Kiwifruit

Our flock of hens are on an egg-laying bonanza at the moment after a quiet period when they were on hiatus, taking time out to do a spot of crochet (egg-cosies are a favourite) and play endless rounds of canasta.

At the moment we have two dozen eggs lined up, ready and waiting for consumption. Bacon and egg pie for four adults and three kids usually takes care of a few, even if Bruvinlaw, in a fit of animal/brotherly love, has given up pork in deference to the “strong bond” he shares with Boris our rubbish disposal/pig, and dissects the bacon out of his portion before eating it.

As you can see by the photo one of the hens produces particularly large eggs and I grimace at the thought of her laying these, a process which would be akin to pushing a watermelon through a keyhole. Bless her – I know how it feels!

In other news Miss 8.5 has taken up cooking, particularly baking, and has the theory that if we don’t have all the ingredients necessary to make something, just substitute them with what we do have.

So, as I type this she is concocting a chocolate fudge slice with margarine instead of butter, maple syrup instead of golden syrup and her Auntie’s instant hot chocolate mix instead of cocoa.

I have just checked on the results, which at the moment resemble burnt potting mix, and have recommended that her father try it first, the lucky bugger.

• It is 1.48pm and I still haven’t heard wether I was successful in my second interview, and I’ve been hovering within earshot of the phone with a horrible, small fist of tension clenched in the pit of my belly for the past four hours. It’s kind of like waiting for that really hot bloke you’ve been dating for a couple of weeks to call and you think he probably will but…then he again he might not.

• I had the overwhelming, self-rewarding urge to watch me some chick-flicks while I was in town yesterday and ducked into the DVD store and got out 27 Dresses (heard it wasn’t half bad), The Jane Austen Book Club (read the book a couple of months ago) and Before You Go, a family comedy starring Julie Walters who is awesome in anything she does and John Hannah, who despite his droopy bloodhound eyes and melancholy mouth I find strangely attractive, something I could also put down to that lovely Scottish accent of his.

• Why is it that family members feel the need to dish out pertinent advice about said garden bed whilst standing over you slaving over said garden bed, a garden bed they’ve never slaved over and never, ever will ? *Steam shoots out of nostrils*

• I was reading Greeblemonkey’s post The Facebook/Twitter Compromise and thought to myself how easy it was for me to list my online presences in order of importance – 1) My blogs 2) Flickr 3) Facebook and 4) Twitter – no hesitation. I like the connection of Facebook (especially that connection with those I’ve lost touch with, and with my nephews and nieces in the UK) and Twitter but love the creativity of blogging and Flickr.

• The extended whanau are off to Auckland this weekend. Oh yeah, quiet. Peace and quiet. Huzzah!

• With all this spare time I’ve been going great guns with the scanning for the family gallery (see some results over at my Other Blog) – I only wish my scanner wasn’t the oldest piece of hardware I own – it has a top speed of Tediously Slow Indeed.

• I should have learnt to avoid novels which say “Short-listed for the Booker Prize” on the cover by now but I got one out of the library yesterday anyway. I have experience in the past of being extremely frustrated and bewildered by these sort of novels with their convuluted, long-winded, say-in-20-words-when-10-would-do prose. And guess what? Two chapters in this one I threw it on the bed in frustration and bewilderment. 

• I’m off to watch The Jane Austen Book Club and am taking a cup of tea, two Tim-Tams and the phone with me.

• That is all.

I stole this one from Dooce. Outrageous!

What are your middle names?
Mine is Louise, after my grandmother’s sister. The Other Harf’s mother was so stunned to a) get pregnant at the age of 37 when she fully intended on not having any more children after the OH’s sister and brother and b) that the unplanned pregnancy resulted in twin boys she decided not to give him or his brother middle names as she just couldn’t stretch to it.

