New York- First Weekend

Ok ok, settle down people. I know Mindy promised you a daily blog and well, she seems to be MIA (somewhere in France I suspect). I also know that some of you out there haven't been able to contain yourself these past weeks waiting to hear about my trip to New York (I can't figure out how to upload pictures to Facebook without it crashing. Hmmm). So you are in luck!

First day in town I decided to explore central park for a bit. Gosh it is lovely! That really struck me about NY, all the lovely public spaces but when you consider that they all live in small apartments it makes sense that they have so many parks. My apartment was luckily close to the park and I spent a lot of time there over the next six weeks, running around the Jackie Onassis reservoir most mornings before work.

I was lucky enough to arrive early morning July 4th which meant two things: 1) long weekend and 2) fireworks! I went down to the East River to check them out. I was quite nervous about it since it was my first day there and I was on my own and there were LOADS of people but it was great! The fireworks themselves were cool but the most impressive thing was how long they lasted for! They had cute smiley face ones too :)

My second day I did the big one, the Cloisters and the Met. Gosh, the Cloisters was brilliant, it definitely makes it to my top 3 things in NY list. It is a small part of the Met up the top of Manhattan at the end of a beautiful garden overlooking the hudson. It is completely dedicated to Medieval Art and is housed in a reconstructed Abbey. And the whole place is so quiet, really atmospheric. I loved it! The Met was good too, I was there for ages, but it was a little crowded for me, and I kept getting lost (6 hours people!)

Then on Sunday I took the train up to the Bronx (with Police officers in every carriage!) and went to the Bronx zoo. That was pretty cool except I spent most of the time thinking how much Tom would have liked it. The gorillas were the best- such amazing human characteristics. They also had a cool butterfly garden (which was only a little frightening) and one of those skyride things. I also saw my first chipmunk ever (but not actually in the zoo ;-) )

Ok, that's all for now folks. Stay tuned for weekend 2.....

My Butterfly Cake

Hello People,

Last week was my birthday which I thought I would honour by making my first tiered cake ever (actually I just wanted to practice making tiered cakes for a certain upcoming event). I think on the whole it went pretty well, I am relatively pleased with the result (and it tasted good too!) I have decided that the key to a successful cake is to keep it nice and busy and draw the eyes away from the crookedness and bumps in the icing ;-)

So here is me crumb coating the cake. Basically there were three tiers of carrot cake, each cut into three levels and filled with cream cheese icing and pineapple and then crumb coated in buttercream to smooth the edges in preparation for the pettinice.

And then the fabulous Kirsty came and helped me roll out and smooth down the pettinice on the tiers (and judging by the job I did on the cake board it's a good thing she did :) Here is one tier after the pettinice has been put on.

Now I tried painting the icing but that didn't really work out so I covered it in coloured fondant and piped chocolate on. That worked much better! I then attached chocolate ribbon (it neatened the edges). Here are the three tiers with the stripes and ribbon. Still kinda messy I know!

That's where the busy is better comes in. Earlier in the week I made chocolate butterflies (idea borrowed from my awesome Hello Cupcake book I bought in NYl; note the white sprinkles were individually picked out with a toothpick- that's dedication!) and chocolate leaves (the easiest cake decorating technique ever!), and whola! A three tierd, rolled icing cake.

Day at Alton Towers

Well Darren and I had an awesome awesome day at Alton Towers today. To be honest I wouldn't say it's the best amusement park in the world, but it was very unique. Of course I'm not an expert at all - I've been to Rainbow's End a couple of times, Disneyland and Dreamworld but when I was much younger. I think the difference about Alton Towers was there was a hunking great big castle right in the middle of it - seriously.

Complete with absolutely stunning grounds - some of them even didn't have terrified screaming people hurtling through them:

It was an incredibly cold and often raining day but to be honest I don't think we would have enjoyed it as much if it hadn't been - as I'm sure the weather played a big part in keeping the queues down. We only had to wait for half an hour a couple of time.

The good big rides there were quite honestly great! My favourite was Oblivion which was similar to the ride at Rainbow's end where you just drop down that pole really really quickly, the difference with this one was you were facing down at the time, staring a a big smokey hole you were about to plunge very rapidly into. It was great. Darren's favourite was Rita which was also very good - it was pretty much just like a normal roller coaster, except A LOT faster. It was awesome. 

Here is a nice picture of Darren at the Park:

I found it interesting because I don't likie these things at all until I'm actually on them! Like to be honest I was a little nervous about going and having a horrible day. And man was I really nervous before our first ride (Rita) but I loved it! Oh! But Darren is horrible, this other ride Nemisis, you are sitting down suspended and we were in the queue and got to the point where you had to decide if you wanted to queue for more time to get to sit up the front, or go in the normal queue. And Darren quite literally dragged me into the front queue! It was wicked though. You see like I said I think I don't like this type of thing but really I do.

Finally here's a cheesy rollercoaster shot for y'all:

I'll put some more photos up on facebook in due time. But you'll find Darren puts a much fuller selection up normally on his bebo - you'll have to get him to add you as a friend but he's a friendly guy so I'm sure that won't be a problem.

xxx

Mindy

All things porridge

It is hopefully a well known fact by now that I am a porridge worshipper. Porridge is without a doubt the best food in the world. I have it twice a day. But that's all old news. New news is I've been wanting to take my porridge eating experience to the next level. Ever since I read on Wikipedia that true Scottish porridge is not made with rolled oats but with steel cut  I've had a niggling feeling that I've been missing out. Recently however this niggling feeling has become a full blown mission ever since deciding that it might be easy to find steel cut oats now I live in England. Unfortunately this is far from true. However never one to shy away from a mission I am determined to track down some steel cut oats!

Firstly though everytime I explain my mission to someone I get totally blank looks followed by the question what are steel cut oats... or more simply "what?". So here's a quick explanation.

Porridge (as we know it) is made from oats that have had their outer husks removed, also called oat groats. Oat groats are not flat, this is what they look like:

Rolled oats are flat they are made by steaming and flattening and often flaking oat groats. Often packets labelled as "Scottish porridge" are actually whole rolled oats where the oat is a flattened whole oat - however this is not true Scottish porridge. Rolled oats look like this:

Steel cut, pinhead, or Scottish Oats are made by cutting oat groats into smaller pieces, and make a more textured, chewier and more nuttier flavoured porrridge (so I'm told). Steel cut oats look like this:

Don't they look yummy!

I so far have a couple of leads on where I can obtain some... stay tuned for updated!

xxx 

Mindy

New Game

Howdy everyone!!

I just thought of cool new game to we can all play. I haven't posted too many of the photos from our travels on this actually blog (there are a little more on facebook and bebo) but I was thinking I'd post a photo and you could all guess what city or notable European destination it was taken at! Then after a series of several photos there'll be a prize of some sort! I'll try and make sure each one contains some sort of clue so you don't need to have visited the place to recognise it. I'm not anticipating an overwhelming response so maybe even guessing every once in awhile will be enough to get you a prize.

Ok so without further ado here's the first image, I'll start with an easy one:


Rightio what else is news.

I don't have an ipod. 

That isn't exactly news - it's been the case forever and probably always will be but it's an important fact about me that might not have come up before. In lieu of an ipod I have an extremely reliable 256mb mp3 player bought for a mere $40 about 5 years ago off trademe. I personally think it will last forever but I'll keep you updated. 

