Merci

And thank you to Homepaddock for suggesting that this blog is worth a regular check (or regular waste of your time).

I don't like to brag, I feel I am quite skilled at wasting people's time. God knows enough teachers used to tell me so at school. I do remember managing to get our German teacher talking for an entire class about her hair and styles she has had it in through various decades.

Probably explains why I can only count to eleven in German.

Evolution - we has it.

Did you hear how Peru's top court has just ruled that workers cannot be fired for being drunk on the job?

Brilliant.

So a janitor gets himself buffaloed, rocks up work and gets fired because he's drunk in charge of a broom.

Not entirely happy at this outcome the janitor took his case to court and it was ruled that the firing was excessive because even though he was drunk, he did not offend or hurt anybody.

(Naturally I have visions of Schneider off One Day at a Time and immediately feel empathy for the guy).

So if I get it right, it's okay to be drunk at work as long as you don't hurt or offend anyone - I am also loving the fact that it doesn't say you have to be productive while being drunk- you just have to be at work and not piss anyone off.

Outstanding.

I'm moving to Peru.

And finally, for dessert....

And just when you thought a girl has had enough holidays, she takes off for another couple of days. I like to think of it as a pudding holiday, if you will.

I joined the family of four-boys-aged-six-and-under for a spot of camping. Or, I should say, as they terrorised the camping ground. It was quite magnificent. The boys are six, four, three and then there's the Miniature Drunk. He's just over a year old and has only recently discovered what his legs can do, so kept us entertained stumbling about the place like a giggling buffoon while we did our best to stop him from eating things with the equivalent nutritional value to a cigarette butt. He also came in handy when we were playing beach cricket. We had one wicket and the other wicket was where ever Miniature Drunk was. It was a great addition to the game. I think NZ Cricket should adopt it, it would make test matches a hell of a lot more fun to watch.

When you think about it, camping is a strange thing to do. It's like devolving (is that the opposite to evolving?). What would our great-great-great-great-great grandparents' think of the fact that we have got to a point when we would actively chose to make life a lot more difficult for ourselves and then call it a holiday.

'Why would anyone go camping?' Laughed Mother-of as we lugged an enormous plastic bin full of dirty dishes to the kitchen facility on the other side of the camping ground to stand in line to wait for a sink to become free so we could then wash our arsenal of dishes.

Thinking seems to be back to front when camping. I'm more likely to fly to the moon than walk down the street in my jim jams, yet I will happily trek about five hundred metres passed total strangers in my jammies to get to the shower block (to stand in line to wait to pay $2 for four minutes worth of shower).

Yesterday morning I stumbled out of my tent, bleary eyed, looking like the wreck of the Hesperus (you could have probably found a bird nesting in my hair) to discover the three-year-old was standing outside my tent. He looked up me and with a very serious face said, 'You're bootifwul, Katelastnamewithalisp.'

My wee heart melted.

Oh, how I love camping.

For Tinman (if you want to know what I'm talking about - see request in comments on previous post).

Said hat.

They make 'em lippy these days

During the holidays Niece #1 looked at me and said, 'Hey! That hat! I have two of those!'

'You bought this with me, remember? You told me it looked disgusting and thought that I should be buying the pink straw cowboy hat instead. And I told you that I wasn't Daisy Duke.'

'Oh yeah, that's right. Well that hat doesn't look that good on you.'

'Up yours, small child.'

Old friends are such a joy.

I got a call from an old mate who lives out of town just before Christmas (we once flatted together for about four years).

'When are you going away?'
'Before Christmas.'
'And when are you coming back?'
'After that.'
'Good, cause I want your house, I want your car and I want your fridge - preferably stocked full of food and alcohol.'

Bless him.

So we organised the minor details of where I was going to drop the keys to my house, car and the fact that I needed to text him my alarm code - which was all good.

Except for one thing.

I almost forgot about the key dropping-off part.

Luckily, I remembered while I was still at the airport and just as I was climbing into a glass of free chardonnay. (Okay, I know technically it's not free but if you don't pay for it at the time it still seems free).

What had happened was that I was running a little bit late, so I forgot the things I didn't actually need to do in order to get myself out of the city.

So you can understand that it wasn't until I was safely ensconced in the airport lounge with a delayed plane that my mind went, 'Fuck! Keys. Haven't dropped.'

Off I went and dropped them with the nice people at the desk and rang my mate to tell him how I'd nearly forgotten and smugly added that I'd remembered in the nick of time.

I then started to text him my alarm code, my text started, 'Do you know how tempting it is to tell you the wrong .....'

And then.

Yup.

Naturally - poof!- the code disappeared right out of my head. Those thieving code stealers committed daylight robbery.

I rang him again.

'What?'
'I've forgotten my alarm code.'
'You can't have forgotten your code.'
'I've forgotten my code.'
'You're an idiot.'
'Still doesn't make me remember my code.'
'No, you really are an idiot.'
'Oh and, there is also one other thing.'
'What - apart from the fact that I will get to your house only minutes before your security company does?'
'I had meant to fill up my car but I ran out of time cause I was running late, so now my empty petrol tank problem is your problem.'
'So no code and petrol?'
'Yup, even though I am confident the code shall return to my brain in due course.'
'Brilliant, how many petrol stations are going to be open at ten p.m on Christmas day?'
'As I said, my problem now your problem, kemosabe.'

You will be happy to hear that I got a text from him on Christmas day telling me that he was in my house drinking a blizzardly cold Heineken about 10.45p.m.

But I think he got the last laugh.

I got home, went to start the car.

Wouldn't start.

Bastard.

Well giddy-up, it's a brand new year!

Hello and let's slap a happy-new-year-people in there as well. I realise that very soon I shall be so last week in saying that, but I think I can squeeze one last use out of it. I hope you've all had wonderful old holidays, I certainly have.

Oh let me count the ways I love summer. As promised beach pictures.

My view.

And then a brief tumble down the hill where you could find yourself looking at stuff like this.

Okay - fessing up - I didn't take that shot, and it didn't happen when I was there - I think Mrs Sunshine took it, but it's worthy of an airing here.

And finally, my foot.

I seemed to have developed a thing about taking shots of people's feet this summer, something I find vaguely weird about myself. But in my defence Your Honour,I have to say little children's feet are terminally cute.

Okay I will stop now.

Heading over to the beach after Christmas I was in a car that was to pick up avocados. We found a roadside stall that we thought was the best value.

Bag of ten avocadoes the size of my head? NZ$4 (1.7 Euro, US$2.37).

Big bag of tomatoes that tasted like tomatoes and not sacks of tomato flavoured water? NZ$1.

Satisfaction at value for money? Priceless.