Home and away

Last weekend we went to Matiu/Somes Island, staying the night in one of the houses there and returning to the mainland the next morning. We went with Make tea not war, who came up with the idea in the first place.

TLM and DOTH (Make tea's Daughter Of The House) get along like a house doused in petrol and set alight by an unsuspecting male model. I could tell because they didn't go to sleep until about midnight and and were running about like an elephant stampede well before dawn. Well before dawn...

On the Saturday, we went for a walk around the Island, visiting the lighthouse (now automated), the animal internment building (sort of an Alcatraz for cows and sheep, except they were mostly innocent), and the tiny cave to where an unfortunate Chinese man was exiled because they thought he had leprosy (and the white lepers refused to have him).

It's also where Germans, Italians and Japanese people were interned during World War II.

So yeah, a lot of history on that bit of rock and kind of a best kept secret around these parts.

And two days later I had to go to Rotovegas for work, for three days. Ah, the smell of Rotorua...

Cake, cake...and more cake

Yesterday I shouted morning tea for the office because it was my birthday. I brought in caramel slices, strawberry slices, chocolate cake and afghan cookies - all home made by the baker at Midnight Expresso.

Unfortunately I'd bought enough cake for three times as many office staff as we actually had in the office. So throughout the day we (mostly me) picked at the leftovers.

By the end of the day I was totally caked-out and was willing to restart that sugar-free diet that I abandoned last year (after one week).

Then I got home and my wonderful family shouted Happy Birthday!

And presented me with an enormous cake...

The sewing mojo returns

Daylight Saving time started yesterday morning, and I found myself up at the crack of dawn (7.30 am DST).

It was only after about two hours of reading the weekend paper and generally pottering about, that I realised I could actually do some sewing.

Sewing! After about two years of not having time for it!

It was partly brought on by the fact that hand knit clothes are far too warm for summer temperatures (even the low-ish temps we get around these parts), unless one is willing to knit something lacy out of something lace-weight. I'd wandered around the shops but all the tops were really oversized and down to my knees.

So on Sunday morning I started making a sleeveless tunic out of some China-blue linen-blend fabric from my stash of mostly remnants and discarded jeans (from my refashioning heyday), using a very simple - some might say shapeless - McCalls dress pattern.

When I got to the hem I had a flash of inspiration and turned it into a curved hem - shorter in the front and longer in the back.

It was all finished a couple of hours later (it was a "one-hour" pattern) I wore it today and it was appropriately cool for the office's hothouse temperature.

And now I'm all excited about the possibility of making more simply-shaped tops in lovely fabrics.

WOW!

Yesterday TLM and I went to the World of Wearable Art show for the first time.

A fantastic show - such imagination. Such joy. Such beauty. And I haven't even gotten to the part about the entries!

There was so much to see, and the background activities every bit as interesting to watch as the up-front stuff.

And I wish we had more that one set of binoculars because if you're sharing with three other people (my sister in law and niece came with us) you're going to miss out on a bit of detail(though we had great uninterrupted views).

One of my highlights was the dancing performed as a backdrop to the Avant Guarde section. It looked a bit hazardous for them to be floating up and down chairs in those long dresses but they made it look ethereally easy. Another was the kitschy space rocket that signalled the start of the Bizarre Bra section.

The only bit that seemed slightly "off" for me was when the male dancers were got up in tuxedo jacket and teeny tiny shorts. It just smacked of "male stripper" to me and not quite in keeping with the general wholesomeness of the show.

TLM got a bit tired and overwhelmed around the second half of the 2-hour show, but she was very good and made it through to the end without complaint. If she'd been sitting next to me instead of two seats down (next to her cousin) I would have gathered her up onto my lap and given her a mixture of cuddles and commentary.

And afterwards we had massive ice creams.

Online shopping while you're home sick

I spent an awful lot of time online while I was home sick. I pretty much alternated between 'Net surfing and knitting.

By the time I was back at work, I had nearly finished my denim sweater with spiral eyelets. Unfortunately I discovered a mistake about 40 rows back which has set me back another week.

I also went onto TradeMe and bought some lovely aubergine cashmere yarn. Unfortunately apparently aubergine means "brown". I can probably make it work if I combine it with lots and lots of purple or blue yarn though.

I also bought some brown jeans from Wallis in the UK. They were meant to be burgundy, and probably in a certain light they are - but mostly they just look brown.