I'm also considering giving up diet coke again but doing it properly this time - not just cutting down. But I'm not quite ready to commit yet so I'll also keep you updated about that one too.

Oh and I'm in training - running training. Darren reckons he can beat me and I reckon he can't so we're having a race on the 2nd of November, 10km. Then we'll compete against other people in a proper race on the 16th November. So today I went for my first run in a week and a half and it went well I'm looking good to kick his ass!

Ok hope everyone is well!

xxx

Mindy

Sewing

Ok so I was trying to keep this all a secret as I was going to give one of my embroidery pieces to Amy and Tom as a housewarming present but I've since decided that it would be much more sensible to take it home with me instead of posting it (being that there's glass in the frame etc) and I can't keep a secret for that long sooooooo I can share pictures of the embroideries I've done. I will probably still give them one the surprise will just be now which one! I've actually been very happy with how they've turned out in the frames, it was well worth getting the mounts made for them - it makes all the difference.

So here's the first one it's from a book called "Small Scale Embroidery: In Cross Stitch and Other Techniques" by Brenda Keyes which is a really nice book, I'm actually in the middle of another cross stitch from that book and I'm planning to do one other one from it as well.

 

The second one is one I made up the design for myself with elements borrowed from other designs, and it's a bit hard to tell but actually has some gold thread in it too.  I don't like the frame on this one as much but it doesn't look too bad until you compare it to how much nicer the first frame looks! (I bought the nicer frame second).

Oh I just realised you don't get a good feel for the size of these, they are both really small the first design is 2 1/4 inches square and the second 3 inches square. Also these are know as blackwork where the design is made not from doing cross stitches but just by stitching the design with no or little filling using back stitch.

Ok that's all for now.

Bye!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMY!!!!

Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday to you

Happy Birthday dear Amy

Happy Birthday to you!!!!

Happy 24th Birthday to my lovely sister Amy :) I hope she has a fantastic day and doesn't get too stressed out about cake decorating considerations ;) Wish I was home to celebrate with you Ame - next year!! 

xxxx

Prague

Hello Readers!

Last weekend Darren and I went on a pretty last minute holiday to Prague. Darren had a couple of involuntary days off work (due to the job at that site winding down) so it was a case of check all the cheap airlines and see where we can get to - Prague came in the cheapest so that was good enough for us! 

Anyway it was a really lovely weekend. I'd definitely recommend Prague - but to be honest I really haven't found a place I don't like yet so maybe I'm not picky enough or something. Everywhere we've been has had it's own personality and charm. In terms of physical beauty though I'd say Prague is definitely up there, there were many gorgeous old buildings with a unique style of exterior decoration - quite highly decorated.

We spent the first morning in the castle, where we visited this gorgeous church but I can't remember if it was a basicilica or cathedral and I'm sorry I can't be bothered looking it up. It had very vibrant stained glass windows - I spent ages just looking at them while Darren wandered around as usual taking hundreds of photos.

In the afternoon we rushed back to the other side of the river to do a walking tour but I got the wrong meeting spot so we just explored the old town square and did quite a walking tour of our own! Then - sorry to admit it - we had TGI Fridays for dinner. I haven't had this since it was in Chch where the Vic and Whale now is and well I just really wanted to for old times sake. And I must say I really enjoyed my meal too!

In the old town square there's a cool clock tower with an astromical clock. Each hour from 9am- to 9pm I think there's a short ceremony where a skeleton to one side of the clock starts ringing a bell - apparently to tell us we're going to die, the two men on either side of the clock shake their head to say no we're not, and there are two or four saints or something that circle in and out of doors above the clock. Then the clock chimes. It is quite cool, but more amazing is the crowd of tourist who gather every single hour of the day to see this!

The next morning we did make it to the right spot for a great free walking tour which was really good we got to learn a bit of cool history and see some things we wouldn't have found ourselves. Like this cool statue.

And just so there's a picture of me in this post (haha) here's a picture of me in Prague - notice my cool new jacket which I purchased a couple of weeks ago from my favourite shopping spot - the Yorkshire outlet mall :D

xxx

Mindy

Stuff and Things

Howdy!

Ok I haven't blogged in awhile. I've been reading a lot more blogs lately though so that's encouraged me to get back into it a little bit more. It's funny as I think I've said before when things aren't going well I don't generally feel like blogging but this hasn't been the case lately - things have been really great for ages - maybe it's just that I've been distracted by my hobbies.

Ok so firstly Amy and I have become obsessed with cakes and cake decorating, which has also led me to the discovery of some awesome cupcake blogs too! These are the sites I've been frequenting:

• Cake Wrecks
  
• Cakelava
• How to eat a cupcake
• I heart cuppycakes

I was even inspired to make some cupcakes today. They didn't come out quite round as I don't have muffin tins to cook them in so they sort of had to keep their shape in the cases by their close proximity to each other. It worked pretty ok, I'll just have to make sure I don't fill them too full. Can't wait till I get back to New Zealand to all my baking trays etc. Also I think I'll need to buy a cake mixer too.

Also just when you thought I couldn't get anymore geekier or home-maker-ly-er I've taken up embroidery. I've so far done two little blackwork designs, one from a book I got out from the library and one I designed myself. I've always thought that cross stitch etc was a bit silly as there was no creativity in it as you were just following a pattern - but I must admit you do have to be neat and it is so rewarding to see the work progress... I'm addicted. Plus also of course there is the challenge of creating your own design.

So of course I've been neglecting my knitting and my French has suffered immeasurably for several months. But I am hoping to get back to it.

In other news Darren and I are now almost coutning down till we go back to NZ. I am really looking forward to it so much. We're going to love the last few months we're having here but I really am ready to come home. I've got lots to come home to - meeting Eloise, Christmas with family, meeting all the new people at work, the new building at work, my bike, doing some bike and running events in Christchurch etc etc.

Hope everyone else is also well and happy!

Love,

Mindy

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DO NOT TRUST THIS MAN!

Vegetable Goulash

Well I had an absolutely exciting weekend. We got our first very early wedding present from my lovely friend at work Ann who got us a slow cooker. She left work on Friday so she gave it to me then - and she said I should start using it immediately. So being the good girl I am and doing what I'm told I had it going all weekend! Slow cooked porridge on Saturday morning for breakfast (the best ever with apples and raisins in it - delicious!), chicken casserole cooking on Saturday, pork chops overnight on Saturday and the subject of this blog my vegetable goulash on Sunday.

I'm not sure what something has to be to be considered a goulash but I love the word goulash so I'm calling this goulash regardless. And it's not actually vegetarian even though it doesn't have meat in it because I used beef stock - but you could use some other kind of stock. It is really thick and hearty and has a delicious smell. Anyway I thought I'd share this recipe with everyone - although posting it here also means it will be easy for me to find it again if I ever forgot it!