How long have you been together?I met the Other Harf (Londoner by birth but raised in Essex) on the first day I landed in the UK – (the 25th of March, 1995) and jumped on him as he was lying on the sofa after we had come home from a large night out at the Peter Boat at Leigh-on-Sea, about, ooh, two weeks after that. We married in November that year. Yes, I am a fast mover across quick ground.  

How long did you know each other before you started dating?
Well, seeing as we were living together already (the OH was technically my landlord) we didn’t really date, as such. We just ducked in and out of each other’s bedrooms.

How old are each of you?
I’m 39 with 40 looming on the horizon; the OH has had experience of being 40 for six years now.

Whose siblings do you see the most?
The OH’s family all live in the UK and the thought of travelling all the way to New Zealand scares them all so deeply none of them have ever visited us (even though his twin brother did manage to make it to Brazil on holiday a few years ago, which is almost half way here). So the last time he saw them was in 2005, when he went back for this mother’s funeral. As for me, my sibling lives with me, so I can’t really avoid seeing her.

Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?
At the moment, it’s work. The OH wants out of his job, I want into one. But in order for him to get out, I have to get in first.

Did you go to the same school?
Physically impossible!

Are you from the same home town?
See above.

Who is smarter?
The Other Harf is so incredibly smart with things like money and budgets and insurance and getting the best deal he possibly can (money-wise) in life. I am soooo not, but I’m pretty good with words and always win when we play Trivial Pursuit.

Who is the most sensitive?
Neither us are super-soppy wearers of hearts on our sleeves. Not in the slightest.

Where do you eat out most as a couple?
When we do eat out, which is a twice-yearly treat these days, we go to a wonderful local restaurant called A’Deco. It has divine food, but I love it most of all because of all the fabulous 1930′s fixtures and furnishings it has.

Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
Living in New Zealand everything is the furtherest away you can get. We’ve both made the trip to the UK and back six times now (the flight is 24 hours) and although it’s no picnic in the park the more you’ve done it the easier it gets.

Who has the craziest exes?
Oh, that would be me. Especially the Air Compressor Engineer who liked to wear my underwear.

Who has the worst temper?
The Other Harf hardly ever gets mad. His nostrils flare slightly, and there’s this funny vein that pops up in his forehead and that’s the only way you can tell. I have the bigger temper and  have a very short fuse when it comes to inanimate objects not doing what they’re supposed to for me, tailgating drivers and when Pippa goes into the barking zone of no return when she spots Rodney the cat sunbathing under the car.

Who does the cooking?
Being between jobs (it does sound better than being unemployed, don’t you think?) I am on Cook Duty most of the time at the moment. When we both work we take it turn about. The Other Harf’s cooking skills have skyrocketed from humble beginnings since the beginning of our marriage but he is still mostly famous for his fry-ups on Sunday mornings. Me, I make a mean Chicken Ham and Leek Pie mid-winter, if I have several hours to spare.

Who is the neat-freak?
I am eternally grateful we have very similar standards when it comes to neatfreakness. Not that our home is pristine, but it’s not a tip.

Who is more stubborn?
The Other Harf – *whispers* he can be very pedantic about the most trivial things *whispers*

Who hogs the bed?
That particular issue was resolved by the purchase of a King-Sized bed. A purchase that hasn’t resolved the Other Harf’s Darth-Vader snoring, unfortunately.

Who wakes up earlier?
The Other Harf. He pretends he wants to sleep-in, but can never manage anything past 8am. To me, a sleep-in means 10am!

Where was your first date?
The Spaghetti House, Westcliffe-on-Sea, Essex. The cheese fondue was to die for.

Who is more jealous?
I am probably the bigger flirt by far, but I have never seen the slightest flicker of jealousy from the Other Harf. I, on the other hand, have been known to vent about overattentive female work colleages. Especially that Brenda in Accounts.

How long did it take to get serious?
We were very serious, right from the start. Very much the head over heels fall in love thing.

