Monday, November 30, 2015

My Garden

Hi there

I have decided to pretend that my so-called garden is really a Wild Plant Sanctuary.  As a Wild Plant Sanctuary, it is obviously under the auspices of The World Plant Protection League, or whatever.

I feel so much better, knowing that in all honesty i can let my back yard stay in it's back-to-nature state.  The weeds can grow to shoulder-height and naturalist David Attenborough can only wish he had such a repository of weeds-sorry I mean 'plants' growing on his property.






Thursday, November 26, 2015

One's Street Address

A friend and I were out for a walk.  We ventured into Countess Close.  Posh houses with columns loomed over us.  Tara, take a back seat(almost).

"In terms of poshness," I wondered, "is a Close higher than, oh, a Crescent?  Or a Place?"

My friend pondered.  She thought an Avenue would be rather high up the posh list of where to live.

I remembered that Margot in "The Good Life" had always gone on, and on, about the grandeur of living on an Avenue.  Yes, I admitted that Avenue was well up there.

Street and Road were way down, we decided.    Lane, however, had a nice country-cottage ring to it.

Neither of us wanted to live in an Alley.  An Alley was akin to, perhaps, living under a bridge.

Who knew we could be such snobs?  It's just not fair that we both have such ordinary-sounding addresses.  We're thinking of moving ...

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Swimming without pants!

Hi there

Bet I got you wondering over the title of this blog?

Last week, I was in a mad panic leaving home for a swim and I hurriedly threw the two parts of my bathing suit into my bag and rushed out of the house.

In the changing shed at the beach, I rummaged amongst my things.  Yes, here was my swimming top.  And here were my shorts -

"Oh, noooo..."

"What?"  My friend, J, probably thought i was having a heart attack.

"I've forgotten my shorts."  In my hand was a black swimming t-shirt.  In my hurry to leave the house I had mistaken the shirt for my shorts.  I usually keep a spare swimming bag in the car but this day i had been to the garage for a WOF and had cleared everything out of the boot.

What to do?

Easy-peasy decision.  The sitcom queen can certainly think on her feet.  I stepped into the t-shirt, putting my legs through the armholes and tidily tucking in the surplus.  Luckily my proper swimming top came down to my hips covering most of the upside down t-shirt.

I sashayed out to the deck, the queen of my domain.  Confidence was the key.  It wasn't till we got to the steps that took us down to the water that i started to giggle, then i roared with laughter, bending over and clutching the hand-rail in hysterics.  I was laughing so hard, the others on the deck probably figured i was having some sort of fit.

I had a great swim.


Above:  the t-shirt I wore in place of my swim shorts












Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Dead Jelly

Hi there

Thursday, New Zealand time.

On both Tuesday and Wednesday when J and I were swimming at Hataitai Beach, we banged into what we thought was an unusual jellyfish, one that was floating in roughly the same spot on both days.  Day 1, J had almost swam on top of it, and Day 2, I tried to escape but it seemed intent on following me. There were no other jellyfish around.

  We  debated/discussed/argued later on over the colour, size, and whether or not it had prickles or tendrils.  I guess it's like when a thief escapes from a bank robbery.  The witnesses often give completely different descriptions. 

Anyway, today, Thong Man was getting out of the water as we arrived.  He said he'd banged into a jellyfish -

"-but it was one of the clear harmless ones," he said.  It hadn't bothered him a bit.

Yikes!  J and I hate all type of jellies.

As we were leaving the beach for home, we glanced down onto the sand, and there was a dead jellyfish.

We debated/discussed/argued whether or not it was 'Arthur' - the name we had previously given to 'our' jelly -

Sunday, November 15, 2015

Paris





Above:  Wellington's Michael Fowler  Centre



We care...

Saturday, November 14, 2015

Beware of Shopping

Hi there

I'd just been to see the latest James Bond, and was now wandering through a department store, ruminating to myself about how everything in "Spectre" - script, music, acting, colour - appeared to be from the nineteen-sixties.

I reached up to a rack of about twenty pretty t-shirts.  I swear all I did was lightly finger the material of one particular shirt.

Craaaasssh!

