Wednesday List: podcast recommendations

I play podcasts any time that I'm sewing, walking around, doing something that doesn't require much brain power at work, commuting, shopping at the supermarket, cooking, cleaning... I like the radio, I like human voices, and I also like self programming. 

Of course, most podcasts are only issued at intervals - once a week (if I'm lucky), bi-weekly or monthly. This means that my listening capacity far exceeds the capacity of creators to make content and so, I am constantly discovering, subscribing and re-listening.

Gentle reader, I have listened to MANY podcasts, and now I would like to share some recommendations with you.

Some awesome stories

I think that actually attending a story-telling night would be a little bit too much like going to see stand-up comedy (true story: I pretty much hate stand-up comedy). However live story-telling makes great radio.

• The Moth podcast is a well produced show of live recordings from story-telling events in the US and Canada. There is some variety in the awesomeness of the stories, but as a rule the podcasts themselves are well-curated and have a good spread of experiences.
• RISK! is Moth-esque but about 300x more risqué.
• Spark London is a story-telling podcast from - obviously - London. A bit more raw in production compared to the other two.

Podcasts that are centred around telling stories outside of the context of a live story-telling event make up the core of my listening. Even better: when they include primary sources (be still my beating heart).

• The entire catalogue of the Radiotopia network. I am especially in love with The Stranger, Love + Radio and the Radio Diaries (see: the Radio Diaries Strange Fruit episode which is disturbing and a truly amazing piece of radio).
• This American Life (a given).
• Radiolab has been in constant rotation since my earliest days as a podcast junkie. It's a blend of science and story-telling and, like many of the Radiotopia shows, has some really interesting sound work.
• Everything is Stories has amazing content and is beautifully produced. This is one of my favourite podcasts at present and I am extremely excited because as I started writing this I discovered a new episode had just been released. 

Je suis un History Geek

I listen to many history podcasts, some of which are very hit and miss and very geeky and some of which have terrible sound. In an effort to respect that your geekery may not be as well developed as mine and to preserve your sanity (such bad sound!) here I suggest the better ones.

• Sawbones is a comedic look at medical history presented by a married couple - moments of genuine hilarity. Also! History!
• Stuff You Missed in History Class, which is can be really interesting and is always well researched. The hosts tend to do a very broad sweep so the relevancy of a particular episode to your interests may be hit and miss. Also, in recent years I think the episodes have become too short and with farrrrrr too many advertisements. I recommend using your powers to skip these.
• Last Stop to Nowhere covers the more obscure aspects of Australian history (Somerton Man!) but isn’t afraid to look at the more difficult and painful aspects of Australian history like the Frontier Wars.

Radio drama

Listening to old Agatha Christie radio dramas lead me to the love of Golden Age detective novels. Current favourite radio dramas include

• Welcome to Nightvale, which is simultaneously completely left field and utterly formulaic. I think it helps to listen to the series from the beginning as oppose to jumping in halfway through, because of character development and understanding of in-jokes.
• BBC Homefront - which is an ambitious attempt to create a four year long radio drama dramatising life in England during the First World War. Extremely gentle programming, the episodes only last a few minutes each. Soooothing. Also, we're only a few episodes in so it's not too late to listen to the entire series!

Special mentions

Too good not to mention, but falling outside of the categories above.

• The Call Your Girfriend podcast, which makes me miss Bex, but also feel like I'm living inside The Toast or The Hairpin. Feminism! Robyn! Rants!
• The Sporkful is hands down the best food podcast that I listen to, and makes me think about eating delicous food but not also agonise over the kind of oil I'm using (which is a very real problem form me)
• Finally, shout out to Pocket Casts, my podcasting app of choice, which is so much better than iTunes.

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Brief life update

Right now I am writing this in bed, in advance, on a Saturday. The weather is fairly shit, and I'm not really loving my job at the moment so the weekend is a blessed relief. 

 

Also: drinking my second cup of coffee and obsessed with Thomas Tallis's Spem in Alium piece which is an English Renaissance choral work for 40 voices singing 40 separate parts.

