A week Two weeks in SCP history (June 3-17)

An amazing Andy Warhol polaroid of Liza Minelli

Oh hello there! I have dropped off the face of the planet, blogging wise. I wrote this post a while ago now and during a transfer from blogging clients it some how ended up full of junk html (aside: if you know of a good blogging client for Ubuntu, please let me know!).

At the point where I realised that the formatting was all up the whatever, I felt too exhausted to do anything about it - and then for the next month I fell into a funk/anxiety haze where I felt mostly too exhausted or stressily het up to do anything much of anything, really.

But I am feeling more regular, and so will publish this post in preparation for something more substantial later this week. I have been making lots of things!

It looks as if June has often been a fairly prolific month here. Although I have nothing to report for this week from 2010-2012, I was posting substantively over the rest of the month during those years.

I’m putting this June enthusiasm for blogging down to the longer, colder days of winter, when nothing is more desirable of an evening than to cosy on down. (In fact I am ALSO internally cosy at the moment - full and relaxed on mulled wine. SO.GOOD.)

2009

• Cycle Rant- I am mad about the attitude towards cyclists as expressed in a Dom Post article. (I am often still mad about the attitude towards cyclists).
• You need to see this - I will knit for tattoos.
• Fashion bloggers v Pam Hogg - Fascinated by a now-ancient fashion blogger controversy.
• Saturday morning trauma - More about cycling in Wellington.
• Roller skates and roller skating - I hurt myself again at roller derby.

2008

• Roller Girls - watched Roller Girls for the first time and became deliriously excited about roller derby.
• Wednesday List: Liza Minelli - Liza Minelli is fabulous and awful. Yay Liza!
• A tour of my Kaikohe hotel room - the most retro hotel room I have ever stayed in.

2007

• Tongan Police Brass Band - heh, this is pretty awesome.

2006

• How serendipity on instant film - some thoughts on Polaroid film, which I still deeply love. Where can I buy cheap Polaroid film in NZ, people?
• Existing in real time - a list of things I happened to be well into at the time of writing.
• The World Cup has stolen my boyfriend - hilariously, I recently found a draft for a post about much the same thing that I’d written before the Rugby World Cup in 2011.

2005

• International Woman of Mystery - writing my first blog post in Australia.
• A Series of Observations: things that blow my mind - stuff in Adelaide, including the local passion for flavoured milk, the coins, and the crazy lack of people.

Do June and July fire in you the passion to do nothing but sit around at home and do indoorsy things, like blog?

The week in Self-Conscious Posturing History (May 28 - June 2)

pedrofins.net

Last week I announced that I was surprised with how little embarrassment I felt with that week's archival selection.

Lest you think that I'm some kind of paragon of self-acceptance, allow me to assure you that I managed to make up for last weeks sangfroid with the selection below. 2006 is particularly embarrassing: I am so angry and pretentious. Ugh, so pretentious.

But, in the spirit of self-acceptance and without any further ado, I present this week in SCP history:

 

2010 (could be also called: the Tumblr years)

• Sunday Awesome - (that's a great picture btw).
• Wednesday List of Ten Things in 2010 updated - I was making a list of ten things I wanted to do in 2010 and crossing them off! I am notoriously bad at this kind of thing, but it's interesting to note that I did in fact manage to achieve most of these.
• Gratuitous Picture of Yourself Wednesday - this was such a thing at the time.

 

2009

• A list of things that are possibly quite awful but that I have really enjoyed doing lately - four years later, I still enjoy doing most of these things, but have run out of unread/listened to Hercule Poirot mysteries.
• Crochet bicycle seat cover - OR Further Adventures of a Crafty-Beserker - still think this is pretty cool too.

2008

• Tasks overdue: everything, all of it - I have no idea what was happening here.
• Mmm tastes like achievement
• North island road trip - Tokomaru Bay - that was a great trip, and Tokomaru Bay still rocks my socks.
• What I have eaten - the week in review - includes a recipe for a delicious cheesy garlicky polenta, that I haven't made forevs and wish to make. Like, now.

2006

• This enigmatic comment: Nothing is more dangerous than an evil freak. 
• A Polish engraving of a tui that I rather liked.
• Last night - I am embarrassed about some imagined faux pas (I'm sure it was my insecurity that was the most socially awkward aspect of that evening).
• New Zealand Content Review Part 1: Dostoevsky's The Idiot - I decided that I was going to review a series of 'classic novels' from their NZ content, or lack their of. This is a dreadful exercise in pretentiousness, but, as I've said before: WHOOP there it is.
• Reading my flatmate's books part 1: Singer's The Slave - not quite as bad as the other one.
• Help me help my stalker - behold, the awfulness of my 24 year old self. The only post that I've seriously considering just deleting. Please don't judge me, I am not such an awful person now.
• 20 hits form a site I've never heard of - leaving aside the fact that I used the term 'hits', why the hell am I so angry?

2005

• Not enough hours in the day - moving to Australia in six days and I was freaking out.

Any idea where this "Nothing more dangerous than an evil freak" quote comes from? Did you ever GPOYW? How do you feel about leading questions?

Oh and: happy birthday Queenie.

The week in Self-Conscious Posturing History (May 20-27)

Another one of these! I am trying to get to bed early at the moment to prevent any glandular fever relapses, and between early nights and having to work (ugh) I have basically no blogging time. In the weekends, I'm sleeping in to prevent glandula fever relapses, FYI.

I actually feel a little less self-conscious about this lot. Either my exercise in acceptance of proto-Sarah has worked, or these are generally less embarrassing. The Sarah the Muffin Thief entry I remembered as being an early (2005) triumph, and it is actually a lot better edited than - ahem - most of my blog posts

Also, I keep thinking it will take less time than writing something from scratch but I spend forever fixing the formatting on posts past - a bunch of them seem to have had their formatting screwed by Blogger at some point or other.

Is it for this that I cowdled thee as a mommet?

