Hey! An audience!

Writing a blog expecting noone to read it is kind of like the sound of one hand clapping, or the tree falling in the forest with noone to hear it (does it make a noise, etc. etc....) - although it is possibly more therapeutic than either of the above, I still immensely prefer communicating to real people... so, basically, I would like to thank anyone who has come here and showed some interest in my rambles about my life and times - well, a small selection of them - it is so nice to know that someone cares enough to have a read and it is also nice to hear your comments back :)

Anyway. I have now been happy on three consecutive days (actually, more like five), so I've decided it's here to last, and that the second half of 2006 is going to be a vast improvement on the first. Had Joy staying with Lisa and I in the weekend, that was really wonderful and we all had a lot of fun, I still managed to run both Sat and Sun since I have the Chch half marathon this Sunday!!! Hmmmmmm I'm doing it with Mindy, which will be fun, even though it will be quite different this time round than the Auck one in Oct last year - change in climate, not running with Karthik, later in the day, variation in training (a lot more running alone this time), I'm a little under the weather with a vicious cough which makes it hard to breathe sometimes, and the terrain will be flat instead of hilly, and it is a 'there and back' course too, and one I'm unfamiliar with. Although I could fix that one. So here's hoping it goes well and that the race is better than my training!!! I see that Esther is doing it too, and Megan, so I'll hopefully see them (probably passing me!!) at some stage. iN fact I'm only going down Sat afternoon 5pm, and back Monday night 8pm so it will be quite a short visit, and in that time I want to spend time with Mum and Jenna, visit all my grandparents, hang out with Helen and Doos and play my violin and the piano. And cook with Jenna. So, good luck to me!!!!! Oh and did I mention I have a half-marathon with Mindy taking up one morning???

Have been on training this week - well I did go to work today for 1.5 hours to do some testing for Jai (I was worried that since I was holding up two of her projects by being absent she'd be running out of work, but turns out I didn't need to be concerned...) so that has been brilliant, especially since it starts at 9am!! I wasn't too keen on going since it means taking 4 days off my important projects and the most important one is already behind deadline and I really like the client so I feel terrible... but oh well, in the end I can only do what I can do, and four days away isn't the end of the world. I probably needed to be away from work to regain some perspective, and it has been interesting. I may go to work after training tomorrow to do some stuff though, I'll see.. otherwise might be in for a long and hopefully very productive Friday! But hopefully no more mad hours like last week (Lisa busted me doing a 5am start once when she got up at 4.50am to go to the bathroom and I wasn't here - I should have closed my bedroom door!! - but I didn't tell her that I had been starting at 5.30-6.30 all week, I didn't think it would have gone down too well.....)

And we have had some nice weather lately which is always good! Plus I have been doing different things - like going to a talk by the author of 'The Time Traveller's Wife', that was on Monday night, it was very interesting - one of the things I thought was interesting was her comment that people would be so much happier if they made more of the things they liked rather than buying them. And she inspired me to write. I periodically get inspired to write, and this time I hope the inspiration will last. I also love the mayfly advert on tv at the moment. Fill your days with the things you love. Like for me this is talking to people, eating and cooking and baking nice food, making music, listening to songs, reading books, looking at paintings, looking around at the wonderful world we live in, learning languages, writing letters, learning about stuff, and lately I have been rediscovering the joy of shopping when you don't need anything and in fact are unlikely to buy anything ;) I have been wandering into shops instead of just wandering past, and it's been fun.

I also am really enjoying work lately. So that's a good thing, since I've had to be there so much! Went to a free concert tonight in the Town Hall, a sampler by the Auck Phil, it was great - Bruch's Scottish Fantasy, Mendelssohn's Hebride's Overture, and some movement of a symphony by Ross Harris, composer in residence, I enjoyed it a lot and thought it was much better than last year's offering.

Just discovered your site Abi, it's really cool! If anyone else wants to visit, go to www.jabbytalk.com

Ok, hope you are all having a wonderful week and appreciating the BLUE SKIES.

No, I'm not dead

Hello everyone!

