Now for something completely different but exactly the same

All the usual stores are full of flowery, peasanty boho Spring fashion for what seems to be the third time in the past seven or so years.

Ya know, it's all a bit deja vu on the deja vu.

Hooray, hooray, it's a holi-holiday

As I type this the Other Harf is transfixed to Barclays Premiership League Review Show(English football) like a possum caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. It's really the only footie "hit" he can get these days, so I happily leave him to it on a Monday evening as for me watching football is right up there with watching golf - a lot of hoo-ha over one little white ball.

As well as typing this, I've been scrolling through accomodation and "What to Do" websites for our upcoming holiday to Christchurch - we fly down on Saturday morning and just like Miss 8, I can't wait! Yay!

And for the first time, with my new fandangled portable modem, lovely laptop and super-duper mobile phone with a hotline straight to Blogger, I plan on photoblogging as much of it on the go as I can. Miss 8 is dead keen to write up her own travel journal, and would like me to "publish" it when we get home (type it all out, insert photos, print it out and staple it together) but I'm thinking maybe it's the perfect time she started a blog of her own...

Here's another photo from the weekend - Miss 8 and I bought eight hydrangeas in shades of purple, white, pink and a mixture between. I'm not sure if they'll stay this way once we plant them - crossfingers they do.

Newly washed hydrangea

Happy 37th Lil'Sis

The elimination of small pricks

Gorse is flowering madly on the roadside verges and across unattended paddocks at the moment. Now considered a noxious weed, gorse was introduced by homesick Scottish immigrants cver 150 years ago to remind them of long-lost misty glens, but now all this prickly customer does is remind their descendents that it's time to stock up on Roundup.

Speaking of small obnoxious pricks, lately NieceT has had to deal with a cretinous 8 year-old playground bully by the name of Cedric, whose party trick is to trap girls and hold them down and kiss them, all the while being given ringside advice and encouragement by his cronies (Tristan and Kent) and no, I didn't pick out these names from a 1938 copy of "Chummy Chaps" magazine; these are their actual names.

Anyway, this rather disturbing behaviour was quickly stamped out by school staff, but unfortunately the revolting Cedric & co struck again yesterday lunchtime: this time they decided to start shoving round our 5 year-old neighbour Ben, who sports milk-bottle bottom glasses and tends to be on the weedy side of small.

In a Disney movie moment, this second round was swiftly nipped in the bud by the heroine on the spot, Niece T. "I took him out, Aunty Fi! I kicked Cedric and punched him one and grabbed Ben and ran away!" she informed me with a huge grin on her face.

Of course, one shouldn't "condone" violence, but I couldn't help replying "Good one T, good one."

Yep, some noxious weeds definitely require specialised removal.

The telly's on the blink

Luckily I have a very satisfactory backup plan.
You know, it really wouldn't be such a tragedy to give up the googlebox permanently. I don't think I'd miss it too much (although I did become slightly addicted to the first series of "Mad Men").
Would you ever consider ditching telly?

Bovine Crossing

Keep moooving ladies, I'm late for work.

The Curse of the Curried Sausage

Yes folks, just to contribute to a rather serious dose of Mondayitis, guess what's for dinner!
Please cheer me up by telling me what's your all-time worst meal and why?

All hail the Weedeating Wonderwoman

Sunday afternoon, and I'm lolling across our bed in a patch of sunshine which is doing a fine job soothing my aching muscles after a day of hard-out weedeating. I can't remember the last time I was on weedeating duty, but I haven't forgotten how bloody knackering it can be!

However, I am sure in my new vocation of full-time gardener I will be assigned to the task permanently and will naturally be requiring a full-time massueur who is the spitting image of Viggo just to keep me in functioning order.

Once I've finished posting this, I'm off to peel a bazillion potatoes and kumara (sweet potato) to accompany tonight's dinner of roast lamb. Or, even better, I'm off to extract three young girls from in front of Hannah Montana and second them into peeling them all for me. Queue the extensive moaning.

I leave you with this afternoon's photographic efforts.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Meanwhile, further down in the valley, it was time for afternoon milking

This is the start of something new...

So, Day Two of my recuperation, and jeez, the drugs*, man. They work, but they sure knock you around.

As I type this (sitting in the lounge, watching Extreme Makeover with the French doors open - it's a gorgeous day out there and I so wish I felt energetic enough to get stuck into the garden) I can hear the din of the earth moving machinery drifting across from the newly cleared stockyards as the contractors prepare the ground for the foundations for Lil'Sis and Bruvinlaw's barn-house.

Now, for those of you who haven't been lurking round here very long, my sister and her family have been living with us for the past nine months waiting on planning permission and red tape and contractors and for the rain to stop so they can build their dream house.