Visitors and a Martinborough mini-break

January is a sad-glad month for me. Usually, over the Christmas and New Years period, a bunch of friends come home to visit home (their parents and families) and I get in on the action. It's great to see them again but enjoying them so much makes me realise how dreadfully I miss them for the rest of the year! 

This summer brought a bumper crop of visitors - including the family I mentioned in the last post - Bex, her partner Sebastien and their son Julian. It was super great having them stay with us, and it's really nice to be able to play host to people without having to worry about flatmate etiquette. Julian is a year old and he was a star, definitely the kind of baby that makes you think "oh... it wouldn't be so bad...", even though he was a bit crotchetty from all the travel.

The family left on Thursday, and Shannon and I went across to Martinborough with a group of friends for the weekend, getting back at about midday today (Sunday). We stayed in a super lovely house in the middle of a vineyard, ate a great deal, and spent the evenings drinking and staring at the stars. Everyone else saw approximately one billion million shooting stars and I saw none, and I took no photographs whatsoever of the entire weekend which I'm sure makes me the world's worst blogger.

On Saturday day the associated menfolk took themselves to a golf course and spent the entire day ruining a good walk; we the ladyfolk drank coffee, lunched at a vineyard, went to a PRETTY FREAKING AWESOME VINTAGE STORE, swam in the river and came home via the ice-cream shop. While in Martinborough we looked at all the giftish shops which were full of things that were very nice, but not quite nice enough to buy (sometimes I am scared at the quantities of (designer) dross in the world).The sun was lovely and the wind infinitely ignorable so I feel that we definitely won on the weather front.

I went totes nuts in the vintage shop which had a veritable plethora of knitting and sewing supplies, including quite a lot of vintage trim, buttons and the like. There was no fabric or patterns about which made me feel simultaneously full of sadness and deeply, deeply relieved. My stash also thanks me - while it's nowhere near as extensive as it could be, I am hoping to be increasingly stash-less and try and buy for patterns as I go. I am so frustrated with having not quite enough fabric to make any one thing at any time.* 

My haul!: I bought a bunch of transfers and trims from the vintage shop:

I'm planning to use the bigger transfers (they're a bit smaller than A4 sized) on baby blankets etc. The transfers in the book are intended for embroidery and are 1940s/50s I think - I LOVE them. I think it would be awesome to embroider them on a super simple t-shirt - something like the Sewaholic Renfrew or the Grainline Scout Woven Tee (which I've actually just ordered). The trim is quite hard to see in this picture - I bought about a metre of navy/white/red rick-rack, and some kind of bizarro Oroton-mesh style metallic ribbon which is edged in white crochet. I think this would look great inserted into the shoulder seams of a simple raglan sleeved top.

With all these plans, I am rather itching to get started - I am sitting in my sewing room right now, but it's still missing most of my crafty bits as I'm expecting my favourite family to come through again on their way back up the country. Having emptied the room, I've had a chance to think about how I'd like to set it out.... I know that things aren't ideal right now, but I think for optimum awesome room-ness I will have to buy some additional furniture. I like the idea of having cubby holes for my fabric and yarn stashes, and perhaps i would be able to store my sewing machines on my desk if I gave up my second computer screen which I'm not really using at all. I'll have to have a think and maybe a perve at some other people's sewing rooms for inspiration.

I'm trying to soothe my sewing desires by knitting myself a top: this one, from Purl Soho. I tell you though, when you're on a sewing kick, knitting just isn't the same. Going to stop drooling at patterns and dreaming about what to sew next, and sit myself down to some knitting for half an hour or so.

*Vintage fabrics are, of course, totally exempt from this rule, due to my lack of self-control in this department.**

**the moment I wrote this I found fabric to buy on Trade Me [help me I have a problem].

Another New Year and 365 Days of Peta

Happy belated New Years to All the People! Yesterday I spent most of the morning recovering from New Years dinner and drinks with Bea at Chap's parents' house, and the afternoon putting together 365 Days of Peta, the Julie/Julia style-project that I mentioned in my last post. I'm pretty happy with how the site looks at the moment, although I have no doubt that I will spend much time tweaking it in the future.

