Rain on the parade

The parade finished across the road from work...how could I not pop out and have a look?

The cup. I had to majorly zoom in - luckily, while small, the cup is so shiny it's hard to miss. Even in the rain.

Although, to be honest, I have had quite the change of heart over the last few weeks, from 'I hate the All Blacks' to 'I want to marry Stephen Donald.' I doubt it will last very long, though, after all the fuss has died down. Plus, my allegiances aren't that strong - towards the end of the final I did start hoping France would win. They were so close and it would have made fools of all those arrogant people in the days leading up to the game who so confidently wrote France off. But as so many people have said, it would have been unbearable had the All Black's lost, and it's nice seeing people being brought together by something positive for a change. And parliament looked nice with all the New Zealand flags out.

A right royal wedding party

Our Royal Wedding party was a right success. The lounge was decorated with union jacks, a giant mural of Diana and Charles on their wedding day with a surprise guest photoshopped in, my Will and Kate bunting all the way from London, and some great images of Kate Middleton from this very funny blog. There were tiny sandwiches, pikelets with jam and cream, cheap sparkling wine, and a sponge with William's face dusted on in icing sugar (clearly William in better hair days). Beth bought me a Royal Wedding sick bag in case the ceremony got too much but the only time it was almost needed was when I first saw Princess Beatrice's hat...

I was a bit surprised by THE dress, I had thought it would be more like the maid of honour's dress but with slightly longer sleeves (as I knew she had to be a bit covered up in accordance with the church protocol) and a train. Having looked at photos though, I've decided I really like it. The lace is beautiful and was apparently made by the Royal School of Needlework - the Official Royal Wedding site says that those working on the lace had to wash their hands every thirty minutes to keep the threads clean and the needles were renewed every three hours to make sure they were sharp. On TV you couldn't see that there is lace on the skirt of the dress so I thought the bodice and the skirt didn't really fit well together, but now that I've seen photos and seen how the skirt has echoes of the lace, I do think the dress works overall. I loved the maid of honour's dress though, she looked amazing.

The only thing I wish we'd had was a lip reader with us who could tell us all the little things people were saying to each other - William and Harry when they first arrived at the church, Harry, William and Kate when she first arrived next to them at the altar - they seemed to be making some jokes and having a good, if nervous time. Maybe they were saying, 'Did you see Beatrice's hat? What is up with that? Who invited a moose?'

It's true

I'm more than a little excited. Especially because my friend Hayley who is living in London at the moment sent me some Royal Wedding commemorative bunting which arrived on Tuesday and was hung up straight away. And tonight we're having a wee Royal Wedding party at which we'll eat cucumber sandwiches, pikelets with jam and cream, drink champagne and watch the live coverage. Will she have her hair up or down? Will her dress be awesome? It's good to have something nice in the news for a change, I don't care what any of the curmudgeons say.

Half mast

I had been following the Pike River mining disaster news and, along with everyone else, hoping for the best even as the days passed, so I got a bit of a shock yesterday when I read about the second explosion and the announcement that none of the men could have survived it. But it wasn't until I looked out the window at work this morning and saw flags flying at half mast that I really felt the enormous tragedy of it. I can't begin to imagine what those families are going through. Even though it's so close it seems really far away.

Aisha

So I had a post all planned that involved green velvet curtains, a frosty sunrise, food, and a documentary about Joan Rivers; but then I saw this and everything I was going to write about seemed pretty ridiculous.

I first saw the picture on a blog I follow called 'art + craft = craftivism' and the post containing the picture has links to resources about Afghan women and their human rights if you'd like to read more.

I will post about the things I was planning to, probably tomorrow, because after my initial feelings of selfishness and kind of self-disgust (that I write about my knitting and watching theatre and movies and places I go and things I eat and whatever else I think is vaguely interesting for me to document for future reference and for anyone who might happen to read this), I decided that me not doing what I do is not going to change anything in terms of the injustices in the world. I started this blog for me and it's nice that some people read it and leave comments and it makes me appreciate some of the things I do and have more and it pushes me a bit in terms of making things so I can write about them; I didn't start this blog to change the world or fight for human rights. There are other ways I can try to help do that if I want to that are probably more effective.

