I'm a frayed knot

Bye-bye my baby... bye-bye!

2010-08-30T19:42:00.003+12:00

In the last week or so I've come to the realisation I no longer have a baby in the house... we now have a little girl!
Terri is beautiful and every day I love her more.
She must have gone through a bit of a growth spurt in the last 10 days, she seems more grown up than ever before, getting much more substantial! Her personality is shining through and physically she is getting so much stronger and more able every day. Whilst she has been on the move for a while now, she is just starting to sit without support and it makes her seem so much more grown up.
She is a bit of a trickster... a couple of nights ago I was changing her nappy after a night feed when she let crack a real ripper of a fart... and despite being mellow and sleepy she cracked up laughing and before you knew it the two of us were giggling madly in the middle of the night.
Then on Sunday we were at the markets when I realised she seemed to be getting odd looks from other shoppers... when I looked into the pram... she was there chomping on the bunch of silverbeet I had put in my shopping basket, a big piece torn off in each hand and another hanging out of her mouth...with the cheekiest look on her face!
We are having so much fun together... every day is a new adventure.
....
... but even so I kind of miss the wee baby she was.

800 nappies...

2010-08-23T20:56:00.006+12:00

…Give or take, that’s how many cloth nappy changes we’ve done here. I only know this because of the number of nappy liner rolls we’ve been through. 800 nappies changed, washed and folded. I never dreamt just how easy it would be!
I think some people thought I was a little nuts when I told them I was planning on using cloth nappies and to be honest I had concerns of my own about being able to keep up a cyclical routine of getting them washed ready for the next wearing. I had visions of soak buckets and nappies hanging from the curtain rails on rainy day. All based on my little girl memories of the nappies Mum used for my younger siblings… oh how nappies have changed since then… thank goodness!
Going cloth was a bit of a no-brainer for me. I just couldn’t bear the thought of using disposables full time. Don’t get me wrong… I’m not totally anti-disposable and we certainly use them on occasion. In fact the couple of months we spent on the Island back in March-May that is all we used… a couple hundred or so… I didn’t like it very much but we don’t have a washing machine over there and it just wasn’t practical to be down at the Laundromat every couple of days, queuing for a spot and waiting around. Spending half our time doing the washing would have completely negated us being over there! If I’m going away for a couple of days I’ll take disposables so I don’t have to cart the nappy bucket with us… I’ll admit it is very convenient… but while we’re at home … nah, it’s cloth for us!!
I wash every couple of days, whenever the bucket is full and have e enough nappies to go about 4 days before we run out but that never happens. There’s no soaking, I keep a dry bucket for all the used nappies and wash when it’s full. I peg them out on a small airing rack that is the perfect size for one load. This will dry indoors in about 24 hours under the heat pump if the weather is crap but as much as possible I dry them out in the fresh air… whipping the whole rack indoors if it starts raining. And I especially love taking all the fresh nappies in and getting them all folded ready for the next wearing…. Mmmmmm-mmm… the smell of clean nappies!!
I have never regretted the decision and would recommend them to anyone… for anyone that still thinks it’s too much work… here’s a pic of two days worth of nappies out drying….
... whoops... not there's not!! I can't seem to get a picture in here for some reason! Will add later if I can :)

Once again time has escaped me…

2010-07-06T19:49:00.008+12:00

In a few days Terri will be 6 months old… How did that happen? It has gone so fast! My beautiful wee monkey…

I’m not going to carry on a blow by blow account of the rest of our hospital stay and adventures since then… I’m pleased to have the birth story down on paper and the rest all seems irrelevant now. Besides, if there is anyone out there reading this then it will all be old news anyway. So… onwards and upwards.
My maternity leave finished at the end of June so I’m back working again… gasp! Yeah, well with Tom’s work a bit thin on the ground (he’s self employed) it will be good to have a steady income. Luckily I’m able to work from home and can be flexible with when I get me hours in so can work around Terri’s feeds and play time, getting work done while she’s asleep during the day or evenings. I am sooooo lucky to be able to do this otherwise I know that I couldn't have left our wee one to be in the office…. I’d have been an emotional wreck!
The first couple of days were pretty good, they are easing me back in while my brain gets back up to speed! It’s a bit like riding a bicycle though and I’ve surprised myself a bit with how I’m slipping back into the groove. This week is a little different though because it is school holidays and we have Libby up for the first week. Tom has been great and has stayed home to help out with the girls so I can get back into work. He has a wee bit of work tomorrow morning though so we’ll see how that works out.
Anyway… I have some other entries up my sleeve so maybe I’ll get another one up over the next week or so. Don’t hold your breath though!! LOL!!

The birth story... finally!!

2010-06-05T20:28:00.006+12:00

So remember my rant about drugs, pain relief and how women have been giving birth for centuries?
Well… perhaps I jinxed myself!
So… I should have known when they wanted to induce me into labour that the intervention was only just beginning.
It had been explained to me that as an “older mother” I should have baby by the due date. I was told that late in the pregnancy the placenta starts to struggle to supply all the necessaries to baby and being an older mum would only compound that… better that baby arrives in prime condition rather than going beyond the due date and losing condition because the placenta wasn’t delivering the goods. Made perfect sense to me… in theory.
So, on Thursday 7 January I toddled off to the hospital so they could get things up and running… we arrived late afternoon and it was about 10pm by the time they got me all monitored up and applied the gel… I felt a few twinges and settled in ready for baby to make it’s presence felt … not long now!! I was nervous but very excited!
I was in the area where all the arrivals were first investigated to see if they were really in labour (and then either shown to a delivery suite or sent away again). There were people coming and going constantly so between the nerves, excitement, twinges and disturbances it was well after 3 in the morning before I managed to get some broken sleep.
In the morning all the activity in my uterus had subsided… how disappointing! I was told more gel would be applied later in the morning but of course it didn’t happen until the afternoon, and we started again. By this stage I was starting to lose a bit of confidence in the hospital staff as they debated just when my due date was… WTF???!! But the twinges started again, the monitors recording all the contractions and this time around I asked for some sleeping pills to get some rest while all around other women were arriving in various stages of labour, many of them going on to have their babies.
When I woke on Saturday morning I didn’t need to look at the monitors to know that everything had ground to a halt again. When I got up to stretch my legs I discovered I’d been bleeding and so the midwives organised an internal exam which resulted with them breaking my waters…. Something was bound to happen now right?
I would walk.. or rather waddle… around the wards, down the stairs to the ground floor and out into the hospital grounds to try and get things moving… nothing seemed to work!
Finally in the early afternoon I was transferred to a delivery suite… some privacy … woohooo!! At 2pm they started the drip and the contractions intensified… but still weren’t happening fast enough for me to be officially in labour. The worst thing about this was that with all the monitors I was essentially confined to the bed… so much for all the yoga and dance and massage classes!! As often as I thought I could possibly get away with it I would ask to be unplugged so I could use the loo. I’d shuffle of into the toilet with my drip, lock the door behind me and sway and circle my way through the contractions for as long as I thought I could reasonably could. Oh the relief!! If I was really lucky there would be no-one there to hook me up to the monitors when I got out again so I could stay on my feet and move. The contractions got stronger and stronger but weren’t increasing in frequency so they tried to increase the drip dosage ever so slightly… oh cripes! Contraction after contraction with no rest in between, baby wasn’t getting any rest either so they would wind it back again and I’d be back to every few minutes.
The gas was hooked up at 6pm and I tried a few wee “sips” but didn’t find it particularly helpful until my midwife arrived and told me to use it every contraction, and to “keep breathing it in until you think you’re at the top of the contraction then take one more suck on it and ride back down the other side”….. yep, that helped! And still things weren’t progressing. Baby hadn’t moved any further down and I still wasn’t technically in labour.
Late in the evening I discussed with Tom the possibility of having an epidural. By this stage it looked like it was going to be another looong night. I was okay on the pain front, I felt as though I was handling it okay but it was exhausting me and was conscious that I needed to be okay for baby on the other side of the birth. We couldn’t get any indication from anyone how long things might yet take….I could be there for days at this rate!! By this point it had completely escaped me that my waters had been broken so there was a finite amount of time before more drastic intervention would happen.
At about 11pm my midwife told me that if I was considering an epidural I had make a decision fairly soon as there was a long line of emergency c-sections ready to roll and the anaesthetist would not be available again for quite a long time. We talked it over again briefly and by 11:20pm it was being administered. That certainly took the edge off and I even got a few naps!
I was getting really frustrated with the registrar who was happy to let me continue on as I was indefinitely despite it seeming as though they were not actually getting me into proper labour. It was a huge relief when the shift changed and after another internal I was told baby was posterior (and they only just noticed???!!) and wasn’t moving further down… Oh and my pelvis is rather shallow … maybe that’s why baby isn’t moving further!!?? Still at least we were getting some action. The epidural was starting to wear off so they got me pushing for about 45 minutes before re-examining and deciding that it wasn’t going to happen that way! They told me I could stop pushing… hell no! That is not something I could just turn off once I’d started so I had to keep going until they could top up the epidural. I would be going to surgery… baby would be coming out the sun-roof…
My midwife handed Tom some scrubs … “What are these for?” Sunshine you’re coming with me! Poor Tom, surgery had never really entered our sphere of possibilities and now after 3 nights and days of contractions we were going to theatre.
As we made our way to theatre we were almost jovial… baby’s arrival was finally almost a reality!!
Theatre was amazing… party time! Every one had different, brightly coloured headgear, 60’s and 70’s party music playing (I remember Suzie Q, Devil Gate Drive), not a single kiwi in the place (except myself!) and once they knew baby was a “surprise” they started laying bets on the gender. I half expected to be offered a glass of wine or chips and dip!!
They had asked Tom whether he wanted to watch and he blanched, I don’t blame him! So they told him they’d keep him informed and he could decide. So… off they went performing the operation… it’s hardly a gentle thing, despite the epidural I still knew I was being pulled and contorted… I felt like a sack of potatoes! Next thing they were telling Tom they could see the head and did he want to watch now… hesitantly he kinda started to stand… it was like he really didn’t want to but felt compelled to simply because they were telling him… anyway before he could get completely to his feet I felt an almighty heave… and a weird sucking sensation as if my lungs were being ripped out through my …. well … you know…. And the surgeon exclaimed “OH.MY.GOD!!!” following closely by everyone else in the room … Holy moly!!, sheesh!!, Crikey!! Tom leapt to his feet by now and was standing there with his chin hitting the floor. I was the only one there that had no idea what was going on!
“Tom! WHAT IS IT???!!!”
“A girl! We’ve got a girl!!”
“NO!! Why is everyone freaking out? WHAT IS IT?!”
“Oh babe … she’s enormous!!”

Phew!!! Is that all! At this point Tom was whisked off to watch her being weighed, cut the cord, get the first photos (or rather the nurses did – he was so shell-shocked).
Once all the formalities were over they brought her over… and she looked right at me…. I was smitten… our Terri was finally here!

5 months have gone by? What the ...???

2010-06-02T20:16:00.007+12:00

Oh my!

Where has time gone?

And how could I have possibly left you in the lurch?

And what the hell have I been doing?

Oh dear... busy busy busy!! Thanks to those of you who have called by to my empty and echoing blog! How I've neglected you!!

I will try to get some stuff up, my birth story and what we've been up to since.

Our wee girl is gorgeous...

and I love, love, LOVE being a Mum!

I'm sure the other mothers out there will forgive me for neglecting my blog in order to wallow in motherhood!!

Back again as soon as I can!!

11:29 10-1-2010

2010-01-16T15:58:00.009+13:00

Terri Jennifer

arrived via emergency c-section.

We did it!!

We are all absolutely delighted. I'm back home now and concentrating on settling in and healing so it may be a while between posts but I'll try to pop in as much as possible!

Any time now...

2010-01-07T13:49:00.011+13:00

We've been kind of in limbo since Christmas waiting for this wee one to decide to make it's entrance into this world... we haven't put life on complete hold but have been a bit limited in how far we can venture from home. Days have been consisting of trips to the park and beach and the odd bit of shopping around house chores.

However if baby doesn't hurry along soon then matters will be taken out of it's hands. I'm meant to be going into the hospital about 7pm to get induction under way. I'm getting quite a few "tightening" sensations that seem to get stronger as the day goes on but I don't think they class as contractions so we shall just have to wait and see what happens. We'll take Libby for a walk to the park in a couple of hours so maybe I'll have a crack at the flying fox to see if that helps... LOL!

Libby has been very patient waiting to meet her new sibling ... although she raced in on New Years Day to wake us up with a rendition of "Happy Birthday" for baby. I guess she took us quite literally when we told here baby would arrive in the new year! She has been in early nearly every morning since to see if baby arrived while she was sleeping and has been taking big sister duties very seriously, helping out around the house.

Here's our wee mother hen helping the midwife listen to baby's heartbeat...

Will update you all with baby news as soon as I can!!

I'm soooo loving this!!

2009-12-17T18:59:00.012+13:00

As excited as I am to meet our new family member face-to-face I have to admit that now that there's only about 3 weeks to go, I'm kind of reluctant to give up my preggy status.

I have enjoyed pretty much every moment of this pregnancy, especially once we were through the first 12 weeks and fairly certain that baby was well ensconced in my tum. It has all been such a wonderful and truly amazing adventure, and even more so now that I'm getting such vigorous movements, kicks, thrusts, turns and hiccups in there... a wee person practising its moves and breathing right here inside me - it blows my mind!! I feel so privileged to be part of something so awesome!
I have been extremely lucky having such a smooth ride with my pregnancy. No major morning sickness really - a bit of queasiness early on but nothing too gross. I've had aches and pains that are to be expected from a body becoming stretched to capacity. Starting to get a bit of pubic symphysis ... er... discomfort... in the last couple of weeks so that has given me a bit of a preggy shuffle as I try to keep my knees together to avoid it progressing to something more painful. The last few days has seen my feet swelling a whole lot more and I've noticed my right hip and thigh getting quite numb if I go for a walk around the shops in my lunch breaks or stand too long.... perhaps baby has dropped as I suddenly seem to have more lung capacity!
Thankfully I've been getting some pretty good sleep despite having to get up every couple of hours for the loo. Have started having some very full on dreams about the birth (which I can never remember detail about once I've woken) and breastfeeding the last couple of nights... I hope that isn't Bub's way of warning me about an early arrival!
So I am really grateful to have had such a cruisy pregnancy and like I say I've enjoyed every moment of it!

It will be a bit weird to lose the bump and gain a bundle ... but that will be a whole new adventure!

(me - kicking back at our work Christmas party - harbour cruising)

Downhill slide...

2009-12-02T18:34:00.005+13:00

... has it been that long since I posted last? Where is the time going?

Not long now... 14 working days... yes I'm counting!! Until we wind up work for Christmas... and then I'm on maternity leave!

I'm in my 34th week now and have been told that (due to being a "geriatric" mum) I'll be induced if baby hasn't arrived by about 8-9 January... hopefully it won't come to that, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see... but to think that in just 5 weeks time the bundle will be in my arms and no longer in my belly.... crikey!!
I'm getting a lot of action these days... it's surreal to think that all that wriggling in my belly is a whole new person! I'm getting very excited at the prospect of meeting this little one face to face.

My energy levels have swings and roundabouts but as the weather heats up I'm finding I tire a whole lot quicker. Whilst I might start a task with a hiss and a roar and loads of energy I seem to need a little lie down a lot more often than anticipated. Consequently there are a number of unfinished taks on the go at the moment but mostly trying to get a semblence of order for all the clothes and baby gear I'm accumulating - especially since my baby shower!

In spite of this I'm having a wonderful time being pregnant, even now that belly is starting to weigh me down and get in the way a lot! I feel as though I have a constant smile on my dial as I go about my day silently communing with this new life inside me... my own delicious secret... except the size of the bump means it is by no means a secret these days!

Sniffle, snort, hack, cough... Cluck!!??

2009-11-09T20:17:00.009+13:00

So, sitting around waiting for the plane didn't do me any favours and by the time I woke up the following morning feeling pretty crappy!
I considered staying home but I knew I had an appointment with the midwife so I decided I may as well go into work... maybe once I got into work I wouldn't feel so bad... I was wrong.
I worked from home for the rest of the week to try and keep on top of the workload without passing the bugs around the office. It wasn't one of my best ideas.... I ended up doing a lot of extra hours simply because it was right here... I worked through 15 hours one day but by the Friday afternoon I was ready to have a meltdown... despite being at hom, the fact I was working, and the long hours, meant I wasn't resting. I wasn't feeling any better... in fact quite the opposite.... I was feeling resentful towards work, angry at myself, missing my Tommy and generally miserable. I got quite tearful... not good, because that just made my nose run worse, I was working myself into a state and was feeling guilty, bad mother getting so sick... what effect was all this having on bubs?
I had an early night and vowed not to touch work all weekend. It was a very quiet weekend... I picked up some DVDs and assigned myself to the couch to rest... and rest... and rest. I started feeling more human slowly. I was a bit worried about the side splitting coughing... poor baby must be wondering what the heck was going on! But then again given the reaction in my tummy after a coughing fit I began to think baby thought it was on some sort of rollercoaster and was having a great time.
I woke up Monday morning feeling better but still nowhere near 100% so I called into worked... or rather emailed... to update them on where all my projects were at and to tell them I was taking a sick day... another day on the couch... bliss!
Tuesday saw me back in the office again... hacking and coughing a bit but other than than, vastly improved. And then... I was asked if I'd been to the doctor while I was sick. I hadn't because I figured there was not a lot they could do unless I ended up with an infection... I just needed to let it run it's course. And then, I was asked what my symptoms had been... head cold, snotty nose, feeling shite, cold moving to chest, coughing.... huh? It was at this point I was told there had been a confirmed case of bird flu atwork... yes... bird flu... and that person had the same symptoms as I had!! Yipes!!
I did a bit of googling and rang my midwife to see if I should be concerned at all.... not really. Mind you I figured that it was too late for me to do anything about it anyway by this stage... if I'd also had bird flu then it had been and gone and I was too late to do anything else about it.
It may well explain my need to re-organise the entire house... again... or maybe it's just a high level of nesting instinct kicking in. Either way I'm not sure Tommy will recognise the place when he arrives back from the island!!

Fattie goes fishing

2009-11-03T20:08:00.014+13:00

Ha!! I look like a bean bag with a hat on!! This was taken on Labour Weekend when I went out to the Barrier to see my Tommy. I dare say it's the last time I attempt kayak fishing until after baby arrives now! Still it was a lovely afternoon to be out on the water and the fact that none of my catch were keepers (by our measure) didn't matter at all... especially when Tom had a couple of snapper on board by the time we finished up so there was plenty for dinner... mmmm!

Tom had already been away for a couple of weeks at this point and I was missing him a lot. Work had been really hectic so it was an instant salve to arrive on the island! It really is a magical place!

Saturday morning we went down to the local market day for a look around and catch up with anyone we knew. Then back to the bach for a nap before heading off for the aforementioned fishing trip.

I slept like the dead that night ... a welcome change from the wakeful nights I'd been having! And Tommy got his first few kicks from wee fatty dancing about in my belly while I was asleep!

Sunday is golf day... given how much Tom enjoys his golf and the fact he only plays on the Barrier these days I could hardly tell him he couldn't go... I walked around the first nine holes with them. The course has some stunning outlooks so it wasn't really a hardship and the boys were a laugh ... despite my ignorance of the finer points ... or really of anything to do with... the game. I left them to it for their second nine holes and hung out at the club house. I had a book with me but hardly needed it as people are always so friendly and inclusive. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting a few new people until Tom got back.

Monday saw me wake up with the blues. I felt really quite unenthused about the idea of heading home again and ended up getting a bit teary about ... sheesh! Harden up girl!

Tom dropped me at the airport just after 2pm and had to race off to meet someone arriving on the ferry in Tryphena. A short while before we were due to head off we were told that take off would be delayed as the weather at the other end was abysmal and there wasn't enough visibility to land the wee planes. I caught myself hoping it would stay that way and give me one more night before having to go home. It started looking more and more likely ... but then just after 5pm there was a gap in the weather so we all piled into the plane and were whisked away. We flew really low all the way back to dodge the cloud which was ... er... different.

We got back to the mainland before the weather turned again which was both a relief and a disappointment. What a sook!!

Mind you as it transpired over the next day or so I was coming down with a cold/flu bug so perhaps I should lighten up on myself a bit!

Huge Day Out!!

2009-10-12T20:05:00.019+13:00

No I'm not refering to my rapidly expanding waistline... but rather the street fair that is part of the Kowhai Festival events in Warkworth. Through our dance teacher, we were invited along to perform as part of the street fair and take part in the Sole Parade.
There were four of us that went along, car-pooling for the trip. We left Auckland about 11:30 giving us plenty of time to get to Warkworth, finish dressing and get to the stage we were to perform on.
We had decided to perform a piece we all knew to some extent but is not entirely choreographed so it left room for modifications depending on what we found when we got to the venue... I'm glad that we had made this decision! We had a bit of confusion over where we were meant to be but that got sorted by one of the fluoro yellow jacket brigade ... phew! By the time we negotiated all the street stalls - and let me tell you this took some self control avoiding browsing on the way - it had started to drizzle... And the "stage"... well to be honest, it didn't look safe enough for more than three people to sit on let alone dance on... crikey! Fairly quickly the decision was made to dance on the pavement instead... it was about now that the drizzle ramped it up a notch and turned into rain. Looking at some of the other dancers shivering in their gorgeous (but sheer) costumes I was pleased about the costuming choice that had been made for our performance... but still it was pretty chilly!
When it was our turn the cold wet pavement was a bit of a shock and it was very strange to be perfoming in an unknown space ... we had as much room as the crowd would allow us, but the closer you got the further back they would move... still it was very exciting! Cold feet were forgotten completely by the time we'd finished as I tried to calm down my heartbeat and shaky hands... boy that adreneline is powerful stuff!!
After that a couple of us headed off to find the meeting point for the parade while the other two returned the swords and other gear to the car and picked up my teacher's drum. It was blimmin freezing waiting around for the parade but a short time before it started the wind dropped, clouds cleared and the sun came out... next thing we knew we were waved off down the street... here we go!
I have to admit I played up a bit! Ha! Well, I figured I wouldn't want to go to a parade to just watch people in different gear walking down the road so by the time we turned into the main street I was ready to give the crowd something other than a fancy dressed pregnant lady to look at.... So I danced! As best I could and still keep pace... I was having a great time! Stopping here and there to shoulder shimmy or do a few hip drops for the crowd.... heck... it's not like I'm going to see anyone I knew!!
And then...
... suddenly an enormous camera lens jumped out in front of me, clicking away... holy moly! Next thing a big smile popped out from behind the lens, it was Karen from work!! When I'd mentioned the festival to her during the week she got quite excited and told me she was planning to make the trip up there as there would be loads of opportunity for her to practise her photography. I hadn't seen her when we performed so I just figured that she had been put off by the weather... not so! Mind you she'd tried to find us performing but had been told that the dancers had cancelled... what a shame. She took some fantastic photos including an awesome preggy-belly shot that I adore! Here's a sample...

Good enough to eat!!

2009-09-22T19:49:00.011+12:00

I flew to Napier on the weekend to visit my sister and my brother's family.... especially the newest member of the family .... wee Isobelle who is just a wonderful bundle of cheeky, gummy smiles.... oh my, how could you possibly resist this...

YUM!!!

And as for her older sister, Georgia... well, she is growing up so fast! And she's as bright as a button!

"Come see my room Aunty Neen.... see... here's my bed... and my books... and my toy box... and ... lets do a puzzle!... Aunty Neen... come on"

A real little chatterbox giving a running commentary on what's happening... or should be happening!

The girls are little treasures ... but it was also great to see my bro and his wife... it's been a while since I saw them (in person and not via Facebook)! I stayed at my sister's place and we had some "hangin" time just spending time together.