At the moment I am baking a Tarte au Citron as part of my first 365DOP cooking experiment, I have some gorgeous little lamb loins marinating in espresso coffee, sugar and various spices, and a box of Jersey Bennes waiting to be lovingly boiled and coated in butter and fresh mint from the giant bush in the back garden. I'm considering cooking the lamb loins on the barbeque, if the weather stays nice (PLEASE STAY NICE). I am using my brother Tom coming around as the perfect excuse for cooking this mountainously decadent meal, but really in the actual fact, it's ALL FOR ME.

Mostly, I've spent the last week of my holiday sewing and adjusting various op-shop pick ups. I made another full gathered skirt similar to previous ones that I've shown off, this one out of some vintage fabric that I picked up via the ubiquitous Trade Me. Quelle fab, non? Blue roses are the perfect flower.

Also, I finally made adjustments to this dress that I picked up in July when we went up north. It's red and has a jaunty white with red polka-dot Peter Pan collar. Delish, and I think probably appropriate work wear.

Finally, I am excited because lovely Bex has had her adorable son! Congrats to you and to Sebastien and to bubs. I am gagging for pictures lady.

Did I mention...

Bex and I have been scheming. I've mentioned it a couple of times but I am yet to reveal it in all it's glory so... Here it is:

It's more of the same. That is, if you enjoy my endless twittering here, why not also enjoy it over there with my darling bestie's additional twittering? Bex has described it thus:

Paper Tiger is an open series of postcards between Rebecca and Sarah Jane. Rebecca is travelling in North America and Sarah Jane lives in New Zealand, where she spends much of her time knitting and spinning. This is their home for mutual scheming. 

You should totes go over there. And I shall stop double posting.

Arohanui

A rip-off TILT! On a Friday! Like Originality! But without the part where I come up with an original concept!

And now with no further ado - A Bunch of Stuff that I Love.

♥ Having the Boy around. Absence made my heart super fond y’all, and although I miss him horribly when he’s gone, I like him coming back so much (with presents and kisses) that I’m willing to put up with it. Also I get to eat pizza in bed and watch crappy TV on my laptop while he’s away. He would never put up with such a display of slobbishness.

♥ Finishing the epic cardigan of DOOM. You may have heard of this. I’ve been knitting it since March and finally, FINALLY, it’s finished. I’m wearing it right now and it’s super super warm and wonderful. In fact, I am also wearing a scarf and a hat and a pair of handwarmers that I knitted and I look a little bit like I’ve had a horrible accident in a yarn store - albeit, a very stylish yarn store.

♥ Google Chrome. I’ve changed my browser to Chrome at work, and I’m loving it. Call me Ms Geek Von Geekness Who is Late on the Bandwagon (please?). It’s definitely faster and I like the way the tabs disappear so prettily and animatedly (plink! It’s gone!). I’m planning to change my browser at home now - I’d put off doing it for ages because I hated the idea of having to copy all my bookmarks over, but having discovered that Chrome will do it for me I can think of no reason to hold off. FAB.

♥ Spinning wheel. It’s changed my spinning habits for the better/faster/more efficient. I wish I was spinning now.

♥ Having an open fire at work. Hello Heaven! And keeping warm!

♥ Stupid awesome television quotes; and especially these quotes from The New Adventures of Black Beauty and It Is I, Count Homogenized respectively. Man, there are some great lines out there, but I'd rather read them in isolation than watch TV, so call me a philistine and rub my belly. Mmm, philistine belly rub.

♥ Book club and lovely book club girls. For our last book, we read Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins and there is no way I would have otherwise - I'd never heard of it and the blurb is very vague. Also, apparently there is no costumes (!) I LOVED IT. And I strongly recommend. The Wikipedia run down makes it sound like shit, otherwise I'd link through to that. Please take my recommendation and run with it!

♥ My knee recovering enough to allow me to ride my bike around and start skating again. Injuries that affect walking, and exercise, and skating, and heel-wearing are absolutely horrible, and the feeling of recovering is absolute bliss.

♥ Talking and Scheming with Bex. 

And I think that will about do for this week! Love love, lovelies. Have a fab weekend.

I'm off the internet and things go BOOM!

So blah blah, no blog posts for a month and photo a day failed spectacularly and blah. Also, I haven't been skating for ages and am now quiiiite unfit. Also, what happened to yoga? I loved yoga.