It's not been easy, especially through this winter when it rained endlessly and the site where the house is going to built was a vast bog of mud and cow shite and a Bermuda Triangle of lost gumboots.

And then there's the family of five added to the family of three - oh the noise, oh the mess, oh the tolerance and respect that has to be exercised. I am truly amazed that our washing machine hasn't carked it after all these months of triple duty and don't get me started on the Curried Sausages**.

So, it's there has been a great lifting of spirits for everyone - this weekend gone it finally, finally stopped raining so the contractors could make a start, and after four days there's flat packed-down shingle everywhere obliterating all traces of mud and the grid for the concrete foundation is ready to be assembled.

It's all starting to become a reality instead of a dream. Hallelujah!

*A three day course of steroids. I've got the suggestion of a faint moustache already.
** A favourite of Bruvinlaw's but without a doubt the most depised meal of my childhood. However, my bossy little Good Manners Fairy insists that I eat them. Gag!

A post of shameless self promotion!

I've made the top five for Greeblemonkey's monthly Greeblepix contest with my Blossom Shadow pic! So get your lovely selves over there pronto-like and vote vote vote!

For me, that is...

Pippa says play!

But I say no, I just want to lummox on the couch.

The lurgy

After a week of sniffing and coughing and general grottiness that didn't seem to want to go away, today I paid a visit to the doc's and was told I had the beginnings of bronchitis! Oh joy!

Apart from the nasty bugs resident in my respiratory system, being made redundant doesn't do wonders for your health either.

"You need to rest up, take it easy. Take care of yourself, a little less work and a lot more relaxation," the doctor instructed me.

Luckily, in a couple of months time that's exactly what I'll be doing; yesterday I decided to take the redundancy instead of applying for the recycled job.

Turns out it was just what the doctor ordered.

A Spring Sunday Slideshow

Bring me sunshine...

It's been a mild, almost rain-free Saturday, and today after minding NephewT for a couple of hours (pictured above on our morning meander to the letterbox) I spent a hour or so weeding a kikuyu choked bed, listening to ABC, America and The Bangles on my iPod which was stuck on Artist/Alphabetical as my gardening gloves were too mucky to change it to shuffle.

Oooh, it was so lovely to feel the warmth of the sunshine on my back - I felt like a giant sponge soaking up all that Vitamin D. There's so much press on how evil too much sun can be for you, but it's incredible how it can make you feel so good so quickly, especially after a long, incredibly wet winter like we've just had.

While I attacked the weeds, humming tunelessly to "Walk Like an Egyptian" I pondered over what had happened at work yesterday. Ten of us were "officially" informed that we were being made redundant, and had the weekend to decide if we wanted to apply for one of the six new roles that would be available after the "realigning".

Or, did I just take the two months' salary worth of redundancy money due to me, and potter in my garden over the summer (a notoriously low time for job opportunities) in between trips to the beach with Miss 8?

Decisions, decisions, bloody decisions...

Driiving up the home strait

Friday at last! It's been a long week...

A snippet of Spring

Daffodils: get 'em while they're hot!

Do They Know It's...Not Christmas?

I spotted this display of very patient chocolate Santas in a department store today.

People, if you are purchasing Christmas gifts in September you have way too much time on your hands. Get a hobby! They say blogging's fun and you'll make some nice friends.

Too many books so little time

I have two favourite lunchbreak haunts: the bookshop/s in the main shopping drag, and the library.

However, lately I'm finding that I've been disappointed in the choices I've made, both bought and borrowed. What's the last book you read that you really enjoyed?

Tui loves kowhai forever

Dear Miss 8...

Happy birthday, little girl, a whole seven years on from when this photograph was taken. Well, now you're not so little after all - as you've informed us, you're no longer a little little girl; you're a big little girl. Being a whole eight years old is a vastly different kettle of fish to being just seven.

So here's a little bit about you, little big girl. I'm not sure if you'll ever read this, but I do that know that for me and your Daddy your childhood seems to have the fast-forward button pressed on it, so I'm going to write these things down for us.

You're in Year 3, and you're in the top group for reading (kind of expected, seeing as you took to reading so easily when you were younger - just like me) and for maths (this, you did not inherit from me and Daddy says that even though he's an accountant, he was always top in woodwork at school!). Your teacher says you sometimes lack concentration and tend to daydream, but that you're happy and confident in class.

You play the recorder really, really well, and can even read music now, which is very cool. You can swim length after length of the big pool at the aquatic centre (and you can beat everybody in your class, but I'm not supposed to mention that)- you love, love, love being in the water. When we take you to the beach you will spend hours in the sea (often being forcibly removed when your lips have turned blue) and you have no fear of big waves, even when you get dumped time after time.

