You know, if I was ever fortunate enough to win some ridiculous amount of money on the Lotto, I’d donate every last cent of it in aid of World Peace. Ha! Not.

What I’d really, really, really do is spend a great deal of it on travelling. Oh, and a brand new convertible Mini Cooper in British Racing Green, but I am getting *slightly* off the subject there.

Ah yes, Macchu Pichu, New Orleans, Belfast, Botswana, Tokyo, Reykjavik, Estonia, Rajasthan, Hanoi, South Africa, Warsaw, Tasmania, Denver, New York, Instanbul, Buenos Aires, Scott Base Antarctica…the list would be endless.

And then there’s the places I’d go back to: Prague, Venice, Bruge, Edinburgh, the west coast of Ireland, Melbourne and, of course, London, first class all the blimin’ way.

What about you? Where would you go?

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Now, we all have somebody that we know that has different tastes to us in fashion.  It is, after all, an entirely personal choice. If Beryl in Procurement wants to wear appliqued, batwing sweaters in pale pastels, who are we to open our mouths and say “Um, Beryl, did you not get the memo? It’s actually 2008, not 1984, okay?”

Granted, one may think this, perhaps even share one’s opinion on the subject with the more discreet of our work colleagues, but to say it to Beryl’s face would be considered rude, if not offensive.

I now come to my story. Last Friday I spotted in the New Zealand Herald that Def Leppard were playing in concert down in Auckland on November the 9th. Highly excited at the prospect of seeing Joe Elliot and his band live, I emailed and texted Liss and L, two of my oldest friends, inviting them to accompany me. “You are joking, aren’t you!!!?” came L’s emailed reply. This from a woman who played her cassette of Hysteria so many times during the summer of 1987 her car stereo chewed it up and spat it out like an old piece of chewing gum, but, more tellingly, also from a woman who is the Finance Manager of a well known travel company, and couldn’t hold her head up in the cafeteria if word got out *gasp* she was attending a Def Leppard concert.

Liss, bless her (a stay at home Mum and part time cleaner), texted me back straight away, keen as mustard: “We hv to go! Imgine who we mite c thr! “

And then, when I announced I was intending on going to the concert to my gathered family on Saturday afternoon, *Lil’Sis spluttered and cried “You’ve got to be kidding! That is so sad!”
“No,” I replied indignantly, ” in fact, it’s pretty bloody awesome actually. It’s gonna rock.”

This from a woman who used to diss me for playing ABBA ten years ago, and look how popular their music is today. That’ll learn her!

Ok, that was the story and this is (at last, they cry) my point: why is it that in general one’s taste in music can be so quickly criticised, with little thought of giving offence?

*Gaga head over heels In love with Terence Trent D’Arby in 1987. A fine one to judge.

 I was chock-full of riveting blog posts on Friday, and really looking forward to spending a couple of hours in front of the PC in the study on Saturday afternoon/Sunday morning as per usual, but low and behold an almightly storm put paid to that, blasting through the north of the North Island, upending trees, turning paddocks into lakes and, in the case of the Kiwifruit Homestead, knocking the electricity out for just under twenty one hours.

And as I did not plug my laptop in to charge it up the last time I used it (doh!) posting was just not going to happen. Full stop.

So, lost without our electronic comforts, the whole family gathered Walton style in the kitchen on Saturday afternoon and through into the evening, played boardgames by candlelight, warming up soup on the metal grille on top of the glowingly hot woodburner and cooked up hamburgers on the barbecue as close to the house as possible to stop the howling gale and driving rain sneaking in and snuffing out the flames. For us veterans of two winters of rural living a lengthy powercut was nothing too unusual, but four hours in Bruvinlaw (who has rectangle eyes, the same shape as his beloved 42′ widescreen plasma telly) was pacing the room, grasping his palms to his face and wailing “I’m going out of my mind, I am so flippin’ bored! When’s the electricity coming back on!  What is this, a third world country? Haarrrrggh!”

No, it’s one of the many joys of a rural lifestyle. That and mud. Lots of it.

Eventually the wind and the rain did blow away and on Sunday afternoon the Other Harf and I decided it was high time we got out of the house, so we took Miss 7.10 and the nieces into town (dodging fallen branches and fording creeks most of the way) to see The Chronicles of Narnia – Prince Caspian, most of which was filmed right here in New Zealand, featuring some very Lord of the Ringsy scenery. Two and a half hours later and three exorbitantly priced buckets of popcorn each the movie was pronounced by the three junior moviegoers as really cool, even better than The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and the centaurs and Reepicheep the talking mouse (voiced by Eddie Izzard) were really, really cool but Aslan (Liam Neeson, roowwrrr) was the most awesome and the most favouritest character of all.

Personally, this senior moviegoer thought that despite his tendency to wear too much brushed velvet young Prince Caspian (third from left) made for some quality cinematic viewing himself.

Yes, I am aware that by now I should of posted the full run down of my weekend, with photos of opera houses, cockatoos and pontiffs on pontoons, but I do have two perfectly valid reasons which I will now share with you all.

Firstly, I had only four hours sleep between Sunday 9.30am and Monday 7pm – a little something called having to go to fly back to New Zealand and arriving at midnight, kipping at the Newly Marrieds’ then getting up at 6am and driving two hours to get to work on time got in the way – so I chose bed instead of blog Monday evening, and secondly, as far as last night is concerned the fickleness that is my internet connection can totally have the finger of blame pointed at it. Poxy, poxy Vodem modem schmodem!

So, instead, I will give you one of those quick highlight bullet point lists, just to keep you amused, and attempt to persuade the internet to take my photos on board later on tonight.

