ALL THE PINK LADIES

In the spirit of ‘goodbye Facebook, hello chinwags,’ I have created a club via meetup.com. Yes, it is slightly like a patch to ween me off my Facebook habit – but only slightly. You simply create a social group, create event invites and voila! you have yourself the perfect chinwagging opportunity. Kiwi and I joined meetup when we found the Wellington Couples Supper Club – we went to an event feeling very dubious about meeting weird people from the internetz, and ended up having a couple of fantastic and boozy nights out – and many more to come this year.

My club is for ladies only. The Wellington Pink Ladies – you should join! Yes, you should! On the proviso you’re in Wellington and you’re a lady, of course. There’s already 25 members in the space of 3 days (woo make that 27 members as I’m writing this blog post!) so it’s going to be fabulous, I hope. It’ll be as girly as it gets – afternoon tea, pampering sessions, gossiping get-togethers, putting on your dancing shoes, dressing in your frocks. That kind of stuff. I’m SO excited. The first meetup will be the weekend of 21 January – I’m leaving it to the group to decide what we do via a poll. High tea at Martha’s Pantry is in the lead, followed by tapas and wine at Vivo, or movies and drinks at The Roxy. Whatever we do, it’ll be fun. I have plans for the group if it becomes a great success. Pink Ladies merchandise, anyone? No, it’s not cheesy and it’s not copyright infringement… probably. I’ve just always wanted a pink jacket.

Kiwi is starting his own club too, for the boys who like craft beers. We could do a joint effort at some point – ‘Teaching birds about beers’? I think I’m onto a winner.

It’ll be great to make some new girl friends! I miss my girls from home, it’s easy enough to make new friends – the hardest bit is making good ones – the people you can call up and hang out with in complete comfort. But the best place to start is by meeting new people. Will keep you posted.

In the meantime, it’s work as usual. I’m aiming for a better work-life balance for 2012. So far, so good. Sounds like this year will be fantastic for my professional development – I’ve gained an FMCG client, not something I’ve worked on before. Big opportunities for learning the market – while proving how good I am at what I do (trumpet, anyone?) Everyone’s a winner. In other news, our little house is being painted. The entire house used to be ‘Cape Honey’ – or ‘Cape Honey Spew’ as Kiwi calls it. A ‘warm’ yellow colour that’s dingy and dirty. It’s now ‘Half Thorndon White’ – posh off-white. Half the house is complete and it’s much fresher. Feels a bit clinical after being dark for so long, I think it just needs some pictures on the walls and for me to stop squinting from the brightness…

Ta ra!

 

 

GOODBYE FACEBOOK

I killed myself two days ago. Committed suicide. Facebook suicide. Might as well have actually done away with my real self judging by some of the reactions I have received. Kiwi told me “half of you is dead,” my boss told me it has professional implications. I had to take a few days to warn people of the impending account deletion, gather contact details, download all my photos and videos, make sure that I wasn’t losing any of my 5 years worth of Facebook history. And even after all this, Facebook is making me wait 14 days before they actually delete my account. “Are you sure you want to delete your account, <insert names of 5 Facebook friends here> will miss you. How can we help you make your Facebook experience better?” Good effort. But buh bye.

What used to be a great way to reconnect with people and stay in touch with my family and friends in the UK, is now a great way to disconnect with people. Why phone anyone, or meet up with them? I can see what you’ve been up to on Facebook… Not how social interaction was intended to be. It’s more a stalking network than a social network. And I’m as guilty of that as everyone else. I’ll look at your page/photos/videos, but I won’t bother to leave a comment or send you a message. I’ll accept your friend request, or send one, but that doesn’t mean I’ll ever interact with you. Facebook has become a habit, you can’t do anything without wondering how you can turn it into a Facebook status. These days, Facebook activity is even used by the media when reporting on deaths “Andrea’s friends have noted <insert very personal message from Andrea’s Facebook page, not intended for media consumption, here>” “Andrea was a fan of <insert Facebook likes, interests and groups here>”. It’s a bit concerning – you are more than your Facebook profile.