You would be forgiven for thinking I had died or something since I haven't been posting for years, but I thought I'd just say hi! So, life has been really busy lately - but I have been in Auckland a bit more so that's been good. I have been working a lot, and really enjoying work - lots of challenges and fun stuff, and I guess I like being busy and ticking off things on my to do list (even though it grows steadily longer every day...) - also it's a bit sad cos David has his last day on Friday and Stephen is leaving for Texas in three weeks! It will definitely be quieter without them around, and I will definitely miss being able to talk to Stephen about anything whenever I want. And who is going to help me when I get stuck?? :( Well, I guess Stephen is not the only person who helps me, but he is really good at it. And Brendon has been so busy lately - by yesterday evening he had worked an impossible 61 hours for the week already. He was here both Sat and Sun, and very early on Sun. Poor Brendon. I hope he is going to change this soon and spend more time with Minan! See I may be working long hours, but not in the weekend.

In my weekend I played paintball (I raised the flag, and then got cut down by enemy fire, but we won that game! ) - and it was a lot better than Chch paintball. And I went out for tea with Lisa and Céci and Bas Fri night to Nishiki on Wellington St, it was really fun and yummy food, Japanese bbq so something quite different. Then we went to the supermarket to buy food for the post-paintball bbq, and I got up early on Sat morning to attend to the salads. After paintball, I watched 'The Importance of Being Ernest'. I don't often watch movies by myself but did on this occasion and it was hilarious! I was laughing out loud. Sure it was a bit farcical at time and I could have been very sceptical about the girls' claims of love, but it was great. So witty. Then I fell asleep on the couch, but woke up for dinner.

Sunday I did the 10km run2heal in the domain- but like most people got lost (no marshall present at the first corner for the first people) - so I think I ran about 10km, judging by my time (58 min) and by an examination of the route and comparing that to where I ran - the bit I missed was probably equivalent to the bit I did extra. It was such a beautiful day on Sunday so that was nice. I also went out for lunch on Sun with a couple of girls from choir and then we went to Black Grace - a contemporary dance production in the Town Hall. It was really superb, the first piece was great and the music so beautiful - Schubert's D minor quartet and 'Death of a Maiden' - I am going to the library to get it out :) The second piece was more thought-provoking and interesting, if less beautiful. After the interval I drifted a bit in the third piece (getting tired) but it was still cool. And so nice to do something different. Fell asleep 6pm on the couch again Sunday night, reading my book. (By Iain Pears, something about Scipio and a Dream - he wrote Instance of the Fingerpost or something too, read it ages ago and really liked it).

Monday I had a wonderful evening swimming at the police apartments in Newmarket with Lisa, my aunt, uncle and cousin Jessie - my other cousin Josie had tickets to Korn so they'd come down for the night. Had Chinese for tea. Learned (again) how to do forward rolls, but cracked my head on the bottom of the (1.2m deep) pool on one of my attempts to do a backwards one... still sore now if I scrunch up my face/ laugh/ stuff. Tuesday I had singing and tea at Tanya and Sascha's and fixed a couple of their computer issues. Well, they mysteriously vanished when I was there, so kind of "fixed" them...

I have also got two really lovely letters this week - one from Ben and one from Little Nana. And a postcard from Charlotte - sent before her first postcard from Vietnam. Well, I'm amazed they make it actually. So that's always lovely.

Went for a run tonight, 50min and it was really fun and not boring and not very hard. Good run day. And baked a banana cake, vacuumed the flat, cooked tea, did the dishes, talked to Mindy... nice to muck round the flat :) Actually, anyone who knows me will be astounded - yes I vacuumed. Well, the floor needed it. And it looks so nice now. And Lisa came home and didn't even notice :( Oh well, it might dawn on her tomorrow...

Tomorrow is Cécile's birthday!!!! Happy birthday Cécile... hope you're excited...

Sir Edmund Barton: Australia's first prime minister

I just thought I'd increase everyone's general knowledge with my blog title. and also I visited the Australian parliament house in Canberra when I was driving round NSW and ACT on my recent holiday and increased my knowledge of Australian government (admittedly, it was on a zero to start with, although I had heard of Pauline Hanson, her one nation party, Paul Keating, and John Howard - but that was the sum of my knowledge).

So - I have to get up at 6am tomorrow (again) - work is very very heavy going at the moment, tons on, and I want to get stuff done but it's not happening... oh well - hopefully by the end of this week the pressure will have eased off as Jaishika returns! I am so excited and can't wait to handover pedflo back to her. Like, I enjoy the concept, and it could be fun, but it's not very nice having to start halfway through under a lot of time pressure with minimum training and with lots of existing errors to fix and a tool that is 5 years old and has SO MANY ANNOYING FLAWS.

