Mr first ever Listener story

I grew up reading The Listener magazine so it's a particular thrill to have my first ever story in this week's issue, a travel piece on Hawaii (click here to read).

Photos, of course, by the Animator.

Swag

Below are some of the goodies I was gifted by the part-time copywriting gig at the glorious Antipodes Nature.

Every new starter gets a session with the beauty expert, who works out the products suitable for individual skin types. This is the bounty she recommended for me.

Doing the Happy Dance right now...

    

The Danish Girl

I managed to blag a media ticket to The Danish Girl tonight and holy crap, it was every level of gorgeous.

Easily the best film I've seen this year (admittedly we are only 27 days into it, but you know...).

Go and see it if you can.

Running & Walking Guide

My first story in Good Health Choices Magazine is a guide to running or walking your first event/half/full marathon (click here to read).

Now I just need to take my own advice....

LA Cemetries

By the time you read this, my feet should have stopped aching.

We danced our butts off at a friend's 50th last night - and got to bed at 3.00am, a time I haven't seen for years.

But it was a good night - and a slow start today with brunch with the birthday girl and a heap of hangers on.

I now need to go sort out a barbie for friends but in the meantime, here's a link from a travel piece in today's Sunday Star Times about LA cemeteries I recently visited (click here to read). 

(Pic credit: Google Images)

Mumtrepreneurs

Love the term or hate it,my story on three Kiwi mumtrepreneurs who started businesses is in the February issue of NEXT magazine (click here to read).

    

A long - and full - weekend

Happy Birthday Welli - and thanks for the extra day's holiday.

This weekend we will be honouring our favourite city with a dinner party (tonight), brunch (Saturday morning), a 50th birthday party (tomorrow night) and a BBQ for friends at ours on Sunday night.
Oh and a friend from school days who's flying over from Oz for the 50th is also staying with us on Saturday night.

In between, I need to find some time to finish a couple of stories and start another one.

I'm going to try my hardest to stick to the dry January thing, but whether it's with a wine or a juice, I will be sure to toast the coolest little capital in the world this weekend.

  

(Pic credit: www.wellingtonnz.com)

Serial

I am so late to this party, even the hard-core drunks have gone home.

But holy mother of God, the first series of  Serial, the podcast from the creators of This American Life, is outstanding. I've been reading overseas bloggers bang on and on about it for more then a year. And now I have finally caught up.

The best thing? There's a whole other series after this one.

The most fun you can have at work

Today, at the part-time copywriting gig, I spent a couple of hours with the beauty/product expert familiarising myself with the company's range and trying out all sorts of cleansers, serums, lipsticks and powders.

There is a heaven, afterall.

A way with words

My story on a fascinating typeface designer is in the Feb issue of North & South Magazine (click here to read).

  

My website is FINALLY live!

Circumnavigate the earth. Several times.
Walk across Australia. Barefoot.
Hoover every house in my neighbourhood. Until the carpet is threadbare.

These are all things I could have done in the time it's taken me to develop this bleeding website.

Okay so I (slightly) exaggerate but it does feels as though it's taken an age.

But it is now live and I finally feel like a grown-up. It will help enormously when pitching stories.

Thanks to the ever fabulous Animator for helping me with the technical stuff and talking me down from the ledge when it all got a little overwhelming.

If you'd like to check it out, and I wish you would, click here for the link.

  

What a Week

Stupidly busy times in our household this week.

The Animator has bid adieu to The Thunderbirds for a few months to work on a film featuring a very cool Hollywood actress (click here) which is being shot in Welli. He is hoping for sightings. That's when he's not working 14 hour days, that is. We hardly ever see him anymore.

I, meanwhile, have started a new part-time copywriting contract at a super cool natural skincare and cosmetics company based not too far from my house (a 10 minute walk, in fact). It's the most fragrant place I've ever worked.

I predict we will both sleep most of this weekend.

Here for your viewing pleasure, and because I need something beautiful to rest my eyes upon, are these furry beauties.

Happy weekend, y'all.

  
(Pic Credit: Tumblr)

Bravo Bologna

The first cab off the Bologna rank is published in this week's NZ Woman's Weekly (click here to read).

Middle Eastern Oasis

My travel feature on Oman is published in the January issue of the Australian Women's Weekly (NZ edition), the first story I've had in that mag for years and years (click here to read).

It's been nine days since my last drink

I'm not an alcoholic or anything (although sometimes I like G&Ts and a good red more than is possibly advisable) BUT I have decided to have a dry January.

So far it's going okay - although I went to friends' for dinner on Wednesday night and while the three boys ripped into the good bubbly, I had to make do with a cranberry juice. But having overindulged last year, I think it's only fair to give sobriety a go, as farking tedious as it is.

Today, as I sat outside in the glorious sunshine and read another review book (a goodie too) I came within a whisker of chucking in the towel and cracking an ice cold bottle of pinot gris.    

Instead, I remembered a refreshing mint lemon drink I'd consumed gallons of when I'd been dessicated by the heat in Oman and Dubai last year. As luck would have it, the Animator's mint crop is going gangbusters, so it was the work of a few minutes to turn mint, lemons and ice into this thirst quencher.

Did it taste good? To the power of 10. Will it ever replace fermented grapes in my affections? Not bloody likely.

Bring back 1995

This morning, I was interviewing a very wise and interesting woman for a magazine story at a downtown cafe. At one stage, this woman looked around the cafe and remarked how everyone was jabbing at their phones instead of engaging with other human beings.

It reminded me of this pic that someone sent me recently.

  
Yeah, what the sign says.

Seafood fever

My story on Noryangjin Fish Market, a smelly but fascinating early morning jaunt, should you find yourself in Seoul any time soon, is published on the Flight Centre blog (click here to read).

Dubai's art hotel

Last year, I was lucky enough to visit Dubai twice on Emirates media trips. The first time, I stayed at the fantabulous Jumeriah Creekside hotel, an 'art hotel' where surfaces are slathered thickly with every conceivable type of art.

My piece on the visual delights that greeted me everytime I left my room, plus the art tour I did, was published in the Urbis Magazine blog last month (click here to read).

Freeway of Fear

My feature on driving phobias is published in the current (Jan 2016) issue of North & South Magazine (click here to read).

 

The world's coolest capital

A few weeks ago I spent a day in the company of the lovely Welli tourism folk for a story on my fair city.

That story was published in today's Sunday Star Times (click here to read).

Eating Dubai

Happy New Year. We are just back from two weeks at the beach house and I am missing the sea already. I can't believe how much our simple wooden bach has become my happy place.

In the meantime, another of my stories about a Dubai food walking tour is published in the Flight Centre blog (click here to read).