It's likely to be a while before I get down that way again so I hope I managed to get my fill of he girls... but everytime I look at these photos I know I want more!! LOL

Modern animals...

2009-09-14T19:51:00.008+12:00

... for thousands of years babies have been born into this world through a very natural process... when did we turn that into a procedure? Why have we become so afraid of this process that we medicate ourselves to the point where we are no longer part of that process? We let others take control of something we should be entirely responsible for?
Now, perhaps one day I'll read back over this and laugh at my naivety.... I'm picking that some of you reading this will roll your eyes.... what would I know about any of this? And you're right... I know nothing about what giving birth will be like and it is unlikely that anyone will be able to adequately explain it to me.... in terms of what it will be like for me.
I've seen plenty of animal births ... lambs, calves, pigs.... in general the mothers involved made themselves as comfortable and safe as they could then settled in and got on with the job.
Quite early in the piece Tom suggested I have the baby on Great Barrier... an isolated island with no hospital and should intervention be required it would be a helicopter ride before it was available... I told him (in no uncertain terms) that it was most certainly not on the agenda... and then had nightmares , the kind where I woke myself up screaming and bawling ... woke Tom up too... and possibly the neighbours.... it has not come up in conversation again!
But I guess I have to admit I was really quite terrified at the prospect of labour. After all you hear all the horror stories of the pain and the agony... and high on the list of discussions is what pain relief you'll choose... "Go for the epidural - you won't feel a thing"
Won't feel a thing? What? I chose to have a baby... it took quite a while to get to this stage, a successful pregnancy... why on earth would I want to opt out on participating in the birth? How bad can it be.... really? I mean if it were really so bad then surely evolution (or common sense) would have dealt with this a long, long time ago by preventing women from having more than one child ever. There are plenty of people out there that have done it many, many times ... and many of those were well before the more modern "civilised" times and methods.
I have nothing against hospital birthing rooms ... I'll be having a hospital birth so that if I do need help it is available ... I guess what I'm trying to say is why has the emphasis become more focused on the agony and it's relief... why can't we accept that in our society and embrace the pain? Why are we so afraid of hurting?
What am I trying to say here? I'm not entirely sure... maybe I'm trying to understand why the birthing process isn't supported and honoured in our society as much as it is in other cultures. The focus seems to be only about the final outcome... the child... rather than the whole cycle.

I don't know that I'm expressing myself very well. Please understand I'm not knocking how anyone chooses to deal with giving birth... I'm just trying to sort out how I feel about it ... for me.

I can say though that I've been feeling much more reassured and confident about my ability to do this...
The yoga classes help a lot with the breathing techniques to re-focus attention and "active" relaxation, understanding where tension is held and seeking to actively release it.
Then on Saturday Tom and I went to a course together - Massage for Labour. To be honest I probably got more out of it than Tom did despite it being aimed more at the guys. I guess the discussions around the labour process and how if you're feeling comfortable and safe then your body deals with labour quite naturally... not without pain ... but, all going well, without intervention... and talking about the benefits of avoiding intervention, why it's important for both baby and Mum.
It seems a bit weird going to a course to learn how to do something that for since the beginning of time has been one of the most natural things in the world.
Still... It's helping me understand how I want the birth to go and how, for that to happen, I need to get my head around it...

Grump frump...

2009-09-08T17:21:00.006+12:00

... so I've progressed from feeling "a bit off" to feeling like a complete bitch... grumpy, whiny bleeergh! I don't like feeling like this and I'm soooo over hearing myself whine and complain... it's only serving to make me even grumpier and pissed off with myself... a vicious cycle! I feel like picking fights and being arguementative just for the hell of it... very unproductive behaviour and very negative attitude.... I know this and yet I'm still bitchy!
And then by the time I leave work I'm ready to melt down into a puddle of tears... I don't like feeling this way one bit, it sucks!
Where oh where did my happy hormones go? Waaaaaaah!!! Up until this week I've been feeling really good, nothing phased me, I wasn't feeling at all stressed... everything was groooooovy baaaabbbyy!!
Sigh!
I can only hope that Bubs is going through a bit of a growth spurt and maybe I'm just extra tired. Surely this will pass... I'll make more of an effort to get enough sleep and hope that this suckful attitude is over soon.... before everyone else gets as pissed with me as I am!

A bit off...

2009-09-02T17:52:00.004+12:00

Mostly I think I'm tired so things are affecting me a bit more than normal... not to mention the hormones!! A few things have happened in the last couple of days that has dampened my spirits somewhat.

The most recent of which... I found out today that the reason one of my work-mates is working from home at the moment is because his wife has had a miscarriage. It has brought so much raw feeling to the surface. I have been in contact with him through email to offer what comfort and help I can. I suppose it is different for everyone but I know it was a huge comfort to me to know I was not alone ... and so I can't not say something to them... I feel it's my duty to pass on the sympathy and empathy I was afforded. Just writing this has the tears streaming down my face again ... My heart breaks for them!

On the whole though I have had a wonderful few days. I visited my midwife yesterday and am pleased to say every thing is as it should be... blood pressure is good, measurements are on track and the wee heartbeat (that is doing somersaults all day) in my belly is strong. Fabulous news! And all in all I feel fantastic... I don't count being a bit more tired as a problem as it is something to be expected!

Last night at work we had a baby shower to farewell another workmate who is off on maternity leave now. She is having a girl so there was an abundance of pinkness about... and plenty of cooing over the gifts of wee shoes and clothes... I can see this wee girl will be as fashionable and funky as her gorgeous mother!

And... I think I'm suffering my first full blown craving... I reeeeeaaaally, reeeeeaaaally want some chinese takeout noodle soup! It's been forever since I've had any... since my 'usual' place closed down. I believe the takeaway down the road has it on the menu... so... after a couple of days of this, I think I'll treat myself to some on my way home from belly dance class... hopefully I can knock it on the head!

And so, I'd better head off to class now... the endorphins will do me good!!

Oooohhmmmmm ... and other mutterings

2009-08-30T09:52:00.008+12:00

I'm not sure if I mentioned that I was going to preggie yoga ... I think I may have... but the class yesterday held a special surprise. Apparently the last class of the month is always spent on restorative yoga to promote relaxation and boosting the body's defence systems. This meant lots of long poses and meditations... or in layman's speak, lots of lovely lying about! My description really does not do it justice, it was WONDERFUL! Ohhhh bliss! I came out floating ... mmmmm!

On other matters... I'm a bit tired of hearing negatives about pregnancy and having children... "Life's over now" I get told.... paaah!! And if I say I'm a bit tired, I'm simply stating a fact... not bemoaning my existence... there is no need to to gloat that "there's plenty more of that to come".... piss off!! Don't you think I know that? Good lord... if it's so bad why did you keep having more after the first one!! I'm very aware that there will be a lot of hard work involved in bringing up a child but I also believe the rewards will far outweigh the trials. I might be busting for a pee, bloated, constipated, tired, achey, etc at times but I'm not complaining for goodness sake! There are also time when I feel fantastic, full of energy and glowing.... why look at me sceptically as if to say "enjoy it while it lasts".... if you don't want to hear it, don't ask!! If you've nothing constructive to offer keep you lips zipped!! Sheeesh!! That.is.all. .... Ooohhhmmmm....

The other morning I was dozing, having hit the snooze button and waiting for the alarm to go off again. Lovely... all snuggled in with Tom... and then he said...
"Did you fart?"
"What? Nooo!"
"Well did you tummy rumble?"
"Noooo? Why?"
"Something's moving in there!!"

Hahaaa!! I got news for you Tommy!

Halfway... ish

2009-08-25T18:28:00.007+12:00

Goodness me what on earth is going on with time at the moment... It seems an age since we first found out I was pregnant and yet time seems to be racing rapidly towards d-day. I feel as though I've worked for 7 days straight since yesterday and yet Friday weekend seems forever away!
We had a scan today to check baby is developing well... and so it is... apparently in the 92nd percentile (ie top 10%) size-wise so far... yikes! It was a relief for me to see bubs curled up in there and knowing it's all good... I have to admit there was a certain amount of trepidation before the appointment... was everything going well, was baby developing as it should .... is was very pleasing to hear it was all okay. I will have to go back for another scan at 30 weeks to check the position of the placenta as at the moment it's a bit low. At least I've read enough to know this isn't a problem at this stage.
Aside from that I really need to try and get here a bit more regularly ... if I do that it could well end up being a load of mundane stuff but I feel I need to form a bit more of a habit... I'm sure I've said this before so we shall just have to wait and see what eventuates!

Obsessed...

2009-08-15T19:18:00.006+12:00

... at the moment it seems I cannot stop thinking about bellydance.... in particular the next costume (or two, or three) that I'll make. I've been waking up at ungodly hours planning what colour, how much fringing, beading, embroidery... it's bloody exhausting!! And the frustrating thing is that I have no intention of making any costumes for quite some time. I have my patchwork quilt that I'm determined to finish before I embark on any new projects... crikey! Where has this come from?
Mind you... it's not the only thing that wakes me up... Prams... or buggies... whatever you want to call them. I've been researching the options and trying to sift through all the information and recommendations to figure out what we should be looking to get... I've had Fantasia style dreams where instead of the brooms there are thousands and thousands of various styles and brands of prams... I have always had pretty vivid dreams but lately my happy hormones are really making for some really psychedelic and weird experiences!!

Today I went to my first yoga class. Wow!! It's a class specifically for pregnancy and was absolutely fantastic. This must become a regular thing for me... I felt soooooo good at the end. In fact I was feeling so mellow that when I got outside to discover the car wouldn't start... I'd left the lights on... the battery was flat... ... ... it wasn't a problem maaaan! Heh! Most of my class mates had left already so I phoned AA and sat in the drivers seat snoozing, soaking up the sun streaming through the windscreen and basking in the lovely tingly afterglow from the class! I can only hope that it will help me deal with labour in such a relaxed way... time will tell!

Bits and pieces... ups and downs...

2009-08-08T16:05:00.010+12:00

Well... I've had an interesting day pottering about the place. A few loads of washing had been done and I've really just been dicking about... clearing out paper work... doing dishes... nothing very exciting. ..
I also hooked up my cassette player to the computer and have been trying to sort through a pile of tapes to see what needs to be digitised and preserved. Some of the cassettes are just music recordings but there are a few very precious memories there too... recordings of myself and my brothers and sister singing, telling jokes and reciting nursery rhymes... heh!! That's a bit of a giggle!
There's also songs my grandparents have recorded of the TV... yes... they used to stick the tape recorder next to the telly to record the various songs and performances from TV shows of the day!
There are clips of my grandparents singing... with us and with their nieces and nephews... my Grandfather belting out a version of 'Call of the Bellbird' that reduced me to tears with memories.
And... my absolute favourite... a recording of my grandfather telling me his version of 'The Hobbyards' ... I absolutely loved this story as a kid, most probably the reason my grandfather taped it as I would ask for him to tell it over and over again... in fact there is a conversation about this also captured on the tape as he finishes the story...

Grandfather: There... how was that then?
Me: Can you tell it again?
Grandfather: You want to hear it again?! But you've just heard it twice!
Me: No....... I've only heard it two times!

LOL!! There's still a few more tapes to go through and figure out what is on them but I think I've probably found most of the gems!! It's a good feeling to get these done before the tapes degrade with time.

So now it's nearly time to put some dinner in the oven and settle in with my patchwork to watch the fishing shows!!

Getting my head around this...

2009-08-06T19:30:00.005+12:00

... this whole getting pregnant thing is a pretty surreal buzz. I'm not entirely sure reality has hit yet. Sure I've started researching nappies and prams, talking about maternity leave, finding clothes to fit my expanding figure...
...but really it's all been a bit like a game...
...until this week when my stomach has started doing odd feeling flip-flops and I think I'm starting to feel baby moving... lordy! There really is something in there...
... I'm gonna be a mummy!

Bumps in the road...

2009-07-29T18:02:00.005+12:00

Here I am... sneaking in... a bit ashamed I have been AWOL for so long...
Interesting times indeed... I'm not sure I want to talk about it all...
About Tom being away on the island for so long (from Christmas through to the end of May)... about missing him madly... about starting to think I was depressed... about feeling so tired and lethargic that I stopped going to belly dance classes... gasp!! I know! I don't want to talk about considering getting some professional advice about how I was feeling...

... what do I want to talk about ... now that I'm here, back in blog-land....

Lets start with the latest bump in the road... there's no doubt this bump is going to get bigger... and bigger... and will most likely get in the road a lot... until some time in early January... when we are expecting a child!!! Lordy!! Yay!!

So there you go... after last year's disappointment we are now very excited! And Libby is already calculating projected babysitting earnings!

Phew... now that that is out in the open, I've got to get ready for bellydance class... but I promise not to leave it so long next time..... honest!!

My new addiction...

2009-03-04T19:48:00.005+13:00

Hello my name is Janene and I've been spending too much time playing "Pirates" on facebook... Oooh aaarrrr!
Aside from that I've (finally) been playing around with Adobe Elements, which we got at Christmas. All my videos to date have been pulled through Windows Movie Maker but I wanted to branch out a bit more ... Elements has soooo much more to play about with! You can see my first wee production over on our "family blog". I have even scrathed to surface of the available features yet but will work on it as I get time.
Aside from that we've been busy back and forth to the Island. Just had a lovely weekend over there with friends - their first visit to GBI.
Much busy-ness at work and the new term of bellydance classes has started... all keeping me out of trouble... mostly... heh!
So this is a short post ... more to come soon... fingers crossed!

Cry me a river...

2009-02-08T18:09:00.005+13:00

... I've had a fabulous weekend. Really, I have.
So why is it... that peering out the corner of the window from the back seat of the plane as we were pulling up into the air... and seeing my man, little more than a speck on the ground, waving his arm in the air... has me bawling my eyes out?
Gah!! I'm glad we didn't stop at the bottle store for a couple of ice cold G&T premixes... something w do occasionally on hot days, waiting at the airport... I'm weepy enough without it.... Sheeesh... tears rolling down my face as I type!! Overly emotional no??
I guess that despite being over on the island for the weekend, I miss him madly. Tom's kayaking mates were there so whilst there was lots of fun to be had, we didn't really get any "us" time.
I've already booked myself flights over for next weekend... to hell with the housework!!

Too much fishing...

2009-01-29T17:23:00.054+13:00

... is there such a thing? I'll admit for a few moments last weekend I felt as though it was most certainly possible.

It had been a very busy week. Not only did I have the shock of being back on the mainland and back to work but I had been running about in the evenings trying to assemble a load of stuff for Tom's kayak trip... all the things he wasn't able to source of organise from over there.
I arrived at Claris airport feeling shattered! Tom arrived to pick me up and asked, "Wanna go fishing?"

To be honest it was the last thing I really wanted to do right then, I was feeling tired and harrassed from my week back in the city... I just wanted to relax. We decided to go to the sports club for a cold beer. A couple of jugs later we went home and Tom cooked up the steak I'd taken over with me... after a week of sandwiches on the run for dinner it was lovely to put my feet up and enjoy the meal. Once I'd eaten I could barely keep my eyes open... Tom said I was snoring before my head hit the pillow.

I was deep asleep.... Tom was stirring.... I peeked through one eyelid to see it was still dark but I knew it was getting closer to morning. I knew what was coming... Tom gave me a nudge, "oi... you awake?".
I played dead... it wasn't hard to do. Then there was a bigger nudge... "Mmmmmmmphrrrm? Whaaaat?"
"Wanna go fishing? The wind has dropped, it'll be pretty flat out there. If we go now we can be on the water by 6."
"Errrphmmmmm...."
"Well? You in?"
"No babe... can't move... tooooo tired.... you go on ahead...."
"You sure?"
"Mmmmmmhm... have fun"

With that he was off.... I lay there in my doped state listening to him get his gear together and thinking. Why? Why do we have to be fishing every spare moment? It was too much... sucking the joy out of it for me... aarrggh..... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzz zzzzzzzzz

I woke up a couple of hours later in a better frame of mind and pulled out my book. After an hour or so of reading I was starting to feel more human... I had needed that extra sleep and after a couple of cups of coffe I was feeling human again. It was okay, we could go out together for a fish again in the evening.
I pottered about the place until Tom arrived home at about 10:30.
"You didn't miss much babe... it was pretty hard going and not much happening"
I went out to the van to get my camera out. That's when I saw it... a large tail poking out of the fish bin... I laughed... "Sure it was a slow morning!"
"It was! I didn't get that until I was about to head home... and it was on my last scrungy bait!"
Still... it'd be fair to say he was pretty pleased with himself....

This one weighed in at a bit over 12 pound... a bit big for just the two of us so the decision was made to smoke him and share it around with our neighbours.

Too much fishing indeed!! What was I thinking?.... Sheeesh!

We set out again in the late afternoon for an evening fish. Tom had decided to drop the collapsable cray-pot he'd been given by a friend but once we got to the wharf we realised we'd left the fish frames we would use to bait it at home. He decided to drive back up to the house and get it so I started paddling out ... he would catch up later.

I'd made for "my spot" where I've had the most luck this summer and set myself up. Just as I saw Tom paddling out of the bay towards me I hooked up. By the time Tom had reached me I'd landed a reasonable snapper... that would do us for dinner with a bit of bread and butter.

Tom carried on past me to set the cray-pot and then headed out into deeper water to try his luck out there.

It was a lovely evening so I opened a beer to celebrate it and kicked back. I hooked up another 3 fish... all well over the legal minimum but only kept one... no need to get too carried away! It was pretty slow going though all in all. The fish seemed to be in mid water which meant they weren't on the bite... just cruising. It looked like Tom was paddling back towards me... then I took a hard strike as I was winding my line in. For a while I thought maybe I'd hooked a kahawai but it didn't seem quite right... not running anywhere as much as a kahawai would although I had spooled my rod with a heavier braid that afternoon so maybe that was making the difference? We played tug of war for a while before I could see colour... I reach around for the net... I was going to play this one safe. Tom arrived just as I was landing it. I think he was secretly pleased to see it was not in contention with his fish from the morning.

We pottered about a little more enjoying the sunset before we decided to call it a day. It's always pretty special to be out on the water at this time of night... some of the sunsets are so stunning! This wasn't a particularly spectactular one ... no clouds for the colurs to bounce about with. It was more like a dye leak, the colour slowly moving across the sky getting deeper as time went on.

Then ... the natural wonders never cease... as we got closer into the wharf the water started lighting up. The were some good strong spots of phospherence and the kayaks glowed blue along the water looking for all the world like we had the naff blue lights all the boy-racers install under their cars... except much cooler! We were like a couple of 6 years olds with cap guns... only a lot damper! Splashing about to make the water glow. This bit of video gives you some idea... the white light is my headlight and it's reflection but the flashes of blue are from me splashing with my paddle... awesome!!

Eventually we decided to give up playing and head home for a fish dinner... some for us and some for the neighbours... it doesn't get much fresher than that.

Is there such a thing as too much fishing? Myth and fairytales... don't let anyone tell you otherwise!

Foiled!!

2009-01-18T19:39:00.005+13:00

Well ... yesterday we went for a drive over the hill and the view looked like this...

Today when we went for a drive it looked like this...

Yes! The weather gods had conspired in my favour... I was due to fly out in the afternoon... the holiday would be over but with so much low cloud it was likely that the flights would be cancelled. The flights from the island navigate by sight only, they are after all only tiny planes! If the visibility was crap there would be no flight home... deep down I was ecstatic... the inevitable wold be delayed , if only for another day....

Tom said to me "You are a witch!"...

I cackled... Mwaahahaaa!

It was not to be... within a few hours this weather had blown over and my flight would be running as scheduled... dagnamit!

And so... here I am... back on the mainland... counting sleeps until I fly back out again (only 5)... and trying not to think about going back to work in the morning!

Sigh!

It's not all sweetness and light...

2009-01-04T11:01:00.006+13:00

Just so you know, we still get wind and rain even though we are on holiday.

We watched this spectacular example of weather closing in from our possie on the beach... we were doomed from the start... all our gear, including kayak and a beach shelter... We just had to accept there was no escape! But man was it spectaular! Thunder, lightning, rain and wind!! It's never dull around here!

By the time we carted everything back up to the van the worst was over and the rain was easing... just our luck!!

How blessed are we?

2009-01-02T11:19:00.016+13:00

Oh my goodness... how will I ever be able to explain what an amazing couple of days we have had?

We had a relatively uneventful crossing on the ferry an didn't arrive on the island until close to midnight.

The first day on the island we woke up and after a Tommy special breakfast, we got busy with unpacking and trying to find spots for everything in our wee bach. Libby was frothing to get to the beach so the afternoon was beach time. Libby was like a whirling dervish - swimming, snorkling, kayaking, playing in the sand, climbing trees and then doing it all over again. She was so excited to finally be here that I think she was determined to do everything all at once - amazing energy levels!! Just when you expected her to curl up exhausted she would be away again!

New Years Eve was a quiet affair for us. A bit of bellydance and drumming on the deck at Libby's request and then an early night.

Tom was up and away early for a paddle and a fish. Libby woke up shouting "Happy New Year" and came down for breakfast. We pottered about re-arranging the bach trying to find the best place for everything to go... always a bit of an evolving process.

Tom arrived home with a 9 pound snapper - dinner was taken care of! It was a stinking hot day so we waited until about 3:00 before we went down to the beach. When we got there we were treated to this....

Words won't do this justice... and really to be honest neither does the video! What and amazing few hours we had watching this performance!

It seems criminal to be blogging when there is so much to be doing outdoors... I had to share this though and skite... if I'm not around it's because I'm busy with life on the island!

Countdown to C-day

2008-12-22T20:07:00.008+13:00

Well... this might be the last post before the big day! I'm feeling pretty much under control on the present front and getting organised for the big day.

I spent Saturday baking. Tom was away on Kawau Island working so I had the run of the house and no distractions.

I made chocolate chip log to take for desert on Christmas Day. This is something I haven't had for many, many years.... probably not since I left school. Mum used to get me to make this and I have fond memories of it. I hope it's as good as I remember! It's basically chocolate chip biscuits dipped in port or sherry and sandwiched together with whipped cream and then once the whole packet is assembled, covered with the remaining cream and frozen... very, very rich!

I also made 3 batches of the Pioneer Woman's favourite christmas cookies from childhood and beyond... phew... what a mouthful! I made these for the first time last year, they were so colourful that I think this will become a yearly favourite of mine. I had to make a few adjustments... I substituted butter for the shortening, I found I had to cook them a little longer and I cheated with premade icing in a tube. The tube icing was a real blessing as I don't have much of an affinity with piping bags, they tend to burst at the most inopportune time, I went through 3 last christmas!!

I really enjoyed myself. It's not often I bake so it was nice way to spend the day. All the cookies have found new homes... some for the bar staff at our local, some for our mate Wazza and his family, a tinful for my wonderful neighbour and the rest I took into work today.... it's nice to be able to share them!

Please... help yourself...

Creativity strikes....

2008-12-10T21:54:00.019+13:00

I know... I know! I wasn't going to start any new projects until I finished the ones I already had on the go... But that isn't quite how it works... it's not the nature of the beast!

And it's been soaking up spare time so that I haven't updated the blog... oh well, there's only so much time in the day.

So... I have a new painting/collage that will be my random gift for Christmas. We don't do the whole present thing for everyone any more. We tend to buy for the kids and have a different arrangement for the adults now that the family has expanded. Participation is optional and it means only one present to think about. This year we've set a value of about $20... if you want to get a present you have to buy a present, then we number the gifts and draw numbers... trade and negotiations are allowed! So I have one of my ... er ... creations to give this year. I won't put a photo up yet (maybe after it's been gifted) as I don't know if my family read this on a regular basis and I'd like to keep it a surprise. Trouble is, I've had to hide it away because the more I look at it the more I like it... I won't be upset if I draw my own number!!