Who eats more?
The Other Harf, definitely. He is a champion grazer and simply adores buffets.

Who does the laundry?
We take turn-about, but mostly me at the moment, with all this time on my hands.

Who’s better with the computer?
Me, as I would go so far as to say that the Other Harf is verging on being a technophobe. His eyes glaze over when I start wittering on about important is to upgrade our RAM.

Who drives when you are together?
I do, as I still suffer a tendency towards carsickness; something I was supposed to have grown out of 25 years ago. I do like to drive, and dread the day when I’m no longer capable.

Go on, feel free to answer some or all of the same questions about your
significant other in the comments, or leave a link to your website if
you prefer answering there.

Miss 8.5 got an MP3 for Christmas, and in the two months she has had it it seems to have wielded quite an influence over her.

Along the lines of “Insert earbuds, drift off into own little world, become oblivious to anything and everyone round me, inflict the latest *Miley Cyrus dirge on all those in earshot, do not remove earbuds when it is completely obvious that a grown-up is speaking to me, instead whine “Whaaaatttt?” and pull a you-are-so-inconveniencing-me face” kind of influence.

Behaviour that is not really in character for our easy-going, normally respectful, mostly polite daughter.

I am starting to regret the purchase. I mean, I am starting to regret that Santa thought an MP3 player would be a really cool idea.

In fact, the word CONFISCATION is springing to mind.

*For those of you not acquainted with any pre-teen girls, Miley Cyrus is the offspring of Billy Ray “Achy-Breaky Heart” Cyrus and has her own television show on the Disney Channel in which she stars as herself and as alter-ego, popstarlet “Hannah Montana” with the now mulletless Billy Ray starring as himself and as Miley’s manager. Tooth-grindingly cheesy, and a HUGE hit with the three pre-teen girls in residence. And she can’t really sing all that good neither.

So, I’m sitting in bed with the laptop this muggy Thursday morning and wondering how on earth that giant blowfly has managed to hurl itself against the window so many times without concussing itself.

I’m also wondering if that rackety orchestra of cicadas I can hear outside have been performing all night, or is it just the ringing in my ears.

I wonder why I insist on finishing one of the library books I got out on Tuesday. I’m two-thirds of the way through it and everything about it annoys me. Bland characters, infeasible plot, lame dialogue. If it was a telly programme I would have switched it off hours ago.

I’m wondering what I’m going to do today. Garden? Walk the dogs? Faff around on Facebook?

Will it be Fish Pie for dinner, or Burritos?

And, should I make myself another cup of tea? Or divert into coffee?

The Other Harf is right; I really need to get a job.

 I’ve got my first “proper” job interview tomorrow, and the one thing I’m not looking forward to after two months of wearing daggy old t-shirts and baggy-arsed board shorts (my attire of choice when extracting kikuyu grass from the garden/being dragged down the road by the dogs/vacuuming the house for the upteenth time) is putting on the Interview Suit to accompany my Interview Shoes.

Ten year ago I wore a suit to work everyday. High-heels, tights. Tailored shirts. I spent half an hour straightening my hair into that perfect shiny Rachel Green bob. My handbag was the latest style; my coat the latest cut. Fingernails manicured, toenails pedicured. Makeup by Clinique. All styled and not a lot of comfort.

Now all I can think of is coming home tomorrow afternoon and stripping off my horrible, restricting Interview suit and kicking those blisteringly horrible Interview shoes off and climbing into my daggy, baggy, lovely, comfy clothes.

I guess that at the age of 39 and half years of old, I’m totally built for comfort and not for style

Tomorrow I’m Off to Town to sign up with two employment agencies – something that granted I should of done by now but have been deeply, utterly procrastinating about.

I did have fuzzy-focused, running-through-buttercups fantasies of getting a cushy little part-time job and spending the rest of my days gardening and taking photos and thinking of something witty and concise to post on Twitter (which then will post through into Facebook, therefore boring everybody I know in one foul swoop).

