Fury

I'm absolutely furious about the woman in India who died recently after being gang-raped and viciously beaten by six cowardly men. It's a good thing that as a result,  huge numbers of people in India have been demonstrating to show their anger about a culture which encourages this sort of atrocity to happen - including police who refuse to take rape complaints seriously. It will be no surprise to you that I think the rapists/murderers should be executed, as punishment to them and to set an example to other men who think such brutal and disgusting behaviour is okay.

So now I will try not to think any more about it or I will explode.

Yes, this is the droid I've been looking for...

The boy is really, really hard to buy for - but three weeks before Christmas I looked around online and found the R2D2 lego set and knew he would love it.

I was at work at the time so I thought I'd wait until I got home before ordering it online.
But in the few short hours that passed, New Zealand seemed to have completely sold out of the buggers.

The Warehouse, who'd 6 months earlier sold me the boy's birthday (a Millenium Falcon lego set) present at a welcome discount price and delivered super-promptly, had let me down.

In desperation I went to the main Lego website and ordered it from there. These guys are based in Europe, I'd never ordered from them before, and I was acutely aware of the fact that when you order online from a foreign site you aren't covered by NZ consumer laws (this is what I mean by desperate).

According to Lego folks, as long as I ordered it by 8 December it would get here in time for present-opening day. It was the 6th. Phew.

But a week went by and the status stayed at In Process. After previous experiences with Fishpond, I was sure this meant that they didn't have any in stock and were probably fishing around for one - and if they didn't have one I wouldn't find out until weeks later!

So TLM and I went to look for back-up presents. We found a cool grey t-shirt screen-printed with the image of an enormous sandfly. It was very New Zealand but in a non-kitshy way. Score!

Two weeks went by and I realised the boy was not going to get his R2D2 lego. The stress was getting to me (you could tell because everyone in the office now knew of my plight). I emailed Lego to find out what the story was, then went looking for another back-up present. I found a Star Wars origami book, including the necessary papers at the back of the book. Score!

Lego replied to my email stating that the status of my order had been updated to Shipped. Hmmm...it's supposed to take up to 13 business days to get here. There are only about 6 of those left.

Then, on the Friday before Christmas, a large, plain brown box appeared at our door. It had arrived! On time! The boy loved it!

Hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas.

A Christmas-lunch dinosaur

It's a tuatara. Cool, huh? They're nocturnal so you don't often see them during the day. (BTW This was at Zealandia - not on the streets.)

Merry mischief at the office

On of my workmates has been off on his holidays since
a week ago. This is what he'll see when he gets back...

Thunderpants are go!

I'm wearing my Thunderpants today (my first Thunderpants purchase) and they're great. They're pretty, comfy and they don't go up my bum.

I should get some for TLM.

My sandal-less feet

I have a wonderful pair of sling-backs which I bought on sale a year ago. They are blue with touches of silver and charcoal, have just enough heel to feel dressy but plenty of support so I can walk home in them after work. These shoes manage to be comfortable, flattering and elegant (in my opinion) at the same time.

They are so flattering that they have fooled me into thinking that I had attractive feet.

But there's nothing like trying on the latest strappy summer sandals to wipe out that rosy fog from the glasses eh?

I tried on four pairs of open-toed sandals - some had thin straps, some had thick straps. Some has a cheesy flower on near the toe, some had a covered heel. They ranged from grey to blood red to black.

All of them gave me hobbit feet. Well, they probably didn't give me hobbit feet - more...revealed them.

My feet aren't hairy - don't get me wrong (apart from a few toe hairs that I will never post a photo of on this blog) - but they are wide and sturdy, like the feet of someone who spends most of their time lugging rice on their shoulders whilst striding barefoot up a Szechuan mountain. Or something.

Anyway, the point is, my feet don't look very nice in sandals and that's why I'll be wearing sneakers this summer...and my sling-backs.