Quick Highlight Bullet Point List:

• Emerging from Arrivals slightly frazzled due to waiting in Customs with two dozen overexcited teenaged Italian pilgrims who had not heard of the word queue, and seeing Deeleea’s smiling face.
•  Meeting the adorable, precocious Lulu, smoochy doorbreaker extraordinaire.
• The discovery that current flavour de jour with Miss 7.10 and the nieces, Hannah Montana had her own range of pyjamas in Target. Presents sorted!
• Early Friday evening Margaritas at the Shore Club Hotel, seafront Manly Beach,
• Eggs Benny and a large “skim” flat white, Saturday morning, seafront Manly Beach.
• Mini chocolate cupcakes from the local market – pink frosting and a marshmallow (for me) and green frosting and a jellybean (for Deeleaa). Sweet as.
• Dee Why Beach, with its photogenic, glittering, turquoise salt-water swimming pools and curvaceous bathers.
• A ferry trip across to Circular Quay and a three hour stroll through the Botanical Gardens. Lowlight: walking under trees loaded with bazillions of snoozing fruit bats, yikes!
• Front row seats at an enthusiastic performance of Treasure Island on Saturday night at the uni Deeleea tutors at. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of Tequila! 
• Laughing out loud at the utter silliness that is The Love Guru – *presses palms together*  “Mariska Hargitay to you.”
• After lining up for what seemed like hours in the airport check-in queue with more overexcited teenaged pilgrims (this time of Kiwi variety) discovering that the plane home was a 747-700 which meant Inflight Entertainment! One episode of Mad Men (and catching the episode I would of missed that night, yay!) and two of Flight of the Conchords later, I was home.
• One bottle of duty-free Clarins Eau Dynamisante and one of Burberry Summer, all for me.

Regretably, the Charcoal Chicken off Manly Corso was no longer there (now an incredibly trendy boutique, selling $100 t-shirts) but at least I still have the memories of it to treasure…

Thanks heaps Deeleea and Sydney – I’ll be baaaaack.

but unlike Mr Denver I do know when I’ll be back. Yes, at last the 18th of July is *just* round the corner, and tomorrow evening straight after work I’m off to Auckland to stay the night with the Newly Marrieds and then, two hours before sparrowfart on Friday morning it’s off to Auckland International Airport to board my flight to Sydney, Orstrayleear to spend the weekend with our Deeleea! How excited am I!

Now I’m just counting on my fingers and toes (I don’t have my calculator handy) and it’s been just under fourteen years since I was last in Sydney. In August 1994 I ditched Trev the truckdriver, leaving him and a cockroach palace of a flat in Manlyvale to flee back home to good old EnZed. It was a simple choice really: he wanted to buy a roadtrain, move up the coast to Gosford, get married and get me up the duff. In that order.

And I wanted something completely different. Like travelling the world.

Getting on that plane and leaving Sydney was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, And now I get to go back.

I’m sure this little whirlwind visit will bring back a few memoriesI But most importantly - will that awesome Charcoal Chicken place off Manly Corso still be there? 

Bluerk, I’ve got myself a midwinter lurgy at an extremely inconvenient time, in that work’s so flippin’ busy I just can’t bring myself to ring in sick, as I’ll be lumbering my colleagues up to their eyeballs, and also I’ve got a day’s leave on Friday for a very important mission abroad…

I’ve dosed myself with Lemsip and lozenges and Vicks Vaporub but I have found that a nice warm glass of Merlot (situated to my right as I type this) is soothing to the throat, calming to the cough and most importantly mellowing to the nerves, slightly frazzled after a full day’s slog when one really should of been lolling in front of the Living Channel.

Half a glass more, and I will be retiring to bed for more recovery, this time horizontally.

Wish me luck!

Over the weekend I got the news that finally, after much pestering some good friends of ours were definitely coming to stay with us, friends that have been promising to visit us ever since we moved up north, and as they live in Napier and Napier is all the way down on the east coast of the North Island (about ten hours drive away) it is a bloody long way for them to come and we better show them a good time once they got here.

I was excited all at once, as well as being bloody disappointed – they were due to arrive on this Friday, not this Saturday as mentioned last time we spoke.

Why the disappointment I hear you ask? Well, on this particular Friday I’d made plans to jump in my car straight after work and zoom down to Auckland to meet up with Antipo and Kevin and Pauline, who are visiting EnZed at the moment, and whip them out for Margaritas and Burritos and Death by Chocolate at a favourite restaurant of mine near where we used to live once upon a time when we were *JAFAs.

So yesterday I had to send Antipo the bad news by email. She was very disappointed, and threatened to throw herself in the shark tank at Kelly Tarltons Underwater World, but decided to forgive me as long as I promised to visit her in Frogland one day.

However it was the postscript in her email that caught my attention: “I may have to steal Viggo from you as sweet revenge lol!”

Gasp!

I don’t think she’s really forgiven me…

*A flattering acronym for the residents of New Zealand’s biggest city, who just happen to make up a quarter of the country’s population - Just Another F***g Aucklander
 

Bless the Other Harf. Today he took the day off work and took the four girls into town to see Kung Fu Panda. After that it was a meal at a famous Scottish restaurant followed by a trip to a local park.

No wonder he retired to bed an hour earlier than normal.

In other news, today I spent quite a lot of time daydreaming about our King-Sized Sealy Posturepedic, and how I wish I was still in it instead of hunched over my desk compiling mega-exciting balance sheet reconciliations. Ah yes, it was a big weekend for folks that aren’t as young as they used to be, especially the two nights out in a row part.

And other, other news, pack your mink muff and merino thermals Ethel! Apparently tomorrow is going to be one of the coldest days of the year here in the Land of the Long White Cloud, with wide-spread frosts, black ice (down south, that is) and clear, cloudless, sharp blue skies.  

A little something to look forward to.