Mindy's Vegetable Goulash

Makes 6 servings

50g barley
50g green lentils
1 very large potato (approx 200g) - cubed to about 1x1cm cubes
2 large carrots (approx 150g) - cubed into small cubes
1 small onion (approx 60g) - finely diced
3 stalks celery (approx 120g) - cubed into small cubes
1/2 red capsicum (approx 60g) - chopped
1 tin tomatoes & juice (I used whole tomatoes and chopped them roughly)

50g tomato paste
1 Tbsp smokey paprika
2 beefy stock cubes
2 cups boiling water
3 tspns cornflour

The method couldn't be easier. Put all the vegetables and lentils and barley into the slow cooker. Combine paprika, cornflour, crumbled stock cubes, in small bowl, add water stirring to avoid lumps, add tomato paste. Pour liquid over vegetables and cook in slow cooker on low for about 8 hours! Or (though I can't vouch for this) you could cook in a big pot on the stove but you'd probably want at least another cup of water to account for the evaporation.

Enjoy!

Mindy

Explosion

I had an interesting night last night, below is a portion of an email I have just composed to send to the supermarket ASDA where I buy my groceries:

I had the very disconcerting experience last night of awakening to the sound of an explosion in my kitchen. I went in to investigate and found that a bottle of ASDA diet coke had exploded out the bottom of the bottle in my cupboard. It was one of a four pack which had not been opened. As you can imagine this caused considerable damage to the other grocery products in that cupboard not to mention a huge mess! I'd just finished cleaning it up when a second bottle from the four exploded. I quickly undid the lids on the remaining two bottles. The first bottle exploded at 3.45am and then next at 4.10am.

The coke had been purchased on Tuesday 19/08/2008 and had not been shaken or in other way strangely handled. I had simply purchased it from the Doncaster ASDA, put it in my car, driven home, then put it away in the cupboard. The cupboard is just a normal cupboard where I keep coke and other grocery items.

Stupid things I have done

Hello all! I suddenly got inspired to write this blog detailing the stupid things I've done in my life. As I started thinking about it there were more than I realised! Bearing in mind that historic stupidities will probably only be in my memory if they had sufficient impact on my life. Now don't worry - I'm not depressed and fishing for compliments, this is purely a piece for your amusement! I know I'm cool and great my list of cool things I've done will probably be much longer!

In the last 24 hours

• Put pepper instead of salt in my porridge
• Biked halfway to work realised I'd forgotten my ID tag
  
• Got excited when I saw I had a new email, then realised it was from me
• Accidently sent myself an email that I meant to send to someone else
• Took a big hard bite on my apple and managed to somehow bite the ulcer on my lip at the same time
• Hit myself in the head with a pot - seriously - accidentally too!
  

In the last month

• Heated a knife on the stove to assist with chopping frozen meat, then pressed down on the knife with my finger. I now have a very straight edged burn scar :)
• Dropped a jar on my big toe nail. I now have a beautiful blue toe nail
• Put the indicator on in the car instead of putting the windscreen wiper on
• Put the back windscreen wiper on instead of the front one
• Opened the fridge in such a way that an egg from the egg holder in the top shelf of the door had an abrupt meeting with the floor
• Opened the fridge in such a way the top shelf of the door fell out, broke, and the egg that was on the top shelf also broke (separate occasion to the one above)
• Straight out dropped an egg on the floor (I haven't been having a good month with eggs)

In the last year

• Ran into the back of someone at traffic lights while engrossed in conversation with Lara - luckily I was going VERY slowly so no damage to either car
• Got a text from the "bank" asking me to ring a number, rang that number and was asked for my account number and password, gave these. Luckily for me it was actually the bank. But it was a stupid thing to do!
• Barged into a locked door expecting it to open - a security card swiping system had been installed a month earlier
• Opening the car door in such a way that it whacks me in the head - I do this often - it's got some kind of nasty spring on it
  

In the last 26 years

• Constantly (at least once a fortnight) attempting to drink and missing my mouth
• Constantly dropping my cell phone on the ground (I now have one with a nice strong metal faceplate)
  
• Returned from a run ,walked in our office kitchen, got a drink and biscuit then went into my office only to realise it was not my office - I was on the wrong floor! We'd shifted floors a few weeks earlier
• Frequently walking into door frames
• Not once but twice put a plastic bowl containing bread dough into an oven turned up to full - the intention was to turn it to full for a minute or so, then turn it off completely and it would be a nice warm environment for the dough to rise in. Melted plastic flavoured bread anyone?
  
• Won a bulk auction of what I assumed were 30 dvds - the turned out to be video cassettes - Darren helped me commit this one :)
• Broke my little toe by banging into our couch in the dark
• The hair dying fiasco of summer 2006/7
• Not once but twice left my wallet on the seat in a public place, once a mall, once an airport, once I got it back, once I didn't :(
• Left a bag of my Christmas shopping on the floor in a shop where I'd put it down to look at something - realised sometime later and had to retrace me steps to find it!
  
• Bounced on Mum and Dad's bed and broke the glass light shade with my head
• Was concentrating intently on sewing a felt Christmas decoration for our tree that I didn't notice I'd sewen it onto my skirt
  
• Decided that it was up to me to discipline Amy for jumping on her own bed so pushed her off onto a very sharp corned stereo (sorry Ame - she still has the scar on her back)
• Decided to help Dad out and started painting the garage floor and did what I'm sure was a very professional looking job for a 3 year old!
  
• My favourite: Bought the running hose inside, I think it was to help Mum water the plants but to be honest I have no recollection of this, however my parents however do!

I might have to have a sequel as I'm sure lots more things will come to me! I think it's fair to say that I have below average co-ordination though!

:)
Mindy

Greece!

Hello World!

Sorry I haven't written in ages. Sometimes I don't write when I'm a bit down. But luckily in this instance I've just been lazy - well actually maybe not lazy, maybe busy - which is just the opposite really! I don't really spend much time at all just sitting down doing nothing when I could be blogging. Yeah - I've definitely been busy!

So I'll start at the most recent exciting thing! Darren and I went to Greece. This took a lot of organisation and I did a fantastic job if I do say myself. 2 flights, 2 train trips, 2 ferry trips and 3 hotels! We flew from London to Athens which was a LONG journey. We left Donny around 5pm on Friday and arrived at our hotel in Athens 5am! And despite that I still couldn't sleep when we got there - excited I think! At 7.30am we got up to explore the city and try and beat the crowds and heat! We didn't really beat either but the crowds weren't too bad really. We have a lovely photo though of me at 9am already too hot! Here's just a couple of Athens photos (we have hundreds) - Darren has lots of photos on his bebo and I'll put some up too sometime probably.





Then the next day we went over to the Port to pick up our ferry tickets for Ios, then had half a day looking around Piraeus (the port town). We mostly just walked down this incredible market that went alongside the metro line for kms! It was narrow, stalls either side, jammed packed with people - and pickpocketers! We had to get pickpocketed once on our holidays and it could have been worse, we only lost 35 euros - and managed to have a laugh about it.

The ferry to Ios was... boring. It was a fast ferry and as such you couldn't go outside, and had allocated seats more like an airplane. But it was a good chance to sleep and 5 hours later we arrived in beautiful Ios. Our hotel was fun - filled with young people (mostly Americans) and had welcome shots that night at 10pm. Darren and I had dinner in a lovely restaurant with a great sunset view, then went up to the hotel bar for strawberry daquiris - yum! At 10 there were the welcome shots, and at 12 we headed down to the hotel owner's club. It was unbelievable how alive and busy everything was - this was a Sunday night - I guess that doesn't matter in Ios!

We had a lovely night out but I didn't sleep in much because when I woke up it was just too beautiful. At 10.30 we headed down slightly worried we'd missed the hotel breakfast - but it hadn't started yet and wasn't looking like it would start anytime soon, so we grabbed some from a restaurant - I had delicious yoghurt, fruit, muesli and honey mmm then we headed to the beach!



