Man may not be able to live on bread alone…but bread made with a lotta love goes a long way!
I have been experimenting with Irish Soda bread recently and it’s coming out really well! The photo here is a seedy version I made, it was absolutely yummy with the curry…. ;-P
Made this delicious supper for a friend and I this evening.. all because our new vegetarian Pizza shop was shut… happy accidents! Spinach is the latest food love of my life and Filo pastry is so easy to use, this is a Spinach and Ricotta tart with nutmeg. The salsa is just tomatoes as they are so cheap at the moment, with cucumber, chilli (of course..) and onion…
Once again I am awake at 3.00am…. and everything is always a bit surreal. Maybe wandering around in this victorian long white nightshirt is part of it…. But night time is a bit like flying….life is suspended, you can’t really do anything… apart of course from contact people online who are in a different time warp altogether.
Its pretty cool (but not very likely!) to have a friend for these times when you really need to offload, someone like minded who doesn’t mind if you text or call them at odd hours, but they are few and far between, I have only ever known one such person. Funny how odd folk can be about that….I have never minded being woken up at strange hours…
I think I like it actually, this never never land, and when the dawn does arrive, you have the hope of a new day. Although usually after an hour or so I am ready for the night again…..
I listened to this beautiful song during my wakeful hours…..
Bad blogging again I know… but well life has been full on, no excuse…blogging makes me feel good so I should just do it. I think I have *cave* syndrome… when all the chips are down I tend to run for cover..and hide in my cave.. sometimes I find it hard to dig my way out again…
Anyway I wanted to share this video passed on by my good friend Murray who is one of the most talented and interesting guys I have ever met… he is also a fellow xtracyclist extraordinaire!! Please check out his blog, photo’s etc.. you will not be dissapointed.
The video…very seasonal I guess… and clever!!
Furoshiki gift wrapping from RecycleNow on Vimeo
It looks grey… and it’s early, but no doubt it will get pretty hot later. It’s odd having the huge humid heat after the cold snap tho.. much harder to tolerate!
Today could well be my last day at work this year… I need the break, have a 20 foot shipping container to unload tomorrow, which I am not really looking forward to. This is full of stuff that the kids and I have not seen for almost 4 years and there is absolutely nowhere to put it! Why on earth all this stuff got sent I do not know… a triple wardrobe?!!!!! Baby seats???? The mind boggles… However, I am really looking forward to Henry’s smiling face… more about him later, but he could well become the new love of my life.
I got lights for my bike… have only ridden it around my very local area so far as I only got a helmet yesterday and you have to wear them by law here, but hopefully once the holidays start I can build up my nerve on the roads!
Lots of other stuff happening too.. the band I am managing, the album we recorded, (I don’t sing or play yet just produce and write songs…but I sure as hell intend to play one day!).. will have to get some photo’s uploaded.
Oh and I need to move my Mac…. away from the sun as it gets strange morphing blac blobs on the screen if the sun gets on it at all…. apparently they can’t do much about it. It could mean a whole bedroom change around and bad Feng Shui tho… :(
I sure need this long break!
Ok last week I wrote about the choosing of the bike…. well I did the choosing, and I have done the buying…now we have to do the naming!!!
I got the Townie…. those gears are necessary around here! But… it is now an Xtracycle, via addition of the Free Radical kit from these guys!
A friend of mine has an Xtracycle and we have talked about them and looked at all the funky stuff people do with them for a good while now. If I have a bike I am gonna need to carry stuff in order to make it useful, and indeed used… so there ya go…
It’s BIG, it’s BEAUTIFUL, and it needs a name…
Here are a couple of pics, they are not great as there was no room to stand back on my deck where I took them! Thats my mate on the bike, showing how it looks with a full sized person on board, admittedly he makes it look small but then he’s a foot taller than me and quite a lot wider :)
Any idea’s will be treated with the utmost consideration and respect…. I thought about buying it a big horn and calling it Big White Honky… hmmmm… ;)
I think I really must have lived a sheltered life…
The other night, my mate was here with his bike…. and we thought about going to this gig in town, it was late, so he offered me a ride on his crossbar…! His bike is like so tall, the saddle is the height of my shoulders, and it was dark and….well I almost wimped out, but remembering the thrill of the last bike ride I almost wimped out of, I climbed aboard! (The wrong way at first… but I have never done this before!)