You love animals, especially kittens and cats, and have stickers and pictures of them all over your wall. Lately, you've become very interested in fashion, and have taken the fad for layering to the extreme - sometimes you dress for school wearing a t-shirt, a long-sleeved t-shirt, a long smock top pinafore (thee absolute fashion must-have at the moment), a skirt underneath the pinafore, all finished off with a pair of leggings, completely contrary to the "less is more" ethic. You also love hairbands and clips and ties, and will put as many as possible into your hair so it ends up looking like the accessories stand at Pumpkin Patch.

You're friendly and outgoing, and will give new things a try with almost no hesitation. You sometimes tell blatant fibs, and you always are amazed when you get caught out, but afterwards you're always so incredibly sorry and very remorseful. You can be frustratingly flakey and you're always, always forgetting where you've put things, and you're a star at leaving things behind (this I blame squarely on Daddy - he was always bellhopping your stuff when you where younger). You have a deep gravelly voice and a goofy chuckle, and a tiny lisp when it comes to saying your "th"'s.

At the moment, you've got long, straight fair hair which, despite having some fancy doodads to dress it up with, you frequently don't brush properly. You're tall and angular, with long legs and broad shoulders. You have freckles and fair skin, but luckily you've got Daddy's nice dark eyelashes instead of Mummy's albino mouse ones.

You love your food, and sometimes will eat as much as me. Chocolate is by far your favourite food, but you do enjoy baked beans and fish fingers (that's the English blood coming out in you) and eggs of any variety.

Yesterday was your actual birthday, but seeing as it was Father's Day, we did your birthday thing on Saturday instead. Daddy and I took you, two friends and your cousins to the Wave Pools, and we went down the hydroslide and rode waves and dived and splashed about, then we hit MaccyD's for lunch. Last night you chose to have homemade pizza for dinner, and then we had birthday cake afterwards (chocolate with candy-coated chocolate bits on top). You almost fell asleep in your cake you were that knackered, but somehow you managed to squeeze the last crumb in.

Happy 8th birthday, Miss 8 - we love you little big girl.

Mummy and Daddy
xxxx

The Apron of Truth

Father's Day gift in a local shop window. The Other Harf didn't get this particular present as he prefers to take a risk with food spillage when barbecuing, but he did get Eggs Benedict for brekkie and a homemade card.

Apple blossom petals look like snow when the wind blows

Fire on a Friday

One of the few things I love about winter...

The Coffee Cup of Fate

It's not a pleasant feeling, being told that the job that you enjoy will no longer exist in ten days time. I felt this icy coldness wash over me as I sat in the boardroom with ten of my colleagues, listening to words altering the directions of our lives.

Ten jobs were going, five new roles would replace them.

I've got till next Wednesday to decide if I want to apply for one of these all new, downsized roles - doing some of what I do now but a lot more of it. All the interesting bits, the challenging parts, would be going.

Or, do I take on board the (bloody cheesy, granted, but *spookily* apt) words written on my takeaway coffee cup this morning? Turn over a new leaf? Do something completely different?

Coffee in my blood
Sunshine in my head
Music in my soul
Ambition in my eyes
Answers in my heart
Destiny in my hands
A sparkle in my step
A song in my lungs

Rainy day, got the blues

Have been told today that due to "restructuring" that come next Friday my job is being "disestablished". Feeling very blue...

A worthy addition to your library...

And a bargain at $1. People, form an orderly queue at the counter and no shoving.

Birthday Bloke

Belated birthday cake for the Other Harf courtesy of Mrs Betty Crocker.

Kia Ora

Welcome to Photografi, where I'm turning over a brand new, sparkly shiny leaf after five years of Movable Type based bloggerage.

I've done some serious investigation over the past three weeks, hoping to combine an old pastime with another old pastime (that is, blogging and photography) and this folks, is thee result. Yep, one Sony Ericcson 770i and a Blogger account and Robert's your mother's younger brother.

Yes indeed, thanks to the wonders of "Modern Technology", I am now able to post photos instantaneously *poof* to the internet (without even logging on to a PC!) and goodness knows how they do it, but jeez I'm a) impressed and b) thankful, as the thought of not being able to tote my goods on the world wide web after five years of blogging just wouldn't do.

The idea is that it will be mostly photo-based, but when the need arises (and I feel like blathering on for paragraph after paragraph) I do plan to post actual words. It's an easy come, easy go, no stress, go with the flow sort of blog, and I think it's exactly what suits me right now.

I hope you'll insert this here URL in your RSS, and thank you so much for joining me on my new meanderings - you are the bee's flippin' knees.

Cheers,

Fi