Facebook friends are the epitomy of friendship in a consumer-oriented generation. If you’re not accessible 24/7 via Facebook, are you still a friend? I haven’t seen friends for years but if I were to meet up with them tomorrow, we’d have a good chin wag and it’d be like the old days. On Facebook, if I don’t speak to you within a few months, I’ll probably delete you. Then once I’ve deleted you, it’s like an awkward statement that I don’t consider you a friend. But I do, I just have an uneasy feeling of looking in on your life from the outside – uninvited.

So, New Year and new me, I’m taking a stand against wasted hours, procrastination, the Facebook definition of what it is to be a friend. I’m saying goodbye Facebook, hello chinwags.

TIMELINE

Handily Facebook’s Timeline has been launched to the genpub in New Zealand, a small country with more sheep than people, perfect for testing new technologies. Sheep love the internetz.

That isn’t just a geeky reference, it really is handy for letting me know what I’ve done in the last 6 months that’s blog-worthy. I can’t recall beyond the weekend. Facebook tells me that:

In August, I entered the Toastmasters (on yup, I joined Toastmasters) Humorous Speech Contest, and placed! It was the club contest, from which you go on to compete in the Area contest. I competed and came second – however, I came first in the impromptu speech contest! So impromptu, I didn’t even plan to enter, I was thrown in at the last second. I went on to the area contest and… came third. However, all good experience and I plan to enter the International Speech Contest in February. If I can get some time out from work to actually put together a great speech.

In September, Sonny Bill ripped off his shirt. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8tzJdZB0cc)

Oh hang on, this is about me. We went to Mt Ruapheu for the weekend, staying in the Forest & Bird Lodge with some work friends. We had high tea at the Chateau. It received the English seal of approval, best cucumber sandwhiches ever.

I made a couple of birdy cushions. Still haven’t fully stuffed one of them – need to stuff its derriere and sew it up. I’ll take another photo once finished, but here was a work in progress (I’m as slack sewing as I am blogging)

In October, I met the CEO of the company I worked for. I made a tit out of myself in front of him, woops. Worked myself silly so no social life to speak of, except for a Halloween party. I had a great time – Kiwi and I made a graveyard chocolate cake, dressed up, drank, got covered in fake blood, drank, danced, drank… drank so much that when I woke up in the morning I was still drunk, and convinced I was dying with a high fever. Covered myself in cold flannels, had a cold shower. Having been drunk all of about 3 times in my life, discovered this is what happens when you take drunk to the next level. Oops. And never again. No really.

In November, I worked some more. And more. And then some more. I became ‘featured talent’ in a TV ad that we were filming. Why pay talent when they offer themselves for free? It was all to help out the client, nothing to do with my ego. Really.

And December. It’s just begun. But I can tell it’s also going to be work-related. At least until 23rd, when the Christmas holidays finally relieve me. But all’s not in vain – I got promoted. From Awesome Manager, to Super Awesome Manager. Makes it all worthwhile. Almost. Some New Year’s resolutions are in order – ones which involve less work and more play…

 

WEDDING OF THE YEAR

I’m going to make like it’s still July. I’ve got nearly 6 months of blogging to get up to date with. Shockingly neglectful of me, so I’ll do it in photos – as the Team America song goes “we need a montage (a montage)”…

So, I went home to England for two weeks. I barely took any photos, except for wedding related. I gave the maid of honour speech I’d been so worried about. I literally re-wrote the speech the night before the wedding. And I’m glad I did. I tried to write a sequel to the poem Ally wrote for my wedding – but it was bordering on cringeworthy so I decided to go down the heartfelt route. In true me-form, I don’t do heartfelt well and ended up doing a comedy routine, but I got a lot of laughs and someone called me their hero after I called the groom a cock. Ah, memories.

There I am, mid-speech. You can see the delight on the father of the bride’s face. I’m sure I was his hero too.

