Zday

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

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.....?

... 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!

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...

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...

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

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

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

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

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!!

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

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

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

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

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 …

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...

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

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!

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...

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?