Fleet Babes

This is a frame from a comic by Sarah Laing about the Fleet Foxes. I love Sarah's blog of her comics 'Let Me Be Frank', so I hope she doesn't mind me using her work as a visual aid to make up for the absence of photos in this post.

Last night I went to the Fleet Foxes at the Town Hall. There were hipsters as far as the eye could see - checked shirts, Wayfarers, facial hair, satchels, skinny black jeans galore - and the ones that amused me the most were a group who stood up in the back row of one of the seated areas above. There were about five guys and a girl, one of the guys had massive headphones around his neck, as if, at any moment if he got bored, he could just start listening to something else. They stood absolutely still most of the time, staring down at the band very intensely and kind of intimidatingly, expressionless. The few times I did see them move it was to nod their heads and bodies up and down to the music a little bit, but not too much. I hope they had a good time...

I definitely did! I had a bit of a dance (as much as you can when you're packed in amongst people and the music isn't really dance-y dance-y a lot of the time anyway) and sang along. I haven't been to many gigs where I know all the songs, the only big concerts I've been to are Goldenhorse with the NZSO at the Michael Fowler Centre and Carole King and James Taylor at the Vector Arena (both with my Mum), so I wasn't sure if it was gig etiquette to sing along. But the band was so loud (the sound was great and the Town Hall is a really nice venue) no one would have heard me and I couldn't help it. I knew all the words to every song but one, so I had a GREAT time.

The band didn't really talk the whole time, they said 'thank you' at the end of every song, one of them said something about 'I keep thinking I'm going to walk out of here tonight and the world is going to be ending, you know?' (No, actually, I don't know; why are you saying this? Is it the extreme wind or do you just think about the world ending every night?), and another said, 'Thank you so much, you've been the best crowd of the tour' (most likely a lie), but that was actually the full extent of the onstage talking. No banter for the Fleet Foxes. It didn't matter though, I was there to hear them play, not try to be funny or cool so it was fine with me. It was amazing how many times one of them swapped instruments - flute, guitar, saxophone, double bass. And their harmonies are pretty awesome.

All in all, I'm so glad I went. I love them.

In other news, I have taken no photos this week which seems strange but I have been too busy trying to find somewhere to live, which I have so now I can start packing. I'm going to miss Newtown with all its colourful characters and excellent cafes, but I'm looking forward to living in Aro Valley again after three years. The room I'm moving to has the cutest fireplace and bay window, so I will once again have a view from my window. Ch-ch-ch-changes.

Dreamy

I spent this weekend at Longwood. My friend Frankie invited me and we drove over after work on Friday. It was a weekend of delicious food cooked by her Mum, endless cups of tea in proper tea cups, croquet (I won two out of three games, turns out I am good at a sport! Granted it's a leisurely sport you can play while wearing a maxi dress), feeding chickens and collecting their eggs, reading, a trip to Lake Ferry for fish and chips (the last two photos), listening to National radio's Saturday evening old music radio show, and watching movies (I fulfilled my holiday wish to watch Little Women, I felt like I was about to burst with love for the movie the whole way through, I have seen it so many times before but I have now decided it is definitely my favourite movie ever; Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon, Christian Bale...actually everyone in it is amazing, I cried when Beth died, and watching it in a big old house was almost too perfect to be true).

There were so many things I wanted to take photos of (including the very old falling down greenhouse which is beautiful in a ruined kind of way), but I had to refrain because it felt impolite to keep whipping a camera out in someone's home. Such a great weekend, I felt very fortunate.

On Thursday night I had dinner at Adrianne's new house (she made impressively good carbonara) and then we popped down the road to The Embassy to watch Melancholia. Beautiful, but freaky. I wish I'd read what it was about properly before going to see it.

And seeing as this is turning into a movie round-up, over the Christmas holiday I watched Basquiat which was great. It features David Bowie as Andy Warhol which I was not expecting. Some time before Christmas I watched Beginners which I really enjoyed. It was touching without being sentimental and Ewan McGregor is a babe).

...to the blog!

