Thursday 8 May 2014
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Monday 3 September 2012
Here's to a very exciting decade ahead
- The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie
About a month ago someone (oooo, that was me, pick me!) had a very important birthday (well, all birthdays are important, but some are more important and exciting than others). And what do birthdays always call for (well, in my world anyway)?
Why yes, that is a dirty concrete floor. Thank you for noticing.
CAKE! The chocolate cake from Bhakti Cookti Bookti in fact. It was so ridiculously rich and chocolatey that we had to eat it with ice cream lite licks hokey pokey is the BEST!). Not exactly surprising considering it basically has an entire large block of chocolate in the icing!
After the usual wintery Wednesday Night run (basically a group of us meet up on a Wednesday night to go running in the Port Hills together) M and I tempted everyone back to where we were staying to help devour the cake. Cake is pretty much the perfect post-run food right?
The cake is filled with delicious jam as well as copious amounts of chocolate icing. Yum!
In case anyone was concerned (although I can't see why) M and I did actually eat some real dinner which even included vegetables!
Vegetarian Shepherd's Pie and Olympic rowing. Perfect!
Saturday 25 August 2012
Brothers and memory lanes
One with a light.
One with a stick.
One with a rope.
A spooky old tree.
Do they dare go into that spooky old tree?
- The Berenstain Bears and The Spooky Old Tree by Stan and Jan Berenstain
I am still here! So is my American brother and his wife so I am a bit busy at present. High on chocolate and peanut butter fudge right about now whilst we gallop down the twisting, turning memory lanes of our childhoods.
Back soon.
Tuesday 14 August 2012
Since I've been gone...
- Wickett's Remedy by Myla Goldberg
So I appear to have been gone from here for quite some time. Oh dear!
Since I’ve gone so long I thought I would give you a little insight into some of the things that appear to have gotten in the way of blogging lately. Basically, life in the south has been filled with many adventures.
Anyway, below is just a little snapshot of some of my favourite adventures we've had so far (i.e. the ones where we have taken a camera!)...
There have also been lots of adventures in the kitchen but that is a story for next time...
Friday 9 March 2012
Family time
- The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig
I totally meant to post last week but, well, time slipped through my fingers. Not really that surprising if you'd seen my week/weekend.
Anyway, my parents came to visit us at the beginning of February which was very exciting (and stressful at the same time). They spent two weekends with us with the week between spent walking the Banks Peninsula. While they were with us we took them up into the Port Hills to show them the places we haunt in the evenings and weekends. We also drove over the hill to Governors Bay for a spot of lunch at She Chocolat. We had to wait forever for food but it was delicious. Plus the chef is always open to recreating something deliciously vegan.
We also went to check out the Re:START mall. For those of you who don't know, the Re:START mall (where the Cashel Street mall used to be before the February 2011 earthquake caused much of it to be demolished) consists of shops made from shipping containers refitted as retail premises. It's actually really cool. I love the bright colours and the innovative and creative feel about the place. It definitely exceeded my expectations (plus I bought marzipan chocolate so what's not to love!).
This was actually the first time I'd been right up to the fences surrounding the red zone and it had an eery, unsettling feeling about it. I kind of expected tumbleweed to come rolling across the streets and perhaps a man on a horse to appear (a bit like some apocalyptic Western or something). Generally we avoid most of the earthquake damage and carry on with life as usual (life as usual does include not even noticing damage or demolished buildings and cracks in the road...it's like it just washes over you after a while).
I haven't felt an aftershock in a while but I've learnt you can't get too relaxed (especially after the ones on 23rd December which found me climbing up in the ceiling checking to see what had happened to our header tank after water was coming down through the hot water cupboard).
Sunday 26 February 2012
Water, water, every where
- Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris
So how did I spend the first part of my "summer" holiday (which feels like a lifetime ago now)? Well last Christmas M and I went kayaking in the Queen Charlotte Sound which was amazing so this year a group of us decided we were going to kayak in the neighbouring sound, the Pelorus Sound. The 4-day trip turned into a 5-day trip when the weather went from wet to wild and we were trapped (we did attempt to paddle back but it became apparent there was no way that was going to happen). The days were long and hard and I ended up very sick by the morning of the fourth day. It was quite an experience!
So much gear to pack!
The views are incredible in the Pelorus Sound. It's breathtaking.
Food...food is good. Over half the party was vegetarian or vegan so we all cooked together. When you're kayaking you can take heaps of stuff so we had tinned beans, heaps of fresh vegetables, wraps, tofu, pasta, wraps, rice...epic amounts of food. Turned out to be fortunate as we couldn't get back in on the last day and had to stay out an extra night.
So the boys decided we were going to portage (meaning carry the kayaks) over the bank. You can see that it wasn't exactly flat. In fact on the other side it was more of a sheer drop!
It rained so hard during the second night that our campsite was flooded out in the middle of the night and we had to (carefully) move our tents in the dark. By daylight the water was at least up to my ankles and deeper in places.
Awesome group of people and an awesome trip.
Sunday 19 February 2012
The ancient history decorated in tinsel
- Snuff by Terry Pratchett
Oh man, it’s been a LONG time. So long that I can’t even remember everything that’s happened! I was trying to go through all my photos and it all got a bit much! I can’t believe it’s already two thirds of the way through February. Where is the year going?
I know it was months ago but the easiest place to start seems to be Christmasy stuff. Christmas time basically involves lots more cooking, baking, eating, socialising and all that kind of stuff.
The weekend before Christmas M and I travelled up to Auckland for the annual family get together. To start with we proceeded to eat our way around some of my favourite places in Auckland (as well as catching up with some of our favourite people) including lunching at Cosset...
No, I didn't eat ALL of that! But what I did eat was delicious!
We then had to devour lots of food at the family Christmas party that evening. I'd made my tofukey which always goes down well. It's nights like this that make me miss being back up in Auckland with my family. My aunts and uncles are like second parents and my cousins have become brothers and sisters.
Pancakes for brunch at Revel were the perfect way to recover from the food coma of the night before (okay, that's not strictly true but it seemed like an awesome idea at the time). They were buckwheat pancakes served with rhubarb...delicious.
Christmas eve was all about singing carols in the park whilst trying to keep the candle from blowing out (which we failed at miserably!).
Christmas itself was spent at M’s family’s house where we got to eat potatoes that were dug from the garden right before our very eyes and I ate peas straight from the pod (11 peas in one pod - apparently that's good luck).
I made tofukey and Christmas pudding (which was served with soy cream and fresh berries) for everyone. I love Christmas food. Christmas cake was also made...I think I might need to make another one now so we can enjoy it at all times of the year.
All in all I think it was quite possibly the best Christmas I've ever had. Yay!
Join me next time when I dive back down into the deep archives of time since my last post and find some other exciting things to tell you about! I promise it won't be far away.