Red shoe day

Rushing around getting ready to leave for the office … skirt (black), top (also black), face (done), hair (also done) … pick up my bag, put on my shoes and head for the door.

Wait! Something is wrong … I’ve got a definite frumpy feeling.

What can I do? I know … it’s the shoes!

Quick change later …. and that’s much better.

I’m transformed from feeling frumpy to feeling fine. What a difference a shoe makes!
Whisper: Is it just me or is there something a little naughty about red shoes?

Grumpy Monday

Our garden is bordered on two sides by a park. It’s a simple park with lots of space for friends, family and club groups to frolic in the great outdoors. Here’s how it looked this morning..


..... all fresh and waiting for the next lot of revellers to descend. The same couldn’t be said for our garden!

We’ve been enjoying great weather and the park is busy most evenings and weekends. Yesterday, one of the local clubs had a big day out in the park. df and I enjoyed the sounds of activity that floated over the fence for most of the day.

BUT this morning here’s what I saw!

What kind of person thinks it’s OK to throw their junk over the fence and into our garden? I don’t get it!

Oh, and while I’m grumping …. I hate junk mail! It’s dropped unsolicited into our mail boxes; the wind blows it out again and it ends up in our garden!

Grump, grump, grump…

Fridge Figures

I've come over all arty .... I didn't mean to. I was sitting there quietly enjoying a late Sunday lunch, and chatting with df when it happened! Looking up, I glanced casually out of the window and there it was staring right back ..... reflections on our fridge door ….. very Henry Moore.

Tell me it wasn't the beer ... I'm sure I only had one!

A fine line..

… between embarrassing and eccentric!

Where would you place this car? It belongs to my daughter’s boyfriend’s brother. We’re babysitting it and it’s parked outside our house.

What will the neighbours think?

Look at that! Those crazy people at number 39 have finally lost it?
OR
Wow! How smart! We want one of those!

Maybe I’ll just pretend that we have nothing to do with it … maybe some aliens left it there!

Litter boxes

Seen on my way back from a quick lunch time walk. Not pretty ...

Two beaches – One planet

I was sorting through some of our October photos. Digital cameras are great – one can click away happily with no worries of spoiled film, etc. The result, however, is 1,000’s of photos that need sorting and orderifying (I made this word up just now – means ‘putting in order’).

I got to thinking …. two thoughts actually. Well OK, to be honest the second thought was a morning ‘while I’m in the shower’ thought but just as profound as the last night ‘while I’m sorting photos’ thought.

Thought 1 concerns the two beaches.

Beach 1 (photo taken by me) – Mission Bay, Auckland

Beach 2 (photo taken by daughter) – Kerela, India

Similar shots, both taken mid-October. How different yet how similar we all are.
Yeah! All right AND my daughter’s a better photographer that me!

Thought 2 concerns communication.

When I first left the UK in the mid 1970’s to live in India I kept in touch with my mother by writing to her – once a month. That’s how long it took for a letter to go, be replied to and come back. Long distance telephone calls were too expensive to contemplate except in dire emergency.

Today we have email, cheap (or free) long distance calls, instant messaging, texting … the list is almost endless. Keeping in touch is easy.

I remember my grandfather telling us about the horse and cart that delivered the morning milk. I even have a very vague memory of horse manure on the streets … I don’t have grandkids but I don’t need them … some of my younger colleagues are amazed when I tell them about the mainframe computers, punched cards and magnetic tapes of just 25 years ago that were THE latest in technology when I was a student!

It would be nice to think that the changing technology making communication so much easier had brought us more together. Sadly, it hasn’t … What’s wrong with humankind that we see differences so much more easily than we see similarities?

Who said 'We are not alone"?

It’s just after 11 o’clock this Tuesday morning. I’m sitting at my desk, conscientiously (honestly) working away on the old computer when suddenly I become aware of the strange eerie silence that surrounds me! A shiver runs down my back, the hair on my neck stands on end … I cautiously raise my eyes from the screen and apprehensively look around. No-one!

Where has everyone gone? Don’t tell me all my dreams have come true and finally all my fellow workmates (I love them really) have been abducted by aliens! Maybe not

So what’s up? What am I missing? Is it another one of those meetings that has mysteriously disappeared from my electronic calendar? Am I yet again missing the opportunity to hear one of our higher-ups inform us of ‘the latest update to clause 29 of our mission statement’ and to hear about the importance in implementing the said amendment ’going forward’? No big loss there then ….