But the image and the abrieviated article really upset me. It made me think about how fricken lucky I am to live where I live, how lucky I am to be able to write about such mundane things as knitting and classic movies as if they are of any significance. It made me think that any crappiness that I'm dealing with at the moment is actually so unimportant in the scheme of things and that I'm lucky that the worst thing to have happened to me lately is being broken up with. I mean, I'd thought that at various times before over the last 7 weeks, but this image really drove that message home.

So I didn't want to pretend I hadn't seen it, or not acknowledge it. And blogs like mine are ultimately selfish, I wouldn't ever try to deny it - I mean I've just turned that image and what it means into a diatribe about me...but I guess no one is forced to read it and I can still have a social conscience and have a blog about making stuff. Well, I hope so anyway.

I don't know much about the situation in Afghanistan but I do know that the 18 year old woman in that image, which is about to be on the cover of a magazine on newstands around the world, is pretty brave and amazing. And it's pretty sad that one human could do that to another and that there's a culture where it's okay for this type of thing to happen. And I hope that that image means more people like me who had no idea that this was happening, that it could happen, have their awareness raised, even a little bit. I mean I knew about various types of extreme violence towards women around the world, but to see an image of it like that is very confronting. And I don't really have any more to say, because really, what can be said?

Poppies and violas

If I had been more organised, I could have knit myself a poppy to wear today (Anzac Day) and just donated to the Annual RSA Poppy Day Appeal instead of also taking one of their little poppies that fell to bits only hours later.

A Poppy for Remembrance by Laura Chau, free pattern and photo source here on Ravelry

Maybe next year.

Today I did some gardening, not of poppies but of violas. Lauren, my flatmate, got given a Pocket Garden for Christmas and in about February she took the plunge and planted it under my watchful eye - not that I know anything about gardening but she doesn't either so wanted some moral support.

To our surprise, a few weeks later the seeds sprouted and our little violas haven't looked back since. Here they are at the beginning of this month:

And here they are today:

I decided they needed to be put into a proper pot as they had truly outgrown their pocket. So I went to Bunnings Warehouse today (as the closest garden centre was closed) and got some potting mix. Bunnings only had plastic pots and I want a real pot so I decided that for the time being they could live in an empty ice cream container with some holes stabbed in the bottom and another ice cream container underneath to hold the excess water. So now I'm on the lookout for a nice ceramic pot. I really hope the violas survive their move - I've even staked them with a chopstick and some wool because the ice cream container isn't really deep enough for them so they need some help staying upright, but at least it will give their roots some more room.

Lauren was very pleased when I said I wanted to put the violas into a pot because apparently it confirms that I'm a suitable adoptive plant parent. Lauren's leaving Wellington to go to America next month to be a camp counsellor at Camp America. So sadly she's leaving me and the violas behind. I've said I'll send her regular plant updates though.

Yesterday I went to a clothes swap at my step-sister Claire's house. I haven't been to one before but they're such a good idea, especially when combined with pot-luck lunch. I came away with a skirt that's kind of similar to one I've lived in on the weekends during the summer (in that it's long-ish and very full):

And a necklace that I wasn't so keen on once I got it home. I think I was a bit enticed by its exotic origins - the girl who said she never wears it and has too much jewelry was given it by a friend who bought it in Greece.

All the chains just really aren't my thing. I like the beads though.

Finally, last night I saw a play at BATS Theatre that, along with the awful helicopter crash this morning that killed three members of the NZ Air Force, reminded me how lucky I am that the things I have to write about are violas and a clothes swap.

My Name is Rachel Corrie is a solo show based on the diaries and emails of American woman Rachel Corrie who was killed in the Gaza Strip while protesting the destruction of Palestinian homes in 2003. Whatever you think about the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or about Rachel Corrie and her actions, the awful reality for the people that Rachel was living with before she died of constant gunfire, the threat that their home could be bulldozed at any moment, the difficulty of getting water, and curfews (to name but a few) is so removed from the comparative luxury of my life that it is very sobering indeed. A really moving play that, for all the heaviness of its content, has a lot of humour and the production I saw of it was very powerful.

