by Neko Case. It pretty much sums up the year's weather too.
What do you wish you'd done more of? Making stuff, like clothes. Walking in the hills.
What do you wish you'd done less of? Procrastinating.
Did you fall in love in 2009? I guess so, because I do love our backyard.
What did you want and get? A stunning opportunity to earn a bit more dosh. A proper vegetable garden.
What did you want and not get? Where to start. Let's just say Nepal.

Tui

2009-12-02T20:43:00.004+13:00

Every night for the past week, the same tui has been sitting outside in the pohutukawa and singing as it gets dark. I know it's the same tui because it sings the same song, it's quite melodic and a little melancholic, not like the broken robot noises other tui make.
Good night, sweet tui.

Five of my favourite things about our new home

2009-11-11T19:23:00.005+13:00

1. Harper's pumpkin seedling. He waters it in the evening with his wee watering can, but gets impatient and empties it out over the leaves.

2. The improvised bbq, made from a neighbour's discarded bricks and the grill and plate from Ange's old bbq. We had everyone over on Saturday evening and I still had the delicious smell of wood smoke in my hair the next morning.
3. The orange carpet. We didn't realise just how orange until we moved in. Before that, we'd only seen the floors covered in drop cloths (the landlord was repainting).

4. My garden. In a few hours, Harper and I went on a mission to collect up everything we needed to build a raised bed. We went to Lower Hutt to collect barley straw and lucerne hay, got the boxing, collected some old tyres, got four bags of commercial compost, snuck next door when the neighbours were out and scraped all the grass clippings off their just-cut lawn, and emptied it all into this 2m x 1m plot with our homemade compost and some sheep pellets. It now contains red onions, beetroot and peas. In tyres, I have agria spuds, H's pumpkin, and four cherry toms. Grow you good things!

5. Harper and Sweeney's swing. Grandad Derek was just up from Christchurch, so after collecting the required materials, he spent the afternoon putting it togethe. When Sweeney came over that evening, we tested it out and taught Sweeney how to swing. Harper's still a bit little, but he likes pushing it. I sat on it yesterday and nearly broke the branch, so alas, no swinging for this monkey.

Make it night, already

2009-11-11T16:58:00.003+13:00

I'm a bit tired of seeing those two sleepy looking teenagers from Twilight everywhere.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this?

2009-11-04T11:51:00.003+13:00

Mom: What did that little girl say to you?
Daughter: She said... that I'm ugly.
Mom: Well, you tell her that her mom is ugly. And then you punch her in the face, that's what you do. And then I'll go and punch her mom in the face! That's what you do!
From the very excellent Overheard in New York.

Cops Reporter: They want a feature story about this community trick-or-treating event. I’ve got better things to cover on Halloween.
Business Reporter: Like kids getting run over.
Cops Reporter: Let’s hope so.
From the also awesome Overheard in the Newsroom.

News story of the Week - man doesn't get sex, sues deodorant company

2009-11-03T10:30:00.002+13:00

The makers of Lynx deodorant are being sued by an Indian man, who claims he used their products for seven years but failed to attract the opposite sex.
Vaibhav Bedi, 26, wants Unilever to compensate him $91,000 for the "depression and psychological damage" caused by a lack of any "Lynx effect", the Daily Record reports.
Some adverts for Lynx - marketed as Axe in India - show beautiful women seemingly becoming entranced by those who use the products.
"The company cheated me because in its advertisements, it says women will be attracted to you if you use Axe ... I used it for seven years but no girl came to me," Mr Bedi said in his court petition.
A New Delhi court has accepted half-used body washes, shampoos, anti-perspirants and hair gels for forensic testing in the case.
Unilever has refused to comment on the lawsuit, but Mr Bedi's lawyer Ram Jethmalani has urged the company to settle out of court.
"There is no data to substantiate the supposition that unattractive and unintelligent men don't attract women," the Daily Record quoted him as saying.
"In fact, some of the best looking women have been known to marry and date absolutely ghoulish guys."
Thanks, Stuff.co.nz and Sydney Morning Herald