Wow….! it was thrilling…. can’t believe how fast we got to town, way faster than a car it felt!!! Zooming round corners and I didn’t fall off.
I think I am in my second childhood…. I would just like to ride around on crossbars all day and eat picnics and drive on the beach and get on that other big bike now and then!
I am gonna buy a pushbike for me tho, I had a beautiful one but it got stolen, back in Blighty…this was my old bike.. a Pashley Princess…which I wanted for years and years…long story to that one, but I guess it went with the tower… and as Prince Charming and his white charger had long since absconded with my tube amp..well..I needed transport…
At the moment I am looking at getting an Electra Deluxe Cruiser
or a Townie…..
But…the one I really think I want is this baby
but then why wouldn’t I….? The other two have the advantage of being already in New Zealand tho!
The Townie has 21 gears which another mate assures me I will use if I have them, especially around here….. whereas the gorgeous red one only has 3 gears, as does the really funky one (get those tassles and that saddle!!)… but they are so sexy!!
Help!! Do I really need more than 3 gears? ;)
I love these mornings, I like it best before it gets light, and the sky is kind of grungy. I think the fact that I don’t have to get up and work also helps the, lurve the Universe and everything in it.. feeling!
I always found for me that this time of day is the best for tapping into my creative energy. To try and make the most of this, I start something, poetry, developing photo’s, whatever, and then go with it for as long as possible without letting my left brain kick in. This means I don’t do anything that requires being logical, I try not to answer the phone etc, because once I have to employ too much of the other side of the brain, I tend to lose focus. My mind is kind of on this little cloud space! I do sometimes do this during the day too… especially on car journeys when I am not driving. Oh and I tend to stay in my PJ’s… but that’s just an excuse.. pyjamas are my very favourite kind of clothing.
Talking of which, I am thinking of getting rid of all my clothes except pyjama’s….. then I will have a good reason to wear them everywhere..
Its so long since I wrote anything here… and yet…. I think, and do cool stuff and write all the time! So why can’t I make myself blog it? I think I would like to be able to be more *everyday* with this medium, more natural, just sharing random thoughts and writings… rather than have to have some *subject* to blog about….
Ok blogging sorted, onto my current very surprising passion….
The other day, I was asked by a friend if I wanted to go for a spin on his bike, *ahem*…. the last time I went on a bike was 20 years ago, since then I have become terrified of the things! When I became a mother I started to get all kinds of fears I had never had before, heights, flying, motorways, motorbikes..!! I guess I just don’t wanna die!! My sister is a biker and loves them, but neither she, nor any of the many friends I have known with bikes have managed to get me on one.
So, at first, I sort of tried to wimp out, mentioned my fear etc, but gee, I have done scarier things.. and So I went…! I trusted my mate, and his reassurance that it would all be ok… which goes a long way towards making you feel safe, bit also I have gotten to a point in my life, where I am opening up to new things… it rocks!
The experience started with me being told off for my inappropriate dress, but that was soon rectified.. then I had to learn what order to dress in.. kinda hard to do up your jacket when you have already put your lid and gloves on!! Soon we were on the road though, and within 10 minutes I was totally in love with the whole experience!! I cannot believe it, that I have missed this all these years, especially in a country as beautiful as New Zealand! You feel so much part of everything, the colours and air and smells..wow! Its just exhilarating…. of course I don’t need to tell any bikers this.. you know it all already! I even loved the speed and wanted to go faster and faster!! I am totally addicted, I love feeling muscles you haven’t used for ages, even my bony bum being a bit bruised was worth it!!! I just want more and more and more!! I am so thankful for this experience, and wow…. that it must have been offered at the perfect timing in my journey! Here’s the beautiful bike, a Triumph Daytona… looks just like a bug viewd from the front with the mirrors like little feelers….
There ya go… yet another passion to add to my collection… don’t ya just love the surprises life throws at you when you very least expect it…
Love poems…all round…. no excuses, no particular reason… I just like them, and being in love is a favourite emotional state of mine… even if it can be masochistic…..!
To The Moon
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
Percy Bysshe Shelley
My Life Closed Twice Before Its Close
My life closed twice before its close
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
Emily Dickinson
ok that one is a little sad, but I love it’s passion…
and last..a beautifully painted poem…. much quoted and loved, but still not heard enough! <br>
Had I The Heavens’ Embroidered Cloths
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
William Butler Yeats
Share a love poem with someone…or find one just for you.. we are all worth it…