And here’s the happy couple…

me and my bestest friend. x

AUCKALOFA AND OTHER ADVENTURES

It’s July, already. It’s less than two weeks until I travel back home for a flying visit. June was both the longest and shortest month – the longest because my trip home isn’t close enough yet. And the shortest because I’ve been so busy, and then smack, July high fives me on the forehead. Lots of long hours at work in June – including a 20-hour stint the night before a pitch was due. It’s not the 20 hours that’s hard – it’s actually pretty fun; there’s lots of you working til the small hours of the morning, there’s banter – there could have been wine and crisps, but the alcohol would have made me sleepy. It’s whatever gets you through. The painful bit is waking up the morning after to your alarm, because the work’s not over and you can’t make up for the lack of sleep. You feel like you’re hungover all day, everything takes double the time to complete because you’re not firing on all cylinders. Your brain is in smog. Next time, I’ll take a sleeping bag to work and kip there. We’ve got a nice shag pile rug in the middle of the office, looks like it could be comfy…

June has also been the month where I’ve prepared for my trip home – I’ve spent a few days here and there, buying gifts and souvenirs. I had a Blue Peter day with some sticky tape and scissors (and yes, I got an adult’s permission before using them). I’m really proud of the results, but can’t reveal anything or it’ll ruin the surprise for someone. One thing I will say, is I spent an hour or so in a store called Japan City preparing parts of my surprise. There is nothing you can’t buy in Japan, I’m sure of it. And you don’t know what you’re missing or what you can’t live without until you’ve shopped in the Japanese equivalent of the Dollar Store. There’s stationery, health and beauty products, toiletries, accessories, hair styling products, kitchenware, food, storage options, furniture, ornaments, the list is endless. Need a big plastic ring, that sits around your head so your cranium looks like Saturn, to stop shampoo getting in your eyes? Thought so. Japan City can help you out. And spend $20, they’ll give you a free lucky amulet.

So, moving on from the infomercial – to birthday surprise number two.

I managed to keep my own secret surprise from Kiwi. And I like to think I topped his helicopter ride, maybe. I took him to La Boca Loca, a cheap and cheerful Mexican cafe in Miramar, Wellington. After our quesadillas, I had a taxi pick us up. I blindfolded Kiwi and asked the taxi driver to take the tiki route (the long way round) to our destination. Kiwi thought he’d work out where we were going using his man-powers (internal GPS), but the tiki-trick worked. He was completely lost. It was only when we got out of the taxi and I took off his blindfold, that he saw we were at the airport! I was taking him on a weekend away. While we sat in the ‘corporate lounge’, he tried to figure out where it was we were going, but my secrets and plotting continued – he’d narrowed it down to the flights to Christchurch, Nelson, Auckland and Hamilton. He wrote of Christchurch due to my fear of earthquakes, and Hamilton because. Well. It’s Hamilton. Then he said “and it can’t be Nelson, because there’s nothing to do in Nelson.” At which point I replied “what do you mean, there’s nothing to do? I thought the South Island was really nice!… Oh. You’re going to hate your birthday. Great.” Cue Oscar-worthy performance of concern and upset. Kiwi tried to allay my ‘fears’ by backtracking “no, I’m sure it’s nice. Mum visited and liked it. It’ll be lovely… etc. blah.” It was only when we didn’t go to the boarding gate on time that he realised I’d been lying. So yes, we were off to Auckland.

I’d booked two nights at The Amora (the old Duxton). We arrived late on the Friday night and as I was shattered after all the plotting and sneakery, we went straight to the hotel. On Saturday, we had brunch at Soul Bar and Bistro on the viaduct. We shopped up and down Queens Street and randomly bumped into two friends. We ended up going for drinks at 1885 – a bar with a Lawn Party theme, where all food is served on a 3-tiered stand, the whole bar is outdoors (under a canopy), and there’s fake grass and garden furniture. We had a pot of tea that came with vintage teacups and saucers. Right up my street. We decided to get the ferry over to Devonport for the rest of the afternoon, for a change of scenery. We had a gander around a little art gallery and ended up in an Irish pub for a couple of drinks. But not before I was pointed in the direction of a shop selling English food. I got far too excited – it’s a good thing I’m going home or I would have spent extortionate amounts of money in there. If you’re English you’ll have heard of Princes pastes – chicken paste, shrimp paste. Cheap pastes you use in sandwiches or spread on toast. They cost 25pence for a tiny jar and are the choice of penniless students. This shop was selling them for $5 – like they were a delicacy.

