Bought

See that house there? The pale minty one? That's our house. We moved in last weekend, and I promise there will be lots of photos of aged carpet and wallpaper, disintegrating oven seals, platoons of trifid-like agapanthus taking over the section, and perhaps one or two of the planes that fly within metres of the roof during a southerly, coming up over the months, as this aged lady is transformed into a radiant beauty queen, with River Cottage-like kitchen gardens.

I am TV

Some of you may know, as well as writing amazing stories for a certain newspaper, I also edit that paper's TV supplement. So I've been reading about and watching a lot of telly lately. And after reading Helen's blog today on what her TV station would screen, thought I'd copy her idea.
If I ran TV, there would be no ads, and I would show these programmes on high rotation:
* Twin Peaks - got me through my first wisdom tooth extraction. I spent many happy hours on the couch high on painkillers watching the Coop, my chipmunk-shaped face safely hidden from public view.
* Band of Brothers - who doesn't love Withers and Nix?
* Lost - I could easily watch a season on DVD in one sitting. It's low brow high brow.
* Survivor - yes, I'm that lame.
* Six Feet Under - Best. Finale. Ever.
* River Cottage - Hugh could be making pikelets out of sawdust and fossilised pig snouts and I'd think it was amazing, inspiring telly.
* The Sopranos - bada bing, bdad boom. I won't tell you how it ends because I, like everyone else, don't know.

An offer

I want to grow food and plant trees in this garden: I want to cook meals and make pots of tea in this kitchen:We've had an offer accepted on this house and now we just have to go through the process of hoop jumping, red tape cutting and box ticking.
And then it will be ours, wah ha ha!

All I want for Mother's Day is ...

1. A breadmaker - so I don't have to faff around with yeast rising and buns proving to have fresh tasty bread.
2. A pasta machine - so I don't have a faff around rolling the bloody stuff out by hand, ending up with it too thick and coming out of the saucepan like tyre rubber. (Don't mention Sunday night.)
3. A lie down - now that H has given up his day sleep (but only at weekends), the days are awful long. There's only so much train track building and demolishing a girl can take.
4. Something from Oxfam unwrapped, like the chance for another woman to have a baby safely.

Feet, meet grass and sand

Hi blogworld, it's been a while. I've been taking a break from the screen in my non-work hours and having a little holiday, playing around in my garden, and catching up on some knitting. Don't I sound 148 years old?

Here's what I've been up to:

Harper turned two

My wee boy is now two years old. I can report he has embraced the 'terrible' in terrible twos somewhat, but as his vocab and mimicry of grown ups increases, so does his charm. Il est tres charmant. We celebrated his transition from infancy, where we now have to pay for him to fly on a plane, with a party. It was awesome. Our lounge was full of people, toys and food, and though the day started off a bit cruddy, it fined up and the little ones could do a bit of freeranging out in the yard. We were so chuffed so many people made the journey to K-town to see us, and H was chuffed with his swag of presents, so thanks everybody! Shame the kids didn't like my cupcakes as much as the icing I plastered on it - I was still finding cupcakes with the icing scraped off them the next day.

We went on holiday

Being on holiday means forgetting about; the work shoes, what day it is, the news, being on time, washing nappies, making lunches the night before.

And means embracing: barefeet, bare bums (if you are two), snoozing on the couch, grass, hot dogs on a stick with sauce, laying yourself out to dry.

We did all this in spades as we drifted north to Auckland, Whangarei and the Bay of Islands for two weeks off.
And wore my ear drums out.

I went and saw Pavement play their first gig in ten years with The Bram at the Auckland Town Hall which was awesome and nostaglic and fun. They sing one of my top five favourite songs of all time.

Two weeks later I was back in Auckland for the Pixies gig at Vector, which was really fun too, especially as I was there with some really great pals; MatnNat, The Bram, and Ange. Thanks dudes.

Where I am

Right now I see:

sun streaming outside on the paddock where cows gently graze

Monique chomping furtively on some home grown corn

wide open windows

curtains ruffled by a slight breeze

my own barefeet

I hear:

Monique furtively chomping on corn, talking to herself about not having any ripe avocados

the ever-present blistering of cicadas

some native bird I'm not familiar with

the space where the sound of the newsroom, the toddler and the cars should be

And I smell:

toast

sunblock

homegrown tomatoes roasting

Bliss.