Queen's Birthday Weekend

Here I am at last writing about my Queen's Birthday Weekend.  It was some time ago now - 4th-6th June - it's just that I've been fairly busy in the meantime and haven't taken a moment out to fill you all in.

My friends Jamo and Megs, and their son (my Godson), moved to Wellington last year and I have no longer been able to drop in and visit once or twice a week on my way home from work.  I miss them a lot and so I thought I would make an effort to be with Megs on her birthday this year.  I called her up and asked what she was up to and would she have me.  Megs and her husband Jamo had already made plans to be with his parents for the weekend but it was a very simple business to organise to fly to New Plymouth on the Saturday, travel with them back to Wellington on Monday, the day of her birthday, and fly back to Auckland on Tuesday.  Because it's a long weekend (or as the British would say, a bank holiday) I only had to take annual leave for Tuesday.

The flight down was rather uneventful which was a pity because the weather had been somewhat wild and I'd heard the plane had been subject to severe turbulence on its way up.  I love turbulence so was disappointed to have missed it.
Now, we didn't really get up to anything spectacular over the weekend - there were no shows or sports events or games of backyard cricket to rave about.  It was just a nice, slow, relaxing weekend with friends.  On Sunday we went out for a walk with friends and dogs.  I didn't take any photos because like a fool I left my camera back at the house.  This was a mistake because New Plymouth has an amazing footbridge on the way to the beach which was begging to be photographed and I was gutted to miss the opportunity to do so.  That night the same friends came round for dinner and Pete and I ended up spending the majority of the night playing with the little wooden train set I had bought my Godson so there was plenty of fun to be had by all!

Little Toys for Big Kids!

The Wee Man (Godson's official nickname) was such a darling and it wasn't long before he had (once again) stolen my heart.  He would climb up onto the chair with me and hand me his favourite book of fairy tales to read.  I wish I could say I spent all my time reading to him, but he was always more interested in looking at the pictures and turning the pages for himself.  Finally he would close the covers and declare "Ah-Duh!" which meant 'All done!' clamber back down off my lap and continue causing his usual havoc.  We played plenty of games of chase and I was offered lots of hugs and snuggles.  By the end of the weekend he was making sounds which his mother translated to be 'Auntie Sez.'  For a 15 month old he was doing well!!

The Wee Man helps with household chores.

No table is too high for The Wee Man!

Auntie Sez and The Wee Man read together

What else can I say?  It was a wonderful weekend and I loved spending time with my good friends and my special Wee Man.  Conversation with people who know me so well is therapeutic so it was as good for me to be there as it was for Megs to have me down for her birthday!  If you're interested in seeing the photos of flowers I took after the rains then check out my Deviant Art Account.

(I'm still trying to upload the dancing video, so more on that later.)

Vintage Ads for Modern Products

One website I enjoy stalking is Cracked.com.  It's a humour website and under the title Pointless Waste of Time they run photo manipulation competitions they call "Photoplasty."  Every week they put up three subjects and readers of the site can post their submissions.  The best are displayed and the #1 picture wins money.  Recently I had a good chuckle looking through 26 Old-Timey Ads for Modern Products and I thought I would share a couple of the good ones with you so that you, too, can laugh away while I find the time to write about my Queens Birthday weekend and upload a video from my night at The Cotton Club.

I hope you are sufficiently tantalised about my upcoming posts.  Now here's the funnies:

by Alaisin13

by maas

by DarrenJames

by egaeus

Tomorrow night I have a formal dining in (look it up) and then I have taken Friday off to recover.  Friday night I hope to be watching the new movie Green Lantern with friends, so watch this space.

(this one.  right here.  watch it.  waaaatch iiit!).

Photos from the Street

Here are some things I've seen around in the last couple of months:

This one was written by a friend of Nick's.

  These are the chillies being grown by the 'Skin Bay' at work.

A beautiful desk in one of the displays at MoTaT in Western Springs, Auckland.  

One day I will make one of my own!

This was the statue on top of the desk.  I just loved the shadow it cast on the wall behind.

Also at MoTaT.  Just because the Allies were on the winning side doesn't mean they didn't cause injustice. NZ sent their 'enemy aliens' to an island off the coast.  God forbid they send the countries secrets back to Europe.  Wait... what secrets?

That is all.

In The Time Since Easter

To all of you I apologise! It has been too long.  But I have had a busy couple of weeks since Easter and my social calender has been more filled than - possibly - the rest of the year combined.  But here I am, back again.  I hope you enjoy the post and forgive me for the time it took in coming.


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The weekend after Easter was a full one.  I took leave on Friday so that my RPG group and I could go to Sylvia Park to watch the movie Thor on the XTREME Screen.  This is a screen so extreme it had no time for more than two e's.

I stayed with The Agent of Trouble that night and then had a lunch date with my best friend Rachie.  (I am still working out a code-name for Rachie).  We tried a place we hadn't been to before near the Grafton Bridge and each had a little boutique pizza and a sweetie.  Mine was pain au chocolat which was delicious!  After lunch I was off home to get all the chores done before a dinner event that night.