We came away with a Wispa, Caramac and packet of Angel Delight. And I came away with a shopping list in my head of everything I need to buy when I’m home. It’s good that my bag will be full of souvenirs on the way over, because once those are out I can re-fill it with food and Primark clothing.

When we ferried back from Devonport, we went to dinner at Tony’s Steakhouse, the main reason I decided on Auckland as our destination – because Kiwi loves Tony’s steaks.

On Sunday, we went for brunch up a little side-street, at a cafe called Tasca. They served me the most perfect cappucino and salmon bagel I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve fallen for Auckland just a touch – it’s something a Wellingtonian would hate me for saying, but Auckland’s got so much more to offer (for me). It’s very European in places – there’s much more variety in cafes and restaurants. I think it suits me better than Wellington – it’s more exciting. One of the friends we met up with told me about all the markets and events and places she goes to, and my eyes lit up. I may well be an Auckland convert.

After brunch, we shopped some more – we took a trip to Smith and Caugheys, where I dribbled over a Hermes bag, and shockingly Kiwi tried to persuade me to buy it. I was sensible and resisted – a week’s worth of rent a bills for a bag. Not until we’re rich and famous. So, to avert ourselves from spending – we went to the cinema to see X-Men First Class with some free movie tickets I’d been given.

Before we left for our flight back to Wellington, there was just one more Auckland-thing to be done (another favourite of Kiwi’s) – a trip to Wendy’s for a burger.

So, that was June in a nutshell. This weekend has been a little more chilled – Kiwi went spearfishing with Wetsuit Man, and then they came back to our place for dinner with Cat Woman. They’d caught a crayfish, butterfish, and some paua. So we had the cray just fried with some butter, and it was beautiful. We had the paua with coconut cream and the butterfish was home-smoked. Served up with some bread and butter, it was a true Māori feed. Probably $200 worth of seafood for free. I can’t wait until the next time! I finally sat down last night as well and wrote my speech for Ally’s wedding. It’s 80% finished, and a big weight off my mind. Her speech raised the bar very high and I hope I do it justice in return. Only 3 weeks to go and I’ll find out!

 

 

SURPRISE!

I waited months to find out what my birthday surprise was. Then, on the day of the surprise it was postponed due to bad weather and I had to wait another three weeks. Curiosity and very high expectations nearly killed it – so good thing it was as big as it sounded. A starlit helicopter ride over Wellington, complete with bubbles, followed by dinner at the Dockside. Not entirely sure how Kiwi’s going to top this next year. A trip to Rarotonga should cover it, just saying.

It’s the end to a lot of extravagance. Time to take saving the cents seriously – it was fun while it lasted, playing at ‘rich and famous’. Now it’s time to play being Jenny from da block. You know, don’t be fooled by the rocks that I got. They’re just your every day sediment.

PLAYING CATCH UP

I’ve been meaning to do a lot of things for the past couple of months – but I keep falling behind and other things pile up. I’ve been playing a game of catch up and I finally think I’ve won. Getting my blog up to date was one, and I’m all blogged out now – though I forgotten to mention the little things, like I have a fringe again (and it’s received great reviews…). My life has been work-centric recently. I’ve been so caught up in work I actually had a mini-celebration earlier just because I’d completed 6 weeks worth of the timesheet I’m supposed to update daily – but ironically don’t have time to record what I’m doing, because I’m too busy. Tragic to even blog about this – but my timesheets have been haunting me every day. The blank calendar in our project management system has been taunting me – ‘yeah. Still here. and here’s an extra day of blankety blankness, just for you.’ I’ve stayed late after work every night the past couple of weeks with the intention of getting my timesheets updated, but not even touching them because I’ve got so much ‘real’ work to do. Then there’s the constant nagging that the longer I leave it, the more days I have to complete all at once. I gave up on doing them after work. It became a job for the weekend. It finally took me SIX HOURS today. Hence the relief and doing a little celebratory dance (in my head).