The beach was gorgeous! The sea was the perfect temperature to cool you down, but not so cold you didn't want to stay in. We spent the whole day there! Just reading and relaxing. We had souvlakis for lunch - I was looking forward to what I hoped was going to be my most authentic souvlaki experience - but they came with french fries in them! So I'm afraid I'll have to rate the Kebab Queen on Greers Rd slightly higher!



The next day brought another day at the beach - this time the Port beach, and walking around the Ios Port before heading out that evening to Santorini.



I think I'll write about Santorini in the next update as I don't have any photos to go with that yet they were on a different memory card.

So what's been happening in my life since then! Well Susannah and Cory arrived to visit when we arrived home so we spent the weekend with them! It was also lovely and I think I'll also write about that later with photos to match. And now I've just had a week at work, have a fun run this weekend, Bridget arrives from NZ on Monday and Wednesday we're off to Dublin, Friday we're back again, Sunday Bridget leaves for Hungary, and Sunday my parents also arrive!

Phew!

I hope everyone is well, and I hope you don't have to wait too long for my next blog!

xxx

Malta

Well I have had an exceptionally good last few days!

On Thursday afternoon I left work a little bit early to catch the train up to London. (Even though it's technically South of here). ANYWAY... I had a fairly uneventful journey and showed up at Kings Cross ready to hop on the underground to get to Victoria. Well that was the plan but it was not to be... the escalators were broken so King's Cross Underground was closed! No problems just a quick walk to Euston Station... in the heaviest rain I've ever been in. I was absolutely saturated by the time I got there - and don't you just love the way jeans soak up the ground water. Anyway got to Vic station, train to Gatwick, then bus to a hotel to wait for Lara. Who arrived soon after me! Yay!

A very early wake up saw us sitting on the plane to Malta at 6.30 (after the airport bus first took us to the wrong plane!) waiting to leave. Our scheduled departure time was 6.30... we left at 7.30. But no matter - our holiday was just beginning - we had no where we needed to be in a hurry.

From the moment I stepped out of the airport in Malta I knew I was going to love the place. It was gorgeous - outisde the airport was palm lined streets... in general though there was not much in the way of genery, not many tree - the whole place was very sandy coloured - emphasised by the buildings that matched perfectly. The heat was gorgeous though. Even better the bus into town was exceptional value at something like 47c too!

We spent the first day exploring Valetta - the capital city. It was a delightful small city, full of character. Built on a penisula it was surrounded on three sides by water. We even went down to some boat sheds and slipways... where I did just that - slipped right on my ass! But no matter - nothing was broken and I just had a very slimey bum. Most exciting was a daisy bush I found which was the same as the daisies we get at Church Bay back home!!! We unfortunately didn't get to visit St John's Church (Cathedral? Bascilica?) to see the paintings, as it was closed - we didn't mind at all though as we got to witness a very special funeral procession, complete with a marching band. We found out later it was the funeral of the first president of Malta who had died at the extremely respectable age of 99.

Oh also worth mention is the delicious Maltese flavoured icecream we had, it was delicious with peel and hazelnuts in it... yummy!

Ok time to get the bus to the hotel... around an hour's trip this set us back 58c! The hotel was charming in it's own sort of way. It got away with being a bit tired and having questionable flushing mechanisms on the toilets because of it's stunning views thanks to it's exception position looking down on Mellieha Bay. We found a lovely restaurant where lara took on the daunting (well daunting to me!) 4 course Maltese dinner: a platter, rabbit spaghetti, rabbit stew, and Maltese sweet with Maltese liqueur. I had canelloni.

Lara had the great idea of taking a tour around Gozo the following day. This was a fantastic was to get around the sights and learn a bit. The exciting start to the tour was a trip across on a large ferry. First stop was a Church which was nice, but just another Church. Then a folklore museum which was ok, but in a gorgeous old "mansion" - the rooms were tiny though but the courtyard in the nmiddle was delightful. We also saw the Azure Window (a big hole in a seaside cliff), the Inland Sea (a lagoon), a tourist popular swimming beach Xplendi Bay, a traditional cottage craft area famous for lace making, the citadel in Victoria and most exciting the oldest freestanding stone structures in the world Ggantija... built in 3600 BC.

Back to the hotel for cocktails by the pool, then an easy tea at the hotel of mostly pizza.

Day three. Beach, sun, sun louger... need I say more! We did almost nothing. It was great! It was only almost nothing and not just nothing as Lara did manage to slice the top off her little toe (poor Lara!) and we both got a bit sunburnt. More cocktails in the shade then off to find tea. Another restaurant - this one with a very interesting colour scheme - bright peppermint, and pink! Lara had octopus, Mindy bravely tried a tiny bit (not admitting the visible suckers put her off a little) and then enjoyed her ravioli! Hehe.

Day four we went home. Which was not the smartest idea we've ever had. But it was a really wonderful holiday! Thanks so much Lara!

:)
Mindy

Mmm Custard

Well I don't mean to boast but I can now add custard to my repertoire of things I can cook. Additionally I can also now add repertoire to my repertoire of words I can spell!

We didn't have a very big tea for dinner on Monday so I decided to make pancakes for desert, I thought it would be nice to to have chocolate sauce with them. I remember at Christmas I'd made a chocolate icing based on custard, so I decided to look for a recipe for chocolate custard. I found one and gave it a go, and it was a horrible (but yummy) disaster. Did you know custard can curdle? I didn't... I wondered why it had so many tiny bumps in it - it wasn't at all the consistency of custard!

So I headed to google and did some research and found out why custard curdles. Basically if the egg yolks get too hot too quickly.

Now happily I'm in the habit of making egg white omeletes at the moment, so when I got home from work tonight and whipped up an omelete and then I had two egg yolks left over... so I thought time to give custard another go. I unfortunately didn't have much milk at all, but I kept going anyway. This is my recipe I made up which ended up making some very rich yummy thick chocolate custard which you wouldn't eat by itself but as a topping for something... like icecream!

Ingredients:
2 egg yolks (room temperate)
About 200ml milk (I used skimmed) use more than this if you don't want it super thick, I was planning on using about 280ml.
40g of caster sugar
Tbsp cocoa
tspn cornflour
drop of vanilla

Method:
1 Heat the milk up in a saucepan with the vanilla, just so it's almost boiling.
2 Whisk the egg yolks with the cocoa and sugar and cornflour to get a nice even consistency
3 Pour a tiny bit of milk into the egg mixture and whisk, pour another tiny bit in, you don't want the egg yolks to get too hot too quickly.
4 Keep pouring in the milk and whisking until all the milk is in the eggs
5 Return the mixture to the saucepan
6 Put on the stove at a very low temperature - and don't walk away! Keep stirring it the whole time! And just sit here patiently until it's as thick as you want it. Maybe 10 minutes of something.

And there you go! Enjoy!

