"You will give me the crust of that delicious homemade pizza. You will give me the crust of that delicious homemade pizza. You will give me the crust of that delicious homemade pizza."

The wonderful and extremely thoughtful Antipo sent me this lovely link from The Guardian the other day: the delicious Viggo Mortensen posting answers to the questions on Q&A.

I do so appreciate it when Antipo spots anything Viggo-ish she instantly thinks, ooh, Fi!

And, at a small loss as to what to post today, and wanting to post something, I had a crack at the questions myself.

When were you happiest?

When they placed our newborn baby daughter on my arms for the first time. Even though she had a red, screwed up, slightly boiled monkey face from being given such a hard time over the previous 27 hours, I thought she was the most fantastic thing that had ever happened to me.

What is your greatest fear?

Without a doubt, losing somebody to cancer. It's just so pervasive...I feel like it's hovering in the wings waiting to claim somebody I love.

Far out brussels sprout! Talk about a drenching! It started raining early Monday morning and didn't stop for 24 hours. Rain rain rain rain horizontal RAIN.

Tanks filled up, gardens were drenched, paddocks were saturated and a certain pool got a nice big topping up, almost to the very rim.

Just what we needed here in Northland.

Instead of blogging (and Facebooking, and faffing round with my camera and re-synching my iPod) I really should be making a Greek salad, as that's what I'm supposed to be bringing to our friends Ethel and Harold's First Wedding Anniversary/Ethel's 43rd birthday barbecue tonight, and as Greek salads taste all that much better when you've left the ingredients to mingle a little while and get to know each other as soon as I finish this I will be straight off to the kitchen to slice and dice feta, cucumber and tomatoes. Promise.

It's been a gloriously hot weekend (and it's a long one too; Northland has tagged itself onto Auckland Anniversary Day tomorrow) - particularly yesterday, when temperatures on our verandah thermometer doodad peaked at 35C, which is way, way too hot for me. Yes, my strawberry blonde, freckly, Scottish/English/Irish genes panic at anything over 28C, and I go running for the coolest spot in the house - either that or into the pool, smothered in twenty layers of SPF45.

This also means the vegetable gardens need loads of watering in the evenings. The corn (now taller than me!) and the tomatoes don't seem to mind the heat too much, but the lettuces and beans go all limp and pathetic if they're not dosed, the poor loves.

In other important news, the Other Harf has finally made a decision about paid employment: he's going into business on his own, doing accounts and book-keeping for small businesses, sports groups, clubs; anyone who replies to his ad really. It's taken a wee bit of a prod from me to get him to make this decision, but if it does work out it means he can work mostly from home, and be there for Miss 9.4 and her afterschool social whirl of netball, swimming and Brownies (and Guides come March, when she officially turns nine and a half).

It also means he can potter about with doing the housework (this part I really like), his bits of wood, his landscaping and writing of letters of complaint to greedy, immoral telecommunications companies about their lack of customer service and gratuitous overcharging.

• walking, walking, walking in my lunch-breaks.
• but not being at all impressed with the sh**te selection I loaded onto my iPod last time I synched it.
• not drinking - alcohol that it is. Can't afford it, it's not good for me and I need to lose weight, seriously. Seriously!
• teaching two newbies how that Facebook thingyme works - my friend Shelley and my newest recruit, Mum!
• watching Avatar. At two hours and forty two minutes, this was a significant chunk of this week. Loved it, only wish Whangarei stretched to a 3D-capable cinema.
• spending the voucher I got for being nominated for "Employee of the Month" - point and laugh at my teacher's petness if you must, but 50 bucks to blow at The Warehouse is not to be sniffed at in these stretched economic times.
• digging holes for the new hebes and rosemary I bought with said $50 voucher.
• moaning about the sore back and sore shoulder and sore knee that resulted from all the digging of the holes.
• realising that some people thrive on pettiness, bitchiness and just being unkind behind other people's backs, but there ain't a single thing you can do about it.
• enjoying the company of our neighbours at Clyde and Vanessa's 30th birthday do last night. We are lucky to have such cool people living close by - even though some of them are slightly crazy with the cool.
• wondering if I have enough money for that gorgeous black and white halter-neck cotton dress (to wear at cousin Stu's wedding next month) I saw in the window of Himalayan Trading Post...
• swimming in our pool, despite it being so bloody freezing (the south-west wind has been lurking all week) it numbed my outer extremeties in milliseconds
• and finally, making home-made pizza for tonight's dinner. Mine's cooking as I type this: salami and pepperoni on one half; smoked salmon on the other, dotted with blue cheese, sliced tomato and red onion and covered generously with mozzarella and parmasen. Oh, yeah!