Also I haven't been checking my reader and now I have over 1000 unread posts! It's mind blowing.

My excuses for my lack of being around are: changing job (where I spend all day on the internet anyway but working now), moving in with the Boy who has recently got back from overseas and being heinously loved up, knitting many hats and a cardigan. Eating and cooking and eating. Watching Deadwood again. Procrastinating because it is too hard. Going to goodbye parties (*tear*).

I'll ease myself back in to it. I have a secret awesome project coming up with Bex but I don't think it will go live for a wee while. Start watching this space again.

xxxxx

♥ Campus A Low Hum - Day One ♥

It's taken me ages to write all of this and now I'm worried that it just reads like an appalling story written by a small child ("And then I went to the Zoo, and then I had an ice cream, and then I rode on the train"). So. Just saying.

I cadged a ride with the Boy up to Bulls the day before camp started and decided to have an early night, which mean that I woke up full of PEP and VIM on Saturday morning, CALH Day One. It rained all Friday night and on and off for most of Saturday, but in an effort to be mature and responsible I had checked out the weather before I left (indeed, obsessed over it) and had brought a pair of gumboots and some awesome plastic ponchos that made me look like I’d just been picked up from the drycleaners.

I spent the first part of the morning haunting the canteen and looking forlornly towards their espresso machine (i.e. the Teat from which I Prefer to Suckle) because OH MY GOD I NEEDED COFFEE. This need was a combination of the beer I’d drunk the night before that was still hanging out with me, and all that fresh out-doorsy air.

Shannon and the RNZ crew were working the first part of Saturday and the rest of the people in my tent party (Bex, Luke, Bryna, Peter) had bustled of to Marton for gumboots and umrellas, so I was left to my own devices. I lurked ex-workmate Ange and gf for a bit and then wandered off to look for Lippy with whom I was supposed to be doing skating stuff. As soon as I started looking for her she appeared like magic and we managed to get a skate in and try out the floor before attending life drawing classes, which were being run by a friend of Lippy’s.

Lippy and Me getting arty with ourselves

This was great, but apparently it was vitally important that I made a dick of myself during this class, mishearing “gesture drawing” as “jester drawing” and thus making a douchey-smartass comment completely inadvertently. I’m actually blushing just thinking about it. Anyhow, it turns out that I’m not as shit an artist as I thought – with the right patience and guidance, two beers and my Derby Wife by my side, THIS is what I can achieve:

Dude! It kind of looks like a person and not a series of blobs!

It was already well past midday before I got around to seeing any bands – the first I saw was Parking Lot Experience who were a bunch of guys from Melbourne. I can’t remember anything about the music, but I can tell you that they made a very impressive human pyramid on stage and then performed a Chinese dragon dance that became a conga line.

We had a quite a nice relaxing afternoon and evening featuring more alcohol (a theme for weekend), gumboots and a deep and meaningful between Bex and me (kisses darling). At some point after we’d drunk copiously we noticed what the time was and toddled off to see the Dodos play. Shannon and I ended up perched on the edge of the stage which was awesome fun; he gave a boost to a small girl who was trying to climb on top of a stack of speakers. That was one of the most fun things about Camp – even if you were doing something that was basically kind of dumb, there were no grown ups telling you what you could and couldn’t do (with the exception of climbing the water tower. That was Verboten). Oh, and as always the Dodos were fantastic to watch! I enjoyed this gig much more than when I saw them at San Fransisco Bath House at the end of 2007 because the sound was just too loud for me. I ended up having to stand right at the back of the bar and even then my ear drums were quivering with fear.

After the Dodos had played, Bex and I changed into our toga/sheets for the Orientation party which had been billed, essentially, as a non-ironic bogan fest. We danced to some seriously bad 90s music in the gym, including that KORN track about doing it all for the nookie (still stuck in my head). I was disturbed at the amount of nostalgia that the music and the situation made me feel and I felt strangely affectionate towards the situation instead of horrified. Indeed, I was thrust back in time to 1998 when I went to all these trashy parties with Hayley and her Chilton friends, parties that also featured a whole bunch of gross Hutt Boys and a fair amount of RTDs. Dude, I was THERE again. I was feeling it. I requested "Barbie Girl" from the DJ.