What started as a way to document the progress of my newfound love of knitting two years ago, has since become a way to document the nice things I do and see, places I go, and people I spend my time with. That's a lot of 'I' and sometimes I feel a bit strange about documenting my life on the internet. But really, it's for me, no one is forced to read it, and when I went on my overseas jaunt in August, it turned out to be an excellent way of keeping my family updated on what I was doing. So, the blog lives on.

It's made me take heaps more photos than I used to (like the one above, a fence I walked past in Eastbourne on Monday), which I'm happy about, and I like being able to look back and see what I was doing last year or the year before - even though I rarely do. And I get to write, which I also like doing. Actually, if I added up all the words I've written on this over the past two years I bet it'd be novella length, at least. That's kind of a depressing thought. Maybe I should rename the blog, 'I could have been a novella'.

To celebrate the blog's birthday, I've changed the wee pictures in the header (having done it once before, you'd think it would have been a quick and easy process. It wasn't). Roses growing in my aunty's garden at the farm in the Wairarapa, my favourite photo from my holiday (the Sacre Coeur at sunset with jetstreams in the sky, taken from a little windy street behind it, a few hours after I arrived in Paris), and some very successful ginger crunch.

Picture perfect

I forgot to document the Christmas cards I made this year! Once again I used the old stick-a-photo-on-some-nice-card trick. This year the photo was from my outing to The Roxy cinema in Miramar. The hanging lamps seemed suitably sparkly and festive. I had a whole lot of double sided stickers left from the Christmas cards I made in 2010, they're actually for sticking photos into photo albums, but they work beautifully. I was, once again, disproportionately proud of my simple skills.

Yesterday was my last day of freedom before returning to work, so Kelly, her friend Andy, and I caught the train and went winetasting in Martinborough. Upon arriving we had to fortify ourselves with brunch at The Village Cafe at the Wine Centre, and then we meandered our way out to Martinborough Vineyard.

What may appear to be trophies to the majority of the population, was apparently confused for a spitoon by some lovely wine tasters who had gone before us, because the middle trophy had red wine in it...

The weather was lovely, the wines were excellent (although, I don't actually know anything about wine, I just know whether I think something tastes nice or not), and we had a yum platter at Margrain Vineyard which is where I think I got my terrible sunburn from. It was a surprisingly cheap day - $20 return on the train, $4.50 each way for the bus from Featherston to Martinborough, and $5 at each vineyard to taste all the wines - which, at most places, was then refunded if you purchased a bottle. Obviously we spent more because we bought food, but I was surprised how little it cost to fake being a wine connoiseur for the day.

Hello 2012

This morning it was sunny and the weather forecast indicated it would stay fine (after a couple of rainy days that put a dampener on welcoming in the new year) so I decided I would do something I've wanted to do for years but never gotten around to: get the ferry to Eastbourne.

Just as I was about to leave the house I got a call from my sister who was in Wellington playing tour guide to an Irish 'friend' she made at the New Year's festival/mud bath La De Da. So I met them in town and off Megan, Kevin, and I went to Eastbourne.

The ferry landed at Days Bay and we walked around to Eastbourne village; a lot of places were closed because it was a public holiday (still, I was surprised how many were closed) so we ended up having lunch at a pub. And then it started raining. We walked back round to Days Bay to wait for the ferry and decided to have a cup of tea and shelter in the cafe, but they were closing. So we sat shivering for a wee while and ended up getting the bus home, to avoid shivering for another half an hour. So, not a wholly successful day but it was a nice outing and I definitely want to go back when it's hotter and more of the cafes and shops are open.

Yesterday Kelly and I went to the new Muppet movie, it was so cute! I did some inappropriately loud laughing which I always enjoy, and got to see the new part of The Embassy. Then we ended up drinking the evening away (above is my first gin of the new year) and having dinner at Scopa. Not a bad first day of 2012.

Maxi dresses, painted toenails, nurses' capes, stripes, cricket, books.

So far this holiday, I have discovered the joys of:

Maxi dresses. They simultaneously make you feel like you're part of a very conservative religious group and/or going to the Oscars and/or a Hollywood celebrity living a casual summer life - especially when you're wearing one in an airport.

