Hello there, it’s a beautiful Saturday in Wellington – grey skies, mist, rain, gale force winds, you know, usual perfect mid-summer’s day. Think I’ll go put my bikini on and make the most of this tanning weather… Or I’ll stay inside in my jumper, scarf, socks and slippers, under my fleecy blanket and try to warm up my extremities. Seriously, rain in Summer isn’t unusual, but winter temperatures and weather warnings are pretty unfortunate when it’s a long weekend and I should be making the most of time outdoors (Wellington Anniversary on Monday is a public holiday for the city, yay!). We had plans for a house warming barbecue tomorrow. We’ll still have the house warming, but sounds like we’ll literally be warming the house – heaters will be on and we’ll be cooking indoors instead of out on the deck, for fear of being blown over the fencing and into next year (them winds are strong).
The past two weeks have been busy at work – lots of deadlines looming. I’ve got fun things to do like upload content into a new website, breaking the CMS in the process… woops. And proofread documents in twelve different languages that I don’t even speak. Don’t ask me why or how, I’m pretty surprised at my efforts – and even more surprised at the kinds of mistakes that get past the translators who are also reviewing the documents. Things I’ve learnt this week – don’t work with children, animals or translators if you’re looking for the easy life.
I’ve had a really good couple of weekends too – the last couple of Friday nights I’ve been out and about, doing the things that 25 year olds are supposed to do, like having fun past midnight. Move along Nana, it’s time to reclaim my youth…or something. Last Friday I chanced going out to a ‘Tweet Up’ (an event organised through Twitter, where people who are on Twitter meet up and drink and stuff). I started off in Southern Cross, where the Tweet Up began, followed a few lovely people (@missannajane, @badtom, @NarelleNZ and @mcquillanator) to Scopa for some food, then ended up in Hooch with @NarelleNZ, @nickyblacker and @gregorybodnar. I had planned for a big night out dancing in Red Square again, but the stars didn’t align and the best laid plans blah blah whatever. Still, a good night was had just drinking, chatting and eating Tiramisu. And I’ve made plans with @nickyblacker and @gregorybodnar and the lovely Dayna from Songs in Blue to go rollerskating with them on Mondays. And I’m sure I’ll get Nicky and Dayna out on the town for some dancing soon enough.
Last night (the second Friday I speak of), I went out with Cat Woman and some of her friends. We went for dinner at Ban Mai Thai, which I’d recommend because the food was nice but I’d also recommend you don’t go on a Friday night as it’s really busy and you might find you wait for so long for the two waiters/resses to get your drinks and food to you that your food arrives lukewarm (luckily mine was hot – Cat Woman’s, not so much) but they made up for it when serving drinks – free vodka shots and generous free-pouring of spirits into not much mixer. Anyway, after some nice Thai kai (that’s Maori for food and rhymes with Thai), we went on to Courtenay Place for drinks and found ourselves drinking $5 Margaritas in Shooters. Dangerous stuff, $5 cocktails. But since the barman spent 30 minutes making four drinks (no exaggeration), there wasn’t time to have more than two rounds… We then spent some time dancing like fools to bands in The Establishment and Kitty O’Shea’s and although I got me some dancing time in at Red Square too, I still don’t feel like I had enough of that place. I could spend all night there. And I plan to, just got to find someone with the inclination to stay there with me
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Today has been spent mostly in bed – didn’t wake up until 11am and didn’t get up and dressed until about 2pm. Had a lazy trip to the supermarket, a coffee and cake in The Cornerstore (a pub in Brooklyn), then back home to laze on the couch watching TV. I imagine it’ll be much of the same for the rest of the weekend – bar a trip to Recycled Boutique (a second-hand/vintage thrift shop) tomorrow to find me a new dress for Cup Day (more on that later), and no doubt I’ll go see a movie at Penthouse Cinema. But rainy days are best spent with the television, or a book, a couch, a blanket, and a Kiwi.
I’ve seen some good movies recently – since it’s been to wet to do anything but stay inside, I’m spending far too much money on films. We’ve been to see Sherlock Holmes, Creation, Up in the Air and finally Avatar in 3D. Which is incredibly pretty – go and see it, you won’t regret it. I’m sure I’ve seen more than that too but can’t remember what. As usual my days are blurring into each other and I can’t believe January is almost over. Not completely though – I still have Wellington Cup Day (little-Ascot, the races) to look forward to on Saturday 30 Jan, then Facebook says 31 January is global Eat Nandos Day so I think a house outing to celebrate eating chicken and chips and pretending it’s an old Mexican/South American (?) tradition is on the cards. Over the next couple of weeks I’m also planning to go see more movies – Precious, It’s Complicated, The Fantastic Mr Fox, and Paranormal Activity although Kiwi is too scared to see it with me. I’ll have to persuade him to ‘man up’ for a couple of hours so I can get my horror movie fix…
But first, the housewarming. Looking forward to it immensely, we’ve lived here for two months now and it’s about time we celebrated the fact. I’m loving this house, and our housemates. Even if one of them does have a habit of shitting on the kitchen floor in the middle of the night. Don’t worry, I’m talking about the cat. I don’t have disturbed housemates… much
Oh, and before I forget – here’s some of the delights our house have been chowing down on this week, courtesy of the boy’s spearguns:

Note the goldfish in the background, looking out onto a scene of fish-massacre…

No, that’s not that thing from Alien. That’s an Octopus. Freaky-deaky food.
He said, then she said...