And then there's my latest creation... Bling bling!! A necklace to wear to my work Christmas function on Friday. All the bits have come from the dollar shop so I don't think the materials cost any more than $5... Yeah! Teamed with a $10 dress and $10 shoes from a second hand shop. I'm not too proud to wear pre-loved gear... and I must have enough Scottish ancestry to begrudge spending a pile on a dress I'm not likely to have the opportunity to wear again! I'll be going as cheap chic!! Given that the theme is Flash or Trash I reckon I'll fit into both categories!!

Oh well... maybe now I can get back to the patchwork and maybe I'll get it finished.... eventually!!

Farha, far away

2008-11-25T21:14:00.008+13:00

Oh my… where do I start on the Sydney Trip? I don’t know that I want to do a blow by blow account but let’s see how that goes…

It was odd to be going away knowing Terry had passed away. I don’t think I had comprehended it properly still and with Tommy over on Great Barrier it made it all the more difficult. Still, as Tom pointed out, Tel-boy would have wanted us to get on with living rather than moping about after him… I was determined to do my best!
We flew Emirates to Sydney and by the time our shuttle dropped us at Parkside Apartments in Parramatta it was around 8pm – going on dark. We claimed beds, dumped our bags and headed down the road for a walk so we could get a sense of where the theatre, dance studios where and…. The Bazaar!!! Wheeee!! Shopping!!!
It was a pleasant surprise to find the theatre just a short stroll from the apartments – only 5 minutes away. The dance studios where many of the workshops would be were only a little further down the road. The train station and mall were not much further on from there… it was all so much more compact than I had imagined after my forays into Google Maps…. Good … less time walking, more time to do other things!
We stocked up on milk, bread, cereal, etc, walked back to the apartments to unpack and then turned in for the night.
Most of us were awake quite early the next day… our body clocks betraying us, still on NZ time!
After working out a system for distributing the two sets of keys between the 5 of us in our apartment and swapping cell phone numbers everyone went their separate ways. My first workshop wasn’t until 11:30 so I stayed back to shower and breakfast but by 9:00 I was itching to get out so I packed a day bag and set off down the road. I made my way to the theatre where the bazaar was still being set up. Most stalls were up and there were a few people milling about so I started poking through the goodies. Vicky came racing up behind me having snuck into the bazaar before it was quite open and was very excited to have already found a costume and purchased it! Crikey… the shopping frenzy had started! I steeled myself… I did not want to buy anything on the first day in the flush of excitement and then regret it after… it was not going to be easy!
I made my way down the street and found a café around the corner from the dance studio. I sat back with a coffee to watch the world go by for half an hour before registering for the class. I played a bit of “spot the belly dancer” seeing ladies with hip-scarves, armed with bottles of water, some already loaded up with bags of goodies from the bazaar, all making their way along the road towards the studios.
I’m sad to say I was quite disappointed with my first workshop in as much as I had expected something quite different – based on the description. The blurb for the workshop told us we would “examine how to transfer from one technique to another, focusing on transition of movements” and “explore precision arm technique in conjunction with hip technique”. But basically we learnt choreography… what? To be fair the description did say “In this class you will learn a short choreography focusing on the examples of the movement transitions you have learnt” but I had expected at least some discussion on the actual techniques included in the choreography and that the choreography itself would be would be a tool through which we could learn and consolidate the moves. It wasn’t… we simply learnt the choreography … a string of moves to a piece of music with no real attempt to expand on why we would do certain moves… It was quite disappointment and I was now worried about what the remaining workshops would entail!
Still … I was there… doing it… it would be okay! I wandered back along to the theatre … or rather to the bazaar, for another look over the goodies.
I had set myself some rules about what I would look for … I was interested in finding a sword, silk veils, endless wave harem pants in particular and I really did not need any more coin belts or hip scarves with coins on. So far I hadn’t found any silk veils or harem pants and there was really only once style of sword there… but they didn’t ring any bells for me. And then I saw them… assuit coin belts! Oh dear! I fondled them for a while before doing a few more laps of the other stalls… returning occasionally for another look and all the while telling myself I didn’t need another belt with coins… sigh.
I returned to the apartment later that afternoon to freshen up for an early dinner with the whole group at El Phoenecian before the show. It was a truly spectacular dinner! Most of us opted for the banquet which meant we got to try a variety of dishes. Banquets are always a very sociable way of dining and I enjoyed the dips and salads and most especially the lamb kebabs…. Mmmmmm-mmm!
Then it was off to the show!
I really had no idea what the show would be like having only really been to teacher/student shows here in NZ. To be honest I walked out of the show a little under whelmed and initially I wasn’t sure why… the dancing had been beautiful, the music fantastic and there where most certainly very entertaining and comic moments… I was tired and a little disappointed. Then it dawned on me that perhaps I had not realised I really did have some pre-conceived expectations based on Belly Dance Super Stars videos which is really an entirely different beast. In hindsight that was wrong… and a bit of a shame because it left me with niggling doubts about the worth of the show. Comparing the Farha Tour to BDSS is like expecting Riverdance when you’re watching Irish dance… wrong, wrong, wrong. And I wished I’d made more of an effort to go and see the show again, as some of the others in our group did. Still, it has opened my eyes to Egyptian dance and I’m really pleased to have had the opportunity to see it.

The rest of the trip was a blur of workshops and shopping… I won’t go through it all in detail or this post will never happen! The remaining workshops and lectures were fantastic so my concerns after the first workshop were unfounded. I had an absolute ball and would go again in a heartbeat!

And now... I'm going to bail... and leave you with this...

Young@Heart

2008-11-21T07:34:00.011+13:00

While I pull together a post about my Sydney trip have a think about going to see this movie...

I saw this last night and I can't recommend it enough. What a wonderful movie!
It has a certain poignancy with the recent passing of a couple of mates, who will now never get to the age of the cast but who I know would be in there boots and all! But then again, they're probably doing that already.

The songs these wonderful people sing take on a whole new meaning simply because of the ages of the choir... there's a certain irony when a little wee 92 year old woman sings "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" by The Clash (or "The Crash" as she calls them)... and then as she finishes performing the song on stage the audience roars back.... "STAY!!!"

Tears were streaming done my face the entire time from the sheer emotion of it... there were sad moments, yes, but also many rip-roaring thigh slapping moments as well that had me laughing so hard the tears didn't stop!! There were times when I'd spontaneously start clapping... and others in the audience had their own moments as well... sitting in a theatre with tears rolling down my face at a rate of knots I could hear others sniffling around me, collective Aaaaaaw's when there was bad news and every now and then something would really tickle someone and they'd burst into a short applause themselves....

Don't wait for this to get to TV... go see it in a theatre...

...Take tissues!!

It's been a bit quiet around here...

2008-11-11T21:51:00.005+13:00

... because I've been away... guess where... let me give you a clue...

Yes... after months of waiting it was finally time to see the Farha Tour. I had a fantastic time but am too tired to write about it now... it has been a week of great highs and lows.

A very special friend passed away last week before I went away and while I was away another friend also died suddenly. So despite the fantastic trip I feel emotionally wrecked right now...

I'm not up to much more of a post than this at the moment ...

Island hangover...

2008-10-28T20:22:00.006+13:00

Waaaah!!
I'm back on the mainland... not quite kicking and screaming but I was a long way from being the most enthusiastic passenger on the 6 seater plane back.
It seems to get harder and harder to tear myself away from that place. I worked remotely today and even curled up in the wee shack that is our island home it seems a treat. It's so quiet that I get loads done. I had to chuckle when I read the weekly "what's happening" email from our directors that included... "Janene is working from home today".... it is more and more like home... more so than our home here on the mainland even.
Being back is tough ... my feet felt like they were in concrete boots as I trudged my way back to where the car was parked at the airport... my head felt full of cotton wool and when I got back to the house it was hard work just getting up the steps and letting myself in... there has been no sense of relief to be back... just a quiet sadness that I am... it's like a hangover without the alcohol.

Dooo-dooo-doo…looking out my back door…

2008-10-26T20:05:00.005+13:00

Or rather looking out my toilet door… sorry for those of you with more delicate sensibilities…. but really… if your toilet had no door… and this was your view from the bog… tell me... how could you go wrong?

Chuffed with myself....

2008-10-13T19:29:00.006+13:00

So... since my big clear out I've had quite a few opportunities to add to my treasure trove of craftiness... but... I'm pleased to say that I've remained disciplined about it all.

At the end of last term we were starting to learn a gyspy influenced choreography at dance class. This involves wearing a very full skirt and a lot of swishing about with it... almost a spanish influence... so... a new skirt was going to be needed. I gave the devil on my shoulder (telling me to whip up to Ikes and buy some material for it) a twack and found a piece in my stash that would do nicely. I think I had planned to make some harem pants or something like that when I originally bought it but that hadn't happened. The skirt is now made and I can't wait to get back to class to try it out learning the rest of the dance!

I've also pulled out the patchwork quilt I've been working on for ages, on and off. That is my evening past-time for now and is one of the last unfinished projects I have about the place... it's time to get it finished! When I hauled it out I was surprised to find I don't actually have a lot left to go until it is done so I feel quite motivated. I'm looking forward to seeing it finished and on the bed.

And in the meantime I dream about what I will do next....

...I'd like to try and make a big collar type necklace - think Cleopatra - using multicoloured glass beads I have stashed...

... I haven't done a painting in a long time and have some ideas brewing there...

... or the next bellydance bedlah, a silver one maybe...

... or an idea I have involving shells I've collected, some jewellery probably...

... or ...

... actually, I should just shut up and go work on my patchwork!!

Grrrrrr!!!

2008-10-07T18:09:00.016+13:00

I’m feeling rather unsettled the last couple of days…. Something is brewing…

Possibly partly because I’m missing our wee poppet, who flew back to Wanganui on Sunday… she is growing up so fast and is becoming a real character….

Maybe partially because of the storm that has been brewing and starting to manifest itself now… atmospheric pressure?

But mainly because I watched the Zeitgeist Addendum on Sunday evening… my blood is boiling.
I’m not even going to try and explain it here… I don’t believe I can do it clearly or eloquently enough, better for you to take a look at it for yourself.

Earlier this year I saw Zeitgeist - The Movie at a screening on Great Barrier. It was enough to make me start questioning the way things work – including whether the makers had their own agenda for control. It also left me feeling somewhat helpless – what could I even do about any of it anyway?

So having seen the Addendum I’m left swinging between raging anger and total despair.

Anger… at the greed of the world… the system that we’ve let rule us to the point where it’s become every man and dog for themselves…. It has escalated to the point where there is a whole generation feeding on instant gratification through credit…ME ME ME!! Where money and things are king… where we are constantly drip fed new technology that is out dated the moment you’ve been suckered into buying it… where people no longer know or care about their neighbours and community…

And the sadness at what we have become. We have let this happen to us without questioning... We have trusted those with the reigns of our society and been misguided... At knowing that even if the proposed solution ever comes about it won’t be in my lifetime… certainly not on a world scale - although I have hope our goal to live to the island will get us (personally) a lot closer....

I find it difficult to even verbalise the things going through my head so I won’t ramble …

But you might not get any sense out of me for a wee while…

And now… to distract myself, and for the joy of being productive, I'm off to finish a new skirt for belly dance – surely that’ll make me feel better!

When will I learn?

2008-10-01T20:29:00.005+13:00

Gah! just lost a whole new post to the internet gremlins... off to try and re-write it... I should know by now to write a draft file and copy it over to blogger rather than writing it direct... GRRRRRRR!!

Getting my house in order

2008-09-26T20:23:00.005+12:00

I'm most certainly not the most tidiest person in the world but I generally know where to find everything I need. That said, a "rationalisation" of all my bits and bobs has been well over due. While Tommy has been away I took the opportunity to go through my bundles of craft supplies, beads, material, ribbons, thread etc and weed out the crap.
I got a couple of under-bed storage bins for all my fabrics... and set a new rule... I can keep what fits in the bins... if they are full I can't buy any more material unless I first use something out of the bins... use the old before topping up with new. There were a lot of memories as I sorted through my hoard... material left over from throw cushions I made for my bedroom when I was about twelve... pale lemony prints... yum... left overs from a dress I made to go to the Dalmation Ball when I was about eighteen... wine velvet... mmmm... gosh I hang onto some crap!! I was ruthless with a lot of the stuff and ended up with few bags to get rid of. These I took into work and they were soon claimed by a few crafty people for patchworks and other projects... and the remainder went home with someone that was going to take it to a local kindy... I feel much better passing that stuff on to new homes rather than just tossing it in the rubbish!
After that it was time to go through my collection of beads. I had a bin I use to store most of my collection... all in smaller containers, wee jars, etc. Not exactly the most efficient use of space. I must have done through at least 150 wee snap lock bags as I tipped all my beads into individual bags that I then was able to sort into groups according to color and size... and the whole lot is now living in it's own set of stack drawers... a much better solution!
After that I attacked my tangle of lace and ribbon. These I have also put into individual zip lock bags so that they can no longer contort themselves into one giant knot, making it impossible to find anything! As I slowly detangled it all I found wee scraps ... three inches here and two there... why had I hung onto these? Anything under about 6 inches was turfed... no more softy hoarder here!
All my threads were next... at least this wasn't so bad... I threw out a few reels that had very little left on them and the rest are all stored together.
After all that effort the house doesn't actually look much different but I now have a framework of storage for my crafty bits... and I feel much more motivated to carry on through the rest of the house.... it's about time I sort through my clothes and weed out the crap...

....but not tonight

Like chips and dip...

2008-09-21T16:06:00.005+12:00

... once you start it's hard to stop!
I've been spending time re-organising my sewing and craft supplies over the weekend. We had gorgeous weather yesterday and I felt a bit guilty spending most of the day indoors.
So after a jaunt to the markets at Browns Bay I decided to get out the weed spray and blast my neglected garden. I mixed up a batch of round-up and went around the entire section blasting the weeds all around the place. I may well have to repeat the exercise in a couple of weeks to catch anything I missed today but I felt pleased to have finally paid my garden some attention and it was nice to be out in the sunshine!
As I was putting the sprayer back in the garage the fan palm next to the drive caught my attention. It could do to have some of the fronds trimmed back, so I grabbed my pruning saw and went to it. These palms have nasty thorns and despite being really careful I still manage to rip a hole in left hand.... youch! Still it was nice to be outdoors and as I hacked away at the palm I cursed the hedge which was really getting beyond a joke... that could do with a haircut too. Perhaps if I just trimmed back some of the taller shoots at the road end of the hedge it wouldn't be quite so annoying.
Out came the loppers and I went at it... and went... and went... it seemed such a shame to only tidy up one end... I may as well carry on and do the lot. The further I got along the hedge, the harder I pruned it. And by the time I got to the end I had pretty much decided that the hedge would have to go altogether some time over the next few months. Since the neighbours put a fence in we really don't need the hedge any more, getting rid of it will make the front of the house a lot more open. It will also mean that when we eventually make it to the island and rent this place out it is one less thing for tenants (or us) to worry about maintaining... we find it enough of a chore ourselves which is why it gets out of control! I'd have poisoned it then and there if I could have found the Vigilant but I think I took it over to the Barrier so that was the end of that idea... for now... I'll let Tom have at it with a chainsaw I think.
I surveyed my handywork and felt quite chuffed with my effort. It's been a long time since I've had a session in the garden and the 3 hours or so I spent out there had flown by. Judging by the sounds of lawn-mowers and weed-whackers around the neighbourhood I wasn't the only one out taking advantage of the first really nice weekend we've had in a long time!
There's plenty of time to finish the indoor chores another day!!

Feeling very grateful...

2008-09-18T21:18:00.003+12:00

... and really quite humbled by the responses to the news of our miscarriage. First off responses in the comments here on the blog... I didn't really think anyone was reading... but to get sympathetic and supportive messgages from complete strangers is really quite special. Thank you.
I've also had messages and phone calls from people I really didn't expect. My cousin's wife called me... I barely know her but she wanted me to know that she understood, having experienced miscarriages herself. Also from the daughter of a friend of Mum's who emailed me... I haven't seen her for many years and yet when she heard about it she wanted to offer up her advice and support... It's extremely touching and very much appreciated.
Other people have heard and shared their own stories with me and then there are many people haven't contacted me directly. I can understand that, but they have passed on messages through Mum, Tom and other family members.
It has been a real eye opener for me in terms of just how common miscarriage is. I guess it's not really something that gets shouted from the rooftops and it's hardly a conversation opener. For people that haven't been through it, it's an uncomfortable subject... what do you say? And yet there seems to be a real sisterhood amongst those who have and they all reach out to help others.
My thanks to all who have reached out to me!

A bit fuzzy around the edges…

2008-09-11T21:02:00.015+12:00

Awesome!! The show went really well… at least so I’ve been told. My memory of it all is a bit blurry as I was starting to really come down with a nasty bug… blergh!!
I was feeling off most of the day on Friday, all over achy and tired. Still I trotted off for the dress rehearsal keen as a button.
There would be no cameras allowed on the night aside from the official photographer so it would be our only opportunity to get our own snaps. I’d left my good camera behind and picked up our little sport camera as I left home. My classmates’ daughter was going to watch the dress rehearsal as she had volunteered to help in the kitchen on show night and would miss the actual show. She offered to try and get a few snaps for me which was wonderful (and where the photos for this post came from).
The day of the show I was really starting to feel crappy. By the afternoon I submitted and slept on the couch until it was time to get ready and leave.
There wasn’t a lot of room in the backstage change area so I hung out my costumes in order and laid out my bags each containing the accessories I needed for each set in a space that was free. Then it was time to get ready…. The whole time slugging back energy drink and sucking on cough lollies.
The show got started and backstage we gathered around the TV with the video feed from the stage to catch what we could of the other performances.

The first dance I was involved in was a group sword number about halfway through the first section of the show. At the dress rehearsal it had gone really well, the sword balanced well for me and stayed on my head through twists and turns…. But not tonight…oh dear! It started out well but once I got the sword on my head it decided it did not want to be there… what a disappointment.

Still, there wasn’t time to dwell on it, I had to be changed ready for the next number. We would be winding up the first half of the show with a tribal number. I was really looking forward to this number as it changed each time. There was no choreography to remember and so there was nothing you could really get wrong. It was certainly fun to perform!

During the intermission I scurried to get my hair extensions in and the next costume on because we were on second in the next section with our wings number. By this stage I was starting to feel really awful, as we waited in the wings for our turn to perform again I realised I was still sucking on a cough lolly… I crunched it up as quickly as I could as tried to make sure all evidence was gone by the time we needed to be on stage. We had struggled a bit with this choreography. The first time I’d performed it we had nine of us on stage but tonight there was only four. Still the dress performance had gone okay so it should be a breeze…. And it was… that was until about half way through the dance when things started going haywire. I think at different points from here on in we all messed up at different points. I couldn’t tell you exactly what happened but it was an awful feeling…. To just be blank… and not know what came next!!! Gah!! I was most pleased to get off stage after that one!!

I had 16 minutes in which to be ready in costume for my next piece… my solo! There was no time to think about what had gone wrong with the wings number! I slugged back more energy drink and popped another cough lolly in my mouth as I hurried to get ready. I wasn’t really nervous… more numb… by this stage it was a struggle to stay upright! I was really pleased with the reaction from other dancers to my performance at the dress rehearsal. I’d been paid so many compliments but even so I still find it a bit hard to believe in myself. I know my music inside out so I wasn’t concerned about forgetting the choreography for this… if I did, I could just improvise… no-one would know any better! I needn’t have worried as it went without a hitch – my first solo in a show, my first solo performance for non-dancers!! Wow! I did it!

One more change of costume, one more performance to go… the finale! I love the number that we’d be performing to close the show. It is such a fun and cheeky number! Aside from not being able to hear some of the base notes to begin with it went without a hitch!!

Hooray!! It was over… all I could think about was getting home to bed which is a bit of a shame! Still, I have the DVD to look forward to!

Counting down...

2008-09-02T09:28:00.010+12:00

... to the show!!

I didn't tell you about that did I? With everything else that has been going on I hadn't talked about this and yet over the last few weeks it has given me an alternative focus. The preparations have had me in almost meditative states as I've stitched, beaded, plaited ...

Tickets sold out last week so we'll have a full house... Wow!! Not long to go now ... 4 more sleeps!! Crikey... perhaps I shouldn't say that it's a bit daunting! Gulp!

I've been keeping busy getting costumes prepared... Five, count 'em, FIVE costumes!! I'm in 5 different numbers of the show... including my first on stage performance of my solo... no pressure!

I've found a lot of solace in getting existing costumes up to scratch and creating new ones. It's such a fun process... although the house is a looks like a bomb went off at Spotlight.

It's not just getting the actual costumes ready but figuring out how the changes will work. Organising all the bits required for each change and deciding on hair options that will work with each outfit and yet be easy enough to get ready between sets... potentially a logistical nightmare... and yet I think I'm almost there with it all. A coathanger for each costume with ziplock baggies attached holding the respective jewellery and accessories. I'm hopeful that my system works, but we'll find out at dress rehearsal on Friday night!!

Fingers crossed!

And so it goes...

2008-08-29T13:45:00.006+12:00

Life goes on... It has been two weeks since the scan, two weeks since everything came crashing down around me. The weekend was spent quietly at home trying to get our heads around what had happened. There was no point trying to find a reason ... it just simply was.... there were tears and conversations as we digested everything. We both seemed to be on much the same wavelength in terms of how we were dealing with it although the lions share of tears were mine... me and my leaky eyes!

Going to work on the Monday was hard... it was meant to be the day I could share our great news but instead I had to try and keep a grip on reality. I spent a great deal of the day gritting my teeth and trying to reign in my grief... At 3 in the afternoon I got called down to reception to pick up a delivery. Flowers from my Tommy.... it was the final straw for me for the day so I gave up and went home.

Tom didn't have any work on that day so was home when I arrived and was worried that sending the flowers had been the wrong thing to do... poor boy! I knew it was done with love because he was feeling helpless... he couldn't make me feel better any more than I could make him, and yet he still tried. I still had all the pregnancy hormones happening, I had "talked" to this child and started a connection, it was all so physical for me, whereas for Tom it was more conceptual (his words). We both had to find our own way to cope with this, and our experiences would both be quite different.

The following morning I got ready for work but I lost the plot as I was walking out the door... I couldn't do it, I couldn't face anyone, it was too hard.... I crawled back into bed. I didn't want to be anywhere for a while. After Tom left for work I pottered with my craft work... keeping my hands and head busy, but not too busy to think about what was happening. I knew that as much as I wanted to ignore the news, pretend it never happened... it had... and life will go on with or without me.

The next day I was back to work again and I had plenty to keep me occupied so I didn't have lots of time to dwell on things. I booked an appointment to see my GP as so far there was no sign of my body aborting the pregnancy. When I saw him on the Thursday he explained that we could continue to wait and see or I could see the hospital about having a D&C. I was feeling a lot stronger, ready to move on from this and get on with life. I was booked in for an assessment with the hospital the following day.

The assessment was pretty straight forward, lots of forms to fill in and an explanation of the procedure before checking when I could have it done. The soonest would be the following Monday.
Another weekend spent quietly around the house. Luckily, with the show coming up I have plenty to focus on with getting costumes organised... I don't think I've been quite this productive with my crafts in quite a long time!

Monday rolled around soon enough and we got to the hospital at 7am. I was called through to prep for theatre almost immediately. The staff were all marvellous, very sensitive. Tom was sent home and told he'd be called when I was ready to be released again. Once I was taken to pre-op he couldn't see me again until I was released so there was no point in him hanging around at the hospital. I kissed him good-bye and was led off to wait for theatre.

There's not really much more to tell. A wonderful nurse stroked my hand as they stuck all the monitors on. She was still stroking it as the anaesthetic started to work... I could feel my eyes getting heavy... the blood pulsing in my ears.... mmppphf....
"It's working"
"What's that love?"
"It's working... I'm going under...."
"No dear... it's worked... you're waking up... you're in recovery"

Lord... that was quick... I was still a bit disorientated and as I looked around the room the finality of the situation hit me... I wasn't pregnant any more. That was it... over. I could feel the sobs ready to burst out of my chest but managed to calm them with some deep breaths.... haaaaaaaaa.....

