End of holiday comp

Where is this?

Prize of my choosing for the winner. Good luck!

Malling, not squalling

The end of the school holidays feels like this.

Retail, it's war out there and prisoners are being taken in the malls.

Iliveinabigcity.com

It's so big it has sculpture and very tired people.

Big buildings, gosh what is that one to the left of the middle?

I see now.

Well although I have had a car written off and a house ransacked I have not been as comprehensively done over as investors in South Canterbury Finance. This building is in my big city and I can imagine that it will soon be renamed or torn down or even more likely, turned into apartments.

My big citywhich is about to become a supercity although I am less sure of what that is. Perhaps something like the picture above, lots of glitz and BIGNESS and one old building left at the centre. A bit like a caramel in amongst more trendy ephemeral chocolate treats. Read about a campaign to save the St James theatre here in Norkland. It was a brilliant space and the Film Festival used to be held there. More recently I saw Gilliam Welch and Dave Rawlings and it was faded but still fabulous. Bring her back I say!

Cheers to General Store at 54 Customs Street who have a Happy Hour from 3-6pm on a Saturday. Roaring Meg and a stonkingly good time. Go there. They are very pleasant.

Double whammy

Sometimes you get lucky. As I drove home from work last week another car, pursued by the police, crossed the centre line and smacked into me. I am fine but my car is not.

Timing could have been worse too, just around 5pm turning into West End Road with other commuters behind and in front. I was towed by GHL Recovery and Salvage and his wife gave me a lift home too. The panelbeaters at A1 Autofinish have her now. Haven't heard from the police although I did crack and phone Central to get a file number at about 10pm the night of the accident so I could make an insurance claim.

I did consider speeding along Great North Road to get their attention but decided against it.

That same night a couple driving home from the gym in Christchurch were not so lucky and were killed in a different police pursuit. Time to review the protocol.

Now for something more uplifting, thanks Nature for this beautiful sunrise.

Any other princesses out there?

This is for all of you.

It is parked in Wellington and this was taken after a wonderful dinner which started with a superb elderflower martini at Floriditas.

My son visited some weeks later and the bedroom was still there. He didn't have the martini so it is not essential.

Tell me a story about it!

See gull on holiday

Let's start the holiday snaps with something reverent.

Kirking around revelling in the vaulted ceilings, they don't make 'em like that any more.

Gull likes to sit on Robbie Burns head and give him a cowlick you would never want.

Then flies off to look for ... fish I expect.

One Moeraki boulder and if you really care, I have plenty more snaps which I could show you on a slow winter whisky evening.

I grew up in the King Country a long way from the sea. I love crashing waves like these at St Clair beach. Look really carefully and you may see a wet suited surfer just on the brink of THE BIG ONE!

Not a cheerleader in sight

Takapuna beach at lunchtime in winter with Twilight teens in hiding.

More dramatic view, tide in and not a cheerleader in sight.

Growing more fond of the Shore and may even investigate living there. Taka closes down after 5 o'clock and everyone can run, bike and dogwalk to their heart's content. It's quieter and somehow that is becoming very important.

It's Auckland innit?

Flash cars and street art

Just Fu-Ling around

Love the chairs and the food is wonderful, plentiful and well priced. Lots of Chinese people eat there and it is opposite the flash new station, er transport hub, in Henderson in the heart of Westie territory.

Prices $39 for Peking duck but get there early, aroundabout $18 for a whole battered fish. Lots of greens and tofu for those so inclined.

Agave actually

... and just beautiful. These little flowers are all up the stem and start opening at the bottom so that by the time the top is flowering the bottom will have finished.

Mrs McGinty's plant

Over the long weekend which celebrates a Royal birthday I hope that I will be watching this flower while many others will be running to the shops in a retail frenzy.

It grows taller every day and is making a bid for the bathroom window.

I am not afraid.

See what I mean?

Wellington, ah yes

Stayed here at The Cambridge Hotel last weekend and a fine time was had by all especially the bloke who kept knocking on the door looking for Vince at about 5 in the morning. It was a bit Cheech and Chong but otherwise everything was lovely and the ensuite had BATHROOM written on the frosted door to stave off any confusion that it may have been a closet with a shower, toilet and basin in it.

Queen Victoria kept a stern eye on the goings on in Courtney Place.

This is in Petone should you ever need the Tongan High Commission. Also in Petone is a fine ladies' dress shop where I bought a pair of black pants which I wore on Friday. Yes, I had to have them taken up since I left my Husqvarna on the kerb for someone else to love.


This is Otis Hall's painting of one of Wellington's icons and I like it very much. It was above the bed in our room at The Cambridge and there were more pictures from the school that he went to around the place.

Went to Home by Christmas by Gaylene Preston at the Embassy. Recommended.