Five things about moving house

2009-10-29T10:33:00.005+13:00

We have moved house. We are no longer residents of the cul-de-sac. Instead, we live on a vertiginous hillside, in an army green house, with a spectacular view of Makara Peak and the dying light of evening. We're k-town dwellers now.
Last night was goodbye to:
1. The brown, impervious-to-spilt-milk carpet.
2. The path of death leading down to the clothes line.
3. Shane doing his laundry, blowing his nose, emptying his bladder. And the wildebeest. *shudder*
4. Ving and his concrete shed, his utter disregard for the environment, and his 'beautiful day! Oh you big boy!'
5. Other residents of the 'sac; Dad187, Martin, Miss Piggy, Jaffa the Ginger Ninja, Ving's mum.
And it's hello to:
1. The four children who live next door, school-aged to baby-sized.
2. Living in a suburb the size of a small town.
3. Steps. And more steps.
4. Having a backyard.*
5. Pink and blue lino like you wouldn't believe.*
It's a bit chaotic at our new digs - I've lost my mobile, have only one of each of my pairs of work shoes, and who knows where the kettle is? We have no landline yet, but the shower is awesome (the 'sac's shower was utter crap) and last night just finding some pjs for Harper was an investigation on a par with locating the survivors of Oceanic 815.
A special shout out here to Anne and Ces who braved the steps and a rather ratty Harper to help us move. We couldn't have done it without you.
*photos coming once we find the camera

News story of the week - three McDonald's branches close down

2009-10-27T15:56:00.003+13:00

The Big Mac, long a symbol of globalisation, has become the latest victim of Iceland's overexposure to the world financial crisis.
The country's three McDonald's restaurants - all in the capital Reykjavik - will close next weekend, as the franchise owner gives in to falling profits caused by the collapse in the Icelandic krona.
"The economic situation has just made it too expensive for us," said Magnus Ogmundsson, the managing director of Lyst Hr, McDonald's franchise holder in Iceland.
Lyst was bound by McDonald's requirement that it import all the goods required for its restaurants - from packaging to meat and cheeses - from Germany.
Costs had doubled over the past year because of the fall in the krona and high import tariffs on imported goods, Ogmundsson said, making it impossible for the company to raise prices further and remain competitive with competitors that use locally sourced produce.
A Big Mac in Reykjavik already retails for 650 krona (NZ$7) - twice the price of a NZ burger. But the 20 percent increase needed to make a decent profit would have pushed that to 780 krona (NZ$8.47), he said.
That would have made the Icelandic version of the burger the most expensive in the world, a title currently held jointly by Switzerland and Norway where it costs $US5.75 (NZ$7.69), according to The Economist magazine's 2009 Big Mac index.
The decision to shutter the Icelandic franchise was taken in agreement with McDonald's Inc, Ogmundsson said, after a review of several months.
McDonald's, the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, arrived in Reykjavik in 1993 when the country was on an upward trajectory of wealth and expansion.
The first person to take a bite out of a Big Mac on the island was then Prime Minister David Oddsson.
Oddsson went on to become governor of the country's central bank, Sedlabanki, a position that he was forced out of by lawmakers earlier this year after a public outcry about his inability to prevent the financial crisis.
Lyst plans to reopen the stores under a new brand name, Metro, using locally sourced materials and produce and retaining the franchise's current 90-strong staff.
Ogmundsson said it was unlikely that Lyst would ever seek to regain the McDonald's franchise, with Iceland still struggling to get back on its feet after the credit crisis crippled its overweight banking system, damaging the rest of its economy, last October.
"I don't think anything will happen that will change the situation in any significant way in the next few years," Ogmundsson said.
It is not the first time that McDonald's, which currently operates in more than 119 countries on six continents, has exited a country.
Its one and only restaurant in Barbados closed after just six months in 1996 because of slow sales. In 2002, the company pulled out of seven countries, including Bolivia, that had poor profit margins as part of an international cost-cutting exercise.
Thanks for that, stuff.co.nz