This last summer I played cricket for the Waitakere Cricket Club Women's Senior Grade team headed up by the delightful Tash and coached by the inescapable Garry-with-two-arr's.  It took us a long time, but finally (now that it's Autumn) it was time for our end-of-season celebration which was to be held at Genghis Khan's Mongolian Restaurant in New Lynn.  Now, normally it doesn't really bother me if I have to drive to a dinner and therefore cannot drink.  But on this particular day I really wanted to be able to go over the limit.  So I caught a lift in with fellow cricketer Roach.  The dinner was nice and we all ate too much before proceeding up the road fifty metres to a local pool bar.  Rav had spent the better part of the last five minutes telling us all that she'd never been beat at pool so it was with great delight and pure blind luck that I managed to pull one out at the last second and defeat the self-proclaimed champion.

To be fair, the game was an unusual one.  Four of us were playing.  We each chose three of the available numbers (8-ball included) then took it in turns to sink any ball which was not our own.  It was an honesty system and we had to declare if someone sunk one of our numbers.  In that situation only was the current player permitted to have a second shot. (If she potted a ball which did not belong to anyone she didn't get the free shot).

This is Tash, not Rav.

If all three balls a person had secretly nominated were potted then that person was out of the game.  It came down to two final numbers, and I sunk Rav's.  YAY!
After a quick doubles game of regular pool we'd all had enough (aren't we sad?!) and though Roach had gone home I was rescued by the Agent in her Silver Audi Steed.  We had a really nice Sunday morning watching Green Wing on DVD and she even made me her specialty scrambled eggs for breakfast - with seasoning all the way from Germany and all.  It didn't look like any kind of scrambled eggs I'd ever had before but it was definitely a tasty breakfast!

How could you not want to watch this show?

So, thus far I have been to the movies, gone out for lunch, gone out for dinner, moved on to a bar, had scrambled eggs and watched DVDs.  This has been a very busy weekend so far.  But wait, there's more.  That's right - my regular every Sunday games night with the RPG crowd.  Starts at 2pm and goes to 10.  I was very tired by the time Monday came round.

Rachie is, though lacking a code-name, a very good friend.  While impressed with my sudden increase in social activity (and all-round organisation) she did caution me not to over-extend myself.  This is important for people like me who are heavily-introverted and need to balance their social activities with enough re-charge time to recover properly from said activities.  I thanked her for pointing this out and agreed with her I would have to be careful.  Especially since it wasn't all over.  Oh no.

Tuesday night was Roach's birthday.  I joined her for dinner at Indian Summer in West Harbour for a very pleasant evening indeed.  Then like a love-struck fool, and determined not to get any sleep at all this week, instead of going home afterwards I snuck up on the Agent again.  Thank you kindly for your concern Rachie but it would appear I intend to enrich the zombified experience which is currently my working life by screwing up your good advice and throwing it in the furnace of un-reason and foolishness.  On the other hand, I got to spend another night with Trouble so I think it's all working out okay.  Besides - I can sleep properly tomorrow night!

Hehe.

Or not.  You see, tomorrow night is Wednesday night.  And Wednesday night is Mike & Virginia night.

Recognise her anyone? Mum?  Mel?  Well you should.  That's Lisa Chappell.

This is also Lisa Chappell.  I am not kidding you.

Anyway, the real significance of Mike & Virginia is not who starred in it (because I actually didn't put two and two together until I saw her on stage) but that this was a really wonderful, funny, truthful, talented look at love and relationships and it was written by - drum roll please - Kathryn Burnett and Nick Ward.  If Nick is a good man he will re-send me the link he sent me last week and I will put it up here for you because I am not a good woman and although I promised ever so faithfully to read it, I didn't.  Sorry Nick.
(UPDATE:- Read Nick's words on his play and see plenty of great links at the bottom.)

Well, we absolutely loved it!  And we were even lucky enough to catch Nick very briefly after the show.  He was busy of course and most everyone there was more important than us, but we were special enough to get 5 minutes or so of undivided time chatting with him which made me feel loved!
Oh!  And there was ice cream!


Now it's really rather getting on.. and I haven't made it to the end of the week yet - let alone the weekend.  I wonder if you are all feeling as exhausted as I am simply by reliving this hectic time?  I won't sport with you a great deal longer then.  Thursday was thankfully uneventful.

Friday I was under a self-imposed obligation to do everything in my power to fulfil two requests of the Agent's.  One was to cook dinner, and the other was to get a hold of some 'Allo 'Allo for us to watch on both Friday and Saturday.  This combined with a long working day which finished late made for a tiring night.

How could you not want to watch this show?

Saturday (I'm really getting short now, aren't I?) was for late rising and more scrambled eggs (sans German seasoning) and an evening mission to Te Atatu Peninsula for ice cream with The Agent, Ginge & his friend Daz.  I was rendered grumpy by what I considered to be a failed mission and disappointment given that I wanted to go to my favourite ice cream shop in Onehunga.  But the walk down near the sea, the views, the singing and the company of my Trouble were enough to help me get over it.

Sunday.... Sunday is another day.  It was full too.  Too full it was.  I will write about Sunday another time.

