All of the things. ALL OF THEM.

And now, Christmas is two sleeps away. And I am in bed sick. Good times.

Because it would take far too long to properly recap on the last month, here is a collection of photos with some context.

Lots has been going on at work - first of all, Ed designed this amazing Christmas poster.

Pip moved out. It was sad. But she made us an incredible goodbye dinner featuring pulled pork, spicy coleslaw, and lemon meringue pie.

My letter to the editor was published in the North & South, which confirms my future as an angry letter writing old lady.

I went to Auckland and ate like a Queen, saw the musical Little Shop of Horrors which was a really fun time, and saw 'Who Shot Rock & Roll' at the Auckland Art Gallery.

I went to Toast Martinborough for the third year in a row, this time with Ed, Nick and Little Claire. This is a chicken and quince pie by Ruth Pretty at Ata Rangi. Sadly there was no creme brulee this year which was honestly one of the reasons I wanted to go to Toast. I think I'll have a break from it next year, it was a good day but I need a rest from it.

We stayed at my family's house in Masterton after Toast and went for a walk to Rathkeale to walk off all the food we'd eaten.

We put on a Christmas sing-along show and I went to Auckland. Again.

To help market the show the cast and a couple of others (actually just Kate the Stage Manager and I), went and sang at the Christmas markets in Frank Kitts Park. It was really cute and some old people loved it.

We had a party under the dome in the Grand Hall upstairs at 1 Kent Tce to say Bon Voyage to BATS while we temporarily relocate to the corner of Cuba and Dixon Streets for 2013. My last week at work was spent in a makeshift office upstairs with a 12 metre drill below.

I got to go to carols at Longwood again this year, it was lovely as per usual.

Then I had a roast dinner two nights in a row, at the second one we had amazing bread pudding with chocolate, pears, and sugar syrup.

On Friday night there was some South Island road trip planning and a visit to the Telecom Christmas Tree. Then yesterday a visit to Alex for her birthday where there were some beautiful flowers and a beautiful baby. He is so cute.

Now, I'm really looking forward to feeling better (please let it be soon). I was meant to be in the Wairarapa already but I felt too sick to drive over. So I'm hanging out in bed watching first the clouds and then the fog roll in and magically disappear the harbour. It hasn't really felt like Christmas much yet, I haven't decorated a tree, didn't get time to make Christmas cards, I haven't done all my Christmas shopping, and I've only listened to A Very Cherry Christmas a couple of times. But my first 10 weeks of work have been crazy and we made a Christmas show, so that probably has something to do with it.

On the 28th I'm going down South for a little drive around (although, not so little really, one day involves five hours of driving...) as I've never been south of Christchurch. I'm excited. Let's hope Boy Alex (my Mum insists I stop calling him that, 'It makes him sound like Boy George' - but I've got too many Alexs around, I need to differentiate them somehow) and I don't get too sick of each other. I plan to take lot's of photos, so stay tuned.

Pretty. Yum.

Yup, more photos. These were from last last Sunday when I did get to sit in the sun and do a few rows of the Pebble vest in between admiring the view from our deck.

Then I went to a rehearsal for our Christmas show which is coming along nicely, and then to Mumford & Sons at the Town Hall. It was good but by the time they came on we'd been standing for over two hours and my yam feet couldn't cope. The festoons looked beautiful though. I do love a good string of lights.

During the week I went to Safety Not Guaranteed - it felt like I hadn't been to the movies for ages, but turns out my 'ages' is actually like a week and half. I ended up quite liking it, the ending was very unexpected. I also went to a talk about la dia de los muertos at Te Papa. It made me really want to go to Mexico. And I went swimming twice this week at the Freyberg Pool - well, a mixture of swimming and aqua jogging really. I'm embracing my deep uncoolness.

On Saturday I went to a 3 year old birthday party which had a dinosaur cake and whitebait fritters. And then had THE most amazing lunch with Beth at Nam Restaurant. There's a new summer 'Wrap and Roll' lunch menu - you get fresh salad ingredients (lettuce, herbs, thinly sliced veges), different types of meats and fish, and rice paper which you quickly dip in warm water to soften and then use different combinations of ingredients to make yum rice paper rolls which you dip in various sauces.

The lovely woman who runs the restaurant talked us through all the ingredients and showed us how to make the rolls (Beth was way better at it than me).

It was so filling and THEN we got freshly made warm banana sago pudding, which I had never had before but was ridiculously good. I got jasmine tea while Beth got Drip Drip Coffee, which is a little filter contraption that sits on top of a glass quarter-filled with condensed milk. The coffee is dangerously sweet mixed with the milk and even I quite liked the taste.

So, pretty amazing.

Duckgustation

Last week I went to the opera, a marionette play in Greytown, and to Auckland to see Mary Poppins. But more on that another time. Maybe. Because more pressing is the dream food experience I had on Sunday evening.