Hopefully this week will be calmer because I’ve got a growing list of things I want to do when I actually have a free lunchtime to run errands, and free evenings at home instead of in the office (or  bringing my work from the office to my sofa to carry on…) I’m going home in two months time, and I’ve got a lot to do beforehand. I’ll be Maid of Honour for my beautiful best friend’s wedding so I’ve got a speech to write and other MOH ‘stuff’ to do. The speech is slightly daunting when placed in the context of the poem she wrote for my wedding. THE best poem, in the world, ever. Not something I think I could ever live up to, but as long as I say something genuine I hope she’ll forgive me that it doesn’t have the pizzazz and hilarity of her poem to me. Under pressure, much…

It’s also Kiwi’s 30th birthday in June, and since the bar has been set very high from my birthday celebrations (and will be raised even higher next weekend), I’ve got some planning to do…

The main thing I’d like to do though, is simply spend time with Kiwi. And that’s just what I’m going to do now. Except I’ve just remembered I have a meeting report to write for the morning. Shite…*

*Disclaimer: yes I’m complaining, but whinging is my first language. I’m loving my job – it’s hard work, it’s challenging and I’d be bored if it was anything less. It’s still good fun even when the chips are down.

A ROYAL FEAST

More of May’s indulgence – the last two weekends we’ve had our friends over for a feast. Last weekend was the warm-up, Kiwi’s practice run for the main event. Inspired by the Turbacon Epic Meal, Kiwi planned to cook a poussin in a rabbit in a chicken in a duck in a turkey, covered in bacon strips. We started off last Sunday with a turducken (chicken in a duck in a turkey). Kiwi had to debone all the birds himself, stuff them together and sew up the turkey. It was an impressive procedure and the prep took about 3-4 hours. And it was a complete success – we even made a video for the people who were waiting on the nicknamed ‘turduckenabitsin’…

Yesterday was the main event, and even though we were feeding double the people with double the meat, the prep seemed to go easier for Kiwi – the practice took the stress out of it. I provided some roast veggies and a friend brought a token salad, but nobody (well, the men anyway) cared about the sides – it was all about the BEAST. I even forgot to serve up the Yorkshire Puddings and no one noticed. Kiwi was ridiculously proud of himself and I was pretty impressed at his efforts – though after a weeks worth of leftovers (there was A LOT of meat to go around) and last night’s glutton, I’m thinking of going vegetarian. Just for a week, maybe…

The BEAST

BEST BIRTHDAY, EVER.

Well since the Rapture didn’t happen today, I thought there was no better time than to get back into this blog. I woke up to a sunny day thinking ‘well Jesus must’ve brought the good weather with him – sunny with a crisp air and slight chance of apocalypse’ but turns out there was no second coming and it was just another stunning Autumnal day in Wellington.

May has been a month of indulgence and it’s not over yet. It was my birthday earlier in the month and I’d been told there was a surprise in store for me – “surprise! I’m going to surprise you on your birthday.” “Oh. So now it’s not really a surprise, but just an annoying secret that you know and I don’t.” (conversation with Kiwi). But the day came around and Kiwi had to break the news that my surprise had been postponed due to the weather for 3 weeks. I still can’t guess what it is – from asking questions I’ve managed to deduce that it’s not a puppy or a motorbike and now I know it’s weather related but that hasn’t helped. He could tell I was disappointed from my pouty face, so we made a plan to do something really special that evening so I still had a birthday full of birthdayness instead of postponing the birthdayness for a non-birthday day. You get me? We rang round all the super expensive restaurants like Logan Brown and Martin Bosleys, trying to book somewhere for a degustation menu – something we’ve never done because it requires enough money for a down payment on a house. They were unsurprisingly fully booked as they usually are just hours before opening. But luckily for me I’ve made some friends who like the good stuff in life (the really good stuff, like they know good wine and food unlike me who loves a cheap curry and $5 wine deal) and had told me about a place called The White House so we booked there. It’s important that I mention to New Zealander’s that this isn’t The renowned White House that hosts ‘adult parties’ and ‘private dancing’ and to Americans that I didn’t dine with Obama. It’s a restaurant that sits upstairs from Beach Babylon on Oriental Parade – it serves a 10 course degustation menu with matching wines and it’s very decadent.