A stuck door

2009-10-21T20:07:00.003+13:00

So it's getting dark outside and I'm sitting here at my laptop again, working on my freelance stuff, but finding it hard to settle and pondering making some toast. I'm thinking about how this time next week I'll be setting up my 'office' in our new flat, and working at a desk in a room, not stuck in a corner of the dining room with an old duvet cover seperating me from the Postie who is on the other side of it watching a DVD with headphones on. I know in about half an hour he'll get up and announce he's going to bed which just kills me every time, because then the house becomes even quieter and everyone is asleep and though it's only about 9pm, it feels like 2 in the morning. And I feel like I've barely even talked to him - we're like those ships passing in the night.
Someone said to me today, 'wow, you must be exhausted', and I have to say I am. It catches up with me every now and then, and I have one of those days where I'm shoving my shoulder up against time, banging it like a locked door, feeling stuck in the same minute over and over again. There is a great deal of Groundhog Day-ness about my life right now, even though what with moving and having a job with lots of variety and people and news, things seem stagnant. I think it's just me though. I will be glad when time starts moving again and I will break down that damn door and perhaps even do a bit of knitting.

I've taken a lover

2009-10-19T19:53:00.003+13:00

I've been unfaithful to my book group. Yep, I've been reading non-book group books. You see, I work at work all day, then I work at night for a few hours and then when I get to bed I am absolutely wired and just like to stare at the wall for a bit. But staring at the wall doesn't make me sleepy, reading does. So sometimes I read a book that isn't particularly challenging, one that I can rack up lots of pages of before I fall asleep with book still in my hand and a wee bit of dribble eeping out of my mouth. And the last couple of days, that book has been Julie & Julia.
I like the idea of it - woman seeks to fufil her life by setting herself task and blogging about said task, and through that task, illuminates her life in a witty and compelling way. Hey, isn't that what most blogs are - us bloggers trying to shed light on our lives and showing off what good writers we is? And the device of having a task to do it through, it's kind of like a road trip story, or a quest. It gives the narrative a hook to hang off. I'm churning through the pages, and look forward to catching the bus home at night not just because I'm going home, but because I can read this book.
But it's leaving me a little cold. It's making me really interested in Julia Child, more than about Julie. In fact, I think I'll go to the library tomorrow and get a book about JC, once I've finished J&J. I remember watching Julia Child when I was a kid, with her enormous elabroate meals, her sloppiness, her chaos, the feeling that the stove might explode at any moment. Who knew she was in her late 30s before she learned to cook? That she was a bored housewife in Paris when cooking took hold of her, that she met her husband in Sri Lanka, that she was 6'2"?
The other thing that I'm getting out of J&J is that I really should try and blog more often. I've been pretty hopeless of late. I've decided when I've finished my current freelance work, I will try to write more in the evenings, you know, like actual creative writing. It's a scary prospect.

Five things

2009-10-19T09:58:00.006+13:00

1. It's a glorious day here in our glorious city. After weeks of storms and rain and hail and lightning and general ew-ness, it's nice to be squinting into the sun again. The harbour looks radiant.
2. I despair at people sometimes. We're capable of incredible kindness, generosity, creativity and love. And then something like the balloon boy hoax happens.
3. Sweeney came and stayed at our place on Saturday night and gave me some insight into how children are crafty and will avoid going to bed with all manner of techniques, including quibbling over the distance the bedside lamp should be from the actual bed. I can remember my Nana and I having songs and stories in bed when I was little, and how I never wanted her to leave. Just one more Amazing Grace? I also loved getting into bed with her on cold mornings and snuggling up to her Oil of Ulan-smelling skin.
4. As part of Sween's staying over, we watched Finding Nemo. I hadn't seen it before. My new motto in life is keep swimming.
5. Only one week and two days before we move out of the cul-de-sac. I will be glad to not have to listen to our downstair neighbour doing his housecleaning at 2am anymore. Not to mention his other nocturnal activities.

News story of the Week - band that I thought split up years ago splits up

2009-10-16T10:13:00.004+13:00

I'm having a hard time today with the continual dead or missing children stories in the media at the minute - the tsunami, then Aisling Symes, and now the missing 6-year-old who hopped into a helium weather tracking balloon that took off into the sky, but wasn't in it when it landed. It's too much. I can't cope with all the sadness. Perhaps that's because I'm having what's technically known as a Bad Day. I feel a bit more than 'meh'. A bit more than fed up. Just sad at the world for no particular reason other than it kinda sucks right now.
So along comes this story. My old pals A-ha, who I thought were no longer a band, have decided to no longer be a band. If this had happened 23 years ago I would have been hysterical with grief, but it's actually barely registering on my scale of sad - it's almost like light relief from it.

a-ha then ...