After that I had to wait around in recovery for a couple of hours to ensure I was in a fit state to leave. Tommy picked me up and looked after me for the rest of the day, fussing about like mother hen! I am a lucky gal!!

Since then life is returning to normal. I feel as though I'm past the worst of the grief, and I have plenty to be thankful for. It took me a while to actually hit 'publish' on that last post. I wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do. I had needed to write about it but it was very personal and I wasn't sure that I should share that with the rest of the world. Part of the devastation of finding out I was miscarrying is feeling so alone, disconnected and insignificant. A great deal of the healing for me is finding out that I am not. This is something that is apparently quite common. When we were given the bad news initially we were told as many as one in four pregnancies ends with miscarriage at varying stages. That was just a statistic to me to begin with... just a number, it didn't help. But as people have learnt about what happened to us I have had many of them reach out with a story about a friend, a relation, or themselves and how they had been through a similar experience, sometime multiple times.

It seems like a selfish thing to say but there is comfort in knowing you aren't alone in the experience, and I can draw strength from all those that have been before me. Maybe by publishing these couple of posts I can pass on some of that to someone else who may need it.

And so, life does go on.... and I look forward to every moment!

Not what I wanted to say...

2008-08-18T20:43:00.010+12:00

I had planned this post for a while… A couple of times since my last entry I went to put in a filler post but decided against it… why not wait for the really big news?

Sadly, this is not that entry… not the big news… and most certainly not the entry I’ve been planning to write for quite some time… I’m not sure when that entry will happen now.

I had planned to announce an imminent new family member. Something I’ve wanted to share for quite a while now. Once we'd had the first scan I was going to let work know about my pregnancy and start planning maternity leave, the beginning of a whole new phase of life, letting everyone know how excited we were...

I had had my 12 week visit with a midwife, and booked our first scan for last Friday afternoon - 13 weeks. We walked into the clinic nervous, excited and ready to see our forming child for the first time. Tom held my hand as I lay on the bed and our technician (Hugh) got started.

Hugh was very quiet to begin with and explained that I had a retroverted uterus and that was making it difficult for him to “see”. He also went on to explain that this wasn’t anything to be concerned about… well that was a relief… but it was making his job a little harder. He continued to look hard at the screen and remained very quiet. I thought it was a bit odd that he wasn’t explaining what he was seeing but it was my first scan – how should I know how these things went? Heck he was probably concentrating on keeping the scanner pointed at the right spot, around my other organs behind which my (newly discovered) retroverted uterus was hiding …. Right?

And that’s when he turned to us and said “I can’t see a heartbeat”.

In that moment we went from being excited new parents to … what?

Hugh turned the screen towards us and pointed out the foetus and told us how it was much smaller that it should be and was only about the size it would be at eight weeks not 13 weeks there was no sign of a heartbeat he’d give us a moment while he got a second opinion from someone else….. I barely remember what was said.

As he left the room the blood was rushing around my head and I felt like I’d been thrown off a cliff. Tom squeezed my hand and we both said to each other how it just wasn’t meant to be and it was just nature’s way. It would be okay, we’d start again.

Deep breath… deep breath…

Hugh came back in with confirmation… and a pamphlet on dealing with miscarriage… He was very sorry, and not really any consolation… but there would be no charge for the visit. Well thank God for that… I couldn’t get out of there quick enough… out the door and heading for the car, gulping down the fresh air as I scrambled for the car. Gritting my teeth and trying to keep it together… and Tommy… God… how was he feeling?

What a shitty way to find out... there'd been no real signs of anything being wrong and yet in split second all the plans and excitement from the last couple of months dissolved around us.

Where to from here?

Another day on the water

2008-07-12T20:38:00.009+12:00

Damn... it's tough but someone's gotta do it!! Not too much explanation except to say that we had a great day out when I arrived on the island last Friday. I outdid the boys fishing but they went for a dive and I think the haul of crayfish the ended up with winning the day.... see for yourself...

Show time

2008-07-08T20:35:00.011+12:00

So it went really well!

Luckily we had a rehearsal in the morning as one of the girls observing told me that I had a bit of a problem with my costume. Despite feeling very secure in my bra apparently from an audience perspective it looked as though I was ... er ... about to fall out of it at any moment! Oh dear... the last thing I want is for the audience to be nervously waiting for a costume disaster to unfold!

After rehearsal I made a few adjustments to the bra so I would be more suspended and not the audience!

We had to meet over at the theatre a couple of hours before the show to have a run through on the stage. After that a few of us wandered to a nearby Thai restaurant and had an entree each.

It was bitterly cold outside ad we were frozen by the time we got back to the theatre. The last thing I felt like doing was changing into my costume... brrrr!

There was nothing for it though... I couldn't put it off any longer so I changed into my costume bra and threw my cardigan back on over top to stay warm while I fixed my makeup and got the rest of my kit on.

By this stage with all the bodies in the dressing rooms we were warming up a bit. We all took turns at having our photos taken and it was about then that one of the others pulled me aside...

"You've got black stuff under your arms!!"

"What??"

I looked at my armpits... black fluff every where... what the?? Ah... it was fluff from my cardigan that had stuck to my deodorant! Ha!! Lucky it was spotted before I went on stage! Still it was good for a laugh, a few of the others were wearing wigs or hairpieces... why not fake armpit hair, I reasoned!

Finally it was our turn to perform. We had a blast. The piece we performed was a mix of group choreography and individual solos and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.... once again though it was over far too quickly. I have seen some fantastic photos of our performance but as yet don't have copies so you will just have to be content with these ones taken backstage...

Lock out

2008-06-27T11:58:00.002+12:00

When I arrived home last night thankfully the rain had stopped. I grabbed my stuff out of the car and got to the front door to find the key wouldn’t turn. Blast! The lock had been sticking a bit the last few days and I had made a mental note to take a good look at it over the weekend… not soon enough obviously! This had happened a few years back and I’d ended up replacing the lock. I cursed myself for not having the back door key with me.
I went down to the garage to find a hammer or crow bar so I could bust open one of the side windows… popping the catch on that would be easier to sort out than a broken window…. Looking around I realised Tom would have most of the tools with him on the Barrier and the rest of the “house tools” were… well… in the house.
I rang Warren who was on his way home for the evening and told him what had happened. He arrived within 10 minutes with his tool box…

“Waddya need?”

“Got a hammer?”

He handed one to me and scurried after me as I went around the side of the house…

“You gonna smash it!!??”

“Nah mate”

I jammed the claw under the edge of the window and levered it…. Pop! Inside the handle flew off and I opened the window.

“Chur… can tell you’re from Dargaville” Warren grinned, “Didn’t know you were so good at break-ins!”

I climbed through the window and got the door open after a bit of jiggling the key and the catch. The door was unlocking with the key from the inside but not from outside. We fiddled about with it for a while, gave it a spray of CRC and I decided that’d do on the lock for the evening… I can sort it out properly on the weekend, in the mean time I’ll lock it from the inside and use the back door.
That just left the window to secure. The catch was busted and I’d need a new one. After a bit of digging about in my tool box Warren found a bolt that would hold it all together. It doesn’t look pretty but at least it’s secure.
Warren packed up his tools as I thanked him for helping me out.

“Cheers mate, you’re a love!! I owe ya a beer!”

“Or 5 or 6”, Warren laughed as he headed off home!

Good on ya!

Life gets in the way of blogging!

2008-06-20T19:21:00.003+12:00

Don't you just hate that?
So still frantically working away on the costume and eagerly awaiting the arrival of some beaded fringing I ordered through ebay. I'm not sure if it will arrive in time for me to get it onto the costume so I'll have to work on my plan b in the meantime. I've given myself a cut-off of Monday for the fringing to arrive, anything after that will be pushing my luck in terms of finishing it ready for the show!
Work has been really hectic this week. It must have been playing on my mind a lot as I've been waking up far too early and not able to get off to sleep. I've ended up getting up and going to work rather than toss and turn and disturb Tommy's beauty sleep. This morning I was at work by 6:45..... that turned into a struggle towards the end of the day and I was pleased to get everything finish by 5pm and get the heck out of there!!
So... just a quick update... now back to my costume!

Distracted

2008-06-09T19:54:00.004+12:00

It's been a while huh? Things have been busy around here and I've been somewhat distracted by a new project.

We are performing in a show at the end of June and the costuming requires a bedlah. The only bra and belt set I have is a bit small for me at the moment so I decided to make a new set. I settled on making a gold set as I can use that with many different coloured skirts so I should get quite a bit of milage out of it.

I looked around for a gold material to use as a based but struggled to find anything suitable and was starting to consider using black instead. I tried to find some black stretch velvet but was foiled at every turn... luckily... because I finally found some fantastic gold stretch material that would be perfect. I cut the cups out of an old bra to use as a base and reinforced them with strips of webbing and felt to make them sturdy enough to take the beading I want to apply. I have some rather ambitious plans to create sequined and beaded appliques to attache to both the bra and belt. The only problem is I don't think I'll get it all finished in time for the show. I've decided to concentrat on getting the bra and belt fitted properly with some basic beading for now. I have some black and gold embroidered ribbon that I'll use as an accent and add "danglies" ready for the show. Both will be easy to remove so I can add the appliques I've planned when I have more time to get them finished. That will take the pressure off for now and I allow me to complete the appliques without rushing!

Here's where I've gotten to so far...

Full of it...

2008-05-22T20:17:00.002+12:00

... the bot that is. Gah!! I woke up Saturday feeling like crap and was really annoyed... I had plans for the weekend to get stuck into some sewing. I moaned and grumped for a while then collapsed on the couch for two days... yuck! Monday and Tuesday were both spent at home, no way was I working feeling like crap!
I went back into work yesterday feeling a lot better but still not 100%. I've been hacking anf coughing away, I hope it doesn't take too long to shake this off!

Early morning antics

2008-05-15T10:01:00.007+12:00

I was fast asleep... deep, deep sleep.... when... WAWAAWAAWAAAWAAAAAA!!!!

A bloody alarm sounded somewhere nearby. After a few seconds it stopped and I figured someone must have tripped a car alarm. Then... WAWAAWAAWAAAWAAAAAA!!!! It went off again... and stopped... and went.... and stopped.... Tommy woke up and cussed and after a few more repeats we were both cussing....grrrrr! It was 2:45am for goodness sake!! Tom got up saying he was going to do something about it.... not quite sure what, but we sure as heck weren't going to sleep with that racket going on!

I crawled across the bed and peered out the window to see if I could spot where the offending vehicle was but the noise seemed to be coming from further up the street. It was at that point something caught my eye, a flashing light. I could see through the small window above the bed that it was the alarm unit on my elderly neighbour’s house. I called out to Tom as I quickly hauled on trackpants and a sweatshirt... "It's Eunice's house alarm!"

"Has she gone away?" Tom asked as we both ran to Eunice's gate.
"Not that I know of...."

I helped Tom unlock the gate in the dark. "Do you think I should call the police?"
Tom nodded and went to check out the house. I ran back to our place and called 111. When my call was answered I explained the situation and stayed on the phone until Tom came back. He wasn't able to see anything, no apparent break in, but could hear a radio going inside. "I'm going to break a window to get in, she might be having a heart attack or a stroke!"

I relayed this to the phone operator who said they had a car on the way. When I asked if we should break in the advice I got wasn't particularly clear "Well someone might have to... there's a car on the way"

Tom swore when I relayed this to him... "She could be bloody dying in there! I'm going to break a window to get in!"
The police operator said they would end the call now but we should call back if the situation changed. We both ran back over to Eunice's and I started banging on the door and calling out.

Tom found a rock... "Don't break the door, there's another door inside the porch that might be locked, you'd have to break that too."

I was starting to feel quite panicked by this stage, what if she was lying inside needing help?

We both looked at a little window next to the deck... "Fûck it" Tom said raising the rock.... and paused... "Hang on... I think the porch light just came on, that wasn't on before was it?"
I shook my head, and as I turned to bang on the door again Eunice's head looked out through the inner door.

As she let us in she told us she couldn't turn the alarm off. Eunice's hearing isn't so great and she'd initially thought the siren was on the radio which she had going next to the bed. She hadn't heard Tom banging on the door initially and was a bit bewildered.

After both of us trying to punch in the alarm code unsuccessfully, we asked her what alarm company it was. "There's a sticker on the door...." she said.
By this time another neighbour had arrived. Tom found the company name and Eunice pulled out her phone book. I found the number and dialled.... bloody answer phone!! Never mind, there was a mobile number to contact so I tried that. A groggy voice answered and I explained the alarm was going and we couldn't shut it off. Eventually we established there was a manual override key to turn off the outdoor sirens. Eunice found the key and we got those shut off, at least it wasn't continuing to keep the whole neighbourhood awake any more! The indoor unit however was still emitting a very loud, shrill bleep constantly. The guy on the phone explained that the battery unit might have failed and we'd need to open the unit to disconnect it.

The police had arrived by now and poor Eunice was a bit shaky... "I'm going to call Ian, he'll come around and fix it". I tried to tell her that she didn't need to call him and we would get her sorted out - I figured there wasn't much point in waking more people up! While I was talking to the police and relaying the instructions from alarm guy Eunice did call Ian though. I can't really blame her, I think by now she really needed someone familiar to comfort her.

Tom went to get a screwdriver and the police, having ensured no-one was in danger, left us to it, as did the other neighbour. Tom opened up the control unit and removed the battery... nothing happened initially.... but then finally the piercing bleeping ceased! My poor ears were thankful!!

We put the jug on for a cup of tea... this was well needed by this stage. Tom went back home to warm the bed back up for me and I waited with Eunice until Ian arrived. She was worried that this incident will be used against her, “They’ll say this is another reason why I should move!”. I tried to tell her that it wouldn’t have mattered if she did live elsewhere, the alarm would still have failed – it was nothing to do with whether she is capable of living alone or not!

We poured a cuppa when Ian arrived and I explained to him what had happened. He will get someone in to replace the battery and give the whole system a look over. Eventually things settled down so I gave Eunice a hug and went back home.

I didn’t get a lot of sleep the rest of the night as my brain was working overtime but I must have managed about an hour or so because eventually another alarm woke me – the clock radio… at least this one was not unexpected!

World Belly Dance Day

2008-05-10T21:23:00.005+12:00

Who'd have thought such a thing existed?
I celebrated by going to a Drum and Dance Jam organised by my teacher. It was a fun afternoon! When we arrived there was no power as linesmen were working outside on the street but that didn’t slow us down at all! The music ran off a battery pack and there were plenty of drummers. It was a great opportunity to get into costume and dance in an informal setting.
There were also a few stalls selling jewellery, costumes and doing henna tattoos. Danger, Danger!! Temptations!! I did score a few really good bargains without doing too much damage to my wallet!
I had worn my “new” tribal outfit to see what people thought. I got loads of compliments on it so I guess I don’t have too much more to add to it! I was really pleased to hear it looked good!
I forgot to pack the camera so no photos at this stage… maybe next time!

Civic Duty

2008-05-06T12:48:00.008+12:00

Last week it was my turn to have a crack at Jury Service. The last time I was selected I wasn't able to go as I was away on holiday for the first day or so and because of that I was excused from turning up.
The time before that I was horrified to see people that could not even follow simple instructions were able to sit in judgement of others. Two initial jury panels were balloted from all those who had turned up. I was in the first group. We were introduced to our court attendant, Cheryl, and we were told we'd be going to Court 10 with the attendant once the trial was ready to proceed. The second group was to go with another attendant, Joanne, to Court 4. Our attendants went to check on whether the courts were ready while we helped ourselves to a cuppa. When they came back the two groups filed off with their respective attendants except once we arrived at court 10 and Cheryl did a head count, there were too many people.
"Okay folks, my name is Cheryl and we are in court number 10. Are you all supposed to be here?" Cheryl was greeted with nods, mutters and blank stares but everyone seemed to think they were in the right place. The only way to resolve this was for us all to stand and then as our name was called to sit again. Two people remained standing.... "I'm sorry but you two are not on my list. What court number were you told to go to folks?"...... "Duh-uummm...er Numba 4"... Oh dear!! If they couldn't manage to get into the right courtroom how the hell should they be expected to concentrate through a whole trial??
I wondered if it was really true... that the people that show up for jury service are the ones that are too stupid to get out of it?! I resolved then and there that I as far as possible I should do my duty and attend Jury Service whenever I was called up!
As it turned out I was not selected for that particular jury and didn't make it onto another panel. On the Tuesday when I arrived we were split into two groups, one to come the following day and the others to show up on Thursday. When I arrived on Thursday they didn't need any more juries for the week so I was sent away again.
This time however I got to see a bit more action!
First off the bus system! I was able to make use of the new expressway so after a short walk down to the closest staion I was able to catch a bus for a short, fifteen minute trip into the city... I couldn't beleive how easy it was! Totally painless!
I was selected for a jury panel and shuffled off to the courtroom for the selection process. The charges were read out to the defendant and they involved several counts of sexual content with a minor. They are really quite graphic when the charges are read and specific deatil was given... cringe... I really didn't want to hear any more detail about this and my stomach churned as my name was called and I made my way to the jury box. Just as I was about to sit down the defendant's lawyer called out "Challenge!". Phew! That meant I wasn't to sit on this particular jury! Amen to that! Once the jury selection was over the rest of us went back to the waiting area where we were eventually excused for the rest of the day.
The bus trip back again impressed me even more than the one in. Buses leaving the city centre for my stop every 15 minutes! A far cry from the bad old days when I first started working in Auckland!
The next day I was selected for another panel but the trial wouldn't go ahead until closer to lunchtime so we were excused for an hour or so under instructions to be back by 11:15.... woohoo! Shopping!!
I had a bit of a wander around Queen St and then went back to the courts and waited... and waited... until about 12:30 when we were told the trial wasn't ready to go yet and we could wander off again as long as we were back by 2:00. I went out again but only long enough to find a bite to eat. Tramping about the inner city wasn't so much fun any more so I went back to the assembly room and filled in time "dancing" my belly dance solo and developing it some more... in my head not for real! Eventually we were called through to the courtroom. As they read out the charges for this case I cringed again... another sexual case, this time with even more counts to plead to, I lost count after 10! Oh God please don't let me get into this jury! As the names came out of the barrel the seats slowly filled up. There weren't so many challenges in this case but I held my breath until the last seat was filled... thankfully mine didn't come out of the barrel at all. It was late in the afternoon by this stage so once again we were excused for the day.
On the Wednesday morning I was selected in another panel. Again the case wasn't ready to start so we were excused for an hour or so. This time I didn't bother leaving the building. It was cold outdoors and I was over the idea of inner city shopping! Eventually we were called through to the court and this time I actually made it into the jury. The charge in this trial was aggravated robbery, committed in 2006. Once we'd selected a foreman the trial began with the first witness. When we broke for lunch I felt as though I needed a spell from the city, the noise and rushing about was doing my head in! I grabbed a bun from a sandwich bar and found my way into a small park behind St Patricks Cathedral.... ah!! that was better, it seemed a lot less stressed there than anywhere else I'd been in the last couple of days!
When it was time to get back to business we were ushered back into the retiring room. There was a bit of discussion over the evidence we'd heard so far but this was to fill in time as yet again it seemed we were waiting and waiting to be called back into the court. The time for the afternoon session came and went as we chatted out the back... waiting!! Then... once we were seated back in the court the judge told us there had been a development, and the nature of it would become clear soon enough. With that the registrar stood and read the charges out again and the defendant plead guilty!! Good Lord!! After all the waiting about and finally getting onto a jury, and more waiting about, the bugger had denied me the chance to see out the trial! No verdict required!! He was soooo guilty and he knew it. I reckon the only reason he changed his plea was in the hope of a lesser sentence, which, by the way won't be decided until the end of June! Gah!
Still, after that we were excused for the rest of the week. They had already selected panels for the remaining trials that week so we were no longer required... So that was the end of that... until the next call up!!

Let's Dance!

2008-04-26T18:24:00.009+12:00

Woohoo!! The show was fantastic!

To be honest I'd been feeling quite blasé about the whole thing since the practice on Wednesday night. We ran through the choreography quite a few times and each run through it seemed to get shorter and shorter! When we first started learning it I wondered if I’d ever manage to make it through without forgetting something. All the extra hours we put in for additional rehearsals outside of class time paid off and by Wednesday night everything was running through so well I almost felt as though the show had been and gone already. At the beginning of this process the piece seemed to last forever… so much to remember… but now it just flew by! I almost felt as though it was over already… I figured when it came to the show we’d get ready, wait our turn, stand nervously in the wings then it would all be a blur of light and music … then we’d be back in the wings clearing off the stage again… it was almost an anti climax before the event!

We had a dress rehearsal in the afternoon which made me a bit nervous. The space on stage was a bit different to what we were used to so there were a few last minute tweaks that, despite being really minor it was a bit perturbing given how smoothly everything had worked so well. Would I be able to remember? Crikey… the butterflies were starting to set in!

I called into the pub and had a beer for my nerves on the way home… that helped me relax a bit. Once home I distracted myself by helping Libby get ready. She was going to wear her costume so she got dressed and I did her hair for her while she chattered and told me how she would dance on the stage after me. Before I knew it, it was time to go.

We arrived at the theatre and found our seats next to friends. I wasn’t performing until the second section of the show so we were able to sit in the audience through the first section of the show. Wow! There were some amazing acts and it was almost a shame to have to go and get ready.

I met the others out the back and we got our costumes and had a couple of group photos taken. It didn’t seem to take long at all before our stage call. As we go into position in the wings ready for our entrance I took a few deep breaths and reminded myself to enjoy the moment… I wanted to remember how it was to be performing rather than simply doing it and getting out of there with it all being a blur after…. I didn’t need to worry… man, did I have fun! The moves were all pretty much second nature now, each change in the music signalled another move and it just seemed to be happening… Awesome! This was great, we were doing it! I couldn’t help but smile! I was able to really soak up the atmosphere… fantastic!

I changed back out of my costume and hurried back out into the audience to watch the rest of the show. When I got back to my seat Libby stood up and told me it was her turn to dance. I figured I’d take her up near the front and let her dance in front of my classmates but someone told me to let her go up on the stage. I found some steps up to the stage and helped Libby up them. Then there was no stopping her! She marched up to the start of the front of the stage and stood there… waiting… next thing there was clapping from the audience so she started dancing… so confident and not at all shy! The clapping got louder and people were zaghareeting her… she was in her element! Then, suddenly Libby decided she’d finished, she bowed and marched back off the stage again! It all happened so quickly that Tom didn’t get any photos – he was too blown away with watching her!

All in all a fantastic evening!!

Another weekend in

2008-04-22T15:16:00.005+12:00

Well, mostly anyway!

Tom had organised a Rug Doctor machine for pickup at 7am Saturday morning so he was up early to get that underway and gave the floor a good going over. I was pleasantly surprised how well the carpet came up... I'd had my doubts that it would do any good but I guess I'll have to eat my words now.

I had a rehearsal for the show at 10am on Saturday morning which went really well... we're counting down to the show now!

Then it was straight back home ready to go and pick Libby up from the airport! She is up for the first week of the school holidays and it was good to see her! She's a real jet-setter these days and flying doesn't phase her in the slightest. The flight was running a bit late but as we waited and watched down the arrivals corridor we could see her being escorted, along with another small boy, up to the terminal. She was chattering away with the wee man and the attendant like they were old mates. There's no stopping her taking every opportunity to increase her social circle!

By the time we arrived back home with her my parents had arrived for a visit. They ran away from home back in February and have been travelling around in their bus living a gypsy life since then! By all accounts they've thoroughly enjoyed the experience. They weren't going to stay the night as they had to get home for business but we had a nice afternoon with them catching up and an early dinner - home cooked fish and chips using some of the kingfish from the freezer... Yum!