It was in May 2009 that I discovered how much I loved Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm. A truly great moment.

2010

• In which I bemoan my knee. And then suck up the moan and get on with it y'all - actually, I think the injured knee was the final straw when it came to my derby injuries.

2009

• I have been doing things - an early post about craftiness.
• Blah and urgh - read about me having a shitty day

2008

• Things I would do if I was in Europe - shamelessly promoting Urbantramper.
• What I have eaten - the week in review - includes my scone-dough pizza base recipe, never boring.

2006 

All of these posts were written while I was living in Melbourne and struggling with my (very formative) depression.

• My desire for tofu knows no bounds and Oprah get your hands off my spirit - mm tofu.
• Today is Wenerei
• Dance magic dance - features too much info about someone else's medical condition.

2005

• Tumeke!
• Sarah the Muffin Thief - AN EARLY TRIUMPH?!
• Flooding in Whakatane - an account of a pretty great interview I heard on Radio New Zealand.
• Green Peanut and You - this post is partially about my love of wasabi peas, and partially about swimming with jellyfish.
• Whoop! There it is - I was thinking about this the other day, and if the doctor told me I had the Hundred Days cough, I just had regular whooping cough, right? That's what the Lower Hutt community paper told me.

The week in Self-Conscious Posturing history (May 13-19)

Filing cabinets, taken for Kenyon Brand and Riggs in 1978 by K E Niven and Co commercial photographers of Wellington. Image held at Tapuhi, accessed via Digital NZ.

I started this blog in 2005, when I was 23 years old, before I even had a MySpace page. I followed the trend of writing a blog that was simply an online journal, but I'd read enough about the dangers of writing material that could be discovered by friends, family or colleagues to be careful to not reveal everything. This means that most of the drama that I wrote about was more ancillary drama than the actual drama itself. I wrote around my own drama, if you like - and in the process frequently wrote some pretty bizarre and nonsensical things.

For some time, I've toyed with deleting basically everything from 2010 backwards. However, that would be ultimately futile (we all know the internets are forever) and a little like trying to delete bits of my own past. Despite my decluttering ways, I don't through out my hand-written diaries - I might have been a dramatic little bitch during my teenage years, but that dramatic little bitch was still me, albeit a proto-me.

And in the spirit of Being Ok with the proto-me, I present: spit-polished and with some additional commentary, a weekly retrospective look at Self-Conscious Posturing, from 2005 to the present day. I've fixed or removed broken images and tidied up some of the worst of the mistakes, otherwise it's pretty much as it was before, mouldering away in my archives.

In 2005, I wrote a fair amount on this week - basically because I'd just started blogging and it was still quite a novelty. I was also into writing about nothing and staring at my navel *teary eye at habits of blogging past*.

• Why I love the bird calls on National Radio
• Why I have a love/hate relationship with the Bucket Fountain
• I just saw Peta Mathias
• A moment at work - includes poem in rhyming couplets about punters at the City Gallery's Rosalie Gascoigne exhibition. I'm sorry.

In 2007 at this time I was mostly concerned with procrastinating and finding a flatmate (if I remember rightly, the flatmate I actually ended up with was kind of a dick).

• Procrastination
• Fabulous dining opportunities on your doorstep

In 2008 I was really insecure and self-hating, so sorry if these posts make your skin crawl. Since that time I've made a VERY large effort to be more positive on Self-Conscious Posturing - and if not positive, then at the least, constructive.

• Au revoir fave boots
• Wednesday List - evidently did not engage much brain while writing this.
• Faux pas - so insecure
• Taking care of your blisters is very important
• Tres emotional

And there is nothing for 2006 or 2009-2012. I was writing these years, and often in May, but not in this exact week.

If you had diaries for the last eight years of your life, would you share them online? Is this an exercise in ridiculousness? Should I give more of a fuck than I do?

What I've learnt from Anne of Green Gables

This winter I've read an awful lot of Anne books (as in Anne of Green Gables). I've sadly almost re-read the whole lot despite trying to string them out between other books - I wish that I could string them out forever and ever.

I remember being completely obsessed with Anne at primary school - for a few months I would had a couple of the books going at the same time, one by my bed at home and one in my school desk. I have a distinct memory of not noticing when my teacher (Mr Alder?) called the end of SSR* until a good half hour afterwards, because I was so engrossed in Anne's adventures. Anne was the epitome of 'heroine' for me at the time: I read Little Women at around the same age but the Marchbanks girls were never any kind of match for the glory that was Anne. As for the Sweet Valley High and Babysitters' Club series - bitch please.

So no doubt at all that I thought she was fabulous, idolised Anne, loved the books and the character - but I had no idea that so much of my life has been informed by a "wanting to be Anne". 

Some of these wantings have no secret in their origins and are of the nature of family jokes: an obsession with red-hair and freckles and puffed sleeves for example. And some things I always recognised as Anne-originating, like the constant seeking of "kindred spirits" when I was a wee girl and also a vague recollection of trying to name various sites in Whitby with appropriately romantic names (I never remember any of those sticking in that most un-romantic of places). The boy I had a crush on in primary school was in my imagination very much a Gilbert Blythe (was it the relentless teasing??).

However, I am shocked and horrified that my long-term obsession with attic or garret bedrooms was an Anne thing, because I was sure that was All Me. I'd forgotten how betrayed and confused Anne felt when Diana started her relationship with Fred, and in that I recognised my own reactions to my friend's relationships with boys when I was a similar age (losing the kindred spirit etc). It's almost as though this memory of the books and the character of Anne are no longer conscious but rather something molecular. There's almost too much in which I recognise myself - and sometimes it's more evocative than something I can itemise.

I'm a bit freaked out how much LM Montgomery has constructed my character.

Oh but SO many good quotes. If I was designy I could make them pretty and pin them on Pintrest.

It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy thing sif you make up your mind firmly that you will. Of course, you must make it up FIRMLY. - Chapter V, Anne of Green Gables.

