To start your Friday, kiwis, I’m dishing up a serving of some of my favourite NZ-generated internet bits and pieces recently. Got eight of ‘em for ya …
(1) Chelsea at Aftermirth is back after a rather lengthy absence. Hey Chelsea! (*waves*) Wish you had more time for blogging, coz it’s good to see ya again!
Chelsea says:
If you’re a parent with a blog who has managed to keep up regular posting while their child is a toddler, I would say I envy you. But I don’t. I think you’re either (1) crazy (2) on crack or (3) both.
Touché, touché. (Option 3 applies in my case … but caffeine is my nerdy crack.)
(2) Spring in New Zealand! It’s the autumn-iest of autumns I’m experiencing right now; I’m all about hazelnuts and jaunty little berets and mary-janes with tights, and red wine at room temperature of an evening … but I can’t help but feel a twinge of spring-like excitement in my heart, in sympathy with Southern Hemisphere beauty like this sort of thing, over at Heart Felt. Stunning, stunning pics. Makes me want to buy a house in Featherston (poor man’s Greytown?)
Image by Heart Felt
(3) In-between season (doesn’t really matter if it’s your spring or my autumn) fashion courtesy of Jenny at Mend and Make New. Jenny, you’re on my wavelength! I can’t go past a patterned pant these days while out a-thriftin’ … just picked up a pair meself, H&M via one of the awesome bulk English second-hand clothing shops Hungary does so well.
Jenny’s little boy’s response was ‘Mum, you can’t wear your PJs to church!’ Ha! Cuter or more devastating than the one I got? Husband, in response to ‘how do you like these PANTS?!’ ‘…. *grunts* aren’t they a bit eighties?’
(5) My favourite kiwi food blogger, Hungry and Frozen, is doing raspberry, pear and basil smoothies here, and photographing them in some glorious tableware (how great would patterned pants in these colours be, Jenny??
(6) Did you know that yesterday was ‘Roald Dahl Day’?? My Best Friends Are Books was celebrating it by waggling his BFG ears. What did you do?? (Albeit unknowingly, I was eating snozzcumbers. That is to say, I piously ate the last of some cucumbers that we’d been given from the neighbour lady a while ago and that had been hanging around in there for a while).
(7) Those intelligent ladies over at the Lady Garden have a guest post offering a practical guide to making a select committee submission – timely stuff if, for example, you want your voice to be heard not only on the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill (which the Lady Garden piece focuses on) but also on the Parental Leave and Employment Protection (Six Months’ Paid Leave) Amendment Bill, which would do what it says on the tin – extend New Zealand’s measly parental leave from 14 weeks to 26. This is something I feel really strongly about – John, how are we supposed to breastfeed our kids like the World Health Organization and your uber-efficient health system (?) want us to, when you”re shoving us back into the office three months into the project?? If you want to spend 10 seconds online making a pre-drafted submission, see here.
(8) And finally, this ad, which Mr A came across on Hungary’s equivalent to stuff yesterday (is this on NZ telly at the moment? Forgive me, I don’t know). It’s rare you come across any sort of connection between my home country and the country in which I live in the mainstream media, so when I find one I tend to squeee a little. The Hungarians are mildly up and arms about this (check out the YouTube comments; it’s mostly disgruntled patriots) because they know that what’s being said here is not ‘We have faster cheaper internet’; it’s ‘Even we [implied: dirty old third-world peasants] have faster cheaper internet’. But I can tell you for real: those ads (here’s the other) are not playing up the quaint/shabby/not so pretty vibe of this country as it appears to kiwi eyes … That old lady, and the house she’s sitting in front of? She could be my neighbour. The one who gave us the snozzcumbers. This is my life. The internet service provision is very, very good here; but I miss you guuuuuuuuuys!!
Daisy
I’ll have to get myself in gear, and try to post on my blog more often. I hadn’t realised people actually read it. Ha!
do it!!