Before dinner, we spent the day with family. I received a lovely bag of gifts including Chanel No. 5, a box of chocolate, a birthday teddy and a cute book. And a big bouquet of flowers. We went for brunch at Cafe L’affare, where I had a muffin and bongo (I had to say it. A bongo. It’s just a very cute miniature latte in an espresso size glass), I was saving myself for later whereas Kiwi had the full breakfast. We tripped around Te Papa for something to do in the afternoon – it was very cold, and popped along to The Red Cross Shop where I found myself a top to wear out. I’d been given a handbag by my lovely friends from work in a gunmetal colour which I didn’t have anything to match or wear it with – incidentally my work friends are on my team, just me and the two of them. So when they went out for a ‘meeting’ without me, I was thinking ‘errr, I’ve done something bad. What are they saying about me?!!’ and ‘Or. oh no! one of them is leaving.’ At no point did it cross my mind that they’d nipped out to buy me a pressie until I found it sitting on my chair. Silly billy. Anyway, I bought an animal print style top in gun metal type colour. Pretty nifty find.

Our dinner booking wasn’t until 9pm, so Kiwi and I got dolled up and went to Vivo Winebar for wine and some nibbles – just olives and garlic dough balls to keep the hunger at bay and line our stomachs ready for the 10 courses of matching wines… FYI, you don’t need snacks before a 10 course meal. And you also don’t need 2 glasses of wine before the aforementioned 10 courses worth. but, when we eventually got to The White House, I was still hungry and ready for a big meal. I’m only going to tell you about the first course or you’d be here for a long time (longer than you have already), so here’s the menu. The ‘Crudite’ was a whole radish, including the sprouts/leaves that they’d organically grown in their rooftop garden. It was served in a terracotta flower pot in a pile of soil. Except it wasn’t soil, it was creamed goats cheese covered in a truffle mix of some description, and the whole thing tasted amazing. It was served with a sherry. My highlight was the seared scallops with red pepper harissa, smoked fish puree, fennel, date and orange salad. Kiwi’s was the Slow-cooked pork belly with ginger and lychee jelly and spicy cashew butter. I was only expecting 9 courses when we arrived, so after I’d be served our ‘final’ course of a Creme Caramel dessert, I had a food-drunk smile on my face. And then the actual final course came out – dessert number two, Molten chocolate pudding, buttermilk ice cream, malted chocolate soil and raspberries. Amazing. I can’t wait for our next degustation experience. I just need to wait another 5 years while we save up. Completely worth the excessive amount of spending though – we spent just one night living the high life and wishing we were rich. We’ll get there, one day…

It was definitely the best birthday I’ve had. And last birthday we got engaged so that’s saying something. And after it all, Kiwi turned to me and said “and your birthday surprise is more extravagant than this.” I’m SO impatient to know what it is, now only 1 week until I find out (weather-dependant!)

FLEETING FRIENDS

The best thing to do on a bright Autumn day in Wellington? Grab brunch at Floriditas with good friends, and sit on the wall at Oriental Bay with an gelato (or in my case, an affogato) from Kaffee Eis…

The thing about New Zealand is it has been hard to find great friends – especially ‘couple’ friends. The ones I do find are gems, but then they leave on me! Farewell lovely people, I’m ridiculously jealous of your European antics.