"Oh Marilla, looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them", exclamed Anne. "You mayn't get the things themselves; but nothing can prevent you from having the fun of looking forward to them." Chapter XIII, Anne of Green Gables.

"... When I left Queen's my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought i could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I'm going to believe that the best does." Chapter XXXVIII, Anne of Green Gables.

"... Don't you know it's only very foolish folk who talk sense all the time?" Chapter XVIII, Anne of Avonlea.

"A flattering looking glass is a promoter of amiability" Chapter XIX, Anne of the Island.

"... I really have learned to look upon each little hindrance as a jest and each great one as the foreshadowing of victory." Chapter XXXVII, Anne of the Island.

Also: I've noticed that the Gilmore Girls and the island/Avonlea of Anne seem to have very similar communities, and both texts have the same sort of tone despite being set roughly 100 years apart. Does anybody else have any thoughts about this? Is it the molecular memory of Anne (!) that lead me to my love of GG?

Also: you have noted no discussion of the TV series? That's because I never liked the girl who played Anne, she didn't seem right at all. Something about her nose.

*Sustained Silent Ready, which is you know, sitting around reading, but with a fancy acronym.

Once upon a time

Back in March, the irrepressible Alexandra Franzen wrote a blog post about writing an "about" page. Suggestion four is: "The Once Upon A Time" bio.

In a fit of enthusiasm, I decided to do write myself one of these. I like it, and it's been a kind of awesome writing and remembering exercise. I'm not so sure about using it as an actual blog bio, but I'm feeling pretty good about it so I'm shaaaaaarinnggg with you all. How lucky you are!
 

Eleven

At age 11 I was at Primary School and a DEEP reader, mostly anything fantastical or that involved going through a portal and ending up in a different time or place. 

 

I had a crush on a boy in my class that I described as “tall, dark and handsome with red hair and freckles”. 

 

I loathed PE because I hated running about and nobody ever wanted me in their team because I slacked off so much and had terrible hand-eye coordination. 

 

My biggest concerns were around negotiating relationships with the girls that I was at school with - there were only a few of us and I was kind of desperate to fit in after my equally geeky best friend moved away. 

 

More than anything I wanted to write for a living, write books - however I had absolutely no idea what I would write about. I toyed with a short story about a girl who had a pet elephant at the bottom of her garden but was embarrassed when my mum read it.

 

Sixteen 

At age 16 I was at high-school and mostly concerned with being GOOD at things, history especially. However, when I say I wanted to be good at things I mean: I wanted good marks but I hated the amount of study that would go with it. Hence, I felt quite a lot of impotent rage as I received marks I thought were a travesty of what I deserved. 

 

I had finally developed a stable friend-base at high-school and friend relationships that were healthy - or at least better than those I’d had in my earlier high-school career, one of which was with a girl that I’m pretty sure had some kind of personality disorder. 

 

I worked part-time at Wendy’s Supa Sundaes in North City Plaza where I made ice creams for the good people of Porirua all Saturday and Sunday. Sticky syrups would crystallise in my arm hairs and I always wore brown Roman sandals with my blue polyester shorts and patterned polo shirts. The sandals showed of my glitter-painted toenails.

 

I got drunk for the first time on RTDs and beer and blathered to a nice boy called Ben. I wanted to finish high school and go to university and learn things that I wanted to learn and not all this crappy maths and science. University was where the smart people went, and I was a smart person, dammit.

 

Twenty-four

At age 24 I had finished university and lived in Melbourne. I was engaged and living with my SO but I was miserably unhappy with everything in my life.

 

After a spectacular breakdown and break up, I bailed on him and Melbourne and moved back to New Zealand where I slept on my mum’s couch for six weeks. I started working full time at a coffee bar; I got paid sweet fuck all and worked my arse off from 5:30 five, sometimes six days a week. 

 

I wanted a grown-up job where I could use my brain and write and where people would think that I was smart and respect me, and I wanted like hell to earn some money so I could pay for things. 

 

Most of the time I wanted to be pretty much anyone but who I was at that moment. A lot of wine was drunk.

 

Today

Right now: I am 30. I am working my arse off at a grown-up job which I don’t hate after six months, and I’m living with my SO who I am nauseatingly head over heels with. 

 

I’ve moved to the suburbs which I’m sometimes suddenly unreconciled to, given that I spent so many years desperate to leave Whitby (suburban hell). 

 

My Father is driving me crazy, but I’m doing my best to deal with it: I’ve spent forever and a crap load of money trying to make myself a happier person and most of the time I feel that I am.

 

If there’s anything that I want to do these days, it’s write something substantial about something that I give a fuck about. Food, probably.  In the short term, my main priority is to  pay off my debts once and for all, and to work like hell to stay out of it.

In which Ginger has a very busy week, and writes an immensely long post about it

For the first time in forever my social life has been picking up and I’ve been rather busy! Last week I only had two opportunities to knit in bed and watch old TV programmes, meaning that my social life over the week was the Ginger-equivalent of staying out to 4am every morning and then having a weekend-long bender.

Most of my busy-ness involved Nat; we saw each other three days in a row, which was very reminiscent of when we were at high school together.* On Thursday we went to a Frocks on Bikes event featuring Bella talking about hi-visibility accessories, followed by a movie that featured bicycles in bits of it (Made in Dagenham - of the heart-warming British movie genre).

On Friday I watched Nat being inaugurated into a special psychology smart-people society. There were no secret handshakes but there were some speeches and traditional-weirdness and then a 21 year old girl spoke to us about Plato (during which I completely vagued out). After the ceremony Nat and I ate cheap food, drank cheap wine and then went to the Matterhorn where nothing is cheap, but where I had a very delicious cocktail of which I can remember nothing except that it had a lot of cinnamon flavoured liqueur in it and a foamy-egg whitey-decoration.