On Sunday Rob, Stacey and the kids came over for a visit. It's been quite a while since the kids had caught up and after some initial shyness (and refuelling on lunch) the girls raced about dressing up, having make believe birthday parties and rescuing each other from a plague of rebel frogs that apparently invaded the bedroom intermittently... what great imaginations! Braxton was somewhat excluded from the girly games but that didn't seem to phase him in the slightest. He happily drew pictures of us on the magnadoodle and showed off his creations. He's talking a lot more now and is a real little character! When it was time to go there were tears, Tialia wasn't ready to go, she was having such a good time! It was good to see them and catch up with Rob and Stacey, it's been a while!

The rest of the afternoon was pretty quiet. Tommy spent some time writing on his blog, Libby watched her favourite movie - Madeline, and I worked on my next movie pulling together photos and video from different events... something I'd been meaning to start on for a while now... the first one for the year is up over on the "family blog".

So it was another relaxing weekend... even though we had plenty going on! I guess with winter looking like it's nearly here we'll have a few more of these coming up!

Hippy Shake Update

2008-04-17T13:39:00.003+12:00

So, on the Belly Dance front all is going swimmingly ... or perhaps that should be shimmyingly!
The dance we have been working on for the upcoming show is really starting to come together now. We've had some extra rehearsals outside of class time and that has really helped! The most difficult part has not been the actual dance moves, but the "formation flying"... the parts where we change positions on stage and interact with each other. These bits are really starting to work well now after making some small tweaks to how they come together... it's going to look soooo cool on the night!
As for my solo development class, that too is progressing nicely! I had a few spots in the music where I had the moves sorted out and it has been a matter of joining the dots... coming up with moves to join the pieces I found relatively easy to choreograph. Working in stages like this has made it far less daunting and I've pretty much sorted out the first half of the piece... just a bit of refining needed there so in the next week I want to sort out the remaining half. It should be relatively easy as this was the part of the music I was most attracted to initially and I have a lot of ideas to get started with. It will be a matter of trying them out and seeing what works best. This class has been extended by a few weeks to allow us to get our choreographies finished and test run them on each other so we can refine them from an audience perspective. We have the opportunity to perform them for a wider audience at a drum and dance jam in May.... and... if we're keen in a show later in the year! Cool!

Golly... it's been a week!

2008-04-15T09:40:00.002+12:00

Wow! No update for a week... and I'd been doing so well on that front!
It's been a pretty ordinary week, which is lovely for a change! And we had no plans to go anywhere or do anything for the weekend so it was spent pottering around home... not very exciting I suppose but it was really very nice having not done it in a long while!

Sparkles Galore

2008-04-08T19:37:00.010+12:00

I needed to find a dress to wear in the show at the end of the month. We had fairly loose guidelines to follow, basically a straight dress, any colour pretty much (except for fluorescent) with sparkly bits and preferably pattern or fringe across the hips to accentuate any shimmying. I had a bit of a look around but didn't see anything that would fit the brief. I started trawling through trademe and found a few possibilities but generally anything remotely suitable was going to be far too small… I’m no waif!

I began to resign myself to making a dress and decorating it and then I found a compromise... a plain dark blue stretch velvet dress in the right sort of style... I was a bit hesitant about the sizing but after confirming the measurements I started bidding. I won the auction in the finish and I could hardly have made it for the $20 I paid for it.

When it arrived in the post I tried it on immediately. The fit was snug but it was perfect for the show! Now for the fun part… the sparkly bits!

In my treasure cupboard I had some purple beads I’d bought I Bali quite a long time ago… they’d be perfect for making fringing from and although I wasn’t entirely thrilled at the idea of threading them all they really were the perfect colour. I also had some pre-strung gold sequins but I felt I also needed sequins that would pick up the blue of the dress as well as the purple from the beads… I knew just the colour I wanted… a paua, or oil slick colour would do me. I went down to get some at John’s Place Emporium. I found exactly what I was after straight away but you can’t go into that shop without looking around at the other goodies… and thank goodness I did! I found pre-strung beads in the exact colour I had at home… if I bought those then I could save myself hours of painstaking work. I knew that it was going to end up costing a lot more but given that life has been so busy lately, time could become an issue. I didn’t want to have to rush through this and be disappointed with the results. I could also supplement it with the beads at home… at the end of the day I was still going to pay less than I would for a ready made outfit, and it would be unique, one of a kind!

With the decision made I scurried out with my goodies and went home to get started. I had been thinking about the pattern I wanted and had decided to keep it fairly simple with clean curves and the fringing. I was about to started sketching outlines with chalk when I realised that I probably should do this while I had it on so that I could take the stretch into account … along with my curves! So there I was standing in front of a mirror drawing on myself … or rather on the dress with chalk! Then the stitching began in earnest… first the lines of sequins then the beading… oh how I thanked myself for using the pre-strung stuff… no threading, no chance of beads coming undone… just stitch it on! Because of the stretch in the material I had to ensure anything stitched on allowed for this so it was all done with the dress stretched over an embroidery hoop.

I couldn't tell you how long I've spent on it so far but at least now it is now at the stage where if I don't do any more it will be fine for the show. I'm picking it's more than likely I will add more at some point however I'm aware that I could over do it and it will end up with too much on it so for now I'm letting it rest awhile. I am very pleased... it actually looks better once it's on!

I took it along to class last week and everyone wanted to see it on so I ended up wearing it for the whole class... I love it! The fringing sits in just the right place and moves beautifully when I dance! I can't wait to wear it in the show!

Back for more ...

2008-04-07T19:27:00.016+12:00

Sunday rolled on around and as I peeked out from under the covers to see it was daylight outside I thanked my lucky stars Daylight Savings finished this weekend giving us an "extra" hour to sleep in this morning. As I rolled over to check the time a groan escaped... good lord was there any part of me that didn't hurt? We had another hour before we needed to get up... I carefully snuggled up again and tried to remain as still as possible in the meantime.

We all met at the shop at 8:30 and along with coffee discussed the weather, where to find weather reports and how to utilise them to plan a day trip. Based on the forecast that predicted southerly winds we were to be paddling on the northern coast of the Whangaparoa Peninsula.

Off we all went and met again at the boat ramp at Tindalls Bay. Andy parked on the ramp and we unloaded as quickly as possible so as not to tie up the ramp for too long.

We each picked out a kayak, different to the one used yesterday so we could get a feel for the different makes. Once we had adjusted the foot pegs and loaded up, Andy showed us how to enter the water "gorilla style" - scooting the kayak forward with hands over the sides pushing against the sand. Once we were all afloat we set off as a group.

It really is a relaxing way to travel, cruising along and chatting to whoever happens to be near you at the time. Looking out to sea we could see Great Barrier further out and closer in the birds were working in several spots. Every so often the bait fish would rise and skitter across the surface close to us... Tom wished he'd brought his rod along!

I had realised pretty quickly after we left the beach I'd made a mistake when I set my foot pegs... I'd tested them out with my legs straight out in front but of course when you're on the water you bend your knees pushing against the pegs to lock yourself in. This wasn't an major but it meant I was on tippy-toes for the first leg of the trip and this got quite uncomfortable towards the end... I'll not make that mistake again!

We made good progress along the coast although the group seemed to be a lot further out from the shore than I'd expected. This meant we were just paddling from spot to spot rather than getting to look at nooks and crannies in the rocks, which, I think, would have been more interesting. I guess though some people weren't quite as confident about being too close in to begin with.

As we arrived at Army Bay, where we'd planned to stop for lunch, we grouped up and Andy reminded us about how to handle a surf landing. The waves were pretty small but it was still a good opportunity to test out using the paddle as a rudder. We landed one by one on the beach pulled a couple of kayaks right up the the sand to use as tables and tucked into lunch.... ravenous!! While we were filling our stomachs Andy led a discussion on different places to go kayaking around New Zealand, we each had to come up with somewhere and he would give us a run down on the best times to go and things not to miss at each place.

Before long it was time to head back again. I reapplied sunblock, picked out a different kayak and set the foot pegs up... remembering my earlier mistake. As we scooted our way back into the water I realised my skirt had popped off the cockpit... Damn, I was virtually afloat!! I back-paddled a bit, trying to keep the kayak straight into the waves and sorted the skirt out... back out again, this time with a helping hand from Andy giving my kayak a shove to get it afloat. Thanks mate!

Off we paddled.... this time sticking a little closer to the shore and getting a bit of a closer look. The kayak I had on this leg handled a bit diffently and was a bit more sluggish responding to the rudder... a matter not helped by the fact I hadn't tightened the straps up enough... something else learnt! In the finish I gave up on using the rudder and pulled it back up. Instead I played about with the different sweep stroke we'd learnt and used my paddle to steer on the way back.

As we got closer to the beach we started out from we grouped up again and Andy encouraged us to try out different rescues before we had to go home. This was by no means compulsory which was a bit of a relief. By this time I was feeling quite exhausted from the efforts of the weekend, all the physical activity combined with a day out in the sun and salt air... I was almost at the stage where I just wanted to curl up in my comfy chair and snooze! Still, I'd gotten in a couple of extra rescues in the lake on Saturday so I wasn't going to feel guilty about not getting wet today! A few people took the opportunity and I assisted someone else getting back into their boat before heading back to the beach to pack up.

Back at the shop we were all presented a completion certificate and an information pack. We each had to sum up our experience in a few words. Mine were... "I want to do more"... ...

I suppose that means I'll be needing my own sea kayak... time to go shopping!!

Oh how I ache!!

2008-04-07T09:44:00.008+12:00

Almost every part of my body is sore from overuse or bruising... Why?

A good friend of ours gave us a family membership to the Yakkity Yak club as a thank-you present about 9 months ago. As part of the package a weekend course on Sea Kayaking was included. We have been so busy over the last 6 months that up until now we hadn't booked ourselves onto the course. As we had nothing yet planned for the weekend it was time to bite the bullet and actually do this thing... after all, it would be a shame for the membership to run out without us completing it.

Tom has a sea kayak and uses it on a regular basis so he was looking forward to the possibility of rolling while I was along for the ride, figuring a lot of what we'd learn would be applicable to our sit on tops.

Saturday morning arrived with us on time at the pool and ready to get wet. There were 8 people on the course in total so 4 kayaks were unloaded and taken down to the pool. We were to pair up and take turns in the kayak. Tom, being the gentleman he is, let me take my turn in the kayak first. I slipped off the edge on the pool and into a kayak, sealed the cockpit with the skirt and braced myself for whatever was about to happen next.

The instructor, Andy, called for a volunteer to act as the demonstration model. I took a look around and as no-one was looking likely I thought perhaps it was best to volunteer and get it over with. Before I could open my mouth my kayak jerked forward, a strange voice coming from behind... "Pick me!! Pick me!!" ... thanks Tommy!! So I floated forward and the lesson began.

The first steps involved building confidence in and under the water whilst still in the kayak. Andy would talk us through it, demonstrate what was going to happen using the test model (me!), then one by one each person gave it a go while their partner was there to help flip the kayak over for the exercise and pull it back upright again. The routine involved turning 90 degrees to get one ear wet, then 180 degrees under water and back up again. Next came a series of exercises to help orientate ourselves upside down and under water. The first was to bang loudly three times on the bottom of the kayak (while upside down). This was also a signal for help!! Then a series of exercises banging a couple of times on the bottom to the front and back of the boat back to three times in the middle to signal help... or..."get me upright!!". Then to the front right, front left, back right, back left - Andy called this "the hula". Then finally a wet exit, basically getting out of the kayak while it was capsized.... cool... I was good at this!!

We swapped over so our partner's could go through the routine as well... revenge is mine... bwahahahaaa!! Nah, not really, the last thing I wanted was to be responsible for drowning my Tommy in a pool!!

Next on the agenda was learning various rescues, self recoveries - where you basically got yourself back into the kayak, and assisted recoveries - where another kayaker would help empty and stabilise your kayak for re-entry.

The first self rescue was called "The John Wayne" and involved heaving yourself over the stern of the kayak, swinging a leg over to straddle it and, keeping a low profile, scoot yourself forward, riding the kayak until you were over the cockpit, slipping your bum down into the seat then "folding" your legs one by one into the cockpit. I think this is the move responsible for most of the bruising on my inner thighs... ouch! We also learnt self rescues using a float on one end of the paddle so the paddle could act an outrigger for stability and at the same time also act as a ladder to hook your leg onto to get you back up into the kayak.

The assisted rescues were a piece of cake in comparison but we tried a couple of variations and took turns at being the rescuer and rescuee. At this point I felt as though we'd learnt a lot to help even with the sit on tops and in particular the self resue with the paddle float will be a skill that will transfer should I ever need it.

We clambered out of the pool, helped put the lane markers and covers back, and changed into dry clothes. Once the kayaks were all loaded up onto the trailer everyone headed back to the shop for lunch and some discussion on the types of things you should have with you for a day trip.

Fed and rehydrated, it was time to learn the next skill set down at Lake Pupuke. It was here we learnt different paddle strokes. First off we learnt how to paddle sideways, not quite what I expected, I'd have thought that going forward might have been first!! Still, as we would be rafting up together to watch new techniques at different points during the lake session this was going to be an important stroke. It was a bit windy where we put in and it was hard to tell whether we were doing this properly because we were being blown about. We set off across the lake for a more sheltered spot. Paddling forward with seems pretty straight forward but Andy spent time to ensure we new which muscles should be engaging at the different parts of the stroke, pushing (or punching) the top arm forward rather than pulling the bottom arm back, a subtle difference but it makes paddling less of an effort. He also checked our form as we set off and then had us turn around and paddle backwards for a stretch. Once we were more sheltered we practiced using the sideways stroke... it's a cool movement and not dissimilar to a belly dance move... I almost went into a trance doing this!

Time to raft up... and put this stroke into a real situation. I edged sideways towards the next person, wow, this worked a treat, I was doing it! Then .... whoops, my bad! I thought I was close enough so I reached across to the next kayak, stretch... strrreeetcchhh.... just..a..little...more..... SPLASH!! Ha, I was in... and out!! I popped out from under my kayak to see everyone looking at me!! Ha! At least I knew how to get back in!! Andy came over to assist me by stabilising my kayak and I clambered back into the cockpit without any problems... the lesson resumed...

Next we learnt how to turn using sweep strokes from the front of the kayak, and then make tighter turns by combining a sweep from the back of the kayak... I really enjoyed these moves, it was almost balletic and again, done over and over, something that could set you into a trance.

Time to learn bracing... this involved edging the kayak.... leaning so the water came up the side of the kayak, and push the paddle down ward to help spring back upright. We started small, only going over a little way. As I got the hang of this I started leaning further and further, closer to the point of no return. it was a bit freaky to have the sensation of tipping and react quickly enough, in the right way, to push back up again. As I practised, pushing over further and further, the water got closer to my spray skirt, and then up over it and yet I recovered. Wooohooo!! Yeah, this was cool. I transfered to the other side to try that. I must have been a bit over confident because the first time over in the right and.... SPLASH!!! I was in again!! Oh well, at least I was getting in some additional rescue training!! Might as well get our money's worth... at least that's what I told myself!

So enough of that.... We learnt how to stop next and after a game of chicken to test it out Andy showed us how to use our paddle as a rudder - something we'd need to know in the surf. This was tried out on the way back to the shore buy getting up some speed and then flicking our paddle back to steer while the momentum died off.

Back at the shore we loaded up the gear... that was all for today! I was starting to feel the muscle fatigue from using muscles in a completely different way... it was a great feeling and that night I slept soundly... and snored like a buzz saw, by all accounts. I needed it ...

Sunday would bring new challenges!

What was I whinging about?

2008-04-04T09:14:00.005+13:00

Well, after the torment that was belly dance class last week which ended with me feeling like crap about my progress (or lack thereof, as I saw it) things are looking up.
I had spent time listening to the music and watching parts of the instructional DVD the teacher loaned me, but... I still felt a bit stuck in terms of what moves to put to the music.
On Saturday we had an extra practise for the Wings number we will perform in the show and in our breaks we watched Louise practise her tribal fusion number. I think this is where I had a bit of a revelation, seeing someone performing right there rather than the smooth production of a DVD. I picked up a few ideas to toy with. I also got some unexpected encouragement from one of my classmates who, after I told her how bad I felt after last class, said to me "But you looked so confident! You really looked like you knew what you were doing! Oh no, I wished I'd told you that on the night!!"
To be honest I don't know if I'd have believed her if she'd told me that after class, but after a couple of days of introspection and setting myself a few goals it was just what I needed to hear.
I stopped to buy a cheap MP3 player on the way home so that I had no excuse... I would take every opportunity to listen to the music I could.
I got home, loaded it up and started dancing... I tried out a move I'd seen Louise do, it fitted the music nicely so I started adding a few more moves... Over the next day or so I had moves set out for the first 40 seconds or so of the music.... progress at last!! And I was also starting to formulate a few ideas for parts later on in the piece. I started to allow myself to believe I could do this after all!
Wednesday night rolled around fast enough and this week, while I was so excited to have broken through a wall, quite a few of the others had hit their own wall. Some of them seemed to be feeling like I was the previous week. They hadn't had time to work with their music and were starting to feel like they had made the wrong decision over their choices of style/music. Some of them asked outright for help which spawned the next exercise for the class.
We each had to pick someone elses piece of music and improvise to it. We'd spent a lot of time listening to our own music and only heard parts of each others so it was a bit like improvising to a new piece.
I volunteered to go first and chose the veil number. I borrowed a beautiful silk veil and went for it... it was so much fun! Having had the revelation for my own piece that sometimes less is more and that trying to do ever move in the book at once was overkill I was really enjoying myself. Some hip drops here, wave the veil, a shimmy, a turn, some more hip drops... I was doing it! I spontaneously went to perform angel wings, a move that involves flicking the veil up in front and walking into it as you stretch you arms out wide. When perform correctly the veil flicks over each arm creating wings... really pretty! This is where things went a bit awry....
I had never before worked with a silk veil and they behave in a different way to chiffon or other materials. Being lighter and therefore more "floaty" they are beautiful to watch but you have to be aware they are more... er... temperamental... Silk being the diva of veils they are a bit more highly strung than their plainer counterparts and need a bit more pandering to for them to perform well for you.
So there I was, making angel wings... Flick.... the veil flew up in front of me, twist... ready to fall back over my arms... I stepped forward so that the veil would settle at my throat and the move would be complete.... except... I wasn't ready for the veil to punish me, obviously it knew I was a beginner and I wasn't treating it with the respect and adoration due to a star, the queen of veils. So as I stepped forward the veil settled... it floated slowly down... flutter flutter... oh so pretty... but I was too fast, I was rushing it and this diva wasn't going to be dictated to by a novice. It floated down to settle... not at my throat, it settled over my head!! So there I was arms outstretched with the bloody thing blinding me.... maybe trying to suffocate me for treating it like a mere common chiffon veil. I tried to blow it off as if it was a stray hair on my face... I tried again... and again. There were giggles from the class (including myself) and the teacher was telling me to work with it. What a hoot! I'm not sure how I got it off in the finish and soon after that my minute of music ended. As I sat down I resolved to get myself a silk veil to train and tame!
Everyone took their turn and when someone chose my piece of music I found it really interesting that for one part of the music she danced steps with a turn to the back, a pose and then turned back to the front again ... it was almost the same moves I had already decided to use for exactly that part of the music. This was really very encouraging! To think that someone else heard the music and interpreted it in virtually the same way as I had... it was a confirmation that I was on track.
The whole point of the exercise was to help each other see what others spontaneously did to the music and to help build ideas to get started on our choreographies... a bit of a think tank I suppose. When you've gotten so close to the music, listening to it over and over, finding all the accents and learning it by heart, I guess to an extent you get too close to it. You start trying to plan every move to the music rather than simply letting the music move you. With that in mind I'm going to keep working on my music a few seconds at a time... and let it happen!

A braver woman than I

2008-04-03T08:25:00.003+13:00

I was thinking the other day about what it would be like to shave my head to raise money for a cause. I'm not entirely sure where this idea popped up from, maybe I had a dream about it? Maybe because I'm booked in for my first haircut in ages - I haven't had a trim since last year!
So anyway I was thinking about what that would be like to do it, the initial smoothness, the stubbly prickly regrowth that would soon grow out to a softer fuzz. The reactions from other people and the thought of helping out a cause with donations from sponsors....
But... I was only just thinking about it and wondering. After all I've been trying to grow my hair longer, mainly so I feel more like a belly dancer and can incorporate mor hair flicks and tosses into my dancing. Tossing your head about with short hair does not quite have the same effect!!
So, when I saw that Jules was actually going to do this I got shivers up my spine... and immediately sponsored her... to ease my guilt at being vain enough to want to keep my hair... and because it is such a great cause. Go on now... join the fun!

Girls' Day Out

2008-03-29T17:19:00.006+13:00

The Girls' Day Out event is on this weekend. I've never been to one of these and to be honest I have no real desire to... The type of girl's day out I enjoy is the one we had over our New Year holiday...

We had a great time over on the Barrier at the beginning of the year. At one point Tom was Over at our part ime neighbours - the family that own/have shares in a couple of sections next to us. Louise mentioned to Tom that she's always wanted to go out on a fishing charter but never had because it was difficult to get onto on as a single person. We decided to organise a trip out for Louise, Andrea an myself and leave the boys at home one day. I rang Craig of Tryphena Charters to set something up.

We've been out with Craig quite a few times now and knew he'd be the man for the job. He's keen on his fishing and always so enthusiastic when he takes you out. He's also very generous with advice and tips on technique and tackle... top man! We always had a good time out with Craig and never fail to come home with some good stories and a fair whack of fish.

We arranged to meet him at Tryphena wharf at 2pm in a couple of days... we were all set!

On the day we were going to go Tom, Libby & I went down to the cafe to treat ourselves to breakfast. When we got back there was a text message waiting for us from Craig... "I have a plan - can you come earlier?" ... this was intriguing! When I called him to see what was up he said he wanted to take us out for kingfish! OH.MY.GOD!!! I'd never caught a kingfish before! I ran through the bush to see if Andrea and Louise were home and check if they were cool with leaving earlier. Louise have her foot in a cast after slipping down the hill and injuring her archilles but said she was still up for it. I think Tom was a smidgin (only a little smidgin) envious at the prospect of us catching kingys... he had never caught one at that point either!

We drove over the hill to meet Craig and he motored out towards our fishing spot for the day. He'd given us a rundown on the dos and don'ts and we fired our jigs over the side. Before long Andrea yelled out... she was into a kingy! I don't think the others really knew what they were in for so when Andrea's line started peeling out she hung onto the rod for dear life! Craig started coaching her on when to wind back line and when to let it run... after a while she reckoned it was too hard... Craig told her "You hooked it... you have to get it back to the boat before we can unhook it!" She clung to the rod, knuckles white from the effort. After a few more minutes she said she didn't think she could hold on much longer so I took over for her. Eventually we landed the fish - he was beautiful!! Not a monster but most certainly a good sized fish! Andrea looked stunned when she saw the size of it... it turned out to be the biggest fish of the day.

Craig manouvered back over the spot again and once more the jigs went over the side for the next drift. He threw a popper out the back to show us the kingys chasing it back to the boat. The rest of the afternoon was a bit of a blurr, I couldn't tell you who caught the next fish or how many fish we even caught. Not all of them were lagal size and of those that were, most went back for another day. Every drift over the pin, except one, we hooked up a fish and once or twice all 3 of us hooked up at once!

After her first fish Andrea had a better idea of what to expect and landed all the rest of her hookups herself. Louise had it sussed, she had her cast jammed into the side of the boat she was able to lean on it for extra leverage. We had a ball! There was only one rod end between the three of us so whoever hooked up used it... or whoever had the biggest fish on at the time. Craig later admitted that he did have a gimble on board but his attitude was "the fish feels pain, you feel pain, it's a fairer contest".

Our bodies ached from the effort and eventually, after about 6 or 7 shots at "one last drift", we decided enough was enough! We had 4 fish in the boat and it had been exciting day!