 VIA Sean

Later during the Orientation party, having cleared an enormous dancing space for ourselves, Bex and I decided it would be an awesome idea to slide around on the floor on our knees and I promptly bruised myself on top of an earlier bruise I’d got from roller skating.

NEXT WEEK: A crocodile, two holes, and I actually see some bands.

Gratuitous Picture Of Yourself Wednesday!

At Duke Carvell's, wistfully contemplating a misty moisty Sunday (via Bex's iPhone).

This Weekend in Pictures

  

Saturday: Bella and affogato and sock knitting in the sunshine at Caffe Eis by the Frank Kitts Lagoon. Birthday drinks for Kate later in the evening.

Sunday: My mum, and then Bex and gin and hiding from the rain at Duke Carvell's.

Just a rant, you know.

Hello my darlings! Why yes thank you, I am feeling MUCH BETTERER than I was feeling the other day. Do you know what helps when you are feeling like shit? Eating well and taking your antidepressants regularly. Oh, and the love of a Good Man. I have many exciting things happening over the next few days! Tonight I am having drinks with the lovely Nat who has finished her last exam for this semester. I’m really looking forward to seeing her and giggling and stuff because I haven’t really seen her terribly much lately, and I just want to hang out with someone I’ve known for a stupidly long time. Friday night Shannon is taking me out for dinner to Maria Pia’s which I hear is delicious! I’ve wanted to go there for dinner for ages so this is quite exciting for me; I want to eat and eat and eat and eat. We’re planning to drink a bottle of Champagne before we go (none of the traditional Pageant Juice for me!).

Boy + Food + Champagne + Being Horribly Spoilt =

one super happy Ginger

Saturday I am heading to the Massey University Blow Festival fashion show with Bex and then going to the Tiki Shack at the house of the lovely Kate and Jo where I plan to see Derby girls who I haven’t seen forever and get my hula on. Sunday I am skating for the first time all week and I am very quite excited… I’ve had the opportunity to recharge my Derby Love and I miss the feeling of being on roller skates so much. It feels like freedom, my lovelies. All in all it’s shaping up to be a fabulous couple of days. I should probably schedule in some cleaning/washing/crafting time too… and some reading time… and some blogging time… and some lurking time. Chillurking time, perhaps. ALSO: I have a couple of kind of exciting projects coming up! One will definitely be blog-based so watch this space for EXCITING THINGS.

Arohanui: bite-sized lumps ♥

• Epic cooking adventures with my brother
• Re-discovering fruit flavoured lipgloss
• Star wipes
• Deeply meaningless vintage television - interviews from 1973 that glorify some  celebrity that neither I nor Google have ever heard of
• Text marathons with Bex about dating conundrums
• Falling asleep on the train
• Having a bottle of wine in the house
• Discovering Ngaio Marsh - like Agatha Christie but with misplaced patriotic pride. Booyakasha
• Writing Booyakasha
• Meanderingly long biographies about disgustingly rich people (e.g. Mitford Sisters, Jerome Sisters, Peggy Guggenheim et al). I especially like it when the time frames/family trees overlap
• Choosing to follow both Stephen Fry and Britney Spears on Twitter in the same 12 hours
• Having two pairs of very clean bearings for my skates
• Brie on freshly cooked asparagus for lunch
• Asparagus season
• ANTICIPATION: Kylie in December, Scots Liz in New Zealand!, running away with the Boy over Christmas.

Hm, title sounds a little like munching on offal.

WhipperSnapper Extravaganza

There was fun and there was craft and quite a lot of gin and some other alcohol in a huge bottle. I was sad because my camera ran out of batteries just after the fish and chips arrived.

Also: I made a video. The song I used is called "Elliot"; it's from super great twee band Little Pictures. The video also includes the tragic story of Bex's ankle.

What I Have Eaten

Last night was the Great Mother-Boy Meet Up. In an effort to assuage my nervousness I got ridiculous on the cooking front - nothing would do but cooking something Huge and New. Thus I made a Moroccan roast chicken with cous cous salad and a spinach salad. It was *awesome* if I do say so myself. I used this recipe for Roasted Organic Chicken with Moroccan Spices, and this recipe for the spice mix ras el-hanout... it comes via the ever fabulous Peta Mathias, and is the cheaty New Zealand based version (i.e. it leaves out the orris root and belladonna. Neither of which are in especially large supply in Wellington).