Due to rips in the fabric of time and changes in circumstances we won't be coming to live in Wellington as soon as we had hoped but we will still visit so lock your spare room!

Lovely city, lovely times with lovely people.

Hue and no cry

This is how they offer you a drink of water at Hue.

They have Harpers Bazaar, Marie Claire and House and Garden in neat glossy rows. They have a chandelier and wonderful colouristas who are specialists because they do nothing but colour hair.

I went to their Franklin Road salon and had the kind of experience where you feel better when you walk out than you did when you walked in. There is no idle chatter amongst the staff about their Friday night, their shifts or gossip about friends or soap stars. They seem interested in you - and your hair.

Loved it, recommend it, please be kind to yourself and go there. Unbelievably it is cheaper than all those chains of salons out there and a quantum leap in service and relaxation.

Did I mention the vibrating chairs at the basins? Bliss.

'I seen the little lamp' - Katherine Mansfield

This is the new star of our bathroom and it is a little beauty. Made of plastic, easily put together by two dolts - or one dolt with three hands -and created in New Zealand.

The light is glorious with just a touch of 6o's coffee lounge.

Picked out harmoniously in K Road at Iko Iko on a Sunday afternoon.

Autumn and high jinks in the pavilion

Marilyn watches

as the girls get ready

Betty bouncing

Ella leaping

A few snaps of two girls' exuberance on an autumn day in the Hamilton Gardens.

Marilyn was more subdued, probably overawed by the splendour of the tree. Of course, for those in the know she couldn't possibly have seen the girls so perhaps was miffed at missing out.

Being eternally two dimensional was probably not so hot either.

Easter pleases

To work off eating far too many toasted yeasty spiced bread products yesterday, I put up a few crosses around the place.

Tomorrow I might plant some silverbeet seeds - very rock and roll. Right now my runner beans are a symphony of green gorgeousness and I pick them daily.

Have a wonderful break!

Love it, want it, can't afford to have it!

I am talking about the car, snapped out the window of my stationwagon while stopped at the lights on the way to work.

Probably could afford to have it, just not keep it on the road. He was first out of the starting blocks at the lights, then took the right to the hospital. I trundled happily along to work thinking about how orange is such a fine colour.

Firmly fermee and overwrought

Travelling is a delicate mix of planning and serendipity, of sallying forth and being open to new experiences, of taking 'the road less travelled' and so on. Other times it is about having a plan which doesn't work out TWICE in one day.

We missed Bonaparte.

Tantalising view of what might have been and we had two euros worth of map to help us find Many Famous Dead People. Jim Morrison would have been turning in his grave as the crestfallen punters were firmly shut out.

The bars were still open. Magic!

Gallicentric universe

She is gorgeous and beautiful even if you can't get to the top balcony and she glows in the dark! Yes well, this is a backward glance shot.

Taking care not to get too close to the edge exclaiming "Wow' and other profundities. A vertiginous experience for some with one handed pointing, the other hand clinging.

A swivel ...and another gasp

Swivel the other way.

Views from the top

Two views from the Rotterdam apartment. You need to do a little bit of work for this.

Stand up and imagine you are looking straight ahead, Good, now swivel your feet so they are pointing a little to the left. That's the night time view.

Now shift your feet more to the left and look down at the still snow covered footpath and notice the bicycle path and the tram track. There are no cyclists as they move at the speed of light on their own 'road' which they share only with scooters. They will mow down pedestrians on crossings if required.

The tall pointy building reminiscent of the Sky Tower in good old Auks in the night one? That's Euromast and no didn't go up it as I was saving myself for the Eiffel Tower.

The perfect club sandwich

So - flew to Seoul and was stupidly surprised to find that it was snowy even though it was just after Christmas. After a night in the Hyatt at Incheon Airport (highly recommended and completely unexpected) we went back to the terminal. Big ups to Korean Air - will fly again!!

This is where we encountered the perfect club sandwich. I love the styling.

Refreshed and restored we got in a plane and flew to Schipol Airport (Netherlands). Then only a little worse for wear we got in a car and were driven to our temporary home on the 15th floor of an apartment building in South Rotterdam. Collapsed after the technical tour of the apartment and several excited moments dimming and undimming all the lights with the remote.

All lit up/spooky miss

This spooky miss was part of the fabulous Franklin Road Light Show at the end of 2009.

She's beautifully lit and her wings and halo are stunning but I found her a little unsettling. Perhaps it was the contrast with the well dressed houses but she reminded me more of a marble angel for a child's headstone than a festive fairy.

No matter, there were hordes of people, buskers and charity singers, coffee and cameras and we all played nicely so that everyone could have their 'ohh, ahh' moment.

The best thing was the empty house lit from inside with a changing palette of contrasting colours. Yep - watched it for ages.