Finally, on Saturday we went wedding dress/bridesmaid shopping again, and made some serious headway! Voon has absolutely stunning bridal stuff, incidentally, and the women there were very lovely. Otherwise, shopping for bridal stuff is completely exhausting in a way that I have never experienced before. I can’t even imagine what it must be like for Nat as all I’m doing is sitting on my arse and giving my opinion and I go home completely drained of energy. The dresses all start to look much the same after a while and wedding dress fatigue becomes a serious issue. Sandwiches and coffee are needed STAT. Thank God Nat isn’t a bridezilla because I can imagine that the shopping process must be about 150 million times more fatiguing for the bridesmaids of bridezillas.

Spring has finally sprung, and I am taking the opportunity to completely overhaul my wardrobe in a massive sewing binge. Sewing is so much nicer when the sun is shining on to your little sewing space and you can actually imagine yourself wearing little frocks and tee-shirts. I started sewing last Saturday and threaded up the machine again on this Saturday just passed.

During this particular binge I have so far made three dresses, one top and a skirt. I’ve also completely made over the waistband of a second skirt. At present I’m in the process of making a third skirt and another couple of tunic-style tops. I made the pattern myself and have spent a long time perfecting it (I think I’ve made about four or five versions so far in different fabrics) and it’s almost ready to post up here! The skirts I have been making are from this pattern for vintage-style full gathered skirts. I’m also knitting a bolero jacket, and I want to make a little ballet cardigan too. Also also, I’m thinking of making another two dresses with some fabric I have lying about. (Writing this all down makes me realise how ridiculous the binge is. So ridiculous.)

Here are pictures of some of the things I have made:

Clockwise from top left: 60s style tent dress in vintage fabric and blue polka dot trim, gathered full skirt in green vintage fabric, tunic top in vintage print fabric,  gathered full skirt in black and bronze fabric

Wearing one of the tunic tops...

I’m so stoked with how much my sewing abilities have improved! I’m trying to do things to help me enjoy the process and thus, take more time on what I need to do. I had a great conversation with the lady at the fabric shop who suggested cutting everything one day, interfacing and zigzagging/overlocking (serging) edges the next day, sewing the garments together the day after that, and finishing everything on the last day - and then I read this guest post about pretending to be a machinist which suggested much the same thing. I tried to implement my new procedural ideas on the first weekend which went quite well, but I confess I was a little less successful on the second. Still, it’s all a process of learning what methods work the best for me.

Also, (you may be surprised to discover that) I’ve been reading. I read a book from the library called Vanessa and Virginia which was a poetic novel about the relationship between Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf - can you say GAG? It was wearing both a Librarian’s Choice and a Reader’s Choice sticker, but both the reader and librarian were WRONG. Wrong wrong wrong. Poor old Virginia Woolf is constantly served up to the poetical obsessives of this world. Let the unhappy woman rest!

At present I’m deep in the heart of the eighteenth century, reading a biography of an actor-turned-kept-woman-turned-duchess called Lavinia Fenton called Mistress Peachum's Pleasure. The writing is fabulous, there are some wonderfully witty turns of phrase, and the writer is concerned as much with the cultural history of the time as they are with the biographical figure who is used as a departure point for the discussions. The author, Lisa Hilton, has also written a biography of Louis XIVth’s mistress Athénaïs:, and I am so keen to get my hands on it because I predict that it will fuflils my trifecta of indulgent biographical reading: mistresses, French court intrigue and a fabulous writer.

I wish that I could say that I’m beavering away at my assignments too, but I AM NOT. So bad! Every time I go to do some coding I find myself sewing something or working on my own pet project (that I am not getting marked on), rather than making changes to my assignments (which will help me get me my diploma). I have forsworn sewing until I am finished with the assignment changes, which is very hard given the two potential dresses that taunt me with their not-madeness.

Also, given that coding for hours tends to neutralise my desire to blog, as well as affects the possibilities of having anything to blog about, I suspect life will be very quiet around here. Just letting you know.

*However, we didn’t ring each other when we got home to talk about what happened in the fifteen minutes since we saw each other last and how annoying our parents/siblings are; and also my dad didn’t come into my room and make a “wind it up” action at me to indicate that he wanted me off the phone.*

*God, that action annoyed me SO.MUCH. In fact, just thinking about it then made me start to feel all flight-or-fight (heart racing, sweaty palms).

Re-Gingered Jane

I hennaed my hair today, using that Lush stuff that you get in the tablet... It was messy and long-winded (as henna inevitably is). I'm beyond stoked with the result though!

When I was a teenager and living at home and feeling bad about my appearance (skin, lumpy-adolescent-ness etc), my mum would take me out and get my hair done. It never failed to make me feel enthusiastic about getting dressed then, and it still makes me feel re-awesomed.

Other things that happened today include: finding out stuff about search engine optimisation, going to the library, carrying a hugely heavy bag around, making yet more plans for the weekend.

In which Ginger wins a prize!

Kittens, I have been tagged a Stylish Blogger by the loverly Bex at Thrifty Chick. This is the first ever time I've ever been tagged in one of these blog-prize jobbys, so you should all settle down and enjoy my excitement.

Since Bex has already described this so impeccably I'm going to copy her wonderful description and just whack it right in here.

The rules of the game are thus: all ye who are tagged as stylish bloggers have to spill seven interesting beans about yourselves before passing the baton of nomination on to seven others.  The world becomes a marginally happier, more knowledgeable place, blog friendships are developed and sealed and everyone gets a unicorn.  Well not quite, but it’s a bit of fun at least, right?

Yes indeed. Fun. Seven interesting things about memememememe. And the possibility of unicorns, so hows about that?


1. I was born in the UK (ahem, Croydon) and my family moved to New Zealand when I was about five years old. I remember drinking a lot of "free" water from the water cooler on the planes on the way over. We went to Disney Land and my favourite ride was "It's a Small World After All", which I made my parents go on something like three times. When I went on the Haunted House ride I closed my eyes as tight as I could the entire time because I was scared out of my wits. I had nightmares about it for years afterwards.