On Saturday I was at Whipper Snapper - the Peter/Bex Birthday extravaganza. I have many photos! And will blog the lot more fully later... but suffice to say I spent the whole day pigging out on fairy bread and cup cakes and fresh fruit. The meal culminated with the hugest amount of Fish and Chips I think I've ever seen in one place. Ten scoops of chips apparently. Yum! Fish and chips and beer = summer.

Summer, salad, picnics, beach, HOORAY. Bring on the summer! Now I am going to cook some sausages.
♥ sausages ♥

Arohanui

• Going on dates with a person you're super close with... the most fun ever to hang out with a person who you adore and who adores you and whose company is fabulously good.
• Eating well... during the day at work, and at home. So great feeling wonderfully satisfied, wholes and a little more than slightly smug. I am eating huge amounts of fresh brioche with home made quince jam at the moment. Too good.
• Bright red cowboy boots, the greatest Trade Me purchase ever... Huzzah! Only a poncho could make me happier.

• Sitting in my bedroom with Bex, drinking wine and gossiping like school girls.
• Having a super sexily de-cluttered room with super hott clean sheets. I am wallowing in smugness. And I have room to THINK.
• Op shopping. God, I love it too much. I now have a 70s duffle coat with a fun fur lined hood and it blows my tiny mind.
• Writing on the train on the way to and from work. So much bogan deliciousness to record, heaps more time to navel gaze and contemplate.
• Friday afternoon at new job = glide time + booze.
• Books: crushing Djuna Barnes/Anais Nin's diaries/biographies of 18th C courtesans.

Ugh.... hangover so dire

Big night last night - involving drinking at a birthday party, where I met Gala Darling (a blog idol) and had absolutely no idea what to say, merely blustered horribly. Then to Colin's flat where Marnie was saying good bye to New Zealand... I spoke to Colin's boyfriend drunkenly about knitting for some time; Bex was wearing the most amazing Zambesi dress, she looked incredible. At some point about here I split my velvet dress up to my butt, I've torn it. Have to repair. So annoyance. And SO hungover today. Slept until half two and then had nasty dirty pizza for breakfast at half past three-ish. I'm still at the Boy's, avoiding going home because it seems like such an ENORMOUS EFFORT, walking up the stairs with a huge basket of storage solutions that I bought yesterday in a fit of organisational integrity. Besides which, Callum is cooking something that looks amazing and delicious and surprisingly vegan. And the Flat is still showing the Olympics on the projector... I've been watching Usain Bolt run really, really fast on super large screen. He has gold running shoes. I feel a little fetishistic about them. I want gold sneakers. They're so blingin' trash bad taste... Heaven. Mmm, storage sooo fun... Despite the horrific climb awaiting me, I can't hardly wait to unpack the plastic boxes and the new laundry basket, and the little wooden pegs and the shoe rack thingy. My room is going to look so hott. Watch this space for a further declutter update... I might name it something deceptively exciting sounding. Last night Bea told me she never looked at any of the declutter posts because they sounded boring. I need to trick my audience. Like TV does. See the level of my hungover-ness. Bleh.

Mysterious Night to Myself

6.47pm     Mysteriously... I have a night to myself.

Honestly... not so mysterious. I piked BIG time and in multiple ways too dull to detail.

My pikeage was not only condoned but wholeheartedly enforced by the Boy.

So I'm at home. I'm going to have an early night, and be a little crafty, and watch BBC Medieval season DVDs and read my new biography of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. So, essentially, undertake some serious history geeking or craftiness (different geeky).

I made Bex a CD. I may embark on creating a matching Muxtape.

I need food.

7.32pm     Muxtape and Mince on Toast for dinner... not just any toast but hot buttery Pandoro five grain sourdough, deliciously seedy. And the mince made with Tom's fair hands last night, bless him... chili con carne a la a Boy Flatting.

8.08pm    Somebody has eaten all my chocolate. In a desperate attempt to ingest something sweet I drink a glass of Tom's coke and a glass of Bella's Ginger Wine.

