Not everyone wants to be on tee-vee

Yesterday afternoon, while desperately trying to force words from my brain onto the screen, an email plopped into my in-box.

It was an invite from a member of the No Kidding group we joined last year. Seems one of NZ's main current affairs shows is doing a piece about why educated folk are increasingly choosing not to have kids and needed some talking heads. It wasn't a live i/view and there was the chance to set some boundaries, etc around what we were, and were not, comfortable talking about.

As much as I love banging the drum for over-population/depletion of the world's scarce resources/indiscriminate breeding/voluntary child-free-ness, I had to decline. Not only because I'm doing a similar piece for another (print) channel, but also because it's a news outlet I despise and because journos make the worst interview subjects. And, just quietly, because when I worked at TVNZ about a hundred years ago, we got to record ourselves reading the auto-cue at the newsreaders desk (a surprisingly hard task), and I realised then that I was not cut out for TV.

Still, it was nice to be asked...

         
(Pic credit: someecards)

My cup runneth over

You know that thing about knowing your limits/saying no when there's already too much on your plate?

My memo must have got lost in the post. Or something.

Today the courier dropped off these three beauties that I need to digest and then recommend, or not, to readers of a national monthly magazine. In 150 words.

The fee, of course, is barely commensurate with the time involved (no-one ever got rich book reviewing) but since books are my thing, and freebies are never, ever bad, I have been doing the happy dance all day.

      

Disturbing picture #1

This is what getting caught in rain of Biblical proportions whilst on a 7km run looks like.

And yes, that deeply unattractive possum-in-the-headlights look is partly because I discovered the mascara manufacturers weren't lying about their product's 'no run' properties and partly because my trainers were so waterlogged I could barely walk, letalone run, home.  

Less than ideal meteorological conditions aside, my first outing with the running group was fun and proved the point that without others to motivate me, I'm hopeless at getting my lardy arse off the couch.

Apparently they run in rain (tick), sun and earthquakes, so that's my Wednesday evenings sorted for the next wee while.

    

Hong Kong and UK, here I come!

Eight hundred and seventy three emails later (I can, it seems, never pass up an opportunity to exaggerate), and my media trip to HK and Europe seems to be coming together.

Well at least my comped flights with the marvellous Cathay Pacific are sorted, anyway. Baby steps.

Missives are currently flying across the world to set up lunches, dinners and sleep-overs with mates in HK, London and Bristol. I especially CANNOT wait to see my besties Anita, Frenchie and Yoma in Bristol.

In the meantime, there is a stupidly long list of stuff to tick off. But at least I finally have some kind of traction...

     
(Pic credit: Vivienne Westwood) 

First day back

Returning to work after a holiday is a little like ripping off a sticking plaster - painful, unpleasant and, when it finally comes off, it takes a tiny piece of you.

Seriously, though, today was fine. Unlike last year, the first day back at the current contract didn't have me poking around the dustier corners of the internet for advice on anti-depressants.

Tonight after work, the Hound and I went on a gloriously long run in the bush; on our return we ran into one of Bristol's many GFs, a gorgeous black lab by the name of Lily, who positively fawned all over him.

Dinner was at 7.30pm in the back garden in the blazing hot sun. Happy days.

Something else in my bliss bag is this cute vintage tin I picked up at a Masterton second hand shop in November for the princely sum of eight bucks. It really rocks a pink hydrangea, doesn't it?

And, to balance out the colour wheel, here's some purple hydrangeas too...

A weekend in the Wairarapa with Taste Magazine

Back in November, you may recall we left HRH in the capable hands of our sitter Tania and tangled with the Friday night exodus from Wellington for a weekend in the Wairarapa (wine country an hour north of the Capital) for a story for Taste Magazine.

The Jan/Feb issue just out features the piece and glorious pics from the talented Animator. Click here to read.

Walkies

Today's meet-up group tackled the Pass of Branda on Wellington's Eastern Walkway (who even knew there was such a thing?)

It was a two hour walk and lots of fun. Afterwards we decamped to the fabulous Spruce Goose Cafe for coffee and curly fries, to a backdrop of planes doing whatever it is planes do.

Tonight there will be take-out, red wine and this brilliant piece of televisual entertainment.