Washing a house, Winter Fair

Saturday morning I dealt with the tail end of this stage of the Mysterious Chunky Family thing, which involved me dressing the living areas and washing down the walls inside a house, and Shannon and my brother Tom washing down the walls on the outside of the same house and giving the gutters a scrub, becoming completely saturated in the process.

Grumpiness reigned, and there was much snappishness amongst the three of us. I've reached saturation for this project, spending all weekend slaving over the house as well as all week working, and I'm pretty sure that this is the same for the Boys too. This Saturday I was determined that I would only do a what was on my list of "Last minute sprucing" things. However, I kept finding more work for myself, culminating in the final and depressing decision that in order to sell the house I needed to paint all the walls and tear out the existing bathroom. Disheartening much?

At 2pm we went home so that we could spruce ourselves before meeting up with some of Shannon's friends who were coming out to Petone from town for the Petone Winter Carnival and to watch a rugby test.

The carnival was everything you've ever dreamed of in a suburban beach-front winter carnival i.e. hot chips and a giant fairground ride, and people setting fire to wooden sculptures on the beach half an hour after the scheduled burn-time (we suspected not enough firefighter supervision - or matches). It was, indeed "A wee bit shit". But in an awesomely, comforting, know-what-to-expect kind of way.

 

Eating Some Food in Wellington, a review: Uncle Mike's Kansas City BBQ

In which I go on a 'hot date' to a barbeque rib house and am kind of disappointed.

Beef ribs!

One of the most exciting sounding eating establishments on the main road of Petone is Uncle Mike's Kansas City BBQ. Although, it doesn't look super amazing from the outside, the novelty of a ribs restaurant in Wellington is not to be sneezed at! Shan-dawg and I decided to grab life by the hairy bits and have a hot date at Uncle Mike's. Tragically, we discovered that all that glitters is not gold and that this rib restaurant was just not as awesome as might be hoped.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with Uncle Mikes's. All in all, the issue was not that the meal or decor or service was actively bad - just that nothing was really that great.

Shannon had beef ribs and I had pork and in both cases they were perfectly adequate - they weren't dry and the rib sauce and seasoning were good. The ribs were served with smokey beans and hand cut chips, which were also quite good individually. As a whole, however, the combo of the ribs, beans and chips was somewhat lacking - too many smokey flavours, not enough fresh flavours for the smokiness to play against. We ordered coleslaw on the side which readdressed the balance of the meal and I would recommend additional coleslaw as a course of action to any potential Uncle Mike's diners.

Pork Ribs!

Uncle Mike's is licensed but not BYO. I had a $10 margarita which I was quite pleased with, Shannon had a $9.50 Little Creatures beer. I have no recollection of the wine list whatsoever, I'm afraid, but why would you want a glass of wine when you can have a margarita?

"Decor"

Decor and waiting staff: decor is nothing to write home about and the lights are freakily bright, but the waiting staff were really nice - I didn't feel forgotten or fussed over. All in all, super nice kids!

AND IN CONCLUSION: Uncle Mike's. Don't get excited before you go and you should be all good. Doesn't require active avoidance, but I wouldn't urge you to attend.






Shannon took the photos of the food, and required a credit. So here you go doll!

This week, and the weekend, and the day today

Much better weekend without the hideousness of the cold. I hate the feeling of not achieving anything but TV watching and hat knitting, so it was good to get some other Doings under my belt. By Wednesday I am completely dried out as well, which has made me extremely happy. Must be all the iced tea and rum I'm drinking (match made in heaven).

On Sunday afternoon I sat out on my verandah in the autumn sun, watched the street and ate a huge slice of quiche that I'd made the day before. I felt this enormous sense of contentment - what a fabulous lifestyle. I am unbelievably blessed to have what I have and live where I live, and to eat as well as I do with a person that I adore. Giving this weekend a 8/10 rating for awesomeness.

Making good progress with the Bolero Redux. My needle points broke again (bah) but replacing them necessitated a trip to Holland Road which was very enjoyable as there was a bunch of Twitter people there knitting, and talking about yarn while they knitted. Planning on going to Tash's knit night tomorrow, and shared cake today. Look at me get my Petone community hat on!

There is a yoga place around too that I'm planning to discover, and this weekend I'm hitting the big second hand store up the road. Living in Petone makes me very happy.

More yarn news: desperately want to make a knitted pouf like these Puff Daddy ones, and I even have a suitable duvet lying around. Just trying to convince Boyf of practicality of afore mentioned pouf.

I've learnt two chords on the ukulele thus far and am so close to being able to play Three Little Birds  I can almost smell it (synesthesia?). However, my difficulties with strumming that I had when I tried to learn how to play the guitar aged 16 are all racing back to me. Apparently I am still somewhat lacking in the rhythm department.

The plan was to play La vie en rose or non je ne regrette rien by the end of the month but it really doesn't look as though it's likely to happen as those songs have so many chords in them and I'm still learning! Something I aim for I guess.

FOOD:

• Soups: vegetable with split peas, red lentils, barley and a bacon hock; and French Onion Soup which I LOVE
• This Banana Bread Crepe Cake from Smitten Kitchen - made this today and it was simply awesome
• At present I am roasting pork and trying to make perfect crackling. Why is perfect crackling so hard? I do not know