... and a-ha yesterday.

Five more things

2009-10-09T10:29:00.002+13:00

1. We have just signed the lease on a house with an Awesome Backyard (TM) in which I can plant some veges that might survive the winter, unlike the deep dark gully of our current yard. The front yard is all grass and quite vertical; perfect for rolling little boys down it.
2. I'm wondering when it will be safe to take my coat to the drycleaners - it's spring but feels like midwinter.
3. Kakapo are one of my favourite creatures. Especially after seeing this.
4. I am writing a story about Baby Loss Awareness Week, with the help of this book. I realised I know so many people this book would help.
5. Harper is bi-lingual. This morning he said 'aporo' as I spooned aporo into his breakfast. Sweeney on the other hand, is not. I asked him last night if he wanted more kai, and he said 'no, I want more food.' Then we had a discussion about the circumarket. He's more bi-wordal than Harper.

Five things

2009-10-05T10:23:00.003+13:00

1. I watched Koyaanisqatsi on the weekend - it isn't anywhere near as good as Baraka. I don't think a shot of a plane taxiing for three and a half minutes is art. The hairstyles were funny though.
2. Go to The Larder in Miramar. The sausage rolls are Am-ay-zing. I want to go back and try the souffle.
3. We've exhausted the amount of time we had to buy a house, so now it's back to renting. Our landlords are returning from overseas and we have to move out by the end of the month. All I can say is pfft.
4. Harper has added 'mine' to his growing vocabulary. He usually says it quite aggressively, hugging whatever is 'mine' to his chest. He's also really into shoes, and this morning put on a pair of my high heels.
5. It hailed last night and this morning, even though we're in mid-spring. Coincidentally, one of the back windows in my car won't go up.

I've been tired

2009-09-29T14:34:00.002+13:00

Sorry for the lengthy absence fans* but I've been a wee bit ill since last blogging. I've had the very fancy sounding viral labyrinthitis, which is a long name meaning big ear infection. It made me see the world a little bit wonky for going on 10 days now, made me very sleepy all the time, and there was a bit of spewing going on at various times too. But I'm on the mend now, and can see my screen without it blurring and spinning and making me want to lie down and stay very, very still. I have to say I outdid myself going to the after hours doctor on a Monday night in my pink stripy pyjamas, dressing gown and dead-as-a-doorknob slippers that should have been chucked out months ago. I wish I had video footage of it. At least I didn't disgrace myself by throwing up in the waiting area. That would have been tacky.
I have to say here that Postie and I would not have survived the week I had off work had it not been for the miracle worker known as Ange. Not once, not twice, but many times we said to each other, where would we be without her? She made us dinner, took me to the doctor, kept H occupied when we needed time out, and was generally totally A+ for Awesome.

*harper's grandmothers

Houseless

2009-09-10T22:07:00.002+12:00

So we walked away from the house, took back our offer. And frankly, I'm a bit relieved. It was a dog. Not that we really understood how much of a dog until we read the Builder's Report, aka, a list of things falling off the house or didn't meet the building code, which was quite long and made our bank manager laugh and say 'oh my gosh!' a lot.
It's back to square one, of Sundays taken up with open homes, poking window sills, avoiding slimy estate agents, Postie muttering under his breath about storage. Can't wait.

Take that, Bute Street fence!

2009-09-09T10:50:00.003+12:00

A few weeks ago, when I had spare time, I took part in a radical protest against - well, a boring fence. See here. I'm the girl in the brown hoodie, and AngeSweeney are wandering around too.

It's all happening

2009-09-07T19:32:00.002+12:00

Man. We've had an offer accepted on a house - not my dream house - but a house, and as I type, Postie is on the phone to the solicitor nutting some stuff out. It's exciting, terrifying.