This does not satisfy any cravings at all.

I need LOLLIES, CHOCOLATE CAKE, &c.

Taking care of your blisters

Is very important. This I have recently discovered, as I have ended up with the Deliciousness that is Cellulitis... la horribly swollen and infected foot, limping around the house, resting all weekend, on masses of antibiotics, no skating. And the story being that I powered on through the pain of my new fave Man Shoes when they cut my feet to shreds on Wednesday... went skating and filled the wound with sweat and dirt and bacteria on Thursday... and was limping with shooting pains up the back of my calf by Friday. Poor Bex ran me to the After Hours Doctors after dinner, not an especially fun end to the evening.

Woe oh woe is lame old me, I thought, while laying face down on the bed in the surgery. Sixty-three dollars worth of lameness. I filled out an ACC form, hilarious if it gets accepted - whoever processes that will think that I'm the lamest of the lame too. Lamey lame lame. Ich bin sehr lame. Je suis tres lame. And so forth and suchlike.

The moral of this story then is: carry sticking plasters, don't wear un-broken-in shoes and cover open wounds before exercise.

So fucking lame.

A turn towards Winter.

Suffering from severe de-hy headache and bone chill. My roof has been repaired, but regardless, the cold isn't due to any raging of the elements; more a stubbornly sitting than a freezing blast from the south. I've dined in bed all day - first in the Boy's bed on omelette and Happy bacon and coffee from Mojo, this evening on risotto and ice cream with chocolate sauce. Mm, continuity.

This weekend punctuated with skating and socialising - dinner with Ange, Bex, Victoria and Victoria's studio-mate Hamish, a birthday party for Ruth in Newtown and a goodbye party for Isabelle in Mt Victoria. Skating in Upper Hutt involved knocking other people over, mostly - purely by accident of course, an especially large Dad and one or two small children who bounced off the floor almost as soon as they hit it while I lay on the rink and nursed various bruises.  Children when skating - never look around themselves at all but rather veer suddenly and set off with bloody-minded determination across the fast-moving bands of skaters. So, yeah. It was the kids' fault. The Dad less so -  I'm afraid I felled him with one of my wheels, and he toppled flat on to his back heavily, twitching a little.

i *heart* derby

Just quietly. Spent two hours on skates today and I love how natural it feels to be on wheels now... can't wait for my skates to arrive from the States. I'm going to go skating EVERY DAY, along the Waterfront and in underground carparks... in sun and in rain and on cloudy days and days which are nondescript but maybe a little humid (which I'm normally not that wild about) and on days where the wind is whipping over the water and on days where there's  quite a lot of warm sunshine but a nice little zephyr rustling my skirt.  Oh yes, I shall skate ALL the time.

Bex was just over and she helped me nut out a CV for a job that looks pretty fab, don't want to say too much about it as I'm afraid I'll jinx it big time. Suffice to say tho', Bex is wonderful wonderful wonderful, picking me up from practice and then spending two hours writing with me (and starving in the process , because I neglected to feed her. Bad Sarah.)

Last night went out with Nat and Mark and inadvertently took them to the Wrong Gig. However, there was a plastic raven on stage, which I figure must make some kind of difference to the relative merit of the evening. Like, "Every evening with a plastic raven is a good one!" Or something.

In which Sarah raves about a theatre piece she saw last night

Vula at Toi Whakaari... Vic and Bex and I, Ange taking tickets at the door. And I really really enjoyed it... breathtakingly beautiful at times, performed on water and concerned with interventions with that element... transformation, puppetry, characterisation. I did feel a tiny bit uncomfortable with the partial reliance on Pacific Island stereotypes - Otherworldly Hauntingness, then jolly village life replete with character being spanked with a broom. Of course, this bit was all in Samoan(?) and I didn't understand a bloody word because I didn't have a copy of the programme, but ne'er mind.

Final rave: watching these four women perform, and so strongly as well. Self aware (their perimeters, physicality, movement) without being self conscious (like so many "contemporary" movement pieces I've seen lately). I'm wondering if this self awareness without self consciousness is the marker purely of TALENT or of EXPERIENCE, or of a combination of the two...