Me, Right Now

One of those questiony things taken from Claire's blog:

me, right now!
	1. A morning person? Yup! 2. Are you a perfectionist? Nope, in some things (onto the 5th time starting on Eloise's cardie, but generally good enough is good enough) 3. Single? Nope 4. Currently suffering from a broken heart? Nope 5. Okay styling other people's hair? Depends on the style, I did some Bridget's hair beautifully once I remember. 6. Left handed? Sure am! 7. Shy around the opposite gender? Not really relevant hehe I think this question is more for teenages. But I guess just answer the damn question - the answer is no. Well no more than I'm she around anyone! DO YOU: 1. Bite your nails? Nope never 2. Currently regret something that you have said? Oh definitely... can't think of something specific, but I often say things I regret in the middle of arguments. 3. Curse frequently when you get mad? Nope, I don't swear much at all. 4. Enjoy smoothies? Especially mango, or banana and mango! 5. Enjoy talking on the phone? Yup especially to Mum and Dad, but I wish I felt comfortable calling more people more. 6. Have a pet? Only Becky back in NZ 7. Have a tendency to fall for the "wrong" person? Don't think so 8. Have all your grandparents? No :( I haven't had all of them since I was 2, have just one now. 9. Have at least one sibling? 2 wonderful sisters who are my best friends. 10. Have Caller I.D. on your phone? Is this question from before the time of cell phones? I do on my cell phone but not on my landline. LAST PERSON WHO: 1. Slept in bed with you? Darren 2. Saw you cry? Darren 3. Went to the movies with you? Darren 4. You went to the mall with you? Darren 5. You went to dinner with? Darren, Rach, Greg, Susannah and Cory 6. You talked on the phone? Dad 7. Made you laugh? Darren WOULD YOU RATHER? 1. Pierce your nose or tongue? Tongue, except I wouldn't want it to damage my teeth 2. Be serious or be funny? Funny 3. Drink whole or skim milk? Whole 4. Die in a fire or drown? Drown DO YOU PREFER. . 1. Flowers or candy? Flowers... it's been AGES since I've gotten flowers. 2. Colour or Black? Colour 3. Sunrise or sunset? Sunrise, though hardly ever see that, I see the sunset here frequently and it's so beautiful. 4. M&Ms or Skittles? I don't know! Um probably M&Ms 5. Staying up late or waking up early? Wake up early ANSWER TRUTHFULLY !! 1. Do you like anyone? Yup 2. Do they know it? Yup (haha these are teenager questions again) DO YOU PREFER... 1. Sun or moon? Sun 2. Left or right? Left 3. 10 acquaintances or having two best friends? I have 10 best friends! 4. Sun or rain? Sun at the moment because I'm sick of staying inside - but I love the rain a lot 5. Vanilla ice cream or chocolate ice cream? Chocolate if it's by itself, vanilla if it's a side 6. Vodka or Jack? Jack FOOD: 1. Do you twirl your spaghetti or cut it? I cut it before I cook it, and twirl it when I eat 2. Have you ever eaten Spam? No 3. Favorite ice cream? Phish food 4. How many kinds cereal are in your cabinet? Only one at the moment - porridge! 5. What's your favorite beverage? Mango and banana smoothie 6. Do you cook? Yup IN THE LAST MONTH, HAVE YOU? (YES OR NO) 1. Had a b/f or g/f? yes 2. Bought something you didn't need? yes 3. Sang in front of people? no 4. Been kissed? yes 5. Been hugged? yes 6. Felt stupid? no 7. Missed someone? yes - all the time 8. Danced Crazy? don't think so, wish I had though 9. Gotten your hair cut? no 10. Cried? yep 11. Lied? oh yup, but just a white lie

Ok looks like that's it. My sore throat has now come back, I think I'll have no voice tomorrow when I wake up - it feels like it's been disappearing all day!

Love
Mindy

No Subject

Hiya!

I just felt like blogging and I don't know what I'm going to write about yet so I didn't really know what to put as a title. Thus there is currently no title. Though I put no subject because that's like what emails say, which isn't really that funny. But not everything has to be funny.

Well today is my first ever Anzac day away from NZ, but then yesterday was my first ever April 24th away from NZ and tomorrow will be my first ever April 25th away from NZ. So well, I think I'll be ok. I bought a poppy to wear anyway, I'm not quite sure what the poppy was for as obviously they don't sell Anzac day poppies here, but I figured it would fit the purpose.

Do you wanna see the kaftan I knitted for my gorgeous wee niece Eloise? You do? Well ok then here it is...



And Darren tried it on to see how it fit...



And then I decided to knit something for my darling sister Claire so I made her this scarf...


And that's all. Now I'm knitting a baby cardigan also for Eloise. It's made out of pretty dusty rose wool, it's almost purple and it's the first time I've knitted with tiny wool and tiny needles so it takes a lot longer!

What else is news? Well I have a new desire to get into my French lessons I've been teaching myself. It's hard, but I'm being lazy too. What I'd learnt so far wasn't enough for me to say anything in French while I was in France, but I think it did enable me to understand a tiny bit more - I could grab certain words.

One thing I absolutely loved in the office we were in in Nancy was that each time someone arrived at the office they came around everyone and shook their hand and said bonjour. Even me and they had no idea who I was and why I was there. It was so nice. A lot of people also went round and said goodbye at the end of the day too! Very civilised I thought.

Darren put on this martial arts movie last night. Sometimes I don't like them much, as sometimes they are a bit short on interesting characters and plots, this one was not much different - but for some reason I really liked it! In fact I can't wait to watch the end of it tonight (I fell asleep - but that's because I was tired from travelling). It was called Showdown in Little Tokyo.

I can't actually wait to go to Japan either (there were Japanese people in the movie last night). I've been thinking maybe I should learn Japanese again. I say again even though I haven't really learnt it properly, but I did take it for two years in high school. I have a friend Michiko who could help me! I can't really remember any words but enu. Which means dog. Kawaii means cute I think too. And instead of saying knock knock they say kotsu kotsu. We had a song that the postman sang as he went round the neighbourhood I think saying "kotsu kotsu" as he knocked on the doors. Anyway the thing I liked about Japanese was it was easy to pronounce in that it was pronounced exactly as it was written, I'm not sure if there are any exceptions to that but I didn't come across any. Anyway I can still read most of the characters I learnt so I've got a small headstart in learning Japanese.

I think I will. I think I'll try and learn French and Japanese. It is very doubtful I'll get the two mixed up in my head. I should try and learn a word each day in French and Japanese. To cheat I'll make dog my first word as I already know that in Japanese. Ok just learnt it in French it is chien. Good done.

Ok well hope everyone is well! I'm missing my sisters a lot today. I think they need me. Or maybe I need them. But anyway I just have to do what I can from here.

:)
Mindy

Yes I'm strange

Hello! I'm in France! Well I am as I'm writing this, by the time I publish it I'll be in England again... but just pretend ok?

So how did I get here? Well I went down to London for a meeting on Friday during the course of which we were on a conference call with some people in France who decided it would be better if I were there in person. So it was decided I'd go down on Wednesday. Not much notice at all really!

This is a picture of a lovely square, Stanislas, in Nancy

Anyway so I was dismayed to find out it would take me a day to get to Nancy, and a day to get back. It wasn't actually as bad as I first thought, the time was mostly just in the waiting for trains. Anyway bright and early on Tuesday morning (6.59am) I caught the bus to Doncaster station to begin my trip to Nancy. First down to London Kings Cross, then walk across the road to St Pancras station, then on the Eurostar to Paris, then walk a block to another Paris station, sit and wait for two hours, then train to Nancy where I arrived 5.47pm local time!