Plus I have to find a flat in the next fortnight, I got robbed last week and lost my camera and laptop, and I'm really busy studying and doing Jenna's 21st present in my spare time. And something like 7 out of the next 11 weekends I am going to be passing through Auckland airport, what with choir * 2, Sarah's wedding, Jenna's 21st, Chch visit etc. Where's my summer going???? and choir and Sarah's wedding are using up my 2 summer 3-day weekends. And I stil lhaven't seen Joy even though she's in the same island - Gisborne is too far away.

Life seems a toil at the moment. I am going to relax this weekend, in between entertaining Mindy who is visiting with Darren after the BDO, and maybe seeing Steph, up here for the same thing, and finding a flat, and doing some study.....

Must go to bed :)

Truffles

Especially For Stephen!!

Truffle recipe:

250g icing sugar
3 Tbsp cocoa
125g softened butter
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Combine icing sugar and cocoa in food processor, add butter and vanilla essence. Process until smooth. Alternatively, if you're me, you could melt the butter, mis everything together, and freeze it, stirring occasionally, to make a crunchy mixture.

Divide into thirds. Roll one third in ground nuts, mix 2Tbsp candied peel in with another third and roll in cocoa, and wrap the other third around red glace cherries, and put on tin foil - drizzle melted white chocolate around/over them - you'll need about 3/4 cup white chocolate for about 12 truffles.

The other mixture I used - the righ one - was 1/4 cup butter, 3 Tbsp sugar, 9oz dark choc and 1 cup heavy cream. Heat cream, butter and sugar to gentle boil, remove, add choc, stand 30 sec, whisk. Place in bowl of ice water. Beat mixture until thick and holds its shape. Pipe 1 inch mounds, and freeze for 15min. Roll gently into balls, with hands dusted in icing sugar. You're then supposed to refrigerate for 10min before rolling in toppings, but I didn't. And it recommends you store these ones in the fridge :)

I have had such a busy evening! Got home 7.30, since then have made cards and stuff, seen a friend, cooked and eaten tea, cleaned the kitchen, made shortbread, vacuumed the house...and I still have to clean the toilet, go for a walk down Franklin Rd and somehow cram all my stuff into my bags so I can leave for Chch tomorrow. Might be rather hard.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

Lara

Quick update

For those of you who thought I'd given up on my blog.....

a) At the moment I have rediscovered reading. I love the library. I am addicted to books. I went in there today to get 1 book and returned with 3 - Ernest Hemingway short stories, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, and a book on French renaissance art - and that one will take ages cos it has small print. I already have 3 books out, plus 3 books borrowed from other people that I am at various stages at. Hmmmmm plus so many on my bookcase that I own that I haven't read that I want to....

b) Had my 1-year anniversary with Karthik the other day and we went out for dinner at the French Cafe and it was really really nice. Such a cool restaurant. We had the dessert tasting platter - 6 mini desserts for us to sample!!!! Heavenly.

c) Ran the half marathon in 2 hours 5 min 54 sec, far exceeding expectations. Yah for me. That's 10km an hour! But the 6 weeks training might put me off doing another although the race itself was fine. Thanks a lot to Karthik for running with me.

d) Made Upma for tea last night - a semolina based Indian dish. A few errors but it was still nice, so I am going to try tamarind rice on Friday - shall be even more interesting! Karthik and I visited an Indian spice store you see so I thought I'd buy the more interesting ingredients and see what I could make. (I rang his mum for the recipes)

e) Dad has moved into a pallative care hospital so he's not at home anymore. I'm going down to chch for the weekend I think it is the 19th of Nov? Mum should be up here in Auck this weekend - we're supposedly going to Pavarotti as a birthday present from me to her. So I can't wait to see her. And it will be nice to be in chch too. Yes, this time I am really looking forward to it!!!

f) Mindy is back from the UK! But I feel like I haven't heard much from her cos she has stopped her blog updating habit. I should probably send her an email!!! And Lisa is off very shortly to meet up with Joy in Europe. And Megan is off to Europe. And I'm off to Australia after Christmas for 9 days, which isn't in the same league, but with my limited time off that's all I've got so I'm looking forward to it, it should be really fun! First trip to Sydney, and we're going to do some driving round too - Hunter Vally, Blue Mountains, Canberra even. (I'm going with Karthik). And Jenna won a scholarship to Germany so she's off there Jan-Feb lucky thing!! But that means she's quit youth choir.. unfortunately for me!!! I'm still hanging in there, but I must say I am not relishing learning the Maori piece I received today in the mail off by heart... good luck me!!!!

Hope all reading this are well.