2. I have a somewhat obsessive personality. It's taken me years to realise this, but the moment I did I felt liberated. Normally this just covers things like: watching an entire series of the Gilmore Girls in one day, or collecting the complete works of Anais Nin without any real intention of reading them all. However in the past it has also covered: smoking way too much pot, spending far too much money for the hell of it, obsessively and compulsively op-shopping and drinking espresso coffee at any opportunity.

3. I think that learning to make amazing things with lentils is one of the most rewarding things a person can do. Lentils are at the core of my cooking repertoire, and I've never heard anyone complain. So.

4. I am completely obsessed with rose-scented things and have been for about the last three years now. This began from a conversation I had with my therapist this one time - and now I associate the smell of roses with both luxury and security. Bex had this amazing Bulgari scent this one time that smelt like dusty roses and if I could get my hands on it I would wear it shamelessly.

5. I really really really really enjoy my bedroom and it's infinitely improved when I'm listening to Edith Piaf or Marlene Dietrich. I could happily spend pretty much all my time in my lovely little environment. I dream of having a little tiny cottage that I can decorate in exactly the same way that I decorate my bedroom, but with more brocade covered vintage sofas and a pink velvet chaise lounge exactly like the one Lizzie had at the Maarama Crescent flat. Also, I would like climbing roses at the front door.

6. Wearing a coat of lipstick makes me feel very, very happy and very put together. I learnt this while I was doing the Six Items or Less Challenge, and I think it was one of the most valuable things I took away from the whole experience.

7. I am a terrible lace knitter, and am also unbelievably lazy when I lace-knit as well. The holes are all in the wrong places but I am even lazier about unravelling and starting again. When I've finished the Offering Mitts that I started last year I think I can safely say that I will never undertake lace-knitting again. And I will cheer.

Ok, and so now for my seven nominations:

• Megan at Craft is the New Black
• Bex at The Adventures of Doris Plum
• Nicky at Tales of the Red Headed Devil Child
• Guyana at Guyana Gyal
• Trees at Adventures of a Girl from the Naki
• Ange at Crafty Tuesday
• Bea at Master of Arts (although I'm not sure if she's running this any more... and it should be "Doctor of Arts" now anyways)

That's it! Happy Monday, lovelies.

Fifty-Two Tasks - AND - In which Ginger becomes Running Girl

ello kiddy-winks!

As I write this I have my First Ever pickle on the go: the pickling/preserving being my Task for this week. I'm making a Bread and Butter Pickle from my Nanny's* recipe that my Mum had copied out for me years and years ago and that I found shoved down the back of a drawer. My Nanny made the best pickles and preserves and jams, I kid you not. She passed away when I was fourteen and it's such a shame that I only exhibited an interest in the Womanly Arts when I moved out of home because I could have learnt so much from her! As it is, she taught me how to knit - a skill that I am so so so happy that I have. Also, I like it that she passed that down to me.

Anyways, here is the recipe for you:

Bread and Butter Pickle (Ginger's Nanny's Recipe)

4kg medium sized cucumbers
6 medium onions
2 green peppers
3 cloves of garlic
3 tbsps plain salt
1 litre water (cold)
5 cups sugar
5 cups cider vinegar
2 tbsp mustard seeds
1 1/2 tsps turmeric

Don't peel cucumbers, just slice them finely, and place with finely sliced onions and peppers and garlic cloves in muslin. (NOTE: I didn't actually do this, I just put them in a ceramic bowl). Make a brine with salt and water and soak all vegetables in it in a basin for 3 hours. Drain them well and put in a preserving pan with the remaining ingredients. Heat to boiling, stirring gently to dissolve sugar. Remove garlic. Pour into warmed, dried jars and vacuum seal immediately.

I halved the recipe because I didn't have heaps of cucumbers, also I was a bit freaked out as to how it was going to turn out and I didn't want to overcommit with the ingredients.

 

 

I'd fallen behind a bit last week with my Tasks, so squeezed an extra one in this Saturday: I cleared out the books on my bedside table. I'd initially wanted to sit down and read the lot of them from where I'd left them off,  but after some long discussions with Katherine and with the Boy, I realised it just wasn't going to happen. There is a bunch of books that I still want to read, so I have taken out the incriminating bookmark and placed them back on my bookshelf for another day. I resigned myself to the fact that some of the other books (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, The Gift) are Never Going to Be Finished, so I have put them in a pile of stuff to take to Arty Bees and sell (or, more likely, swap). I FEEL FREE! We're in between books for Book Club at the moment so I'm sitting down to read one of the books that had been glaring at me, partially read, for over a year: First Catch Your Weka. It's a history of New Zealand through cook books and it's pretty awesome. I wonder why I left off reading it the first time around?

If you follow me on Twitter you already know this but... I have taken up running! When I say running, I mean, that I'm in the early days of this Couch to 5k programme and am running/walking to get my fitness up. I have new shoes and they have really cool bright orange/pink bits on them! The shoe manufacturer calls this colour mango which makes me giggle quite a lot while I am running. Also also, I made myself a little armband to wear my iPod in so I can listen to I, Claudius while I run. I AM the Literary Runner, pounding the streets of Wellington. When I told Mum she informed me that running causes cellulite because all the jiggling makes the fat cells squish into one another. YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST, PEOPLE.

 

 

*When I say "Nanny" I mean "Nana" or "Grandma". Not like, as in, I had a Mary Poppins type to look after me when I was little.

♥ 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.

Wednesday List: Ways I know I’m getting older

this cartoon is by the always lovely Beatrice at Master of Arts

• I’ve started checking the weather forecast obsessively. It’s now one of my favourite pages in the newspaper and I was very pleased at the new Metservice site redesign that has allowed me to see the weather ten days into the future.