I had been wanting to do a degustation for AGES. The thought of a million courses of small but perfectly formed dishes definitely sounded like my idea of a good time. However, they're often quite expensive and I didn't know who would want to spend all that money eating food with me.

Luckily, it was my flatmate Stuart's birthday and he organised a group to go to Le Canard in Thorndon for an eight course duck degustation, giving plenty of notice so that people could save their pennies. Although, it was extremely good value - only $80, plus $45 to have wine matched with four of the courses. And the extremely attractive and delightfully charming French waiter was thrown in for free.

Naturally, I photographically documented each and every course.

First we were given what seemed like a cross between red wine and sparkling wine. Usually I'm not a fan of either, but this was really good.

Then there was the Amuse-Bouche, 'A Taste of Homemade Charcuterie'. Duck mousse and duck terrine. Some people ate theirs off the spoon but I had mine on bread.

Then 'Truffled [is 'to truffle' actually a verb? I'm not convinced] Scrambled Duck Egg and Air Dried Duck Breast'. This was one of my favourites. Although this chef obviously doesn't subscribe to the 'you should be able to eat everything on the plate' school of thought. The long thin thing leaning on the egg was a delicious, delicious fancy sliver of toasted sandwich with strips of duck in it.

'Duck Gizzard and Fresh Goat Cheese, Honey and Raspberry Vinegar Dressing'. I didn't know what gizzard was, someone thought it was the 'waste meat', someone else thought it was from in the 'neck area'. I just looked it up and found out it's part of the digestive tract. In some situations I think ignorance is bliss because it tasted really good. Although I'd still have eaten it if I'd known what it was, I might just have been a bit more wary. The cheese was a highlight, it had walnuts in it and was very creamy.

This was the 'Duck Buillon with Foie Gras and Mushrooms'. The bowl came out without the buillon (I asked, it means 'broth'), which was poured from a teapot into the bowl once it had been set on the table. I do realise how foie gras is made and it does cause me some conflict. Le Canard has actually been the subject of some protests over it, but I've had it once before (in Paris) and it's so good. Maybe I am a terrible person. Emma had hers without the foie gras and said the broth and creamy stuff was still delicious.

We then had a 'Walnut Wine Granite' which I guess was a palate cleanser. It was amazing how strong the  walnut taste was. By this point I was in a kind of disbelieving joyful stupor that we'd already had so many amazing things, and that there were still three more courses to come. It was a great feeling. The excellently matched wine probably helped.

This was the 'Duck Leg Confit Croquette with Cepes Sauce, Peas Mousseline'. I loved mushy peas when I had them in England and I loved the fancier version - pea mousseline.

This was definitely one of my favourites. 'Roasted Duck Breast with Blueberry Sauce'. It wasn't as delicate as some of the other courses, but it was cooked perfectly.

I love dessert. And I really love creme brulee. So this was another favourite (I've said lots of things were favourites, so really, I think I loved them all a lot). I commented that the profiterole looked like an elephant. The French waiter (on whom I had developed quite a crush as I got more intoxicated) clarified that it was supposed to be a swan. Then when he brought out my hot chocolate, which was accompanied by a little biscuit, he said, 'I have a terrible joke - that is not an elephant' (indicating the biscuit). I was briefly smitten.

And then it was over. Almost four hours after it began. If only every Sunday night meal was like that.

A mundane novella

Last Sunday I took part in Corner Diary at BATS, which was basically a group of us reading things we had written when we were younger and were, to varying degrees, ashamed of. I read from the diary I wrote when I was eight years old, and the diary I wrote when I was ten. I had the best time and I wasn't embarrassed by the younger me at all - I'm glad I was so precocious and self-absorbed and strange, it has given me the best comedy material possible. Anyway, a lot of my diary entries from when I was ten begin with 'Sorry I haven't written for so long' or 'I can't believe it's been three days/three weeks/three months since I last wrote'. Nothing changes.

That photo above was taken on my way to work one morning just over a week ago. We'd had a lot of rain and one of the walls that the footpath on Glenmore Street runs alongside had even more moss on it than usual; I didn't touch it but it looked much thicker and bouncier (I'm sure moss doesn't bounce, but whatever). And it had little succulent flowers growing out of it. I thought they were pretty cool.

In the last few weeks I have been doing the usual - eating, working, going to movies and shows, writing a Christmas show with Alex and Ed, and various other things. Have I written about the orchestra? I don't think so.

I went to the orchestra one Friday night in August. I asked for two tickets for my birthday because I hadn't been since I was much younger and I had pretty much forgotten what it was like. It was the NZSO and the concert was called Cathedral of Sound, with 'one of the most exciting and ground breaking conductors of our time' Simone Young conducting Mozart's Symphony No. 36 Linz and Bruckner's Symphony No. 5. This really means nothing to me, all I know is I really enjoyed it and I couldn't believe over two hours had passed when we walked out. Simone Young was very animated in her conducting, she pretty much conducted with her whole body so it was really interesting to watch. Which was lucky because we were right near the front so could only see the front part of the string section. The person I went with wore a bow tie. Which was pretty great.