When we got back to the ridge everyone was waiting. I though Andrea's husband was going to faint when he saw the size of of them! The kids were buzzing with excitement and everyone traipsed over to ours where another neighbout (from below our section) did the honours and carved them up!

I went to bed exhausted and aching, and dreamt all night about jigs flashing through the water! The following morning the bruises on my legs, groin and stomach had started to show through and my arms still felt like they were going to fall off... but it didn't matter, I couldn't stop grinning every time I thought about our day on the water with the kings, our awesome girls'day out!

What a phony!!

2008-03-28T18:37:00.008+13:00

Okay so issues about being back on the mainland aside I was however looking forward to belly dance classes! I'd missed one week of class so was keen to get back into it even though I'd not really had any chance to practice the choreography we've been learning, nor have I really put any thought into the dance and music for my solo development class over the week away.
I jumped in the car keen and eager to head off to class, turned the key... click... turned it again... click... crap - flat battery!! I'd taken my car in for a warrant recheck in the morning after replacing the brake light bulb, what I hadn't realize that at the testing station they turned my lights on and so when I got back home I didn't know to turn them off!! Gaaaah!!
I called the AA for a jump start, left a message with my teacher to let her know I'd be late then waited for an hour for the AA to turn up and get me going again.... gggrrrrr!
So, I missed all but the last 5 minutes of the first class. I got there in time to join in one last run through the choreography and actually surprised myself by keeping up with most of it except the formation flying parts.
Solo development class was another story though. This week we were all to dance in front of the class to the second minute of our chosen piece of music... again we were to be videoed to watch later along side feedback from the teacher. As we'd done the chair dance a couple of weeks ago the thought of dancing in front of the others wasn't too daunting.... that was... until... I watched the people before me get up and do their thing. It seemed to me that they've put a lot more thought and practice into their pieces than I had. I started to get a bit worried.
My turn came around eventually and I got up to give it my best shot, it could have been worse, at least I managed to keep moving and not freeze up but still I felt as though I could have done a lot better if I'd put in more effort (any effort) since the chair dance. The entire time I did my best to interpret the music but the style is still quite foreign to me and I felt quite disappointed with myself.
At the end of class my teacher tried to transfer the video and feedback from the chair dancing to a flash drive for me to bring home and analyze but there was some sort of compatibility issue so instead I stayed on to watch it and read the feedback before heading home. There was a lot more positive feedback than I'd expected and all the points to improve on were very fair and most definitely warranted. I got home with a determination to make more of an effort to improve.
I set the alarm for earlier so that the next morning I got up to put in some practice before work. This was when I started to feel quite dejected, nothing was happening naturally, nothing was spontaneously jiggling, shimmying or popping and I felt as though I was constantly thinking about what to dance. What was I thinking when I chose this style of dance!
There was no way I was going to be able to come up with anything like the videos I'd seen of the gorgeous dancers making it look oh so natural! All my moves were on the "up" rather than being earthy and grounded... Why did I ever consider I could do this? Who did I think I was? I'm no dancer! Had I bitten off more than I could chew?
Thankfully my teacher had loaned me another DVD to watch. This one was more of an instructional DVD rather than pure performance. I've started watching it and practicing some of the combinations and now have clawed back a little hope that I can do this. Whatever comes out of this class I have to remember a few things... This is the first time I've gone through this process! My physique is a whole lot different from those fantastic dancers I've watched performing so no matter what I do, at this point in time I'll look nothing like them. And... I'm still learning for goodness sake! I need to lighten up on myself... this is meant to be fun for God's sake!!
So I’ve been listening to the track over and over and realize that I will have to make the choreography far less ornamental than anything on the DVDs I’ve seen… at the end of the day it will be mine and I will have learnt a lot by going through the process.

The end of the magic...

2008-03-25T19:58:00.003+13:00

... for now....
So I'm back on the mainland and it doesn't quite feel right. I was really not looking forward to leaving our little corner of paradise... and was even less enthusiastic about arriving back in the city. I think that perhaps my brain is resisting reality because I feel very floaty and am operating almost "out of body". It's a bit bizarre really, it's a bit like I still have sea legs and I feel as though I'm hovering a few feet away from my body. My balance feels out of whack and everymove feels like going through treacle. It's almost as though I'm operating in a different gravity field when I get back and that my body is resisting becoming attached to this reality ... I'd much rather be back on the island.
I'm just going to kick back and try to fit back in... slowly... very slowly... and check my Lotto tickets!!

Having a grand time ... thanks for asking!

2008-03-24T18:18:00.003+13:00

But have been far to busy to write so here's some teaser photos from our latest GBI trip... more later :)

Zday

2008-03-16T14:29:00.003+13:00

Last night I went to a showing of the film Zeitgeist at Claris Sports Club. Tom had already downloaded the movie so I had already seen most of it once.

I am not yet sure what I think about it... there is a lot to take in.

There were about 25-30 people at the club to see the film and some of the reactions were interesting to watch/listen to.

Part of me wishes I hadn't seen it at all... I don't want to have to think about it... It's too confronting... I don't want to have to make a call on whether I believe what its saying.... I don't want to believe that there are people in this world so consumed by greed they have no regard for the rest of us except as a means to further their own wealth...

and what exactly am I meant to do about it anyway?

But... I have seen it... and it keeps popping into my head .... and I keep thinking about it... and even though I don't really want to, I think I might have to watch it a few more times to get my head around it... I guess that's the point.

Home alone... away from home

2008-03-15T18:37:00.005+13:00

Yay! Back on the Barrier!!

I was a real sadsack most of the day… my own fault. I’d stayed on at the pub last night and was suffering for it this morning. I didn’t have any motivation and basically lay about feeling sorry for myself most of the day. Funnily enough, the closer I got to the Barrier the better I felt. The drive to the airport with the windows right down helped… as did the bottle of V I skulled on the way! By the time I got off the plane I was feeling a million times better! What a magical place this is!!
Steve picked me up and drove me up to the bach… the first time I’ve been traveled over here without Tommy also being here!

I opened up and walked in… Phoooaarr! What is the pong?? I looked around…

Can you see my welcoming committee?

On the bench to the left??

Take a closer look…

That’s the last time we’re leaving the trap set when we’re not here!! Just as well I got rat bait to lay this trip!

So, I got that cleaned up, hooked the fridge up to the gas bottle and set it running and have been kicking back enjoying the peace and quiet.
LOVELY!!

Now I’m off down to the Club for dinner and a movie… and given my improved state of health… probably a beer.

Chair dance.....?

2008-03-13T21:34:00.011+13:00

... anyone? anyone at all?
Well.... the latest installment of my Solo Development class was very... ummmm... interesting... challenging.... freaky...
Lordy I nearly freaked out!
We had been given a DVD each to watch and review. In class this week we had to give our opinions of it and then... sit on a chair and interpret our chosen piece of music in dance from the top half up.... Yikes! Not only that but our teacher was videoing each of us so we can see it later alongside of any comments she has to offer... gulp!
Luckily I was not first up but still it was a daunting experience.
My DVD was Tribal Fusions... I was able to review this quite easily. The performances ranged from what I considered to be belly dance to more modern dance (without necessarily being belly dance). Some pieces I loved - some I hated with a passion!
Then ... my performance time... it didn't help that initially the wrong music was playing - most certainly not the track I had picked out from the beginning! Once we got that sorted it was crunch time! As I had watched the DVD I realised I would need to work on my arm technique and had been thinking about this not realising just how soon I would need to put it into practice. I made it through the first gruelling 60 seconds but it was hard!... No hips, no stepping..... I found myself becoming more internalised to trying and shut out distractions - not necessarily a bad thing but also not making contact with my audience. I did start to relax more towards the end and just "let it happen" which resulted in a spontaneous "flutter" ... I surprised myself with that one!
What I am really keen to find out is the feedback from the teacher... I won't be in class next week so I guess I'll have to wait for that.
The really interesting thing about this whole exercise is that it was a whole lot less frightening than "the circle of death" does this mean that I'm finding more self confidence in my dance? I suppose it must... so I guess this class is achieving exactly what I'd hoped for! Challenging me as a dancer... how scary is that?
Watch out world!!

Going on tour!

2008-03-11T20:06:00.003+13:00

I'm really excited! I've been busting to say something but I didn't want to jinx it before it was set in stone...
My bellydance teacher is organising a group trip over to Sydney in November to see the Farha Tour! How exciting!
I put my name down a couple of weeks ago as a definate starter and we have just been waiting to hear if there would be enough people to make it viable. We do!! Today I paid my deposit and am really excited.
As well as seeing the show there will be opportunity to attend workshops with some amazing dancers so now I'll have to study the workshop timetable and work out what it is I want to try!

Squeeeeeee!! Did I mention how excited I am?

Not JUST another brick in the wall...

2008-03-10T08:32:00.024+13:00

Wow! What a weekend... and another step in the process to our mudbrick house!

We travelled up to Dargaville on Saturday with the intention of getting more "hands on" and experience the mudbrick process first hand.

Saturday afternoon we went out to visit Craig and Kimberly (my cousin) at their new house site and spent a few hours out there chewing the fat and catching up. They took us to a neighbouring site to see the start of another mudbrick build.

I went over and picked up one of the bricks to get a feel for them.... phoarrr! Not at all lightweight!! Craig reckoned they were around 13kgs each when wet.... Lawsie mercy!

Tommy was very excited to see the site as a work in progress and buzzed about asking questions, poking & prodding and picking up bricks. As Tommy quizzed Craig and they chattered away like a couple of wee boys in the sandpit Kimberly said to me... "Pssst... Hey cuz... you can almost see Tommy drooling!" ... no almost about it... he was!! And the glorious sunset Kimberly had organised for us went (almost) unnoticed... All that night I dreamt about lugging bricks about in rather surreal circumstances.... not unlike what I imagine the building of the ancient egyptian pyramids to have been with labourers (including me!!) racing about carrying bricks into position like busy ants, whips cracking, the sun beating down, loinclothes ... I'm sure you get the picture... I woke up Sunday morning feeling quite spent already and with a smidgin of concern about what I was letting myself in for....

We had gone up north with the intention of working on one of Craig's projects... a mudbrick building for a local paper making business (incidentally owned by my Father's cousin) so we packed up on Sunday morning and set off. We stopped in town to get some stuff for lunch and some gloves then drove out through Te Kopuru to the building site.

The rest of the day was like making mud pies and thankfully not at all like my dream! The pace was very relaxed. Although there was heavy work involved it was at a sedate pace, there was no rushing about, no whips cracking and (praise be) no loinclothes!! Most of the time it was more like playing at mudpies than hard graft, much to my relief.

The building process was up to the 13th course. Craig and Boots set out the corners and ran their string lines, with Tommy hard on their heels watching and quizzing them... Then we started helping with laying the next course of bricks. In order to do this we clambered up on scaffolding laid out a bed of mud mortar and after placing the bricks mortar was slopped between them puushing it int the gaps with our fingers smoothing the excess off the face of the wall. Being the shortest I found it a bit awkward trying to place the bricks properly into the mortar bed so in the finish we settled into a routine with Tommy and Craig placing the bricks while Boots or I shovelled mortar up to them and brought more bricks. Boots was also buzzing about mixing more mortar and loading more bricks into the water drums. There were no set roles and really everyone worked together under Craigs direction.

It all just kind of happened with someone doing what needed doing as it needed doing... really quite an organic process!

We left at about 4 in the afternoon to make the trip back to Auckland with Craig telling us our apprenticeship was served...

"That's all there is to it!" he told us, grinning.

Tommy was buzzing with excitement about how easy all it was. It had been one thing to know, in theory, how it was all worked but having experienced part of the process first hand has made it so much more real and certainly more achievable. I had a bit of an afterglow, that lovely tired feeling you get after a day's physical work to achieve something. We contributed in a small way to something that will become a fantastic building but more importantly we have had an experience that really proves to us that our dream of building our own mudbrick house is not a dream at all, it's an entirely acheiveable goal.

As if that wasn't enough, on our trip back we had another experience that reminded us why we want to move off the mainland....

Chemical reaction...

2008-03-03T16:48:00.005+13:00

In a conversation with some workmates somehow the topic turned to MacGyver. I can recall seeing the pilot show for this where at one point MacGyver saves the day by plugging a leaking acid pipe with a bar of chocolate. Now, I'd have written the whole thing off as a crock of codswollop had it not been for science class...

...5th form science class, with Mr Calder.

One lesson we we treated to a somewhat spectactular demonstration of the same reaction MacGyver used. It involved mixing sulphuric acid with sugar to demonstrate the dehydration properties of the sulphuric acid. Mr Calder brought out a really big beaker - it must've held at least a litre. Into it he poured some sucrose ... he seemed rather gleeful, with a twinkle in his eye. Then as he added the suphuric acid he was fair dancing about like a pixie.
Initially we weren't very impressed... all that seemed to happen was the sugar tuned yellow... not very exciting really....
But then there was a bit of a waft... and a bit more.... fumes like smoke started filling the room and the distinct smell of burning toffee permeated everything. As the thing fizzed and spewed out smoke it got to the stage where we could barely see each other...
"Okay, everybody outside... come on now... is everyone here? Standstill while I do a head count..."
Ha!! We had to hang out outside while the air cleared in the classroom. This was going to be something to talk about. As far as any of us knew, this was the first time anyone had evacuated a science class! Eventually the haze cleared and we started filing back i nto the class.... Lo! there! ... where the beaker had farted and spewed forth all those fumes... was a tower... a black tower of.... now what was that reaction meant to produce?.... A carbon tower rose out of the beaker and stood there... at least 18 inches tall.... As we all stood about with our mouths agape in awe, Mr Calder grinned, eyes twinkling... it was the BEST.SCIENCE.CLASS.EVER!!

This doesn't even do the experience justice.... but gives you some idea...

Quizzical

2008-02-27T11:16:00.020+13:00

Our local pub, Mad Dogs & Englishmen, runs a weekly quiz on Tuesday evenings. It became a bit of an institution for me for a number of years, exercising the brain by trying to dredge up answers to all manner of trivia questions, all in the company of my team mates.

In the last 6 months or so I've let it slide a bit though. It can sometimes end up being quite a late night - well, for late me anyway - and I've taken on other activities like bellydancing so the evenings get quite busy during the week. Tommy generally goes along but I don't always join him any more.

Yesterday morning I got a call from Trish, the bar manager, to see if Tom and I would fill in for the evening as our Quizmaster and his lovely assistant (Alan & Lesley) were unable to run the quiz this week. Tom had already spoken with Trish and said we could probably do it but check if I was up for it. We have filled in once before and it was a bit of fun so I told Trish we'd do it for them. Alan had drawn up all the questions and answers for every round except the music round so for the most part all we really had to do was show up.

When I arrived home from work Tom had pulled together a list of potential songs to use for the music round. It's a bit of a hit and miss affair given the wide range of age groups usually represented in the contestant teams and trying to pull together a suitable range of songs is by no means as easy as it seems... and Alan has to do this every week! Tom played me snippets of each we whittled the list down to 10 songs based on my reaction to each. Anything that wasn't vaguely familiar to me was ditched immediately, the ones I got both the song title and artist right away were ditched which left us with a selection of songs that I could name either the title or the artist or that were familiar to me but until I was told what they were couldn't place them. We edited out snippets of each of the 10 finalists, pulled them together into one soundtrack to transfer onto the laptop and then it was down to the pub to set up.

I made sure the music round was going to work over the sound system as Tom read over the questions and answers to make sure we could follow Alan's handwritten notes, all the while punters filtered in the doors and settled themselves into their usual spots.

Being the quizzers is just as much fun albeit a much different experience to participating as quizzees. This being the second time we've filled in and so not a whole new experience, I think we were far more relaxed this time around. The reading of the questions, collecting and marking each teams sheets, updating the scoreboard and finally providing the answers to each round fell into a easy rhythm as we worked our way through the quizz. I have to say there are certainly some creative people out there alongside the very knowledgeable ones, some of the answers we got back were really clever despite being most obviously wrong! Sometimes you'll get a sheet back with blank spaces left beside the questions a team can't get but the real creative stuff happens when people make up answers even when they don't know the right answer. It certainly adds to the amusement factor!

.... Q. who were the two main characters in the TV series CHiPs?
.... one of the Answers submitted A. Salt & Vinegar.

Tommy really seems to enjoy acting as quizmaster and plays up to the role throwing in his own spin on things and telling the occasional joke. He also loves to watch the reaction to the music rounds we pull together and seeing if the answers that come in follow mistakes he'd predicted as were making it.

All in all we had a great time despite the rather late hour we finally arrived home.

All is.... WET... in paradise

2008-02-23T14:45:00.014+13:00

Having arrived on Thursday afternoon ready for the weekend plans were afoot for fishing. I’d be working from the bach on Friday and Tom had a few things to finish off, some quotes to do and a couple of errands to run but we’d be all go for Saturday… wouldn’t we?
Alas no… for anyone that was starting to get the impression our little piece of paradise was the perfect island retreat… a little shot of reality is in order…

Yep, it’s persisting down and has been ever since Friday evening.

There will be no fishing … aside from the couch fishing…

We may even not make it back to the mainland as scheduled tomorrow!! Tom is meant to be going back on the ferry and I have a flight booked in the afternoon… oh well, not much that can be done about that!!

Still… on a brighter note, this is the very first blog entry from the island!! Yay for the satellite dish… that is amazingly still attached to the roof!!

Just another weekend in paradise

2008-02-18T22:07:00.020+13:00

It got off to a bit of a false start with my Thursday afternoon flight being cancelled because of the weather. I immediately re-booked for the following morning for the etra flight they put on at 8am. Tommy met me at the airport and we went up to the bach to get coffee.
We decided that it was too breezy to go out in the bay so we decided to pack all the kayaks up and head to Harataonga and then see what would happen. Once there we loaded our gear onto the yaks and paddled down the creek to the beach. The surf was quite big but we decided to head out and try and find a more sheltered spot to base ourselves. Getting through the surf was a bit of fun but we all got through without any spillages. Gina did well considering she wasn't too keen to begin with but she paddled through like a pro.

We found a small beach around the corner and paddled over there to make it our base. Tom and I both had a fish while the others fished off the rocks for bait fish. Once they'd stocked up on bait we all went out for a bit more fishing. Tom and I cuaght enough snapper for everyone to have some for dinner so when we caught up with Tim and Angus to find that Angus had caught a good sized Porae we knew we definately had plenty for dinner. Gina had already gone back by this stage but we tried fishing a little longer before heading back. The swell seemed bigger on the way back in. Tim and Angus beached okay but Tom and I both canned out!
We called into the Club on the way home and ended up there until quite late with the guys getting a bit carried away playing table tennis.
Everyone woke up pretty late on Saturday morning so we mooched around the place until the afternoon when we decided to go to the hot pools. First though we went for a drive to Whangaparapara and had a couple of beers at the lodge. By the time we drove back to the track to the hot pools all the vehicles that had been there had gone so it looked like we would have the place to ourselves. I'm not entirely sure how long it takes us to walk the track to the pools - half an hour maybe - it's always quicker to get there though than coming back. Tom and I climbed into the main pool where the track meets the stream and proceeded to soak while the others explored a bit further up the stream. After a while we were starting to over cook and about then Angus came down the track to tell us they'd found a deeper pool further up. We bundled off up the track and climbed over the rocks to find a fabulous pool - deeper and more like a spa pool ... ahh... bliss!
The walk back to the car after our soak was a bit more sedate than the trip in as we were all so relaxed. Of course... we had to call into the club for the boys to get their ping-pong fix on the way home.

It was an early start on Sunday morning to get down to the wharf and try another spot of fishing. The conditions weren't fantastic but we'd been out in worse. We decided it was too breezy to venture out of the bay so we drift fished our way back along the coast and into the bay. The fish started coming onto the bite when we'd been out for half an hour or so. I kept two snapper for the bin. As we were driftining at different speeds and in different dirrections it was hard to say how the others were doing but once back at the wharf we had 6 snapper to take home for lunch. you don't get it much fresher than that!

The sun came out fierce after midday and having had an early and active morning, once we'd had our fill of fish we all found our own spots out of the sun for a bit of a kip. We roused ourselves about 4 o'clock, all a bit grumpy from sleeping in the heat, so the cure for that was to head to the bottom end of Kaitoke beach for a swim and snorkle around the rocks. Once in the water all the earlier grumpiness faded and we had a great time swimming. Tom came out of the water with his pockets stuffed with mussels so Tim and Angus took up the challenge to get us enough for dinner... hunter-gatherers!

Dinner was of course mussels - some steamed and eaten out of the shells and the rest I made into mussel fritters. It's a fantastic feeling to end the day knowing you've provided yourself with a couple of meals from catching to cooking. I had a fantastic sleep that night!

Sadly, Monday morning rolled around and it was time for me to head back down to the airport to catch the 7:30 flight back to the shore. Still, I can't complain... we seem to pack so much into our days that I felt as though I'd been away for a week!

New Challenges

2008-02-14T08:43:00.002+13:00

Last night was the first night back at Belly Dance classes for the year.
I’ve moved up a level into a new class (Level 3) because I felt I needed a bit more of a challenge. We practised using the same moves/routine to various pieces of music, all different styles and tempos. This was a really interesting exercise and although I felt quite clumsy at times it will be things like this that will really start to stretch me. We also spent time playing zills so I’ve dusted mine off and have them with me so that I can continue to practise when the opportunity arises.
There is a Solo Development class held straight after the Level 3 class which I have also enrolled in. This is certainly going to be challenging! I think we are going to be creating/choreographing our own dance to a piece of music. Our homework for the first week is to listen to music tracks given to us on a CD and chose one of them. The style I have is Tribal Fusion and I am wondering if perhaps I’ve bitten off a bit more than I can chew! Still, I wanted to push myself a bit more and this will most certainly do that! Everyone in the class has been given a different style of music/dance so that makes it even more interesting. There can be no copying so the resulting dances will all be truly unique from each other. In some ways I think that this will also take some of the pressure off in as much as there won’t be any direct comparisons between each person… still a bit daunting though!
Being in both classes will boost my incentive to practise– something I had gotten quite slack about in the last couple of terms! I’m pleased that I’ve made the move into the move advanced class and am looking forward to seeing what the rest of the term brings!!

Melt down!!

2008-02-11T18:31:00.000+13:00

Gah!! It's very hot! Normally I don't break out in a sweat doing the dishes but.... sheesh! I got home from work to an oven! With the house shut up all day the rush of hot air nearly knocked me over as I opened up the front door! It's not so much the heat, the mugginess is horrible... it needs to have a good downpour to flush the air. It feels quite oppressive but perhaps we'll get some rain tonight... certainly feels as though we might!
I suppose it doesn't help that I've had the dehydrator going all day! I got a load of outdoor tomatoes from the markets yesterday and set a batch going to dry. I've vaccuum packed the first lot and set another batch going... I plan on making loads this year as they were great to use in rissotos and stews but I didn't make nearly enough last year. My tomato plants haven't yeilded much so far, I was a bit late getting them in, so I'm starting off with bought tomatoes. At $10 for 4 buckets you can't really go wrong!!