Buying trousers and jeans online was such a dumb idea. I thought I was safe by buying from a store where I'd successfully found a pair that fit me really nicely. But apparently it's impossible to make everything of the same size, the same size.

And then I do have a history of being too lazy to return stuff that didn't work out.

Maybe I can knit me some trou...

In recuperation

The good thing about my current bout of bronchitis is that at least it hasn't been as bad as the almost-pneumonia of 2-3 years ago. This time around my throat doesn't hurt so much it feels like I'm swallowing razor blades.

The first round of antibiotics didn't work - after 5 days I was coughing up blood, which is a first for me.  but now I'm on a broader spectrum drug which is working really well. In fact, after taking them for a couple of days I keep waking up thinking "today I could go back to work" (and then I take TLM to school and getting huffy and puffy on the way home so I know I'm not quite there yet).

It's a beautiful day today, a wonderful day for sitting in the sun and getting better. I really think that I might be ready to go back to work tomorrow (otherwise my library books will become overdue).

In which TLM reaches a new milestone

We hoped it was an unlucky fluke when TLM got horribly airsick on the way home from the UK last April.

But, no. TLM is now a motion sickness-prone kid.

The morning they took off for a weekend in Nelson the weather was, in the words of the airport folks, adverse. In plain English that means that your trampoline was likely to end up in another part of town. So it was a rocky take-off and poor TLM held it all together until she got off the plane in Nelson. Then she threw up on the tarmac, which fortunately was being washed already by the rain.

She also got car sick on that windy road between the airport and the place they were staying. ("You won't need to pack any extra clothes for just two days - just pack spare undies and socks" - eek!)

So that's what TLM meant when she told me her throat hurts whenever she gets in the car. It hasn't put her off being a car passenger though, because if we give her the choice of a 15 minute uphill walk home after school or a 5 minute drive, she will still choose the latter.

I am famously vulnerable to motion-sickness so I guess in that respect she's her mother's daughter.

Three strikes

Right after TLM got over her chicken pox, a cold virus was already waiting to pounce.

It did, and it got me too.

And in between, the boy managed to get conjunctivitus in both eyes.

Maybe it's just Spring, or  maybe it's having a kid who doesn't live in a bubble - or maybe we live in a sick house.

On the bright side, I have discovered Knitting Daily on YouTube, TLM is still well enough to enjoy making imaginative space craft with lego, and the boy is still terribly handsome.

Spring

I've very ambivalent about Spring. One the one hand, it's a sign that summer is on its way. On the other hand, it's a time of hay fever eyes and wind gusts strong enough to blow your duvet cover into the neighbour's bank yard.

We have a lovely bunch of daffodil on our dinner table. Bought when they were a bunch of buds, I was happily surprised when they all bloomed. They do smell a bit like homeless people though, which puts me off my food.

TLM is pretty much completely over her chicken pox. There are still a few marks where spots used to be, and I got a little worried when a co-worker show me a chicken pox scar from when she was 7 (she's now 30-something) - but there's no point worrying really. If it's a problem when TLM's older she can also slather herself in expensive scar-removal creams or something (which she will pay for herself, by crikey!).

She has this weird habit of removing her leggings as soon as she gets home, and thereafter (until bedtime) gadding about in a t-shirt, undies and a blanket. Like she's expecting to get invited to a toga party soon or something.

I'm knitting something in pre-shrunk Rowan Denim yarn. It's going to be slow going because I'm developing OOS from too much knitting. What will happen if I have to give up knitting for the sake of being able to grasp? 

We are going away for the weekend soon. Hurrah! Flying off to Nelson and staying somewhere off the beaten track, in the middle of the off-season. TLM will be delighted, as she does have a thing for all mod cons - something we don't quite have at home.

Thoughts on the pox

TLM is still spotty, but she hasn't had any new clusters of spots since about Tuesday - so I'll take that as a good sign.

My mum assured me that I had chicken pox as a child - I myself had always thought that I'd had measles, from my memory it could have been anything spotty and itchy (like scabies!) - while the boy definitely has had it. There is always the chance of getting shingles though...

And for the last two days I've been hearing ads on the radio for a $200 vaccination against shingles.

Coincidence or what?