With that in mind, I will not lament the fact that I haven't managed to do any knitting this weekend. But I haven't. And I really want to finish the Baby Shrug!

Hip-hop, Toot, and earthquakes...

Sadly, little progress has been made on the hat since Monday night's Knitting Circle. 1 row in fact. I find it really hard to fit in knitting time on weeknights. By the time I finish work at 5.30pm, walk home which takes about 30 minutes, forage around for something to cook, cook it, eat it, do the dishes/muck around it's 9.30pm and I'm too tired to pick up the needles and do a decent amount. And that's only on a home night. Why tonight, for example, I had to go and be in an awesomely ridiculous hip-hop style video about puberty that my friends were filming for their Fringe show. I got to wear the hideous purple long shorts with ruching up the sides that Guy brought me back from his trip to Shanghai last year (thankfully as a joke because there is no way I would wear them in an everyday context, not even a one-off token wearing to pretend I liked them if he had been serious). And last night we had our first meeting for 2010 for our show. And the multi-talented Ed who is going to co-create and direct the show as well as be our general creator of awesome images, posters, flyers and a programme, went home and did this:

The show is going to be called Tea for Toot and he has perfectly captured the feeling of quirky and childlike but slightly sinister that we have been talking about. I won't say too much about the story just yet but the idea grew out of our reading about Enid Blyton and her two daughters, one of whom insisted until she died that her mother was wonderful and caring and who had great childhood memories and the other (still alive) who insists that her mother did not have a maternal bone in her body and who has very unhappy memories of her childhood. The show is not intended to be a biographical representation of these women or their lives but has grown from our research on them and on Blyton's writing and "will explore the effects of childhood experience on adult life, the treacherous and unstable territory of memory, the limitations and freedoms of living in an isolated, insular world, and the power of fantasy and imagination over reality". Well according to our pitch it will anyway; we have a long way to go before opening night and a lot could change between now and then once we start workshopping and writing.

This morning I was compelled by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's post on her Yarn Harlot blog to make a donation towards the relief effort in Haiti following the devastation wreaked there by an earthquake on Tuesday. She threw out a call to knitters to go donate even "a few dollars of your yarn money" towards the relief effort. She directed people to their local Medicins Sans Frontiers website but when I went there there was no NZ branch so I went to the NZ Red Cross website and donated to their International Disaster Response fund (as they hadn't yet set up their Haitian Earthquake Appeal, they have done now though). It wasn't very much but I hope it contributes to the whole and they are able to put that whole to good use. For me the loss of life, injuries, and damage caused by the earthquake along with the poverty already endured by the people of Haiti is incomprehensible but it's good to feel like I've been a drop in the pool of aid that they will be receiving.

Earthquakes are a bit close to home for me because Wellington has a major fault line running through the city and several others close by. I've grown up with pretty frequent little earthquakes and the occasional bigger one but we're apparently overdue for a really big one and all Wellingtonians (in fact all NZers as there are fault lines throughout NZ) are encouraged to have a civil defense emergency kit at their house with water, canned food, and torches etc ready in case a big earthquake hits and we are cut off from electricity and water for days. We even have emergency containers of water under our desks at work! Being up on the 14th floor at work is a bit freaky and whenever we have a little earthquake when I'm at work I start to worry a bit about whether it is a pre-cursor to 'the big one' and whether the 14th floor is really the best place to be if if does hit. But all NZ buildings have had to be built to strict earthquake-safe standards for a long time and I am told that the bottom of our building is on rollers to help move with earthquakes...whether that's true or not I have absolutely no idea.

Anyway. 'More knitting less worrrying' should be my motto for the year, and worrying about 'what ifs' is so silly when in the here and now I have much more cause for being grateful. But that worry bug is hard to get rid of, especially if, like me, you seem to have been born with it!