Steep learning curve

2008-02-06T18:17:00.001+13:00

It’s been a real process trying to figure out the whole internet thing for the island. You see, the plan is to start spending more time over there but to do that I would need to start working remotely. For this to happen we need a computer … and broadband internet access.
Over time we had started researching the options for getting broadband. There is no existing phone on the section although it looks as though there may be cables running close by to hook up to. Even if we did get a phone line in to the section we are still limited to dial-up internet as broadband is only available through Claris and more recently Tryphena, but not up our way. It seemed to us that our only option was going to be internet via satellite.
I did a little bit of research to find some providers in NZ and see what sort of reviews people gave them. In an effort to get more opinions I left a couple of messages on internet forums – the replies to the messages on both forums were not particularly useful on the satellite front although one response gave me information on booster aerials for cell-phones (we ended up getting one that has proved successful)
As much as I searched the internet for information it seemed that we were going to have to go one step further and contact a satellite internet provider. This was a bit of a leap as I really had no idea what to ask!! Well, first of all we needed to know if there was coverage for GBI… there’s the first question. Hmmm and given the limited power resources, did the satellite set-up require and if so how much? Also given that installation for the bach would only be until we have built so could a satellite be transferred to the main building at a later date? I sent off these initial questions to a company that I had seen good reports of and by the end of the day I had a response. This was promising and a flurry of emails ensued with more detailed info on the power setup and narrowing down what angle of view of the sky we needed to have to ensure connection.
It seemed that every time we had a response answering our questions it prompted even more questions…. The more we found out the more we realized we needed to find out!
Just as it seemed we were beginning to understand things I mentioned it to our IT man at work. He started talking about lag and latency and how this could potentially be a problem with working on the remote desktop…. Oh no!! More stuff to try and understand!
Back to the Satellite people I went asking about the lag issues, trying to seem as though I knew what I was talking about despite, at this stage, only having a very basic understanding… this however proved to be too difficult for them to answer simply for me. In fact I almost felt as if I was being fobbed off… certainly not comforting given the equipment alone was going to cost around $2,500…. It was a lot of money to be shelling out on a system that no-one could guarantee would work for me.
We came to a bit of a standstill until Tom spent some time on the island working (October 07) and got talking to some of the locals who gave him advice on what they were using and most importantly told us who on the island did installations! Tom came home and got in contact with Orcon, based on the info he’d gleaned and the recommendation of the chap who does the installations. We negotiated buying the equipment only from them on the understanding we would have the installation done and would be using their service once it was all up and running…. We placed the order!
The gear arrived and we had it freighted over to the island just before Christmas. By the time we arrived out on the island for a holiday on December 31st the dish was installed!! Wow!
All that remained before I could test it out was to install an inverter to convert power to 240V so that I could plug the laptop in. The boys spent a morning getting the 2 extra batteries hooked up to the solar panels and then it was all go… at least it was once I worked out how to install the wireless router that we’d taken over… Woohoo! We had internet! And now the moment of truth… could I connect to work via remote desktop? Oh yes I could!! Woohoo (again)!!! I was able to answer a few queries via email on jobs that I’d left with other people to do while I was on holiday… excellent!! Not only that but we were also now able to look up the latest tide and weather info when we wanted to go fishing!!
Later in January I went over for the long weekend (Auckland Anniversary) but went a day earlier with the intention of working on Friday to make sure that all the usage over the internet to work was functioning properly. This was crucial as if this worked it would mean that I can start spending more time over there and work remotely … and it doesn’t get much more remote the Great Barrier!! I had figured that if the experiment failed it would only be one day out of my holidays but, thankfully, everything went smoothly and I was able to work as if I was still in the office… Fantastic!

So now the transition to the island can truly begin!

Writer's block

2008-02-04T14:32:00.000+13:00

no ... to be honest it's hardly that, I've certainly got plenty of things to talk about! I think the problem is not having a regular time set aside to blog... I need to get a bit more disciplined about this!! At the moment I have quite a list of things I could be writing about but it just seems to get longer and longer... and is becoming a bit daunting so I poke my head in the sand and pretend not to notice that I haven't updated... so perhaps a challenge is in order... a posting at least once a week, on a Monday perhaps... lets see if I can do this!!

I'm neglecting y'all

2008-01-22T21:33:00.000+13:00

Sorry!! I haven't been around much!!

Up until Christmas I got really tied up with getting a DVD made for friends and family. It was a culmination of photos and videos from throughout the year to send to friends and family. I was really pleased with the final result but it sucked up a lot of time and so updates suffered...

Then of course we were off to the island for 2 weeks after Christmas and although we've hit a huge milestone and have internet access over there now it was time for friends and family... yet again updates suffered...

Since I got back to work it has been manic. I've worked every day including weekends and even on weekdays have had to put in extra time... I've been too stuffed when I have had time away from work and the last thing I've wanted to do is spend more time in front of a screen so updates have suffered even more...

But... I've been thinking of y'all and so here I am, letting you know I just haven't had time. Perhaps soon I'll become a little more disciplined about updates... that is however a work in progress....
...
...

Home-grown

2007-11-26T15:19:00.000+13:00

When Tommy arrived back from the Barrier the other week he brought back a wee surprise....

... Potatoes!! The garden had been trampled as work started on building the deck so unless it recovers from the beating (and it may yet) there won't be any vege ready for the holiday at New Year. Luckily Tommy decided to see if there was actually anything under the soil and found some lovely tatties under the ruins... Our first Barrier crop!!

And they were delicious!

Random acts of …

2007-11-19T11:14:00.000+13:00

Driving to work this morning, feeling very pleased with myself achieving so much over the weekend, I spotted something… er... unusual.
I was in a queue of traffic waiting for the lights. A few spots ahead of me there was a bus and someone standing on the pavement beside it. I thought perhaps she was waiting to cross the road and wondered why she didn’t cross while the traffic was at a stand still. Then as the bus started moving of she started waving madly at the bus… ah… she’s waving someone off… a friend or perhaps a child on their way to school. But then as the next car moved forward she turned and waved at it too. I could see the driver stiffen up with shock.
As I passed she looked me in the eye, her face was beaming a happy smile,eyes twinkling merrily, and as she waved at me I couldn’t help but smile and wave back. I looked in the rear view mirror as the traffic moved slowly forward and could see her waving at every single car that passed.
I wonder how many people waved back?
Was she a bit loopy? Had she “escaped” the hospital? Or was she just spreading the luuurrrve?
Whatever the motivation it gave me the warm fuzzies and I can’t help but quietly smile each time I think of it... I hope that my smile and wave does the same for her!

Home alone...

2007-11-18T17:31:00.000+13:00

Early Thursday morning Tom left to catch the ferry over to Great Barrier for four days. I heard from him in the evening with very exciting news… the deck is under way and will be finished in the next week or so!! Very cool, I can’t wait to see it! Tommy suggested I fly over for the weekend… damn… that was a tough one. I tossed it up, live for the moment and go over to hell with the housework. The problem was I had planned to do stuff around the house and I knew if I went away then I’d be thinking about what wasn’t getting done. I decided not to go…
When Friday dawned grey and bleak so my decision was sealed… the housework would get done after all. I had hoped to get away from work a bit earlier so I could get a head start on the tasks I’d set for myself. Unfortunately a couple of key people were away so I stayed on in case anything came up that I could help with. After that I didn’t much feel like doing anything but I cleared the dining table and tidied the lounge before I sat down to upload the duck video in the last entry…. Bloody thing kept falling over and I got interested in a late movie so it was 2:00am before I finally went to bed.
The sun streaming in the window woke me … or rather pierced my eyelids around 8am… Gaaah!! Lots to do… gimme coffee!
I rearranged the closet in Libby’s room, cleared the laundry, put a couple of loads of washing through the machine and hung them out… Did the dishes, scrubbed out the kitchen sink and laundry tub… screwed the seat back onto one of the dining chairs, re-attached the drawer handle in the bathroom and Libby’s dressing table, and a few other small chores. I’ve been wanting to make another batch of apricot and chilli jam for ages so that was next on the list. This time I pureed a can of mango and added that to. When I added the sugar it looked like a lot more than normal but it was already mixed in… turned out okay though so I guess I’ve “improved” the recipe again… happy accident!
With all that out of the way I decided I should tackle the digital photos. This is a job I sort of started quite a while ago after we had a bit of scare with the computer but had lost momentum on. My plan was to format the external drive we already have and move all the photos over to there as well as having CD/DVD backups. With Tommy away it was the perfect opportunity but first I had to try and create a logical way to file everything. Everything that was taken since I went digital was pretty much in chronological order but Tom’s photos taken prior to that weren’t really in any sort of system. It took a while to knock them into shape but I got there in the end. Everything got copied over to the external drive and then deleted from the PC as I also made DVD copies of everything. After that I found some random CDs with photos on from various sources so they also got copied to the external drive… Yeehaaa!! All done now so I’m very happy about that!!
I headed off to bed earlier than the previous night but hard a hard time getting to sleep and then dreamt crazy dreams all night…
I was up and on my way to the markets by 7am. I did both Takapuna and Browns bay and stopped in at a temporary clothing sale and scored some bargains… Xmas party dress for $15!! Score!!
Back from the markets, I made a quick coffee while I sprayed the oven then went next door to see Eunice and drop her washing basket back to her (she saved my washing from the rain earlier in the week – what a love!). I also took her over a small jar of my apricot/chilli jam. I spent about an hour chatting with her and by the time I got back the oven was ready for wiping out and rinsing. Then I put the new cushion covers I picked up from the dollar shop on my old cushions … instant makeover! I had “discovered” the curtains for the dining area when I clearing Lib’s room on Saturday so the next thing to tackle was putting them back up! They came down a year ago when we were having the house painted so it was well over-due getting them back up.
It’s been a busy weekend and I’m really pleased with what I’ve achieved. It’s also been quite weird having the house to myself for a whole weekend… It seems like a very long time since it last happened! I’ve really enjoyed being able to do things in my own time without having to think about anyone else. I really has been very productive and yet very relaxing. I’ve been able to get stuck into my list early in the day which has left time for more relaxing pursuits in the afternoons. At the same time it’s been very odd going to bed knowing Tommy won’t be there when I wake up. I have to say that I’m looking forward to him getting home in a couple of hours…. He’s on the ferry back right now. It feels that he’s been away much longer three nights!! We have so much to catch up on!!!

Mid-week Oasis

2007-11-15T20:32:00.000+13:00

Yesterday I went to the Ellerslie Flower Show with Mum and some of her friends. It was a bit of a treat to have a day off work in the middle of the week!

Mum and co had left Dargaville early and arrived to pick me up - or rather get me to drive - around 9:30. It had beed raining so the traffic was pretty congested and we copped a few showers of rain on the way over. Still, we had a really good time. I don't know whether the weather had put people off going or if perhaps being midweek not as many people could go on that day but whatever the cause there weren't any great crowds there. This meant that we didn't have to queue for any of the exhibitions which was a blessing. I reckon going on the first day was a great idea... thanks Mum!

It was a real feast of colour, shapes and ideas. I tucked a few ideas away and managed to restrain my plant buying to three small pots of Bower Beauty... I couldn't resist the lushness of it!! I also treated myself to some smoked garlic and smoked/spiced salt... mmmm!

We were pretty lucky with the weather... well mostly... it rained a few times while we in the exhibition marquees but when we all meet up for lunch it faired hosed down!! We raced to get shelter under a tent near the entrance. It eased (but didn't stop) after a while and we all had coats or umbrellas so we decided to carry on and meet up in another hour. By this stage we'd seen most of the show and what was left was essentially just stalls... still... you never know what you might have missed....

Ha!! Those little fellas sure were having a blast!!

It cleared up not long after this so we went back and revisited some stalls to buy goodies ... I try to leave the actual buying part until just before leaving so that there's less to lug around the show and it also means I've got time to decide if I really do want those things and avoid impulse purchases!

All in all a good day... will have to do it again next year!!

Crackers!

2007-11-08T13:24:00.000+13:00

We were invited to a BBQ dinner and fireworks on Monday (Guy Fawkes) with friends. They have two young children that were very excited about the prospect of seeing their crackers going off. We had a nice meal and as it got dark we started making preparations, filling a large bin with compost as a base to sit the fireworks in and taking everything down to the back of the section.

I had taken my camera so that I could play about with the settings and try to get some photos. I'm trying to learn a bit more about the multitude of features on the camera each time I use it so it was an interesting experiment. A lot of the photos I took were duds... blurry, over exposed, under exposed, or just plain missed the action. There were a few that have escaped the delete key... the sparkler photos turned out kind of cool.

It seems to me that the crackers aren't as spectactular, don't last as long and the sparklers burn too quickly now. Everything seemed so much more magical when I was a kid. They can't have changed too much though because the kids still obviously enjoyed themselves as much as I used to.

I feel quite sad at the prospect that fireworks may be banned in the future because of accidents that occur or the down-right stupidity of some of the people that use them or the poor (dangerous) quality of some brands. Why does the majority have to miss out because of the actions of a few? Every year it seems we get closer to losing this. There are reports of burns and fires caused by fireworks. I find it a bit strange how around Guy Fawkes the media reports on fires more (even though many of these aren't necessarily firework related) but they are really more interested in ratings so fuelling the fire with sensational reporting is the name of the game. Grrrr!

There are so many things out there in far more use and causing far more damage on a more regular basis than fireworks... cars.... alcohol... just for starters. Both individually and in conjunction with one another cause more havoc on a daily basis than fireworks do but I don't think they'll be getting banned anytime soon!

Like I said ... crackers!!

New Addition...

2007-11-07T18:13:00.000+13:00

Meet Lululoo... my new laptop!! We haven't really gotten to know much about each other yet although I suspect she already knows more about me than I do her!!

Do you think you'll hear from me a bit more often now?

Nana's china cabinet

2007-10-03T11:19:00.000+13:00

In the corner of my grandparents’ living room was an oak, lead glass china cabinet. It had been there as long as I could remember. It was always a fascination and held all sorts of treasures. There was the obligatory china – cups, saucer and cake plate sets, little knickknacks, vases and figurines collected over the years. Pretty much everything in there had a story attached to it – sadly I don’t remember them all.

There was a figurine of a lady that had been broken and carefully glued back together a couple of times. This was something my mother (as a girl) had bought as a present for my grandmother at some point.

There were mementos from Mum's wedding - her bouquet, garter and the wee figures off the cake.

There was a tiny wee elephant in a bean. My grandfather and one of his friends had a thing going where they would try and outdo each other finding the smallest gifts… I have a feeling this might have won. I remember, if we’d been really good, my grandfather showing it to us. He’d take the wee box out of the cabinet, carefully removed the cotton wool wadding and reveal a little wee bean with an ivory cap. We’d sit very still while he would fumble with his big fingers to remove the cap and then very carefully shake out the contents… a tiny carved ivory elephant. We would look at it, dwarfed in his big hands, sitting as still as we could and holding our breath in case we caused it to be dropped. Getting it back into the bean and the lid back on was always a more precarious procedure than removing it. I used to love it when we were allowed to have a look and wonder at such a tiny wee thing.

There was a weekend, before the farm was sold, that I was up for a visit. Nana was getting a new lounge suite and was in the process of moving out the old furniture out, having a spring clean and getting rid of the china cabinet…… WHAT?!?!?!?

She said it had been there for years and she was sick of it, she’d take it to the dump or a second hand shop….. WHAT?!?!?!?

All the memories… all the history… it had been there as long as I could remember!! How could she just biff it out?? I was horrified!
“Nana, I’ll buy it off you! Don’t take just throw it out! We’ll get it valued and find out what it’s worth and I’ll buy it off you.”
Nana wasn’t having any of that…. But she said I could have it. She wasn’t interested in the money… she just wanted to make room for her new couch.

She had taken a few things out that she wanted to keep, including a few tea-cup sets that she was putting aside to give to nieces on their 21st, and then she told me to pick out what I wanted and she’d pack up what was left so my sister could look at it and pick things out. Being the eldest I often had first pick at things and having already been given the cabinet I didn’t feel right about taking first dibs on the contents. I asked Nana if we could pack it up and store it under the spare bed until my sister was visiting and could have first choice on what was there. Nana agreed and so we started wrapping the bit’s and pieces and packing them into boxes.

My grandfather (Tom) came in to see how we were getting on, he sat in his chair while we packed and told me where the china cabinet had come from. Before Tom was balloted the farm my Grandparents and Mum lived between Waima and Taheke (South Hokianga). When they were going to move the locals organised a farewell party for them and had a whip-around which was used to pay for the beer. According to Tom, Nana’s brother (who didn’t drink) reckoned they’d bought too much beer but Tom reckoned it was a pretty good party and they had enough…. Anyways, they were presented with the balance of the money from the whip-around and with it they paid for the china cabinet.

While Tom was telling us this Mum had come into the room. She was about seven when they moved to Omamari and had been given a cup, saucer and cake plate with a kingfisher design by the ladies in the CWI as a farewell gift. She said that it should stay with the china cabinet so she would dig it out of the cupboard for me.

And so… I now have the china-cabinet and some of the original contents. As it turned out when my sister had her pick of the contents she chose things that I had not been so keen on so that worked out well. For a long time it had a place in my lounge or dining area of the various homes I’ve lived in since then. Sadly now we are short of space and it now lives in Libby’s room. I feel a bit mean relegating it to a little place where it is not often seen although I do occasionally go and peer through the glass or pick out something to look at… it acts as a prompt to memories and although it seems lonely I can’t bear to part with it altogether.

One day I will have another home where it can once again have pride of place… but until then I will just have to live with the occasional visits to the spare room.

Happy Hips

2007-09-26T14:12:00.000+12:00

Finally it came around… the show! We had been hyping ourselves up for this all term. As well as practising in class we’d had special rehearsals on Saturday afternoons for 3 weeks.

The first group practise was rather daunting trying to get the “formation flying” right. We had all learnt the dance we were going to perform but it was being modified slightly for the group performance to create more movement around the stage and make it more interesting... More interesting alright! For a while there I was a bit worried about whether I’d manage to get it together. In some places instead of doing the moves stepping first to one side then the other (turn stepping right, stepping back to left, turn stepping right) we were meant to turn it into more of an L shape. It doesn’t sound to complex and seemed okay walking through it but once the music was on and we were doing it at speed it all seemed to go pear shaped. After the first rehearsal I vowed to practise it until I got it.

I got up early on the mornings and practised the routine over and over until it was time to leave for work. By the end of that first week I was feeling pretty good about it all. One of my classmates, Santi, however was not! I got a call on the Friday afternoon asking if she could come around and practise with me because she was so worried. We went over the routine at least half a dozen times until she felt better about it and took off home to practise by herself.

As it turned out at the rehearsal the next day the extra practice paid off!

Only one more week until the show!!

We had a very quick rehearsal on the day of the show then headed over to the theatre for a run through on the stage. Wow!! The excitement was building especially with all the other dancers arriving and getting ready. Santi & I went for a wander to the shops and downed a RTD each then despite there being nearly and hour and a half before we had to be ready we decided to get into costume. I’m glad we did because not long after it was almost impossible to move in the dressing rooms. We were the first group on stage and I knew it would all be over in a flash so I was determined to enjoy every moment… that shouldn’t be too hard given I always feel as though my face will split from smiling when we’re dancing!!

Santi & I went out for another RTD to kill a more time and for a wee bit more dutch courage! Then I got a text from Tom saying that he’d forgotten his camera and to meet him outside and to give him mine so he could get some snaps…. Trouble was they were still on their way and the countdown was on for going on stage!

Sadly I had to be on stage before Tom could get to me so I didn’t get any photos of us on stage (although there’s a couple here - #10 & 11) but from all accounts we looked great!

As we were waiting behind the curtain for the audience to seat we were fizzing with excitement. The show had sold out so we'd be dancing for a full house.

At last the audience went quiet and we could hear the MC welcoming everyone. Then the curain opened and..... it was all over so fast!! So much preparation for just a couple of minutes ... But what a buzz! I'd do it all over again!

I caught up with Tom and the others at intermission. Throughout the break there would be drummers on stage and anyone that wanted to dance could get up so I quickly helped Libby into her costume and she hauled me up to the stage! She looked great and had a great time dancing “in the show”.

I watched the second half of the show from an area set aside for the performers, upstairs behind the main seating. It was a bit cramped but I took loads more photos to pass onto others I knew who were performing. It was great to see all the different groups from all over, different levels and styles and so many beautiful costumes! Stunning!

I am busting to see the DVD of the whole show to see what we looked like on stage but I guess I will just have to wait until next term to see that! In the meantime I'll just have to be content watching Libby's time in the spotlight...

Avast ye!

2007-09-19T22:56:00.000+12:00

Ahoy mateys!!! I hope ye all be finding much merriement this fine "talk like a pirate day"
Bless ye and all who sail with ye!

Dreaming...

2007-08-20T15:32:00.000+12:00

I’ve started thinking about making another bedlah (bra and belt) for my belly dancing. I had started dreaming about a costume in burgundy and gold and had figured I could use some of my off-cuts of silks and brocades to create a patchwork for the base and then add sequins and beads for the trim.

The problem is I have a couple of other projects I really should finish first… a cross-stitch that I am nearing the end of. I’m just about sick of the sight of it but am determined that it will not go into the cupboard unfinished to haunt me later!!

I also have a patchwork quilt that is all hand sewn and pretty time intensive – I am aiming for it to be big enough for a queen sized bed and am probably a quarter of the way there... that will get dragged back out of the cupboard once the cross-stitch is finished.

In the meantime there’s no harm in dreaming about how the bra and belt will be... is there?

Perhaps not as it will keep creating opportunities to find other suitable bits and pieces for the construction... For example, I was in Ikes in Browns Bay, an emporium-style end-of-line-bits-and-pieces shop, where I was looking for some black stretch velvet and I found the most gorgeous sheer burgundy material with gold embroidery. I could barely contain myself as I stroked it and started thinking of my new costume... Loooveelly...

THWACK!!!I gave myself a mental slap to remind myself I was on a mission of other sorts and started searching the aisles for the velvet. Ikes has loads of material but there is really no structure to the way it is arranged, some on lying stacked on shelves, some stacked upright against each other in aisles. You have to be prepared to search quite hard to find what you are after and even then you aren’t guaranteed to find it... sometimes you’ll see something one day and then decide to go back the next to buy it but find it has disappeared altogether. I scoured the place, but each time I walked past the burgundy would pause, reaching out to it….

THWACK! I had to remind myself of the mission... the mission… black velvet. After half an hour of shuffling through the stacks I eventually asked the shop assistants if they had any of what I wanted in stock and alas – no!!

I returned to the burgundy, stroked it, unrolled some to see how it would move through the air, imagined how it would look as a skirt, a veil, a choli... Drooooool...

The entire time I struggled with the knowledge that even if I bought it I could not allow myself to start another project until I had finished my others... also knowing that if I left the shop I may never see the delectable stuff again... I relented and bought some – plenty enough to make a skirt, top and veil… tucked away in the sewing cupboard it waits for me... and I keep dreaming...

Time flies....

2007-08-01T14:57:00.000+12:00

.... when you're having fun. God Lord it's been a long time since I've been here! Life has been too busy and I've let the updates slide. Will have to do something about that in the very near future!! Stay tuned for imminent updates!

It's Secret Santa...

2006-12-20T20:54:00.000+13:00

...and the secret is there is no Santa! At least there was no Santa to be seen at our secret Santa gift swap today.... there was however a fairy!!

I betcha she was sweltering under all that hair!

Happy Birthday To Me!!

2006-12-05T09:28:00.003+13:00

What a wonderful day!! And one of the best gifts I could ever have is waking up this morning with my Tommy.... aaaaaaw!! I love ya babe!!

I feel very blessed today.

I am still basking in the afterglow of a fabulous weekend on Great Barrier Island where we soaked up the magic of the place and had a wonderful time! Just being there is special enough but there were a number of events that made it an extra special weekend. Our flight over was in a wee 6 seater which was awesome! As we flew over the island we got our first glimpse of the new driveway below us!!
On Saturday morning we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast then went down to the Claris Club to see the local Market Day and Santa Parade.
!!
After a luxurious nap early afternoon we headed over to Pah Beach where we enjoyed a fantastic evening at The Currach where they were holding a local Singer/Songwriter Competition. An amazing evening with some great music, great company and special guest judge Dave Dobbyn (who also seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself and treated us to a few performances of his own)! Wow, words can't do the night justice!

And... my very early birthday present from Tom came into it's own... On Sunday I went on my first couple of dives since my course and thoroughly enjoyed myself!! Look for yourself!!

td>

Today has been very low key at work, not many people have realised it is my birthday so my feet are fairly well planted on the ground. I met with my very good friend Michelle at 2:00 and enjoyed a very nice lunch. This made me feel a wee bit sleepy for the rest of the afternoon... or maybe I'd become too accustomed to an afternoon nap on the Barrier!!