And in other news, Harper had his hair cut for the first time today. It's too dark to take decent photos, so standby on that one. Postie did it with some clippers and made rather a nice job of it. Looking at photos of before, I don't know why we didn't do it sooner. H was beginning to look like a member of the Bay City Rollers.

Sky say

2009-09-02T21:15:00.003+12:00

Our good pals Leo and Deb came back to Wellington briefly to see family and made time to run riot with Harper and Sweeney.

It's hard to photograph three preschool boys when they're hopped up on fluffies.

Just another manic ... what day is this?

2009-08-28T09:54:00.003+12:00

Oh. My. God.
Things are busy. I've taken on a bit of extra work in the evenings that will keep my nights full until end of November all things going well. So not much time for the goofing off things I did in Northland last week, like daily yoga, making up songs on the guitar, knitting, going for walks, reading, having long baths, sleep ins, etc. It's just being a dull girl for a bit.
Worth it though. Not being able to knit for a while isn't going to kill me. Just make me a bit mental.
This is what my day looks like right now:
5.30am Wake up in cold sweat about how much I have to do.
6am Postie gets up, closes bedroom door so I don't hear him mooching about in kitchen
6am-6.45am Listen to Postie mooch about in kitchen. Try to convince myself I can get back to sleep.
6.45am Postie goes to work, I get up.
6.50am Have shower, use expensive eco shampoo on hair that leaves it feeling like oil slick.
7am - 7.30am Sit in a daze on beanbag wishing I were asleep. Drink tea, eat muesli.
7.3oam Harper gets up with Snuffy and special blankie in tow. Am overwhelmed with how cute his is. Make his breakfast. Watch him eat his breakfast while sitting in a daze on beanbag.
7.45am - 8.15am Get Harper ready for creche. On any given day this could involve being kicked in the face as I get him dressed, a tussle to get him into his carseat and away from his beloved trike, or a miracle - where he finds his coat and hat and brings them to me, and stays still while I put them on him.
8.30am Arrive at creche. Talk kids with other parents. Get Harper deeply involved in an activity involving vehicles before kissing him goodbye.
8.50am Arrive at Postie's work to drop car off and flirt with Postie. Sometimes he even flirts back.
9.05am Arrive at work.
9.06am - 5.06pm Save world through journalism, write top quality copy, break stories left, right and centre, and bring meaningful new ideas to the general populace.
5.07pm Walk to bottom of Brooklyn hill for a wee bit of exercise. Catch bus home.
5.30pm Greet Postie and Harper who have come to meet me from the bus. Wrestle Harper to get him back inside the house. Gaze benignly at Home and Away. Turn TV off to eat dinner. Sometimes get to eat whole meal before Harper needs to be on my lap.
6.30pm Get Harper into his bath, brush teeth for ages because watching him in the bath can be quite boring and may as well use the time productively. Yes, I'm that exciting.
7pm Get Harper into bed after a few stories. These days he is stoked to be going to be along with Mr Snuffy and special blankie. Thank the lord.
7.15pm Start second job in curtained off dining room.
10pm Call it a day and crawl into bed.

Where I've been

2009-08-26T22:48:00.006+12:00

Holidaying. In Northland. At a house not 100m from the most perfect pohutukawa-lined beach ever. I love holidays. Can you see why?
P proved himself the ultimate provider for his whanau by catching a trevally, which we ate with gusto and roast veges.
We even did the unthinkable and had Harper stay with his grandparents in Auckland for two whole nights while we were up norf. Postie and I celebrated being responsibility-free by going to bed early and sleeping late. Ragers, huh?
When H came up he enjoyed splashing about on the beach, moo-ing at the cows and doing the dishes with Monique. Yep, he's into wiping benches and mopping floors too. Gets it from his dad.

Eating with my homies

2009-08-12T13:25:00.006+12:00

Ange and Sweeney joined us at the cul-de-sac for a feast on Saturday night. And as I was putting the food on the table, I realised most of the meal was made from scratch. There was homemade pita bread, homemade hummus, homemade tztsaki made with homemade yogurt and homegrown mint, and the chicken was marinated in homemade souvlaki sauce. If we weren't in the process of finding a new house to live in, I would expect that come summer there would be homegrown tomatoes and lettuce to stuff the souvlakis with.