France appears to be lovely - I really want to come back in a tourist capacity. Everywhere in Europe I go is lovely though it seems. Older buildings are just more decorative and prettier! It was lovely and warm last night so I decided to be brave and went out for a explore and I was glad I did. I found some beautiful looking buildings and a gorgeous square! Part of the reason for my courage was the hotel I'm staying in happens to be a huge high rise, so I knew I couldn't get lost as I could see it from wherever I wandered to!

Today was work and a very nice guy approached me at breakfast who was also English and going to visit the ECR (Euro Cargo Rail) Offices so I had myself a ride. The day was productive... I've got a lot of work ahead of me now though!

Ok finally as to why I'm strange. Because I'm in France and instead of having delicious French food for dinner I'm having baked beans and an apple. Hehe. My excuse, I'm getting sick and just feel awful - you know that terrible feeling you get when your throat is tickly and then sore and you know there's worse to come! And you know how when you're getting a cold things taste a bit funny too - so really delicious food would be wasted on me. So I'm in my pjs watching Star Trek, knititng, eating an apple and really looking forward to bringing Darren back to France with me next time! I'm sure I'll have to come back again for work - maybe Paris next time and I should be able to make it either side of a weekend so he can come. Yay!

Love,

Mindy

PS (Added next day) I realised something today that made me quite happy. I can confirm amongst strangers I really don’t care in the least what people think of me. Well of the real me – I would be annoyed if they made assumptions and judged me etc. I came to this realization when I was sitting on the train from Paris to London in full view of everyone nearby watching Star Trek on my laptop and knitting.

Just a couple of things

... to mention today. Nothing too exciting.

First I mentioned on Marc's blog and maybe even in a blog post here a while back that I thought it would be so much better if third part car insurance was compulsory in New Zealand (I think this was in agreement with him) - and lo and behold, an article in stuff about how the government is proposing compulsory third party insurance. So obviously I'm very happy with that.

Secondly did I say my computer got a virus two weeks ago? It was SUCH a pain, put me out of action for days at work! In addition to the virus I had a hard drive error so my computer got taken away on Thursday to be fixed. Nows for all I know I may have mentioned this in my last post, but I'm sorry I really can't be bothered going back to check. Anyway as I said my computer is geting a new hard drive at the moment, so I'll get it back Monday! Woo hoo! I miss it - we've never been separated for this long before ;) Hehe actually I wonder if that's true. No, it can't be, I've been away from it for long weekends before.

Thirdly (yes we're still keeping count) I was just checking the visitor activity on this blog. It is so astounding, my blog traffic has sky rocketed since I posted that picture of a baby tapir. I'm guessing this is because there must not be that many pictures of baby tapirs on the internet so when people search google images for baby tapirs they get my page! Honestly there is at least ten hits each day on the baby tapir image from a google image search. Marketing people should keep this in mind, if they want lots of traffic on their page, then consider adding a picture of a baby tapir.

Fourthly Darren and I watched the new Stargate movie last night. It was awesome. Because it was Stargate. I'd read some bad reviews on it, well not bad as such, but one review that said it wasn't even as good as two good episodes put together, but maybe that's just because Stargate is just so amazingly awesome to start with it would be impossible to be better than it already is. Anyway if you love Stargate you'll love it, if you don't love Stargate you won't. If you love the original Stargate movie but not the TV series then you won't like it either. Or in fact understand it at all - it really is just a conclusion to the series. Sob sob. But at least Sam is in Atlantis now.

Fifthly I finally finished the jersey I'm making (oops I've made) for Eloise! I would post a picture, but then it wouldn't be a surprise for her. As I know she regularly reads this blog.

Good night and thank you,

:)
Mindy

Dave

Dave is my new best friend. I spend much of my day with Dave. Dave is a free view channel that shows about three programs over and over and over again. These are Top Gear (awesome!), Whose Line is it Anyway and Red Dwarf. I know what you're thinking. Awesome! It even shows the good old Whose Line is it Anyway, the old one with Clive Anderson. Whose Line is it Anyway was my absolute favourite program awhile back, when I was at uni I think.

Anyway yay for Dave. Also of note in my TV regime at the moment is Fresh Prince of Bel Air. It's just good because it's been so long since I saw it and it's such a strong tie to my childhood! That's not on Dave though that's on Virgin 1.

Ok so my life is a wee bit boring that I'm talking about TV... but well you are all the people reading about my sad life ;) Haha.

Oh something extremely exciting happened today. I got a whole bunch of packages descending on me at work. Darren and I had ordered two lots of DVDs (I won't mention that these were Star Trek DVDs as that would be embarassing) and these arrived, and my birthday present from Amy arrived! I had checked with her that I could open it (ie that my actual present was wrapped inside) and I could and I'm so glad I did. She was such a sweetie! She sent me four packets of Extra Drops, which are these sugar free lollies that I haven't seen here (though apparently you can get them, but not as commonly as in NZ!) and some delicious licorice. I've already had a piece, this is RJs licorice, I think it's widely regarded as the absolute best licorice in the world, ok maybe not widely regarded but I'm sure I'm not the only one who holds that opinion! Amy sent 3 packets on onion soup!! You know what that means! Three bowls of dip! Ok non New Zealanders won't get that at all, but that's their fault for not being New Zealanders, and they should just go and be a New Zealander like the best of us are! (Or they could probably just go to NZ and ask a NZer, or they could just ask me and I'd probably tell them).

Here's a tip for you all as well. Jonathan at work recommended the movie "Lars and the Real Girl" and so much do I value his opinion that I'm going to go ahead and recommend it before I've even seen it myself... but rest assured I will be watching it!

Hope everyone is well and happy :)

XOXOX

Remember Me?

Helloooooo!

Remember me? I know I haven't been around in awhile. Here's a picture of me in case you've forgotten who I am (which would be totally understandable). :)



Well hmmm a lot has been going on here since I last wrote.

Darren and I went to Holland and stayed with Susannah and Cory. It was such an awesome holiday as Rach and Greg came over from Cambridge too! Oh that was Easter, so I guess that wasn't too long ago really.

Ohhh before I carry on I should say the most important thing! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLAIRE! It's my baby sister's birthday today. She turns 19! Sometimes she seems a lot older and sometimes she seems a lot younger hehe. Uh oh. I just did some maths, that means it was 7 years ago almost that I was 19. Urgh! I'm old! Thinking back though to when I was 19... well lets just say I've come a long way. I can still remember Claire as a baby though, she was a premmie, and stayed in hospital a whole month to grow big and stuff. While she was in hospital I had a cold and I wasn't allowed to go in an visit her for a week or so but Amy still was... man that wasn't fair! Then she came home from hospital on my birthday and I was a bit grumpy about this because I thought she'd steal my thunder... and she probably did but in the end I didn't really mind. Besides Mum and Dad had got me a highlighter pink bike and it was awesome so I think I got over the Claire thing pretty quickly. Well not got over her, of course I loved her so much and still do!

Ok back to Holland. So it was Easter, it snowed. We went to a gorgeous art gallery in The Hague. Which was definitely a highlight. We spent a very cold day in the snow in Amsterdam, where a lot of the day was spent walking to somewhere, finding the queue was too big then walking somewhere else. We did go to a cool kid's science museum called Nemo, and we braved the queue for Anne Frank's house which was amazing to see.