And now it's Tuesday night - or, more accurately, Wednesday morning which may count for the excessive use of hyphens and commas, or it might not.  Tomorrow night is dancing night (round one) and I'm hanging out for Friday.  No particular reason - I just like weekends.

A Busy Easter

I thought my Easter break was going to be quiet. I like quiet. I like spending all morning in bed - sometimes just lying there listening to music and sometimes with the laptop surfing the net.
I like curling up on the couch & reading a book, or fiddling around with one of my many (never-to-be-finished) projects.
Ginge was going to be working on his jet engines. So we made a plan.  He would strip down one of the engines and I would do SFA, occasionally popping into the garage to harass him with the camera like only the best of paparazzi can.
Then I invited the Agent of Trouble over for dinner and TV/Movies on Thursday night, and suddenly my weekend was filling up faster than I knew how to handle.  Trouble was heading down to The Mount on Friday morning with some friends and had to leave my place before 9am.  But what about the pancakes I had promised for breakfast?  There went my first sleep-in.  (This is my own fault, because I insist on letting the batter set for an hour before cooking.)
Trouble managed to get away in reasonably good time - but not without extracting a promise from me that I'd join her down at The Mount on Sunday. I spent the rest of the day taking photos of the engines.

Photos like this.

At some point I got into conversation with my friend Nick, whether over text or voice I cannot remember now.  I agreed to go have some beers with him and other of his geek-type friends on Saturday.  Boy, my weekend was starting to fill up!  Nick wanted beers starting at about 3pm, but that was too late for me because I was going in to work at 4pm to see the plane in.
Oh yeah, did I mention my plane was coming back?  The one in Texas?  The one which had me sent to the 'States for five months of training and abject misery (misery levels may be exaggerated)? The one which is about two years overdue?  Well she was.  And she did.  There is photographic evidence of this, but due to the security implications I am not permitted to put them up on the internet.  You still believe me though, right?

I got my quiet night that Friday, and a sleep in on Saturday so I was feeling pretty good when it came time to pick up Nick and take him out to lunch instead of the afternoon beers.  Nick is one of my greatest friends.  We can talk about geeky stuff or serious stuff, about jokes and misery, and about life as well.  He has so much wisdom and experience I always feel like I learn something after spending time with him.  This time was no exception, but unfortunately the content of our conversation is not any of your business.  I will tell you though that he had the steak and I had the venison pot pie.  Both were delicious.

I made it back in time to get to work for the arrival of the Mighty P3-K2 (Shiver to the souls of yer boots, me hearties, fer thar be a fine sight!) and although I wasn't rostered on to be at work I did a pretty good job of making it look like I was.  It's all in the overalls you wear!
It was pretty exciting, really, and there will be a formal welcome ceremony next week as well as an official Maori and (I assume) Christian blessing placed on the plane. Until then we're cleaning her up since she hasn't been treated with much love these last four or five years.  Again - I'm not allowed to put photos up!
That night I couldn't sleep.  I was pretty excited about heading down to The Mount and discovering what The Agent of Trouble was up to.

Although rain was forecast for pretty much the entire country I had an easy time of it driving down the island, and when I turned up at the backpackers I learned that Trouble and her friends were at the beach so thither also went I.  The beaches of Mt Maunganui are what my flatmate Ginge calls 'real' beaches.  They have golden sand and surfable surf.  There was no requirement to swim between the flags.
This day it wasn't perfect.  There were plenty of people around but not many in the water.  The sand felt a bit grey and the clouds threatened to cry about it.  Shortly after I arrived it was decided we would go into Tauranga in search of food and then on to the Jazz Festival.

We had Fush & Chups.

There was plenty of laughter.

There were lots of Greedy Gulls.

We even tried to join in the dancing at the Jazz Festival, but without a lot of success.

There's more to come, but unfortunately the wheels of the world continue to turn and I must get ready for work.  Keep your eyes peeled and your screens refreshed for the second installment coming soon to an internet near you.

Controversial Billboards - I love them!

My friend just sent me a text with an amusing photo attached.  Despite the three menu screens and no small amount of finger trouble I went through to get to the picture I found myself chuckling at the image.  It was of a billboard outside of (and especially for) the St Matthew In The City Progressive Anglican Church.  I have downloaded it onto my computer and uploaded it onto the internet so that you, too, may enjoy the humour.*

Upon my reply to the friend about the style of the billboard he replied that the joke posted there last week was a good one too.  After sharing the picture with my flatmate and his sister we proceeded to use the fancy interwebs to find out if there had been many more.  Turns out there had:

(enlarge to read the small print on this one)

Unfortunately this last one was a bit too much for some devout believers. They were incensed with the idea that Joseph and Mary might be portrayed as being in bed together (!!). Well that's my take of the hatin' that followed. Maybe I have the wrong end of the stick. Either way, while most of the city chuckled and agreed, some felt the need to respond in a different way. Kiwis might remember the public outcry:

I seeing all these photos on the internet reminded me that I often pass by this very billboard - perhaps once a week or so.  I'll be paying more attention now which I think is their aim.  So: "Well done St Matthew in the city."


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* Since posting this the billboard has made it into the NZ Herald newspaper. (Again.)