Just a minute …. Is that young Mathew I see approaching from the starboard side?
‘Ahoy’, say I. ‘Where has everyone gone?’

‘They’re all in the kitchen eating chocolate cake. It’s Chris’s birthday.’

WHAT!!!!

I suppose the best I can do is to sidle innocently by and pray that there’s still a little piece left for me.

Pray, pray, pray, pray ……….

Cup Countdown ….

10… 9... 8… 7… 6… 5…

4... Americas Cup – lost
3… Cricket World Cup – lost
2… Rugby World Cup – whisper ‘lost in the quarter final, shhhh’
1… Netball World Cup – lost in the final
…. ZERO

AND …… New Zealand is now World Cup Loser of the year!!!

The Silver Ferns, our women’s netball team and World Champions till a few days ago, lost the final to Australia!

It was Saturday evening. We were at home and having polished off the chicken curry that I had rustled up, we all settled down to watch the game of netball. Pity about the score! BUT to give credit to our great sportsmanship we all joined in the rendering of Waltzing Matilda that was played in the background as Australia collected the medals! What unkind, cynical person mentioned that the Kiwi’s had to get back at the Aussies somehow? Waltzing Matilda indeed!!!

My son’s bed, 2007

This picture reminds me of Tracey Emin’s My Bed that was short listed in1999 for the Turner Prize. She didn’t win.

I reckon that with this effort my son would have had a much better chance! The original Emin bed was an uninspiring white; my son’s bed, on the other hand, is a riot of colour … or maybe just a riot!

I can almost see the description in the Exhibition’s Catalogue. It reads,

‘My Son’s Bed is an exciting metaphor for the second law of thermodynamics illustrating that in a closed system (the bed) without external energy fed in from outside (any attempt by son to actually tidy up), 'mixed-upness' (more properly called ‘entropy’) always increases.’

Plants grow, we cut them, plants grow, we cut them …

… there must be more to gardening than this! Can someone help me out here and explain the aspect of human behaviour that has us,
(i) up the garden centre on a Saturday spending our hard-earned money on plants that
(ii) we spend the following Sunday laboriously planting in the piece of land we call our garden
(iii) only to have to spend the next however many number of years cutting them back so that
(iv) we can still find our way to the front door without having to hack our way through the undergrowth?


Yes, you’ve guessed it. I’ve been busy gardening. To more accurately describe the activity df has been gardening. The result? A mess of hedge clippings strewn messily along the fence line. Picture does not tell all … believe me!

What do I care? After all the view of the garden from the road is much improved. We can actually see over the hedge now giving tantalising glimpses of the secret garden within. Passing neighbourhood snoops will have a clearer view of what's within. Not that we have many passing neighbours of any variety given that we are the last house at the end of a ‘No Through’ road. Oh well!!!

So, what DO I care? I care because I’m the cleaner-upper. I ride out on my broomstick (the rake) and waving my magic wand (the rake) pluck order from the jaws of chaos! Magic – NOT!!!




The old witch has to (reluctantly) admit that the flowers on the fejoa tree are just magical.

I'm back .... and it might be thanks to 'Old Spice'!

Yes ... I suddenly missed recording thoughts, incidents, comments that amused, annoyed, irritated, entertained ... etc., etc. I think the final push that came to shove me over the edge and back to blogdom was our morning discussion around the coffee machine.

It all started because polluting our small library of serious scientific journals was, horror of horrors, a 'Home and Garden' magazine! This obviously led to speculation, maybe started by me, that we might introduce Woman's Weekly, Woman's Day and other magazines that would help keep up with the latest gossip. Mr Jones (he is an innocent soul) mentioned something about Hilton Paris ... leading to much hilarity over his obvious lack of knowledge of worldly matters and seemed to support the need for broadening the education of, at least, some members of our team. The name of Britney Spears was but a fleeting reference before the recent rebirth and re-release of the Spice Girls led to much creative speculation …. Can we still call them girls? They could rename themselves Old Spice … or what about Vintage Spice … sounds a bit geriatric perhaps! Then a change of direction with Dave’s thought provoking 'Do you think they’ve really all managed to run out of money?'

Silence while we contemplate the enormity and implication of this suggestion.