• Finding Dilbert cartoons funny. Two years ago I would read them and be distinctly unamused. Nowadays, after I’ve read the weather page I flick straight to the Dilbert cartoon. One of my favourite morning routines.

• Last weekend I was in bed before 11pm on Friday and Saturday night and I was extraordinarily pleased with this turn of events.

• Learning tolerance and acceptance towards some things (family members’ quirks, long waits for buses and trains) and then feeling deep deep intolerance for others (other people’s loud music on school nights, puddles on the bathroom floor, a sink full of dirty water). I’m sure the categories of tolerance/intolerance have swapped over.

• Acknowledging when something makes me feel crap, and making a decision to accept it and move on rather than bitching about it until I make myself feel like a terrible person.

• Witnessing my first full scale fashion style revival. The 80s revival thing was quirky and nostalgic in a childhood kind of a way but this more recent 90s revival is very spooky and way too close to home. I refuse to see a repeat of “The Year of the Slip Dress”. It was unflattering on me in 1995 and I doubt that it’s going to look much better 15 years later. ALSO I saw a band called Dear Times Waste at Camp and I was suddenly back in 1996, lying on my teenage bed in my teenage bedroom, complaining that no one understood me, writing angsty poetry and thinking about the Drew Barrymore movie with all the butterflies.

Weather, the Achievement List, and some shameless trawling for favours

No sign of the weather improving, but I’m back on the bicycle nonetheless. I know it’s the most boring thing in the world to write but – THE WEATHER SUCKS THIS SUMMER. The last summer we had weather this bad was the summer that I was working at a clothing store called Plush (I think it was 2003?). I had the door closed and the heater on for the whole Christmas/New Year/summer period. I was the only person working there and it was hellishly boring and dull and I cleaned the floors/mirrors and rearranged the store about a thousand times. I think one day I counted just three people through the door – and it was so cold.

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My achievement list that I posted at the end of last year has been trundling along nicely; tickets and rides secured for my trip to Bulls for Camp A Low Hum. I’m very excited about it. The paying off my credit card goal is a struggle, but I think that I can make some headway pretty soon. Budgeting and paying off debts is hard work – BUT I’ve made the decision to sell off a bunch of clothes and books and I’m hoping that will give me a bit more money to play with. At the moment there are 7-8 plastic bags of books sitting by the front door and waiting to be dispatched to Arty Bee’s bookshop. Tonight I’m planning to go through my clothes, to be brutal, and add to the two bags of clothes that I sorted before the Pretty Pretty Pretty clothing swap and the last Big Shwop (I didn't go to either - a couple of bad days). I’m planning to take most of these delicious garments to the Recycle Boutique and to drop off the rest to some kind of op shop. Lovely workmate Katherine has offered to drive me around on Sunday morning. How lovely is she? So lovely. Also I am going to sell my knitting machine that I desperately hold on to and have never, ever used. Or indeed, ever taken out of the box. And I think I’m going to sell the few Royal Doulton Bamboo pattern plates that I started collecting before the Poverty really settled in. I’m going to sell the whole lot goddamn lot through Trade Me and I’ll post the link here. TAKE IT AWAY.

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Ravelry is my new obsession and where I’ve been spending all my spare internet time. I listed my Ravelry homepage in the side banner --> (and you can totally follow me. Please do). I’ve also just discovered Formspring and am whoring myself big time with it. You can ask me questions that I like to answer at http://formspring.me/gingertonyx, or use the widget direct from this page. It's surprisingly awesome fun! (Moments after writing this I think I inadvertently offended someone by being a dork in an anonymous question. Oops! Anonymity is a burden verily. Dorkness may come off as asshatness).

Stuff and the Christmas Party and a nice, generous panic

It’s my last day of work before Christmas and I’m rather short of things to do – I’m reading my way through the various things in my reader and twiddling my thumbs and fantasising about all the things I can do this weekend and next week. Mostly I am fantasising about tidying my room and embarking on the Great Summer Declutter, which I imagine will enable me to lie around and luxuriate in a big room of emptiness. These are strictly imaginings though, as my room is not big, and no matter how much stuff I get rid of I will still have MOUNTAINS OF STUFF. I think I’ve rather stopped loving all my bits and pieces and become mostly overwhelmed by all of it. When I was living in Australia, I came back to New Zealand on a month’s holiday and saw Dad’s new house for the first time. In the second bedroom he had stacked what felt like hundreds of enormous plastic boxes full of paper (the ones with lids that clip on and wheels on the bottom) and I imagined them all collapsing on him one day and Dad being crushed and suffocated by all of his STUFF. And this is how I’ve begun to feel about my own stuff – in fact, I’m thinking about it now and beginning to give myself an anxiety attack (the stuff is crushing me!). Maybe I’ll just hire a dumpster and empty everything I own into it and when I move to the Boy’s house I can just take my bed and bicycle and skates and sewing machine and overlocker and my collection of Crown Lynn Tam O’Shanter crockery and my nanny’s tea cups and my books and – [insert stuff-based panic attack here]. In other news, today I had a Toastie and peanut butter toastie, which is pretty much the most awesome thing in the world. Katherine documented the whole thing from ingredients to delicious consumption so more information shall be forthcoming. In other other news we had our staff party last night and it was pretty average. There was no real food, only nibbles, so I was forced to make friends with the wait staff in order to secure enough nibbly bits to constitute my dinner. Then I ate a hell of a lot of White Christmas and felt a little ill, although that could have been all the cheap méthode champenoise. And what’s the deal with White Christmas anyway? I don’t even think it tastes good; I’m just strangely compelled whenever I see its vegetable-shortening-self glistening with glace cherries, and I go into a kind of childhood sugar-based excitement and stuff my face. This one time when I was a kid, I was at this family thing one of the boys who was there thought it would be funny to drop a piece of White Christmas into the open mouth of his sleeping brother. Sleeping brother choked on the White Christmas and didn’t think this was funny at all and we all had to go home early because he was crying. Christmas is awesome. Nostalgia is awesome. Last day of work is awesome. White Christmas and cheap méthode champenoise are less awesome.