Unfortunately the Other Harf has become very down in the dumps over his job and has taken to coming home, pouring himself a large glass of wine and bleating to anybody that will listen (I do turn down the telly) about how much it sucks and what complete incompetents those dickheads from the Big Office are and can he please just hand in his notice?

So in order for him to leave his job, I have to find myself one, and the Global Credit Crunch being as it is there are very few part-time jobs going at the moment, so it’s going to have to be full-time.

I’m a bit glum about it, but there’s nothing worse than having a job where you feel so utterly miserable and that you’re stuck in.

Now, where did I put those interview shoes….

It is with sincere regret that I have to announce the demise of Fabio, our spectacularly handsome but not particularly bright, nor especially masculine, rooster.

What can one say about Fabio…

When Fabio first came to stay with us we assumed that he (along with his four sisters) was a hen.

Then, about a week or so later, there was a strangled gurgling noise to be heard coming from the coop. Was it a…crow? Upon closer inspection one of the “hens” had grown longer feathers and a bigger, redder comb that the others. Bugger!

Yes indeedy, we had ourselves a rooster.

Fabio grew to be really, really good-looking and had the most beautiful black feathers shot with greens and blues. So, instead of abandoning him at the Lookout Layby on State Highway 1 (where most of the Whangarei area’s undesirable roosters end up) we decided to forgive him for his inability to supply us with fresh eggs, and keep him.

Fabio had a deformed leg, and this caused him to lean a little to the left and richochet off the hens, or off the side of the coop. He was always the last one to get his peckle’s worth of laying pellets – nope, he never did cop on to the new automatic feeding bucket system which required a single tap on the release valve on the bottom to send a sprinkle of pellets to the ground. Instead, Fabio loitered in the edge of the mob of feeding hens, then dived in when there was a gap in the ruckus.

He was always one for a spot of crowing, and could be heard announcing daybreak in the afternoon, usually about 2 o’clock-ish.

Regretably the deformed leg contracted an abcess, which sent Fabio spiralling into a deep malaise, from which he never recovered.

Fabio was the Derek Zoolander of the chicken world and will be sorely missed.

R.I.P., dear Fabio.

It has been bought to my attention that a) trying to comment on this here blog, and over at the all new Photografi up until this point has been entirely dependent on my lovely readers having a Movable Type log-in (an assumption that I did not make, but forgot to tweak in the settings) b) the navigation back to the homepage is non-existent (again, an oversight on my part) and c) that I could do with some nice RSS feeds to make it far easier my lovely readers to be alerted to the latest glorious chunk of Kiwifruit goodness.

So, if you have tried to comment in the past week or so, please give it a go again, ignoring the links to Sign In or Comment Anonymously, and if it still turns to custard kindly email me at kiwifruit.the.blog(at)gmail.com.

I do apologise; sometimes I’m too much about the pretty and not enough about the functionality!

Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m off to do some urgent tweaking.

I’ve been tinkering with my camera most of the afternoon, polishing the smears of the lenses (how to they get so blimin’ filthy? And how did sand get inside the filters?) and faffing about with the dials and buttons and menus, making sure I know exactly where to go and what to do to get the shot I need.

Because tomorrow I’m doing my very first stint as a wedding photographer. Gulp.

On one hand, it should be a breeze; I’m good friends with the bride and I know the groom fairly well, so I’ll have a rapport that’s vital to get the right mood; make that all important “connection” which will translate into natural, candid photographs (touchy feely speak straight out of the Digital Camera Wedding Photography for Total Beginners book I took out of the library, a book which should have been titled Digital Camera Wedding Photography – Condescending and Irritating Advice for Complete Morons).

On the other hand, these photographs are going to capture one of the most important days of Ethel and Harold’s life.

Well, I’ll just do the best I can.

It’ll be sweet as.

And here’s the lowdown on how the day went….