Here are some pictures of food I have eaten in the past few weeks:

The main of the Wellington On A Plate set menu at Le Metropolitain, followed by dessert off the menu. Creme brulee for me and warm chocolate pudding with sour cherries for Kelly.

Tacos from QBT on the waterfront at lunchtime on Friday. A bit of a wait, but so worth it.

Scones with jam and cream (not pictured, obviously) at Martha's Pantry. Two days in a row. As well as the daffodils in that photo, there are blossoms and blooms and bulbs everywhere in the Botanic Garden at the moment. It looks and smells pretty amazing every morning when I walk through it.

Churros and chocolate sauce for dessert at El Matador last night. I drank the last of the sauce out of the cup when I'd finished the churros. So good. Kelly got pancakes filled with caramel, which looked quite crepe-ish and tasted yum.

As for movies and theatre, I went to West End Girls at Circa, which was as expected (the ending was particularly cringe-inducing). I went to Tiny Spectacle / Shitty Lyricism at BATS which was painfully hip. I went to Jerichow at the Film Society (anyone could go along for a donation), a somewhat bleak and sometimes ridiculous, but enjoyable enough German film. I went to One Day Moko at BATS which was beautiful and made me a bit emotional. I saw it in its first incarnation as a Toi Whakaari solo and since then Tim has developed it into an hour long show. He is very very clever and such a strong performer. It makes you think a bit differently about homelessness and people you see regularly on the street, but most importantly it just makes you think about those things and has some very funny moments. Rave over. I went to Moonrise Kingdom last night which was cute and funny and I loved the music (by composer Benjamin Britten).

That's enough.

Oh but I listened to the most beautiful and sad 'This American Life' podcast this week. 'Our Friend David', following the death of regular contributor David Rakoff, whose voice I love. David's life is explored through bits from stories he'd told on the show and it was just so funny and lovely. I love that show.

Four day Auckland

I had delightful four days and nights in Auckland. My prediction about the French farmers' market was correct - and I wasn't even the one to suggest a visit!

There seemed to be a lot of purple vegetables at the market - purple carrots, purple cauliflower. And the pineapple mini in the car park looked like it could have fallen out of that tree.

Like so many of my holidays, I did a lot of eating during this one. On Sunday, while two of Soph's flatmates laid carpet they bought for a song off TradeMe, I made cheese scones which I've never made before (I just used the Edmonds cookbook recipe) and they were excellent. There was only smoky cheese in the house so I used that and it was really good. Then Soph made amazing BLATs and one of her flatmates made banana bread which had yoghurt in it (which gave it a slight tang and which I want to try using in banana muffins). THEN we had a roast dinner with some other friends bringing fresh orange and marscapone tart for dessert. In between all this food we played scrabble (I was very jealous of the old Scrabble set with wooden letters), drank tea and read The New Yorker.

I had Campari for the first time on Sunday night which is quite bitter but mixed with orange juice it tastes like grapefruit juice. I stole this photo from Sophie.

The day before we went to see Dark Shadows and played Balderdash late into the night. Quite the restful weekend after spending Friday night at the Grey Lynn RSA.

Monday night was Florence and the Machine at Vector Arena. The stage had five stained-glass panels at the back which seemed to change colour a little depending on the light. Their shape was kind of art deco and they were pretty simple but very lovely. Florence was great, such an amazing voice and seemed really likeable which is always nice. She came out wearing this great black cape and then had a beautiful floaty black dress on underneath. And of course, excellent red hair.

She played some of my favourite songs and I had a little cry during one of the songs from her first album. I don't understand some people at gigs though, WHY PAY MONEY TO STAND AND TALK THROUGH A SHOW? JUST SIT AT HOME AND LISTEN TO THE ALBUM AND TALK AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE. Also, a girl standing next to me went crazy when Florence started singing 'Dog Days' but then spent the rest of the song trying to call her friend and hold her phone up for her friend to hear the song, but the phone would drop the call and she'd try again and yell, 'Can you hear? Can you hear?!' into  it. So many people spent ages taking photos and videoing songs, it seemed like they weren't paying any attention to what was actually happening live. I mean, I took a couple of photos, obviously, right at the start and then put my camera away for the rest of the show. But some people were holding their cameras up for almost the entire show. It seemed weird.

Tuesday morning I had a coddled egg with my brunch which I don't think I'd ever had before and it was was yum - kind of cheesy and baked in a wee dish. In the afternoon I went back to Auckland Art Gallery to look around properly, seeing as last time we mostly just looked at a particular exhibition. It's been expanded and refurbished so well, so many great views out into the park as well as beautiful old parts of the gallery that have been restored.

I was pretty taken with an exhibition called 'Speed and Flight'. It was very small and featured 1930s line cut prints from the gallery's collection.

It was pretty hard going back to work today after such a nice weekend.