TLM turns seven

She had a more exclusive do this year, inviting only four friends from outside of school. They met us at McDonalds for an early tea of fries and lemonade (none for me thanks, only the threat of a hypoglycemic blackout would induce me to make a meal of McDs - but the staff were lovely!!).

Then the boy and I herded our gang of excitable girls and tweens to the local planetarium by way of  cable car ride. The other passengers were impressively tolerant.

We watched Dawn of the space age, which is quite good even after the third viewing. The low point for me was the bit about the first dog to go into space, who was marooned in orbit with the car window permanently closed and the hot sun forever baking. The high point was at the end when the "camera" pulls back and back and back, showing us how nano-sized we really are compared to the universe.

And then the girls rampaged around the exhibition area with their balloons and high pitched squeals, quietening only for long enough to look at lovely Saturn through the really big telescope.

Her girlfriends gave gifts of books, Star Wars lego, craft kits and role-playing games.

There was one present, however, which she did not appreciate at all.

For on the next day, the universe gave her chicken pox.

A summery winter weekend

What fantastic weather we had last weekend. I took TLM and her scooter to the beach yesterday and she played in the sand and threw long ropes of kelp into the tide. People were strolling up and down the Parade, enjoying the warm sun and indulging in ice cream - the "proper" kind that comes in a cone.

I couldn't help remembering that at $4.50 per small scoop, it probably worked out 9 times as expensive as it used to be in my younger days. But in those days you didn't get gourmet flavours so I guess it's not a fair comparison (plus, it was a heck of a long time ago).

In the meantime, TLM's seventh birthday is coming up. We're going to break with tradition and not have a party as such. Just get a few of her non-school friends together (the ones she doesn't get to see much of) and go up to the Planetarium in the evening. Hopefully it'll be a clear night and we'll all get a turn looking through the gigantic telescope.

I've already given her the first early birthday present - a mood ring. We used to have those when I was a kid. Some things are just classics I guess.

Luxury toilet paper is no luxury

When I was at primary school, the loo paper that was supplied in the kids' loos was smooth, shiny and a lot like baking paper (except we didn't have baking paper when I was at school - presumably people just baked on metal trays and washed them afterwards).

At university I joined the tramping club. It was mostly populated with geology students - rough 'n' ready sorts who initiated themselves in the chunder mile and weren't too sick to go for a hike in the woods the next day. The guys used joke about how, if there wasn't a long drop nearby, you'd have to do your business amongst the tree ferns and wipe your bottom on something leafy that wasn't bush lawyer (I forget what it's botanical name is, but you don't want to wipe your bottom with it!).

The toilet paper we buy for home is the double layer stuff. No fancy prints or crossword puzzles. No quilting, no scents. But thick and strong (and here I will refrain from jokingly referring to thick and strong individuals, whom I'm sure we can all think of) and does the job.

The loo paper at my work, though. It's airy and featherlight, delicate.

It's like Tinkerbell's loo paper (but bigger and without the sparkles).

a couple of finished projects

Possible too late now, I "finished" this cardigan. I say finished because it's got all it's bits and pieces knitted an assembled. But it isn't really finished because the front edge curls back unatractively when done up. so I will need to work on it to fix that.

This cat turned up much more successfully (although that might be just because it's so slim). It's got lots of flaws, most of which TLM has already pointed out. Like, the ears are too big, the tail seam is really obviously and has already come unstuck from the side of the body, and one arm is more muscular than the other.

Censorship madness at The Warehouse

The highlight of many of our weekends is a visit to The Warehouse (yes, we are lame). We all check out the DVDs, the boy checks out the computer games, TLM checks out the toys, and I keep up with the Rachel Hunter Collection.

This time around we selected some DVDs to buy - Disney's Fantasia 2000 and a Star Wars Clone Wars collection for TLM, and Hot Fuzz on Blue Ray for the boy.

But when we got to the counter, the sales clerk explained that sorry, he could not sell us the Hot Fuzz DVD because it's PG13 and we were clearly accompanied by a person aged under 13 years.
I replied that we had no intention of letting TLM watch this DVD - she had two new ones of her own. But the sales clerk said no.
"Okay, I'll leave her around the corner and come back alone", I offered. But he still would not be allowed to sell the DVD to boy and me, because he'd seen TLM with his own eyes.

So we walked away with only the kids' DVDs.

Crazy.