What else. Hmm I don't even know if I've written since my Dad came over! My Dad came the weekend before Easter which was so great! We just hung out a bit (he was only here for 3 days) and also went for a drive to Buxton and went to Poole's cavern which are these cool limestone caves. We also had some delicious meals out... I still salivate thinking about the wild mushroom and pinenut rissoto I had for lunch at a pub. It was sad to see Dad go, I'm such a family girl, and it was just like standard four camp all over again (Dad came to visit one night, it was so hard to see him go, even though I only had like 2 more days left on camp hehe!).

Um what else has happened. Confession time! I've started watching (and enjoying) Star Trek. I'm a total sci fi geek now. Stupid Darren's done this to me. But I always figure it's probably better than to enjoy something than to not enjoy it (like if I pay to go to a movie a try and enjoy it rather than rip it apart).

Work has been hard work lately. Hehe. So I won't talk about that much.

I don't even know if I've written a blog since Kirsty Face had her baby! Well her and Nick's baby I think they're supposed to share. She's a gorgeous wee thing called Eloise and I can't wait to meet her. Though when I meet her she'll be a lot bigger than she is now! I'm so proud of Kirsty and Nick and Eloise, even though it's really nothing to do with me! I would post a photo but I think it's bad enough when parents get out your baby photos when you're a teenager and embarrass you with them, I wouldn't want Eloise to get embarrassed by her picture on the net. Trust me she's cute! Claire has some pictures on her bebo, which is much more private than a blog so if you have bebo and have Claire as a friend check her out :)

Congratulations also to my cousin Hamish and his wife Sam who also had a baby in the last month! Another gorgeous girl called Lily. And Beth's sister Emma had her wee boy James, I think he's called. So really March has been a baby-full month!

Ok that's just about enough from me I think.

Lots of love,
Mindy

Finish this Sentence

Borrowed off Lottie's bebo :) And needed 2 minutes of light relief during a tough day!

Finish The Sentence

1. My ex still......? Um plays guitar
2. I love... my fiance and porridge
3. Maybe I should... brush my hair
4. People close to my heart... know who they are! I hope!
5. I am listening to... Nothing :(
6. I don't understand... why people buy those those butt ugly cars
7. I lost... myself once or twice
8. People say... that every cloud has a silver lining and I agree!
9. The meaning of my screen name is... Well it's just my name so that's not very exciting
10. Love is... everywhere
11. Somewhere, someone is... eating porridge!
12. I will always... love porridge (haha)
13. Forever seems... huge
14. I never ever want to... hurt people, but sometimes I do
15. When I wake up in the morning... I start cooking my porridge so it's ready for when I'm dressed!
16. I get annoyed when...people speed and when I burn my porridge
17. Parties are... sometimes best when its just a few of your closest mates
18. My pet(s) is... my fishies that Kirsty is looking after
19. Kisses are the best when.... they're unexpected
20. Today I... will relax after a hard week and have some porridge
21. Tomorrow I will.. go for a run and have some porridge
22. I really want... a hug from my Dad (1 week till he comes!) and to eat some porridge
23. I need to tell... someone about my day - I need to offload!
24. Life is... all about being the kindest person you possibly can be and eating porridge
25. I promise... that I will try and learn from every mistake I make

Ok that got a little silly - there wasn't so much mention of porridge, I went back and added more porridge references. But porridge is great, and I'm tired so I think I'm being funny when I may not be!

:)
Mindy

Double Take

Darren was having his tooth out today so I went along with him just in case. It went fine though I was expecting more funny faces due to his painkiller injection numbing half his mouth. So that was disappointing. However it was really worth the trip as we were driving down the road and I saw a street name that made me do a double take! I found the road on google maps - check it out:



Now this has left me wondering... how in the world did this street get it's name? And how would you feel living there? These people didn't like it much at all! For those who can't be bothered following the link there is a statement in the story that the Doncaster council has nothing on record as to why the road was named Butt Hole Road.

Hope you're all having a good week.

:)
Mindy

No Legacies!

I had a huge realisation today that actually caused me some consternation. There are no subaru legacies here! That's probably what's missing from my life at the moment. In Christchurch every second car is a subaru legacy station wagon. Ok maybe that's a very slight exaggeration but check this out - a list of the people I know who own or did own legacies:

• My Mum
• My Auntie Bobbie
• My cousin Hamish (or maybe it was Josh, or maybe both)
• My cousin Andrew
• My friend Helen
• My friends Kim and Lennon
• Kim's parents

So as you can imagine seeing absolutely zero legacies around town feels a little like my world have been tipped upside down (which I guess given I'm on the other side of the world it has!). I am definitely going to be keeping a very close eye out for them from now on - there's got to be at least one person who knows a good car when they see one in this country!

Now onto some more general observations about cars here. Men get all excited about Granny cars - and they boast about the fuel economy of their cars. I mean sure they might be latest model German technology - but they are so sissy! Everyone has sissy cars. I guess to everyone's credit they are much more eco friendly!

There are a few people who don't have sissy cars (haha I totally contradicted my last paragraph) - they are a lot more very expensive cars around, and I must admit I do love seeing them around. But that doesn't change the fact that it's ok here to boast about having a Granny car. We have a Granny car - but you don't see me boasting about it! Anyway enough about the Granny cars (which are everywhere and are sissy!).

One great thing about motoring over here is that insurance is compulsory. Now all the smart people in NZ have insurance anyway but the dumb ones don't, and the dumb ones are the ones who end up buying cars that are way more expensive than they can afford and then crash them and end up in debt for years and years. Now it's mostly young kids who do this - they can afford the cars because they sign up for really dodgy loans that put them at such a financial disadvantage right when they're starting their life in the working world. And lots are boy racers. Here there are some boy racers too - but the majority of kids just simply can't afford the insurance on these flash cars till they're 25. It's brilliant they end up having to buy a sensible not very powerful car that they can afford to insure if they want to be on the road, then once they're 25 and the insurance drops they've hopefully learnt a bit about money and responsibility and can then splash out on whatever they want. This isn't the reason that car insurance is compulsory but I think it's a chuffing good side effect!

Ok that's all for now!

:)
Mindy

Very Windy

Ok so this post was supposed to come yesterday and it was so supposed to contain my thank yous for the slip of my imaginery CD. Unfortunately it will fulfill neither of those expectations. Turns out I need another sleepless night to work out my thanks and I haven't done that yet.

Anyway it's so windy here today! Walking home was the strongest wind I ever walked in in my whole life that I can recall. Once apparently it was really windy at Picton and Amy blew off the wharf when we were waiting for the ferry, but I can't remember that. So I'm going assume it's windier here today. Luckily I didn't get knocked out by flying debris or anything like that - but I will admit I'm glad I'm not ten kilograms lighter as I may very well have gone flying!

I'm so glad that Darren is working indoors at the moment in a police station otherwise I'd be really worried about him. Though I must admit now I am worried about him driving home. Lucky we have a small car that won't catch the wind too much. Though I bet there's a lorry or two blown over today.

I'm watching Neighbours right now - I haven't watched it for ages! Like years and years so it's quite funny. I find it weird that Susan and um her Doctor wife are together because last time I watched they were broken up and I was so sad about that. Now I feel stupid for being sad - what a waste of time! Oh Carl, that's his name. Ew how weird this girl on neighbours (Paul's daughter) just made pikelets and she burnt them all - how unrealistic - you wouldn't burn every pikelet you'd learn from the first. They're not the kind of thing you start cooking and then just walk away and leave. You have to stand there the whole time they're cooking. She's quite pretty though.

