Crumpet Toast and other cautionary tales

My Fabulous Public, you may have noticed my severe lack of motivation on the blogging front over the last week or so. I've been exhausted in the evenings from working full days (and full on days at that - learning makes me very tired). In addition, I have been fed at Austin Terrace the last few nights which has meant that I have been far far away from my computer. But here I am! At home... I'm making a mysterious brown rice/vegetable/lamb stock concoction that is baking as I write, listening to Pulp, and drinking a beer stolen from my brother. Mmm, stolen beer tastes so sweet. (I was intending to buy my own beer, but realised at the supermarket checkout that I had left my wallet at work. I was annoyed by this. Then I went to the bus stop, waited for ever, only for the bus driver to keep his doors resolutely closed while I waited in the increasing cold. Which made me more annoyed and increased my already dire craving for beer.)

I bought Crumpet Toast the other day, in a moment of supermarket bizarre product splurge.Supposedly, it's a cross between crumpets and toast, more square and perfectly sliced so that it fits into the toaster more neatly. It's more like toast than crumpet, which is a little disappointing, but I can tell you that it makes a mighty fine toasted cheese sandwich. I strongly recommend buttering the outside of the bread before toasting is commenced for extra extra dairy deliciousness. (Butter is so good, and margarine such a travesty). Question: Would I buy crumpet toast again? I must confess I am a purist when it comes to crumpets, and that crumpet toast did not fulfil all my crumpety ideals. No more crumpet toast for me.

I decided to make a very short photo essay about my daily trip to work; I have to wade through deepest darkest Hutt Valley to get to work and the suburbs are mind blowingly suburban, but also strangely soothing for a suburban girl such as myself. There is a bland beauty to the neighbourhood; the commitment to having perfect lawns, exotic flowers and trees and plants, and to having these plants so severely placed in the perfect lawn. Bizarrely,the suburb sits right below a barren hill range - the hillside is broken only by gorse, bracken and a poorly placed wreckers yard which looms large on the skyline. This totally bleak vista makes me feel like I'm visiting the end of the known world. I can't imagine what it must be like to live there.