A beautiful Mt Victoria house

My story about this amazing reno which, handily, happens to be just around the corner from my house, is the cover story of this month's NZ House & Garden Magazine, one of two stories I have in this issue (click here to read it).

   

Home and garden envy

I spent a couple of hours this afternoon with the couple who own this renovated Mt Victoria villa for an interiors magazine. She's an architect and he's a photographer so the place was pretty spectacular.

Much like their house, they were interesting and entertaining. Best of all, we bonded over our unashamed love for our suburb. There's definitely nowhere else in Wellington I'd rather live.

Here'a a couple of scouting pix.

A love letter to my suburb

The September issue of North & South Magazine runs my piece on how I was won over by possibly the best suburb ever, Mt Victoria.

Thanks to the Animator, who took the pix and who gets a big, fat credit under my name. Click here to read.

And the cover of the September issue.

   

Too smart for kids?

This month's North & South Magazine runs a cover story on why some of NZ's smartest women aren't rushing to breed - and asks if we need to be concerned.

The editor asked me to contribute a 900 word piece to this feature about my reasons for not sprogging. You can either read the entire piece here or click here to skip to my bit of it.

Illustrating my story is this lovely pic that the Animator took atop Mt Victoria.

   And here's this month's N&S Mag cover

Photos and drinks

There was much fist-shaking at the weather gods who rained on our photo shoot for a national magazine (to go with my story about living in Mt Victoria).

Thankfully, we managed to race out between showers and hopefully the art director has enough to go on. Here are some of the out-takes.

Tonight we're having drinks with a few of the neighbours, including a couple who are heading off to France for three months. I have been trying to keep the Animator away from this cake all day.

  

Birdlife

The Grumpy Olympics were in full swing today - everyone from colleagues to the chick at the bookstore to the receptionist at my doctor's surgery seem to be enthusiastically competing.

Having blown out the cobwebs with a post-work run, the Hound and I found, as we rounded the corner to our street, a bastard neighbourhood cat attacking a poor defenceless bird. I raced over and snatched the tiny bird from the jaws of the stupid cat and legged it home. What I know about our avian friends would barely fill a post-it-note, but I somehow managed to get the bird into the laundry.

Bristol of course, was fascinated so I had to lock him outside while I trawled the internet for a local bird rescue organisation. I eventually tracked down a very nice chap who, unfortunately, focused only on rescuing injured ducks. He managed, however, to put me in contact with a woman in Upper Hutt who, despite being in the bath (!) calmly talked to me about the bird's injuries - the loss of most of its tail and wing feathers and a munted foot - and suggested I find a large box, fill it with newspaper, bowls of water and softened dog kibble and leave it be. It would, she said, be stressed after its ordeal. It's not the only one.

The agitated tweets coming from the laundry seem to have stopped; either the poor mite has passed or the dark, warm box is working its magic. I shall check on it before I go to bed.

Here's a photo of it shortly after the dramatic rescue, spurning our offer of water and bread. If you were in the vicinity of Mt Victoria tonight, that demented woman chasing a cat down the street was, indeed, me.