Category: Journal
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If there’s a car in the fridge …
I’ve never understood how someone could have a box of chocolates in their fridge for more than a few days. How do they do it? Give me a box of chocolates and the whole lot is gone in about 24 hours. Then what usually happens is I get a headache and feel sick and swear…
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A gaudy shirt and feminism
Ok, I promise not to write about this topic again after this post but I have to get this off my chest one more time. I got some thought-provoking comments on my last post about the gaudy shirt worn by scientist Matt Taylor on international television. Thank you. I appreciate all the comments. I even changed…
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The Rosetta shirt
I can’t resist writing a post about “shirtstorm”, the drama about the Rosetta guy and his shirt with cartoons of scantily-clad women. Humans have just landed a robot on a comet! This is an incredible achievement and yet everyone is so obsessed with someone’s choice of clothing that we have failed to appreciate the significance of what has just happened. So…
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Sexism, carnivorous plants, and cycling
I sometimes have problems spotting the more subtle forms of sexism. I’m not sure if this is because I’m a woman and I just don’t notice, or if it’s for some other reason. Fortunately I’m married to a feminist so I’m unlikely to be taken advantage of for being so naive about this. What constitutes…
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And the diagnosis is …
An ocular migraine. This is just as I thought but a nice relief nonetheless. And the cure is ……. menopause 🙂 Apparently an ancestor of mine had a baby at the age of 50 and in a time before fertility treatment was available so I’ll probably just have to be patient with this. I went…
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I’m still alive!
Thanks for all the lovely comments on my post yesterday and the emails, tweets, and text messages. I’m completely fine today. I was just over-reacting which is not so unusual for me. I’m pretty sure the vision loss was migraine-related. I was just confused because it was unlike any kind of vision impairment I’ve had before…
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Welcome to the NHS and banking in Britain
A strange thing happened to me this morning: very suddenly a grey cloud descended halfway into my vision on one eye. I could still see below this grey cloud but from about halfway across my vision and up, I couldn’t see anything. After about a minute, it vanished as quickly as it appeared. There was…
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Butt plugs, deadly nightshade, and hookers
Apparently a large, green, blow-up Christmas tree in the centre of Paris is outrageous and humiliating if you’re of a right-wing political persuasion. The sculpture, which was part of an exhibition of modern art, was vandalised by right-wing protestors. Why? Because it looks like a butt plug. I have to confess that I didn’t even know what a butt plug…
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The Fly
My children were fighting over dead flies yesterday. They came charging into my office arguing over why Elizabeth should have three dead flies and Daniel only one. I looked at them in disbelief and with more than a little exasperation said, “Children, you’re fighting over dead flies!!!”. Daniel immediately realised the absurdity of the situation and…
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Hard or soft?
We’ve got a new home: a rental but a really, really nice one. We got the keys yesterday but there are no beds here so I ordered some mattresses for the kids from an online store with the name MattressNextDay. Apparently mattress next day = mattress three days later. I also ordered a luxurious latex mattress…
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Nappy days
When our babies were in nappies (nappies = diapers) we used cloth nappies. I rarely bought disposables: they’re way too expensive and not very biodegradable so we invested in some good-quality washable nappies instead. I have a tendency to get obsessed with things and I got very obsessed with cloth nappies. I look back on this now and…
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An apology and Scottish independence
I retweeted a tweet earlier that I thought was funny but was criticised for tweeting foul language. I actually regret retweeting that tweet now (and have removed it from my feed), not so much because of the language – I do have a bit of a foul mouth – but because I can see that some might find…
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Panic mode
It’s time to panic and freak out. Less than two weeks to go before we leave for Scotland. Our house will be auctioned next week. We haven’t started any packing and I’ve only just listed our car on TradeMe today. How does TradeMe know more about our car than I do? Admittedly I know very…
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The 10 album challenge
Inspired by Denise’s post over at Listen Watch Read Share, I thought I’d try to compile my own list of top ten albums. It’s not such an easy task because music preferences change over time, so I’ve tried to select music that I’ve loved for years and that I never tire of. This is certainly…
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Music
I haven’t had much to say recently so I thought I’d share some music instead. I also want to try publishing a post from my iPhone, something I’ve not done before. I hope it works! Enjoy the song:
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Scotland, here we come!
A couple of weeks ago we sent off our visa applications for the UK. They had to be sent to Manilla for processing along with all our passports, including old ones, and original birth certificates for the kids, and our marriage certificate. We also had to have fingerprints and mug shots taken. The applications themselves…
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An Australian family history
Inspired by AndThen’s recent post about his family history, I thought I’d write a bit about my own. My family history is quite colourful. My great-great-great-great-grandfather was some kind of representative for Germany in a trade dispute in Cape Town, South Africa. His name was Maximilian Thalwitzer and he was born in Germany but later…
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Princess teeth
Elizabeth had her operation today. She was scheduled for 7am this morning so we left home at 6:30am thinking that we’d miss the Auckland traffic but no, the traffic was already thick. A journey which would normally only take about 15 minutes, took 35 minutes. Elizabeth was in good spirits and quite excited about the whole thing. She knew…
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Oops, sorry
Sorry, folks! I accidentally made a post to my ‘real’ blog that should have gone to my test blog. It was just text from a recent post and I deleted it almost immediately but it got sent out to my email followers (all three of you :)). I have lots of test blogs which I use regularly…
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Cockroaches, visas, and the Copenhagen wheel
I’ve discovered there’s something called the Madagascan Hissing cockroach. These are big mother-fuckers and there’s absolutely no way I’ll be letting Elizabeth adopt one of these as a pet. Fortunately they’re not found in New Zealand. We’ve begun the UK visa application process. There’s an online form that needs to be filled. At the top of…
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