It's such a good day for lazing on the couch watching TV. Susannah and I were emailing this afternoon about just that and it made me really really desperate to get home. It was such a long week at work this week. In some ways. In other ways I can't believe it's Friday already! I'm not complaining though.

Ok well I have to go and do some more lying on the couch and watching TV - catchya later!

:)
Mindy

Casual Friday

I don't know if I was particularly not tired last night or whether I'm suffering from insomnia as I spend what felt like a good hour in bed after lights out trying to decide what I'd wear for casual clothes to work. As we wear pretty formal clothing here I did want to wear something a bit trendy and also a bit young (not to rub in the fact that I'm only 25 to everyone, but you know just to be young). So there were numerous debates in my head:

• Is my denim mini skirt too slutty? (My tartan one definitely is)
• Do I want to use this opportunity to promote the bands I like?
• Would my mini skirt be better with 3/4 length black footless tights underneath?
• Am I more concerned about comfort or looking good? (wearing trackpants did cross my mind)?
• Would my ugg boots be ok for walking to work in (they came off very favourably in the debate as they are comfy and trendy!)
• Is my playboy top too slutty - or too young?
• Would I scare people if I wore my skull and crossbone earrings?
• Were my jeans too scruffy?
• Was my green DKNY top too boring?
• Did I think I could find the nice gold necklace I bought when Claire was here?

After much agonising thought I decided on my tight long sleeved black top with my Stadium Arcadium (RHCP) t-shirt over the top, my denim mini skirt with 3/4 tights underneath, my ugg boots, and my black skull earrings.

As you can imagine making that decision was a relief.

Now all I need for us to have a casual Friday here at work one of these days!

Stayed tuned for tomorrow's installment of Mindy's insanity: "Who I would thank on the imaginary album cover of the imaginary CD that I'm putting out".

But before you go, here is a picture I took on my way to work of a leaf and rime - stayed tuned tomorrow to find out what Rime is (or look it up if you can't be bothered waiting!).



:)
Mindy

Weekly Update

I think I should do a weekly update from now on. This is to stop me going too long between posts.

Not that I guarantee I'll have anything exciting or even vaguely interesting to say.

This weekend was a quiet one - it was lovely though. We are having stunning weather here at the moment. Just beautiful. Really heavy frosts that get every leaf on each tree, that freeze our lake - but then such brilliant sunshine during the day. It just feels so nice walking around in the crisp air with the warm sun on your back. People in Christchurch will know what I'm talking about! Though the difference here is that the frosts don't defrost by the end of the day - the bits in the shade stay icy! I think that happened in Dunedin a bit but I haven't experienced that much in Christchurch.

Well Darren and I watched Beowulf in the weekend. It was odd. The movie was good-ish - but the animation caught our attention more than the actually movie did. And though some of the effects were absolutely brilliant there were times when I'd wished it was just a normal acted movie. Also I'm not quite sure what John Malkovich's character was there for - it was a bit odd - I love John Malkovich and he did a great job his character just confused me.

We've decided with Rach and Greg to go and visit Susannah and Cory in Leiden for Easter which will be very exciting. That's in the Netherlands. Could everyone please keep their fingers crossed that due to it being a reasonably mild winter the tulips will already be out for us to see :) I can't wait I feel it's about time for another trip and this one will be so fun getting to see our friends too!

Darren has started Wing Chung haha I actually don't know if that's what it's called but that's what I hear when he says it. It's a type of Kung Fu anyway. So that's good. And as part of my Valentines present he's said we can do dancing lessons.... I'm so excited about that! Thanks hunny :)

Write - now everyone go and write me a letter. You know you want to!

Love,
Mindy

Another List!

Those of you who are pretty familiar with this blog will know that I quite like posting lists here - because sometimes they're just easier than paragraphs and sometimes I'm lazy. Those of you who know me quite well will probably also know I've been a bit down on being here for the last few weeks - but I'm turning it around! I think part of the problem is I get a bit bored... I have lots of hobbies but no motivation - so now I'm making wee goals for myself and basically just trying not to be a misery guts. As quite often you just need to change your thought pattern and things pick up! Anyway in the spirit of being positive here's a list of things I love about being here:

• Danone shape yoghurt.... YUMMY!
  
• Cleaning an apartment - takes about 30 seconds, ok not 30 but not long!
• Traveling of course!
• Writing and receiving letters.
• Getting a lot closer to people through emails and msn that I wasn't as close to before like Susannah and Lottie.
• The lovely people I've met over here, Ann and Julia at work.
• Having broadband (ok we could have had it in NZ but we didn't so it counts!)
• Having baths (again we not exclusive to the UK but we didn't have a bath in Chch)
• The new words I'm learning such as chuffing.
• Our outlet mall.
  
• The Mighty Boosh (a great BBC comedy)
• Oh! The birds - the birds are great here.
• ASDA Carrot and parsnip soup YUMMY!
• Walking to work.
• Having a gym at work.
  

Ok that'll do for now :)

Hope everyone is good!

Mindy

Alien vs Predator : Requiem

Well for those of you who haven't seen the first Alien vs Predator this will spoil it - but since you're so silly as to not have seen it yet I make no apologies (besides if you haven't seen it yet you're probably just one of those people who have assessed it's not really your kind of thing which is totally fine and you probably won't watch it anyway so I'm not really spoiling anything). Anyway to recap the end of the first Alien vs Predator movie the Predator ship flew away and you saw an Alien burst out of the Predator! Wow!

So anyway the new Alien causes havoc on the ship which then crashes near a small town in America somewhere near Colorado. It is filled with Americans.

The basis for this movie is a fight between the Alien that burst out of the Predator and has taken on the Predator's genetic traits versus just the normal Predator. Now silly me. I thought well the Alien is awesome the Predator is awesome - how can a normal Predator even have a chance of beating an Alien Predator crossbreed. BUT I forgot some important things - firstly the Aliens (despite their genetic merging) have been are always instinctually driven creatures, whereas the Predators are higher thinking beings - it's a sport and a challenge to them to kill, Aliens just do it. Predators are very much like humans, though maybe a bit cleverer. The other thing and the most important thing is that Predators are a technologically advanced species and so that gives them a huge advantage. The one advantage the Alien's have is the ability to reproduce and make lots of Alien minions.

So anyway I feel more akin to the Predators (what can I say I like their handsome dreds, and their soothing clicking noise, and their sexy split face thing) and I was hoping they would come out victorious. But of course I will not tell who did!

Other points of note: I love these movies because they don't even need to bother with character development at all as most people get killed. Oh and watch out for the brilliant scene with the father and his daughter - you'll know it when you see it, it was hilarious! Also interesting to note in this movie was the hot blonde chick, took her top off, right by a swimming pool, and yet there was no scene with her dripping with water... even more surprising she put her top back on and didn't spend the rest of the movie running around in her bra... and to my absolutely amazement she actually went a step further a wore a buttoned up denim jacket that didn't reveal any cleavage at all!

The thing about these movies is only people who are going to enjoy them ever end up watching them anyway. So my advice is to watch it if you want to and if you don't don't!

That is all.

:)
Mindy