Being blobby

I've taken a week off, for the second week of the school holidays. I had a list of fun things that we were going to do together:

• visit the observatory on open night and look through the giant telescope
• make crystals
• Go see Brave
• hang

Since the weekend, we've really only managed the last one.
This is due to a combination of TLM catching yet another bug, and TLM staying up all night to read instead of going to sleep like a good girl. And it probably doesn't help that I've been a bit insomniac myself recently.

The observatory open night is tomorrow - hopefully the sky will not be completely overcast as it has been lately, otherwise we'll only get to see cloud.

The chrystal-making will depend on whether I can get hold of any copper sulphate, sodium carbonate or borax. I still remember making copper sulphate chrystals at school and how pretty they were.

As for going to see Brave, TLM already went to see that last week during her school holiday programme. Still, she could go see it a second time and not be as scared during it.

Just hanging is pretty cool though.

Paua and ginger

 Of course, this top (which I just finished knitting) would look great on someone with model-like proportions; on me it probably only looks warm and colourful.

But I really enjoyed making this and it's very comfy and if I can just pretend that I've got a narrow waist then it will all be fine.

It's got cables at front and back, and the edgings are in twisted rib.

The gory details are on Ravelry.

Is it customary?

I always find myself watching Border Patrol on the telly, which is an Australian reality show about the Customs people in an Aussie airport. They are the folks whose job is to scan the bleary-eyed people who've just come off a long-haul flight and pick out the suspicious-looking ones.

For some reason, most of these people are Asian and the rest seem to be Middle-Eastern. Now, I would be the first to admit that the occasional homesick Asian will try to smuggle in an illegal taste of home in their strangely lumpy luggage.

But white folks aren't all innocent you know - like, Schappelle Corby was white and she got caught with a load of drugs in her surfing bag. Though that was in Bali. Maybe the Balinese think all white people look suspicious and the Australians think that all Asians and Middle-Easterners look suspicious.

It seems to me that certain races are being targeted just because they aren't white.
Or is the stereotypical goody-two-shoes Asian just a big fat myth?

Winter shopping

The Kathmandu chain is having yet another one of its big sales, and since we've been suffering galeforce southerlies, icy rains and 7C air temperatures (that's without the wind chill factor), the shop was extremely busy today - I'm talking queues for the changing rooms and queues at the checkout counter.

The boy wanted to buy TLM some leggings (I haven't been buying them myself, because she is always falling over and putting holes in the knees. Instead, I've been patching them). We did - TLM also ended up with a jacket to add to her impressive collection, as well as matching top and bottoms thermals and some woolly socks.

Then the boy went and bought himself a few things.

All the while, I was thinking that I've knitted various items to keep my family warm - yet they still prefer to buy factory made. I staunchly avoided buying anything for myself (until I got to the Warehouse, where they were selling merino tops $39 for two  - that's cheap for NZ) because I've been knitting steadily to increase my wardrobe of handknitted winter clothing.

Oh well. I can't expect other people to appreciate my efforts as much as I do.

Prometheus

TLM had her first Pippins over-nighter on the weekend - we dropped her off at the designated Girl Guides location at 2pm on Saturday and didn't go back to get her until 1pm the following day.

That's a whole lot of child-free time.

I spent the afternoon with my good friend who was visiting from Taiwan; we drank coffee, ate cake and talked about our respective obsessions (her - tap dancing, me - knitting and TLM).

Then the boy and I went out for tea at our usual pre-movie eating place (The Hog's Breath) and went to the movies.

I was tossing up between Prometheus and The Avengers - the former because it's by Ridley Scott (I loved Alien and Bladerunner), the latter because it's by Joss Wheden (who is god). Basically, the movie I chose was the first movie I could find on the Internet which was definitely being screened in 2D rather than 3D. I am one of those unfortunate folk with unequal vision, who get headaches after using 3D vision glasses.

As for Prometheus? Well, I enjoyed it. It was a space horror with a feisty heroine, a spooky atmosphere and a totally unnecessary reference to the evolution vs Creationism argument. As far as I'm concerned, there's no argument, so why can't we just treat the possibility that humans were created by super-humans as just another speculation? Why does the plot have to serve as a Creationist manifesto? If you ask me, there's an awful lot of unnecessary religious references in science fiction. But I did enjoy the movie. Though maybe we should have gone for the Joss instead.

When we went to get TLM on Sunday, she announced that she didn't like overnighters - and that the highlight was the cheese.