From here on in work became progressively worse... things I was looking into became increasingly problematic and I was pleased when it was time to leave for the day!!

Then it was home to field calls from my family wishing me a Happy Day before going to Quiz Night. This included talking to my wee 2 yr old niece on speaker phone... this was extremely confusing for her because although she could hear Aunty Neen, she couldn't see me.... it was all resolved once we were talking without speaker phone... a much easier concept to deal with!

then of course... QUIZ!! Happy happy... at the end of the evening and a very quick play off... (the answer being Dick Turpin) we ended up in 3rd place.... yeah baby!

How much better can a birthday get?

Up the creek without a....

2006-11-10T12:09:00.000+13:00

We have been so busy that we haven't been out together with the kayaks in ages. Tommy has his nights out with the boys most Wednesdays but I've been itching to get out for a paddle. Last Sunday afternoon we finally did it. We packed up some fishing gear and headed off. Skip waved us off "Don't forget your paddles! Ha-ha!!"

Some friends were taking their kids fishing off the wharf at Torpedo Bay so we headed down that way. We got to the boat ramp and started unloading. It was then Tom turned to me and said "Did you put your paddle in?"

AAAARGGGGH!!! Oh crap, I felt like a right eejit! Oh well... I thought Tom had put it in but next time I'll have a better system for packing! Every time we go out we learn something new but I have to say this was a bit of a major foo-foo!! So... I left Tom to get suited up and play with his fishing gear and drove home again to get the paddle!!

Once I got back WITH MY PADDLE we got started. We paddled out to the end of the wharf where we saw Mel, Chris, and the kids then paddled our way around the corner to Cheltenham Beach. Being a Sunday afternoon they was an lot of traffic in the harbour, most of it heading back into Auckland. At times it was a bit like I'd imagine it to be if you were cycling on the motorway... bigger vessels all about at a much greater rate of knots than we were doing... and us putt-putting along. We headed back up towards Deveonport and the wake from the larger boats was churning up the surf. I discovered that my kayak rides the waves well... much to my delight!! Wheeeee!! Tommy was aching to have a fish but I wasn't so keen. I didn't yet have a paddle leash and the thought of trying to keep a hold of it and fish was not really very appealing... besides leaving it behind once in an outing was enough for me... and I was starting to have a lot of fun riding the waves! Tommy went back around the point to have a fish and left me to my own devices paddling out deeper then rollercoasting back in again.... Over .... and over. After an hour or so of that I was starting to wonder if it had been a good idea after all as my muscles were starting to complain. I was quite pleased to see Tom heading back.

As we got the kayaks out of the water and started changing out of our wet gear we couldn't wipe the cheesy grins off our dials. Tom was rabbiting on about all the little things he had learnt, where to put the gear while fishing, where to stow it coming back, blither blither... and me still buzzing from riding the surf... we had had a fantastic afternoon... it's the simple things in life that are the best!!

And after all that sun, salt, and surf.... we slept like logs!!

The fun never ends!!

2006-11-02T13:57:00.000+13:00

So... after you've been out diving for the day what do you do in the evening... kick back and relax?? Hell no! Hafla!

On the Sunday I finished my dive course I raced home showered, changed, grabbed the cheese logs and crackers I'd prepared earlier and headed off to the Hafla that our dance teacher had organised. This was basically a get together of belly dancers from the various classes my teacher runs and we perform dances we've learnt in class as well as having a a general boogie. I love it because it's great to see the other dancers in their costumes and it's a great excuse to get into mine!!!
Tommy decided to get into the spirit and found himself some baggie pants, a stripey vest and skull-cap type hat... he looked quite the part. Another couple of friends came along too to see what it was all about. Christine looked the part... ethnic if not bellydancer but Chris piked out of wearing his big fake moustache, turban and Turkish flag. Still, there's always next time
There weren't as many people at this party but I still enjoyed myself immensely! It was also an opportunity to warm the dance blood up ready for the following weekend... I had been asked to dance at my Great-Uncle's 80th birthday!! Gak!!

Still, I had agreed to it and it was too late to bail out. Really there wasn't much chance of that, I enjoy it too much and since I've successfully completed the dive course I kinda feel a bit bullet proof... hell, if I can breathe under water a wee belly dance for 100 or so people would be a doddle!!

I had taken a look at the venue and figured out that with everyone seated I'd be able to dance up and down the aisle between the two rows of tables... great... plenty of room! My Aunty and Uncle had sorted out the logistics of my entrance and and getting the music sorted out ready to play... this was going to be a piece of cake!! Hmmm I spoke too soon!

When the door was opened for me to make my entrance I was confronted with the back of a wheelchair... no worries I negotiated my way around that ... when is the music starting... aha... there it is... ready set go!! I started dancing the choreography that I know like the back of my hand... I've done it so many times now I can just about do it blindfolded... thank God I didn't!! I turned to dance my way down the room and discovered a row of eager eyes peering up at me... Yipes! Before I'd arrived the children who were at the party had sensed (as children do) that something was about to happen and had crept up as close could to where they figured the action would be! This did not leave me with as much floor space as I had expected and already the choreography had gone out the window! Oh well... to hell with it!! I'll make it up as I go along!! So I wiggled and squiggled and jiggled my way through the music... above it I could hear Libby "Daddy... DADDY!!!! LOOOOOK!! Janene is bellydancing... BELLYDANCING!! Squeeeee!!"

It was hardly fair that only those up the front of the room were getting a good look at the show so I managed to jump over and through the kids so I could get a few turns up and down the hall! It was a very accomodating crowd and I only had to mime clapping above my head once to get them all clapping along... bless'em!! I have no idea what the performance looked like from the audience's point of view. People are often reluctant to give negative critcisms, it's alsways difficult to to tell if they are just being nice when they say they enjoyed it... oh well... I enjoyed myself and my Aunt and Uncle thanked me profusely.... All in all it was quite exhilerating!!

I may even do it again... one day...

Move over Jacques!

2006-10-25T14:02:00.000+13:00

Sunday started early as I had to be at the Dive Centre by 6:30am to pack the gear ready for day two. Funnily enough there was no leaving committee today… can’t blame them really… I’d managed okay the day before and came back safe and sane enough!

We were tagging onto a charter trip so would be going a bit farther a field for our next two dives. We arrived at the wharf and as we were unpacking a lady came and introduced herself saying she was going out on the charter. I thought that it would be nice to have some female company aboard and got quite a surprise when 3 more women arrived with dive gear! With only one guy booked on the charter the guys were outnumbered – something that has only happened to my instructor on one other trip!! It gave me quite a lot of confidence to have so many other female divers aboard.

We had a smooth trip out to Sail Rock. We saw several boil-ups where the gannets were working schools of fish that were being worked from below by dolphins. Some of the dolphins accompanied us for a while until they couldn’t resist the easy pickings any longer! We started gearing up as we got closer to Sail Rock so that we could jump in as soon as we could. The others all took off in various directions as we jumped in to complete weight removal and BCD removal at the surface. The water seemed extra cold as we jumped in and my heart started racing… first we had to remove and replace our weight belt, my hands were frozen and I had problems hanging onto the 14 kilos of led in the belt. Eventually I got it back around me but had problems again getting it done up tight enough… then we had to Remove and replace our BCDs … remember the problems I had in the pool? Add to that the extra 2 kilos in my weight belt, colder water, waves and a current… I really thought I wasn’t going to make it … I starting feeling a bit panicky and taking in water which did not help! Eventually I got into it, I asked the instructor if we would have to do it again – “Yep” ... I felt my heart sink… crap…. By this stage I felt exhausted and frightened, but worse than that, my confidence had taken a knock and I was starting to feel quite worried about the dive… Still, I wasn’t giving up yet… I may have wanted to cry but I still wanted to master this. In a way it didn’t help that Sail Rock itself seemed so foreboding up close… a massive pillar of rock rising straight up from the deep, the water was dark, cold and murky when we first started to descend. The current sucked at your energy… it was hard work just staying in the same place… how the hell were we going to manage down below? We worked our way down the anchor line, Phil seemed to be having trouble equalising and we waited a couple of times as he got comfortable. I looked around as we descended but all I could see was the green murky water, I was suspended in soup… when we got down to twelve metres our instructor signalled for us to follow him and we headed off into nothingness. All of a sudden we came up to the rock, a sheer wall, even under the water. Wow… even though the visibility wasn’t great we saw loads of different sea life, it was fascinating to see these things alive right in front of you instead of in a book or on TV. This was for real, you could reach out and touch these (if you were game enough). At one point the instructor pointed out something that looked like bunches of many white, gelatinous fingers attached to some kelp and swaying in the current… he told us later these were octopus eggs. We stopped for a few minutes to show that we could clear our masks and then do fin pivots by manually inflating our BCDs (blowing them up between breaths). Once that was out of the way we spent the rest of our air swimming down the wall to around 18 metres and working our way along and up. Very cool! When we got back to the surface it was still a bit choppy and I was surprised at how tired I felt… and we still had to make it back to the boat which was above us in the current…. Crap! I got a bit of a tow from my instructor as we worked our way along the rock until we were opposite the boat then swam back across the current… Phew!! I found it strange to feel so tired… despite the thrashing about to get our BCDs on at the beginning I didn’t think it had been that strenuous. Phil pointed out it was probably because there had been a bit of current… I had forgotten about that, you don’t have the same sense of the water motion when you are under it. We were treated to some warm soup as the skipper prepared for the next leg of the trip and spotted some seals lounging about on the rocks.

The trip across to the Hen and Chicken Islands was spent listening to the other women talking about their dive experiences. One woman was preparing to get her Divemaster ticket and have just returned from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia having done a 6 day, live-aboard dive trip. Two of the others had spent time diving in Thailand… very interesting to listen to… and inspiring! Maybe next time we stopover in Malaysia… well…slow down … I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself…

Our next stop was at Hen Island and by this time I had discovered that the only skills we had to demonstrate this dive was mask removal and replacement and a hover (suspended in the water without swimming and using lung control to maintain position off the bottom). HALLELUJAH!!! No BCD removal!!! I had spent the 10 minutes prior to arriving doing my happy dance!! Woooo hoooo!!! I couldn’t wait to get in…. this time we descended without a visual guide… no anchor rope, no wall… just sinking through the blue-green… what a bizarre feeling, nothing above, nothing below… eventually I made out the bottom and we “landed”. We got straight into the class tasks and then we went exploring… this was more like it! What a buzz! It was a really interesting bottom with lots of huge boulders and crevices… it was like fairyland and I was floating through it…. I had to try it…. I pointed my head downwards and did a sommersault… wheeeeeee!!! Ha-ha! It was all I could do to not laugh!! The instructor came towards me… I think he was worried I’d had an embolism… I gave him big a double handed okay signal and felt as though the grin was going to split my face open…. He nodded and okayed back….. This is more like it!! This is what everyone has told me about!! Wheeeeeeee!!! We were having a really good look around, no current so the going was pretty easy. I made a note to keep checking my gauges and looking for my buddy. At one point I looked back and couldn’t see Phil… What!! He was there a second ago!! I turned back in the direction we had come from and spotted a massive flurry or bubbles coming up from behind a rock… when I got there I found him grappling with a crayfish… Ha!! Got him… good on ya mate! I looked around for our instructor who had also doubled back. I snorted to myself… no laughing remember! Way to go Phil! We started heading off again when I got a tug on my fins… it was Phil… and his crayfish! He was making sure I’d seen it before letting it go again so that there would be no doubt when we got to the surface – he was assuring he had a witness!! The rest of the dive was great. We found a big nest of crays nestled into a crack in the rock… there must have been at least a dozen of them in there! Mmmmm! I got in a couple more somersaults …Wheeeeeee…. just so I could tell Tommy I’d done it… and because it was a cool feeling to be so weightless! Wheeee! Ha-ha!

Back at the surface I was buzzing…. I’d done it! I’d passed! I felt as though I’d been through trials of fire and survived! What a rush! From now on diving would be just that… and, God willing… I’ll never have to do another emergency procedure again!! Awesome!! Bring it on!!

Jumping in the deep end....

2006-10-24T12:49:00.000+13:00

The alarm went off at 6:30 on Saturday morning so I got out of bed, turned on the jug and fired some bread in the toaster. I’d packed everything the night before so was pretty organised and didn’t have to race about… I wanted to keep the stress level at a minimum! The most surprising thing was Tommy getting up at that time of the day to see me off… Aaaaaww! What a love!!

I got to the dive centre by 7:30 to meet the instructor. We loaded up the tanks and gear and we were off. We were meeting Phil at Leigh and Heather would be doing her open water dives in Rarotonga so there would be just the two of us which would keep things pretty relaxed. We were going out on the dive charter boat Divercity and had the whole boat to ourselves… again, this kept the stress levels low! We togged up as the boat motored out from the wharf. As we were only a small group we wouldn’t be going very far which was all the same to us…

Our first dive was an orientation and to make sure we were comfortable in the sea. Bracing!! The water temp was 15Degrees and for a moment I regretted not wearing gloves but it didn’t take long before the water in the wetsuits warmed up and it got a lot more comfortable. Down we went…. Just like in the pool…. But deeper! Our instructor took us for a swim around pointing out various features, creatures and crayfish! At one point we were going up over a rock and all of a sudden I started heading for the surface… oh crap… I tried releasing air from the BCD but it didn’t seem to be working… double crap! I could see the fins of the others heading off as I continued to rise … I reached around to bang on my tank to alert them but a combination of my short arms and nothing solid to hit against the tank made that useless… so I tried clapping my hands but their fins were disappearing and I had arrived at the surface… Bugger! I could see the bubbles of the others and considered going back down but we had been taught that if we lost a buddy we should look for a minute and then surface, hopefully to find your buddy there. I wasn’t sure how long it would be before they realised I was gone but figured it wouldn’t be long and that I should just stay put until they surfaced. After a minute or two they popped up, I got a lesson in how to dump air from the BCD using the emergency exhaust and then we went back down for some more exploration until air started getting low. Then it was back to the surface to practise some skills like swapping from snorkel to reg, tired diver tows, cramp removal etc before getting back on the boat. We swapped our tanks over to full ones and were treated to a cup of soup.

Dive two involved a lot more lesson work, the first of which was probably the worst, a controlled emergency swimming ascent (CESA) which involved heading to the bottom and once comfortable taking a deep breath then without inhaling again (and exhaling all the way) kicking like mad to get to the surface. I got about 2 feet from the surface when I ran out of air to breathe out so had to kick like mad to get to the top…. Damn! Suck at that air!! I was worried that my lack of bubbles at the end would mean the instructor would think I’d taken a breath and wouldn’t pass me…. Please don’t make me do that again!! PLEASE!! Anyway, he said that I’d done it okay and it was on to the rest of the skills… Alternate air source use, regulator recovery, compass use underwater and at the surface, mask clearing, and fin pivots. I enjoy the fin pivots and other buoyancy control exercises as there is no rush to complete them and you get time to slow yourself down and have a look around. It was while I was doing this I discovered that laughing underwater is not advisable… as I was lying there doing my fin pivots a wee cod swam right up to my mask and peered in… I watched him and he watched me for a minute then it was like he cocked his head and gave me a look as if to say “What the @#$%^%$ are YOU?” … I couldn’t help myself and snorted out a chuckle which quickly filled my nose with water and made me splutter and cough into my regulator. The resulting bubbles scared the fish off and I learnt another valuable lesson... laughing underwater is hazardous to your health! We got to have a good look around, more crayfish, loads of interesting, weird and wonderful stuff to look at!! Awesome!!

The trip back is all a bit of a blur, between the sea air and all the mental and physical exertion I was exhausted... and I had yet to relay it all to Tommy who would want to know all about it!! Poor boy has been concerned that this has been the worst birthday present ever... I'd better relieve him of that notion!!

Scuba rodeo... ride 'em!!

2006-10-23T13:29:00.000+13:00

Tuesday was our last session in the pool so we covered off the skills that we had left to go over including removing all our scuba gear at the bottom of the pool and then putting it all back on again. Interesting exercise but we need to know this in case we ever get tangled in something... often the best solution is to remove it all in order to get loose again. This wasn’t too bad to achieve... not as hard as doing it at the surface!

On the surface you had to remove the unit without letting go... you still have weights on so letting go of the BCD and tank was not a good idea if you wanted to remain at the surface! No pressure (yeah right) but I was hanging onto that sucker with a death grip! You then had to let enough air out of the BCD so that you could manoeuvre it easily under the water and through your legs so that the jacket was behind you and you were sitting at the bottom of the tank, riding it so to speak. Then it was a simple matter of reaching back slipping your arms through the arm holes and sliding forward, off of the tank and ... voila... you’re in... hmmm... sounds simple doesn’t it?

Well I think I got a rogue tank! My first attempt I nearly got it, one arm through... yeah! ... then reach back with the other... whoooaa... whoa! Easy now... wooo-woooo-WHOOAA!! Splash!! DON'T LET GO!!! Kick-kick-splutter... hanging on with for dear life... Have another go. The second attempt the tank was onto me already and bucked me off in three seconds flat. By this time I was tired, cold and starting to cramp up from all that kicking to stay at the surface. I took a moment to rest and work the cramp out, the others in the class had completed this by then and were off out of the pool... Sheesh!! Okay... I have to do this... It’s the last task so I’m gonna do this if it kills me!! Well... not literally... Righto, the instructor checked the air in my BCD and let some more out. This of course made it a lot less buoyant and, as it turned out, a lot more compliant. Still I wasn’t going to muck about because I didn’t fancy being bucked off again!! Kick-kick-kick, wrangle that sucker... flip shove... Alright... I’m on! One arm... two arms, slide forward... lean back, velcro up, click the belly strap in, pull down the chest cords... I’m in!!! Yeeeehaw!! Another box ticked which of course meant I could get it off again and get out of the pool... Yes!

Thursday was the exam... I felt fairly confident about it. To pass you had to score 75% so we had to get 38 of the 50 questions right... no worries! Most of it was pretty much common sense and all throughout the course the instructor had continued to emphasis the important points both in and out of the water. I finished up with a score of 49 so was pretty chuffed with myself. I got a run-down from the instructor on what the plan was for the open water dives, what to bring, what time to meet and I was off!! Woohoo! Open water... here I come!!

Everythings gonna be alright

2006-10-14T09:47:00.000+13:00

Well... after the trauma of Tuesday and the absolute terror I suppose it was understandable that I was somewhat nervous about my next dive lesson on Thursday evening. I tried my best to keep all distressed thoughts out and to not think about it. By about 3 in the afternoon however my stomach had started to churn. I got home, took some rescue remedy and concentrated on quelling the uprising trepidation.
The theory part of the lesson took a bit longer because we were going over dive profile and calculating times and pressure groups etc from the dive tables. Eventually though it was time to gear up. I downed another dose of rescue remedy, suited up and headed for the pool. We assembled the tanks, BCDs and regulators then got all that on and went throught the predive buddy check (BWRAF... BCD, Weights, Releases, Air, Final ok... OR... Bruce Willis Ruins All Films). Then in was time to enter the pool... Giant Stride ... splash!

A quick warm up around the pool snorkling... no signs of panic... good... thats good... Then practising various tired diver tows in case we ever need to assist getting a tired or incapacitated diver back to the boat or shore... no sweat... Then there was the cramp removal and assisting a buddy with cramp... again... No sweat!

Our instructor then explained we'd be going up and down to practice descents and ascents and also to do various activities on the bottom... okay... I can do this... remember to control my breathing.

The first thing to achieve was a fin pivot where we had to control our buoyancy with our breathe and BCD and prove we could remain neutrally buoyant. We did this using the auto fill on the BCD then again filling it ourselves by blowing into it... Once we did that it was off to swim around using these skills to keep us off the bottom... wow! this is cool! I feel so light and no resistance when I swim... look at me I'm doing this.... breathe in, go up, breathe out, go down... yippee!! We got the signal to head back to the top... Shit hot... that was easy! What's next?

Next we were practising using an alternate air source, something we had already tried, but this time we had to show we could swim with a buddy whilst doing this. To make the exercise more real our instructor was going to turn our air off... Excuse me? turn the air - the stuff I need to survive - OFF?? Oh crap! Okay, lets get this over with! It all went pretty well. My air was turned off, I signalled "Out of air" to my buddy then got hold of the alternate and went to put it in my mouth... that's when the instructor intervened and ripped it out off my hands!! Hey Fecker!! Give it back! I need that ... I need air... ohshit I need to breathe!! GIVE IT... oh... whoops I had it up the wrong way! He let me have it back and I plugged in as quick as I could ffffffffffffffffft.... aaaaaaaaaaah...... fffffffffft.... AMEN! So I came close to having a panic but got through it in the end.... I'm on a roll! Bring it on!

The next exercise was a bit more daunting. Whilst, apparently, it is unusual to have a gear failure we had to learn how to breathe from a free flowing regulator. This meant holding the mouthpiece at the corner of your mouth whilst holding the "purge" on (to simmulate the freeflow) and "sipping at bubbles" we were told, as if that was the most natural thing in the world to be doing. Alright for the instructor... he's done it a zillion times! Oh well we need to get all the boxes ticked to become certified and I figured I'd been through too much to let something as "simple" as sipping from random bubbles for 30 seconds on the bottom of the dive pool stop me! You'll be surprised how fast 30 seconds passes the instructor said... Yeah right! We were to practise on the platform until we felt comfortable. I put my head under, assumed the position and... sipped.... fff..fft... Woohooo! I got some! Not much but some! Try again... sippy, sip-sip... exhale... sippysip, gurgle splutter cough cough cough!! Oh crap! Try again... Sip, sip, aaaaah.... sipsippy.... aaah, sipsplutter... Doh! How the hell am I going to get through this? It was about then that I realised I wasn't holding the purge down hard enough so I wasn't getting full free flow. Lets, give this another shot... Sipwoooooosh... Wow!! The air practically blasts into your cheek and you just have to be careful not to breathe any water with it. After a few successful practise runs and everyone comfortable (or in my case just wanting to get this over with). We went back down to the bottom and one by one went through the drill while the instructor timed us. As I watched the others I was amazed at how long they were able to take exhaling and it seemed they they only had to take a couple of goes at sippysipping! I had figured I had a smaller lung capacity but could there be that much difference? Oh well... no point dwelling on that now because it's my turn now.... mouthpiece out... exhale, aaaaaaaaahhhh! Okay, sippysip, sip, sip... aaaaaaahhh.... sippysip... aaaaah.... sipsipsip, aah oh man... how much longer? sipsipspluttersip... the instructor signalled 3-2-1. Plug in... ffffffffffffft... AAAAAAHHH! I did it!! The instructor gave me the OK. Yeah!! If I can do that I can do anything! Yay Me!! Back up to topside.

The last thing we had to do in the pool that night was practise an emergency ascent... in case you air runs out and your buddy isn't close by (bad buddy!). All these emergency procedures must make you wonder (as I did) why anyone would ever take up such a dangerous pastime, one that required so much emergency training... well, according to the instructor you very rarely need to use any of these skills, but you need to know them just in case you are unlucky enough to get into a sticky situation. Better you should know how to deal with it than panic and drown... I have to say I would tend to agree... having no air in your tank is no time to decide to take a dive course!! So, to practise the emergencey ascent we had to swim without inhaling across the pool... well two thirds of the way... in comparison to the others this was a breeze! No problemo!! Hot diggety-dog!

I was soooo proud of myself at he end of the night! I could barely contain the relief at not having to deal with "The Terror" again! The sense of achievement was enormous, I had broken through the barrier and I was sooooo glad I had given it another shot!! As I was leaving my instructor said "You were doing well with your descents this weekend, you seemed alot more relaxed". I told him how close I had come to not returning but that I was glad I had and he gave me a hug... I bet you he knew that all along.