The entire rack fell to the floor.  I was standing in a puddle of clothes hangers, cloth, and a long heavy-looking metal rod.

Not that I was unfamiliar with the situation.  My five readers may remember the same thing happened to me last July-ish with half a dozen wheelie suitcases at another department store?

I was obviously going to be in this shop's camera system, too.  Sigh.  I rather expect my stunned expression to pop up, in a few years' time, on AFV (The International Edition).

I shot up my hand with alacrity to let the staff quickly hone in on me, and they were full of apologies.  I'd figured I'd be chastised.

But I do believe that things come in threes, right?  I have no doubt whatsoever that when I walk into my next department store, the theme from "Jaws" will be playing in my head;  I'd better not touch anything.




Tuesday, November 10, 2015

I wish I were a gardener

Hi there

It would be so great if I had the gardening gene.  I would be out there, in good or bad weather, positively revelling in planting pansies and pulling weeds.  I would spend lots of time in my shed which by now would have become a potting shed instead of hiding under the guise of an anything receptacle.

My neighbour sings merrily along to a portable radio when she's in her garden.  She appears to live there.  I expect her bed is in her potting shed.

If only I could look out the window first thing in the morning and exclaim, "What a beautiful day for a spot of gardening!"  But instead I think of the beach, or shopping, or hiking, or staying in bed a little longer to finish reading the latest Sophie Kinsella.   It gives me some solace in burrowing obstinately under the duvet with my Kindle in lieu of having to think about weeds that have reached hip-height just mere metres from my front door.

I live in hope that watching my neighbour planting her spring bulbs counts as gardening by proxy ....

Friday, November 6, 2015

the end of the rainbow

Hi there

When I was a kid I used to be intrigued by stories of leprechaun gold at the end of a rainbow.  I wanted desperately to find that gold.  The leprechaun would have to grant me a wish, and I spent ages agonising over which wish I would make.  In the end, I hit on that childish one of  "I wish all the wishes I wish would come true."   Such a wish, plus a swag of gold, as well as meeting a real honest-to-goodness leprechaun?  Goodness, was it any wonder that every time I saw a rainbow, I wanted to rush madly to the end of it and dig frantically?.

Several times I did try to reach a rainbow's end, but the funny thing about rainbows is that they get further and further away the more you rush towards them.

But not so a few months ago.   I was driving on The Desert Road.  I crested a hill, and there it was .... the end of the rainbow!

I drove along beside it for a time.  Would I get out, run joyfully to it - darn, I wished I'd packed a spade in my car boot for just such an occasion! - and scrabble around in the hard dirt searching for a pot of gold?  Was the leprechaun near?  Would he grant me my wish for finding that gold.....?

Sadly, I'm not young anymore.  Childhood imaginings nowadays take second place to reality.  I drove on past that rainbow ...





Tuesday, November 3, 2015

A Visit to the Dentist. - Again

Hi there

-have you ever had a bad experience at the dentist?-

I checked the 'Yes' box.

-are you scared coming to the dentist today?-

I checked the 'Yes' box again.

After 40 years at my old dentistry I was signing on with a new dentist.   Dentist-shy Lorraine was in da house!

"I want to warn you," I said apologetically as I was led to the dental chair.  "I cry, I whimper, I drum my feet on the foot rest, I howl like a banshee. And I wriggle extensively."

Put it all down to traumatic days at the Dental Clinic on Willis Street when I was eight years old.  The Part 2 came a year or two ago with a newbie dentist at my old practice - see earlier blog.

Yesterday, as my tooth was being filled, I sat as stiff as a board, unmoving, petrified.   A tear did roll down my cheek, more from the fear of anticipation than, I guess, anything else.  My Skechers-clad toes curled forward tightly.  My fingers gripped the arm-rests so hard that if there'd been an emergency evacuation from the building I'd never have been able to unwrench them in a hurry.  I squeezed my eyes shut with no wish to see anything.

"How did it go?", asked a friend afterwards.

"I survived," I said.

But only just.  I felt it had been touch and go.

Roll on that next appointment.  I can hardly wait for it ....   Yeah, right.