About this sort of time, since 2005

So, I've been keeping this blog since 2005! Can you believe that? Maybe I should have a five year anniversary party for myself next year. It should have a theme. Do you have any ideas for the theme? Please suggest me some, maybe in the comments. Themes are AWESOME. This is what I posted here about this time (give or take a few days) every year since 2005:

• 2005: "In Which Sarah Meditates Upon The Role Of The Kangaroo In Australian Society"

I was in Adelaide, with only a few days until I left for the West Coast road trip (which was fab). I had a great meal. I spoke about a song I'd made up while having a bad trip and driving through the Adelaide hills.

• 2006: "Suspend the Bitching"

I was in Wellington, I was working at Fuel and making coffee. Caffeine and sunshine had made me relentlessly cheerful.

• 2007: "Old Bill's Bach"

I was leaving for the weekend with Victoria (now in Europe somewhere), Ange (now shacked up deep in the heart of Newlands) and Bex (who is just as gorgeous as ever). Those were fun times. I'd like to do it again.

• 2008: "Who? What?"

A list with the craftiness! And the ranting! And a picture from a French New Wave movie!

Wow. I was in Australia such a long time ago now, and my "few months of getting myself together" has turned into "a few years of settling down". It's a bit scary.

EDIT: Bex can't post comments when she's at work, but she emailed me and it MUST be shared...

I think that your celebratory blog anniversary should have a SCP-theme, so that all guests must dress up as a direct reference to one particular post. Possibilities could include a kangaroo, Anais Nin, a derby girl, a moustache (or a moustachioed individual, Dirty Sanchez or similar), Dr. Robert Ersek, your mother, Agatha Christie, Guyana Girl, Edith Piaf, a cupcake, a peggy square and a grieving mime.

I was running and jumping!

Hello my lovelies and *kisses*

I just want to write this bit down, because it scares me a little: I voluntarily ran today. And not just for the bus! Oh no. I ran for fitness. I think we should pause now while I resuscitate anyone who has known me any time at all. Because - I have always hated running. I've hated it ever since I was made to run around and around endlessly for the sick amusement of teachers at the primary school cross country event. And I hated it when I was playing Danish rounders or Kiwi Cricket on the field. And then, at secondary school, I hated it when we were made to participate in the Beep Test. Consider this litany of hatred merely "Ginger Hates Running: The Early Years", because many years of hating running followed. Suffice to say: I HATE RUNNING.

And yet today, there I was! Running to the Waterfront in a perky little hoodie, a woolly hat on my head and listening to Joan Jett/The Yeah Yeah Yeahs/Peaches. Woo! Go lady type! With your Athleticism! Athlete! Woo! Yeah! and such like.

what is the difference? The difference, esteemed and beloved reader mine, is LOVE. I fucking LOVE DERBY. Since I have been Loving Derby, I have seen the point of fitness and improving strength and building core mass. For the first time in my life, I get all of that stuff. I'm the fittest I've ever been and I want to be stronger, faster, have better balance and flexibility, hit harder. I've gone from a standing start and it's taken so much work and I'm so proud of myself for how far I've come in such a short amount of time. It was worth making a dick of myself and hurting myself repeatedly, and I'm stoked I stuck with it though there has been periods where I was feeling unbelievably frustrated at my (lack of) progress.

I want to be the best skater that I can be and I know that I've got so much more in me.* I guess that's why I was out running today, thinking things like "Tired? It's all in your head!" and "If you don't feel like you're going to throw up, you can push yourself waaaay further!".

 

*That must be what self-esteem feels like. Weird.

What I have been reading

I always seem to be reading Far Too Many books at once. "Always" being, for my entire life it seems. I remember being nine or ten and reading two Anne of Green Gables books at once, confusing myself horribly in the process (I could never remember how old Anne was supposed to be in each book... and why she was doing that thing when she already had experienced the negative consequences of doing exactly that thing. And so on). As a rule though, multiple-and-simultaneous-book-reading has always treated me well and provides me with a good excuse to carry around something terribly literary-looking while cramming my head full of junk food writing at home.

So, on the window sill next to my bed is a whole stack of books. Most of them I am in the process of reading, or intending to read. Periodically, a book from Outside is introduced and consumed quickly before the other books notice and become jealous, books being notorious for their competitiveness and acute sense of self.

This is a plan to review two books alongside one another... I wanted to review a junk food novel beside something a little more *ahem* high brow. Because, really, reading should be also about enjoying yourself, right? And I've always preferred brief reviews to long ones.

BOOK ONE: The Forgotten Garden, by Kate Morton

This book is written by Australian author Kate Morton, and belongs in that particular type of historic novel genre where the action takes place in the immediate present and the distant past - a contemporary woman rediscovers a past tragedy - or in the case of books by Barbara Erskine,  afore mentioned contemporary woman is possessed by the ghost of a wronged historic woman.

This book: At an Edwardian-era Queensland dock a mysterious abandoned child is discovered and adopted by an ordinary working class couple. The child grows up to be this woman, Nell, who discovers that she has *a secret past* and decides to find out who she *really is*. But, things get complicated and some time later she dies without working out the mystery of her origin. Then there's this woman (Nell's granddaughter), Cassandra, who has suffered an undisclosed recent trauma (we're well in the present now). Nell dies, Cassandra inherits a mysterious cottage in Cornwall and then goes to the UK to finish Nell's investigation (where she finds closure and new love).

Gains points: mocked up Pre-Raphaelite-style Edwardian children's stories in the text.

Loses points: a good historic novel should have sexy bits. There are no sexy bits.

Read or don't read: read during your summer holiday, on a beach. Or on a wintery Sunday morning in bed. You won't remember much, but the book does fill a momentary need... and really, what is Life but a series of moments?