Platyzosteria novae-zelandiae

Tonight I had a hair-raising encounter with a species from another time. I was lifting paper off my printer, and I saw something scuttle under the surface of my desk. I have a transparent (pink) desk, so I looked through it and on the underside of my desk was..... a cockroach. Un cafard.

I hate cockroaches. I met my first one in Dad's coffee cup in Fiji, and had several encounters with them in Tahiti, usually ending up with me screaming on my bed while it scuttled across the floor. Tahiti has a few nasties actually - I saw a centipede once too.

So since Karthik is conveniently present, I demand in an irrational and high-pitched voice that he dispose of it.

Karthik, it turns out, doesn't like cockroaches either. This one was about an inch long, plus waving antenna, black, shiny and narrow. So Karthik asks what I expect him to do. I send him downstairs for a cup, and grab a piece of paper. Then I leave Karthik to do the manly thing and remove the cockroach. 20 minutes later he is still watching it and reluctantly edging closer from time to time. So I use the paper to poke the cockroach until it runs onto the piece of paper and onto my chair. I must add here that I am usually the insect removal person - I have been removing spiders from Jenna's room since I was little, and remove all sorts of interesting things from this flat for Ellen. Including huge green things. Anyway........ eventually I get the cockroach on the middle of the chair and Karthik gently lowers the cup. I slide the paper between the cup and the chair, and we've caught the cockroach! You would think we're doing well here.

Now Karthik makes me pick it up. So I carry the cup, wrapped in paper, to my open second storey window. And now I start to panic. What do I do? I imagine the cockroach escaping and running up my arm... So I gingerly start to unwrap the paper, envisaging shaking it out the window. Then I see a hole between the paper and the cup. The cockroach runs for it. I scream. And drop the cup, paper, and cockroach out the window.

Lara's post-encounter state - pounding heart and trembling. But still alive :)

It's Official!

Yeah, no, don't worry, I am not getting married, or pregnant, or anything like that. But something else equally unexpected has happened - I have started training! I am running, on a regular basis. I went Saturday - 40min, Sunday - 40min, Tuesday - 30min and Wednesday 46min. Isn't this exciting! Well, the novelty hasn't worn off yet, and I make sure I go long blocks rather than shorter repetitions. The hills are tough though. Very. I think the half-marathon end goal (30 October) is going to be very helpful.

Life is somewhat interesting at the moment. Work was frustrating this afternoon - but it's been really good the rest of the week so I'm not too concerned, you get the bad with the good and that's life! Dad rang tonight and that was sad, he told me this story about how he'd been asleep all afternoon and Nana and Pop were knocking on the door and people were ringing and he slept right through, then 5 minutes later he started telling me again! Anyway it was nice that he rang, I was thinking about ringing them when he called.

Tonight has been really good - I had my singing lesson, came home and hung out with Ellen - Mike is in Hamilton for work and Tree has gone down for a long weekend in Chch. So Ellen and I talked, I did dishes, cooked tea, read my book a little, talked to Dad, Ellen and I baked muffins, and I tidied the living room. Satisfying :) I was going to do the bathroom sink and toilet (I did the shower two nights ago) but maybe I'll save those pleasures for the weekend. Ellen is so cool.

It's funny, there's other stuff I want to say here, but despite how it appears I'm not always completely honest - even though people won't read this and it would probably make me feel better to talk about it, I still don't want to just in case... so yeah from that you can take I'm a bit perturbed at the moment, but feeling better today, just thinking through some things. I wrote you a letter Lisa! Which you will probably get before you read this, but just in case, you know it's coming.

Oh and thanks Mindy for your present! It is so cool. I am writing you a letter and will hopefully finish it this weekend, but no promises ;)

Tomorrow is Friday! Byron's on morning tea, how exciting! (For those of you who don't know - Byron is the new guy at work - except he's no longer the newest guy. Out of my section of 21 people, 9 pepole have joined *after* me. And only one person has left. Anyway. Byron is from South Africa, he's lived in London, and in Kerikeri where he worked on a farm to get away from city life for a while, he loves surfing, has just built a house with his parents in SA (the walls are a nice shade of ochrey-yellow - his Mum chose them - I've seen the photos) and he lives in a flat in Mt Eden with some other randoms, who he insists on calling housemates, although I've told him that is a very British term. He's tall, sporty-looking, and quiet until you get to know him. And he reads!!)

I hope everyone in chch appreciates these little profiles of workmates. Mindy, I think you should do profiles on your site as well so I know who *you* work with!

Ok I am going to go look after my muffins. I hope everyone is well and happy :)