Painted toenails. I have never painted my toenails before (technically, I still haven't), but yesterday my friend Hayley's Mum, who has recently opened a beauty salon in the big front room of their house (also known as 'the smoking room' because it's where Hayley and I had our first secret cigarettes ever, sitting out the big sash windows; we would have been caught except her step-Dad has no sense of smell, so when he came into the room to say goodnight, he actually believed us when we said we were sitting out the windows because we were 'hot'), offered to paint both my toenails and Hayley's toenails. I copied Hayley and had them painted in 'Cherry Crush', a dark, but not too dark, shiny red. They are so amazing, every time I look at them I love them - so tiny, so colourful! And they distract from my blistered, yam-like feet which is an added bonus.

I have also bought an actual old red nurses cape from an antique shop having a closing down sale. The cape needs some mending though, so its pictorial debut will have to wait. I am definitely going to wear it in the winter.

In Wairarapa fashion news, Maggie is apparently a huge proponent of the double-stripe look. A bold statement, but one she definitely pulls off.

Meanwhile, Hamish had Nana and I out playing cricket on Wednesday evening. Maggie kept telling me, 'I'm on your team' as she bounced on the trampoline. Hamish observed, 'You're not very good at bowling are you, Cherie? Or catching. You're pretty good at batting though.' It's true, when a bright orange ball is coming at me not too fast, from not too far away, I can actually hit it.

For a short time, Isla joined us in reading a book before crying. I guess she's not a fan of Hamish's latest favourite series, Boy vs. Beast.

Now it's raining and I'm reading How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran. The verdict is still out.

Christmas (or, I take a million photos)

After a false start due to more earthquakes on Friday afternoon causing Christchurch airport to close and our flight to be cancelled, my sister Megan, step-sister Claire, and I made it down to the farm on the morning of Christmas eve. The delay, while frightening and extremely inconvenient for the people of Christchurch, actually worked out pretty well for me because it meant I got to go to a Christmas eve eve BBQ and party.

Once I arrived at the farm I harvested some lavender. Naturally.

This lot was tied with twine and hung upside down in the hotwater cupboard to dry. I have plans to make little lavender bags with it. I doubt this will ever actually happen.

I then harvested more lavender and put posys of it in glass jars in everyone's bedrooms. I was sharing a bedroom with Claire who gets hayfever, I forgot about this.

After harvesting, I got to attack the overgrown lavender bushes with big clippers which is one of my FAVOURITE things to do. By the time I was finished with them they looked like neat little box hedges.

After a team effort baked cheesecake (how many people does it take to make a baked cheesecake? At least five apparently) and some other preparations for the next day's feasting, Claire and I went for a walk. If there was one reason I would want an iPhone, it's for the Hipstamatic app. I love these photos Claire took.

Mum and Dave's Irish friends and their two daughters are staying at the farm, so after watching Love Actually (I saw it for only the second time last Christmas and hated it; surprisingly, I didn't hate it as much this Christmas) we did the requisite Christmas eve duties for the five year old once she was asleep.

Then it was Christmas day.

Claire and I decided that this photo could go on the front of a Christmas card from the two of us next year, and say: 'Merry Christmas from the Christmas Spinsters'.

The five person baked cheesecake is bottom left, dusted with icing sugar. SO GOOD. 

I (sunsmartly) sunbathed after eating way too much, while some of the kids played with playdough and made an excellent mess of playdough crumbs. 

A month or so ago when Claire and I were in The Warehouse, we saw a book about some country romance. We decided our country Christmas could potentially follow the plot of the novel, hence my wistful scan of the horizon for a dashing veterinarian.

Claire, Sarah (the eldest Irish child), and I went for a long walk to try to counter the extreme amount of eating we'd done. It kind of worked, except that by the time we got home we were able to partake in round two - leftovers dinner. I then watched the Gavin & Stacey Christmas special which reinforced my love of the Welsh and Ruth Jones and James Corden.

Yesterday we went to Hanmer Springs for a picnic in the shade because it was so hot again. Then we went swimming and came home for a dinner of baked SALMON. I made potato salad which I christened 'Heart Attack Potato Salad' because of the amount of Real Foods mayonnaise in it. I think when I look back on this Christmas, I will remember the sheer amount and deliciouness of all the food, and the heat.

The company was pretty good, too.