BOOK TWO: Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh

And yes I do have this ugly-covered version.

Two things determined my wanting-to-read this book: firstly, there was a new dramatisation of this made quite recently, which I didn't see, but my interest was piqued; secondly, Bella made a comment about Bea being a little bit "Brideshead Revisited". I can't remember what it was in reference to and it makes even less sense to me now that I've read the book, but again, my interest was piqued.

This novel is about English upper-class types, Oxbridge culture, ill-fated friendships and people getting all lovey and lusty on one another, Catholic guilt, and drinking yourself to death. There's some of that Vile Bodies-esque debauch going on too. Oh, and a teddy bear.

Gains points: fucking fantastic book. It's compulsory that you read this, preferably with a nice stiff gin in hand.

Loses points: there's always something very very very sad about the decline of a fantastic character, and I hated that Sebastian declined. But I guess that's just part of the plot and I should just get over it. Can't get so attached to characters *sighs*. And what's the deal with Charles sleeping with Julia? It seems to labour a point, rather.

Read or don't read: read read read read read. And please don't be annoyed at me for such a gross spoiler (above).

TODAY

IS INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY. WHOOP!

SCP: CELEBRATING INTERNATIONAL CAPS LOCK DAY.

SORT OF. As much as I love a bandwagon, I hate the look of permanent caps lock. Trite I know, but I feel like I'M SHOUTING AT ALL OF YOU. Sending enraged capitals into the inter-ether.

Looks like: CAPS LOCK. Also, like maybe I quite need to tidy my room. Yes indeedy. Also, like a drowned rat; caught in the rain something like three times today.

Smells like: damp woollen coat. See above.

Sounds like: very old Rae and Christian album lurking in my CD player. It ain't nothing like hip hop music y'all.

Hey, also, did you know about my bite sized lumps over on Tumblr? It's magpie-tastic. I see something pretty and I grab it.

Rose-scented Happy Colour

When I was in therapy, I was given an anxiety calming meditation that involves the line "I see beauty all around me". When my therapist finished showing and teaching me this little mantra, she made a throwaway comment about it making her feel as though she was in the inside of a peony. And for some reason, that just seemed like the most beautiful soothing imagery - imagining the light shining through the flesh of the petals. Warm glow. When I was a very little girl, I used to lie under the sheets and look at the light coming through and it was so safe, the colours were warm, I was in another world.

The point is then, that pale pink and peonies are good, soothing, safe. (I also like the word tea rose too. Mmm, tea rose. So conceptually YUMMY. One day I ought to find out exactly which rose is a tea rose.)

Today I have been in a super antsy anxiety-driven mood all day, I needed to make a pink nest for myself, curl up in pink. I came home via the supermarket where I bought pale pink spring flowers and Battenburg Cake (pink and white coloured sponge stuck together by jam and wrapped in marzipan... a Big Pink Cake) I'm about to get into bed with my hot water bottles, I'm changing into my pink pyjamas. My room is rose scented. I ate well tonight. I feel better.

These botanical drawings are early 19th Century hand coloured engravings, by a man called Pierre-Joseph Redoute, and I think they are rather pretty.

What I did during The Six Week Convalescence

I write this with great excitement, as I am FINALLY sans-cast, not quite limber, yet strangely nostalgic (already! what a freak) for The Time I Was A Cripple.
So. Let us now take a look back at the last six weeks... and the Varied and Amazing Things I Have Done between waiting for my bones to knit, climbing up the walls and slipping over on the wet mossy concrete on the walkways and stairways of various houses. Mmm, huzzah!

• I made manymany tiny origami stars. They are pretty and pointless and you can find out how to make them here. Oh, and I used this paper for a different lot of them. Pretty pretty pretty.

• Knitting! Squares for the giant and never-ending patchwork blanket in the lounge...

• ... similarly I swathed myself in pink wool...
  
• ... and I made slippers for Shannon on my new fab thing, the Knitting Loom, which I then decorated with red and green pompoms, and gosh golly darn, didn't they look silly. Yes, they did.
  
• I have read manymany books. Mmmm, books. Here are some of them, looking pretty in a pretty pile.

• I listened to manymany Agatha Christie radio plays. I love Poirot and his use of "the Leetle Grey Cells" and I believe that, as a society, what we really need are more pantomime French accents on public broadcasting. Huzzah! 

• Keeping with the multimedia theme is the obsession that I developed with watching entire series of shows in one sitting. I've watched the first series of the Mighty Boosh, learnt parts of all three series of the League of Gentlemen off by heart, obsessed relentlessly about the 2008 series of Time Team (I am so in love with Phil Harding/Wurzel Gummidge) and felt harrowed by the entire series of Band of Brothers, leant to me by the fabulous Nat. 

• I undertook a little editing for Ange, who in turn whisked my dirty washing away and returned it clean and dry, and with my underwear impeccably folded. There is nothing like clean, dry, folded washing when you've obsessed over a growing pile of dirty laundry for a fortnight. I love her.

Mostly however, I lay in bed and demanded tea and coffee from Beatrice and Callum when staying at Shannon's flat, from Bella and Tom since I've been home and from Shannon everywhere I went. And these lovely people (amongst others too numerous too mention) totally humoured me, and checked that I hadn't fallen over whenever I made lots of noise. Lovely lovely people came to my house up fifty-million steps to visit and ended up waiting on me. I have been driven around by manymany lovelies to save me from encroaching and barely resisted insanity. My parents visited me everyday in hospital despite how much of a mission it was to get there, and made me feel I could call on them whenever I needed. I'm so lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing people. I'm so sure that I haven't mentioned all of the incredibly thoughtful things that people have done for me, from lending me magazines and DVDs to plying me with lollies and chocolate to vacuuming my lounge, but rest assured NOTHING is taken for granted.

Arohanui darlings! *mwah*

If you're super keen you can follow my Convalescence Adventures here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here - the famous Caper Caper.