*super pleased*

we can't say cheese, our mouths are full

Friday Five

2009-08-07T13:15:00.003+12:00

I have come to realise that I will never:
1. Speak French fluently
2. Win an Oscar for best actress
3. Star on Survivor
4. Sustain an interest in politics
5. Have a tan

Plots and thank yous

2009-08-05T10:48:00.004+12:00

Blog posts been a bit thin on the ground recently, partly because we are just getting back into our boring old rhythym at home after weeks of feeling like we're on the edge of a cliff, and because I am up to my eyeballs in plans and plots.
If everything goes to plan *fingers crossed* I should be seeing out the end of the year having bought a house, been to Nepal, editted a seasonal section of the paper, and written a substantial work that will look magnifique on my CV. It will be crazy, with no time for swanning about of an evening with my knitting, but it will tick off a whole lot of things that I want to do before moving on to the next phase of my life. Which should involve a lot of knitting.
Man, do I sound mysterieuse. And no, none of these plans involves having another baby.

While I'm here I have a couple of thank yous to my fellow bloggers to shout out.
I just bought an awesome pair of Twenty Cent Mixture's baby shoes. They are really very good. Louise and I did a swap last year in which she gave me a pair of shoes for H and I gave her a necklace. She had made the shoes just for H, but we lost one of them on a trip to Lyall Bay, and no amount of beach combing could bring it back. So I bought another pair for a friend's baby in the UK and they are beautiful.
And not so long ago, a parcel arrived for me here at Dompost HQ from the UK. It was a huge pile of Observer and Guardian magazines that I had let slip I miss reading of a sunny day. The culprit was cunning little miss Sas, who had stockpiled a load for me. She's a lass I haven't actually met in real life, and her amazing act of kindness is all the more appreciated for it.
The bloggy gods have been good to me.

Five good things

2009-07-31T11:27:00.004+12:00

1. Being presented with a chocolate fish this morning by a rep from Snapper because it's Snapper's birthday and I had just used my card to get to work.
2. Harper sleeping last night for the first time in forever, and getting up at 7.30am with a sweet little 'darh' and a cuddle, not traumatised at all.
3. Friday, Friday, Friday.
4. Ticking off things from lists that have been really stressing me out, like getting a grant done for creche, getting a good night's sleep and getting some deadlines met.
5. Only two and a bit weeks till we go up north to Whangarei and possibly spend a coupla nights up there sans baby.

News Story of the Week: Man Does Nothing Wrong

2009-07-29T16:50:00.006+12:00

From www.stuff.co.nz

The National Bank has admitted it made a mistake by releasing the photo of a man measuring up an ATM machine in Dargaville to police.
A photograph of a man measuring up the ATM machine outside the bank was sent to media.
However, a bank spokesperson told the Dargaville and Districts News newspaper today the man was doing legitimate work.
"The man concerned was completing work on behalf of the bank."
The National Bank has apologised to the company involved and the staff member concerned.
"There appears to have been a communications mix-up within the bank which led to the photo being released to police," she said.
The security camera photograph, from two months ago, shows a man measuring up the pillars which stood on each side of the ATM machine and some footage also shows him carrying a clipboard.

MEASURING UP: Police have established that a person pictured measuring up an ATM
in Dargaville was not up to anything suspicious.

Five Blogs I'm Loving Right Now ...

2009-07-28T11:38:00.007+12:00

Nice work: I've become a fan of Operation Nice, a website that inspires people to be nicer to one another in simple ways, like taking the time to learn the name of your barista, supermarket clerk etc, and ideas for undertaking random acts of niceness. You can print out ready-designed cards that facilitate niceness.
Lie to Me: Here's Megan's undertaking not to lie for a month. I'm loving how she handles saying what she really thinks.
Not one for the nursery: My First Dictionary isn't your ordinary list of boring words.
Oh Sister, Where Art Thou: If you haven't seen Sweeney's Mama, I recommend it. She can write good about the deep stuff, and the not-deep stuff. And I'm not just saying that because we're related.
Save it, mister: Che and Stephen do the math and work out how to save money on everything from food to hand sanitiser.