head to toe (or perhaps, vice versa)

I have nightmares when my feet are hot.

Now, I've known for a while I can't get to sleep as long as my feet are cold. If I wander round our wintry-even-if-heated flat with bare feet for a short while prior to getting into bed, my feet are inevitably cold and I won't loose consciousness until they warm up. The temptation therefore is to wear thick wooly socks to keep the tootsies toastie.

Last night though, I made my occasional mistake of wearing them to bed, and feeling so nice and warm I just left them on. This has unintended effects. Last night I woke in the middle of the night, having just been attacked by an unfortunately enthusiastic cobra-style snake, somewhere out in a remote bush area... in Thailand, I think? Bitten and just about to find out if fatally poisoned, I believe, was the point my dream auto-escape mechanism kicked in and I woke up. With, I realised soon afterwards, sizzling hot feet in my hugely thick socks.

This is not the first time this has happened to me. Fortunately, as nightmares go that wasn't the worst possible one, I guess. But I've definintely noticed the pattern now... hot feet=bad dreams.

Who would have thought.
 

banana chocolate yoghurt birthday

Bronwyn's 30th birthday continued yesterday, with this creation I baked, a new recipe developed from previous favourites. It met with acceptable reviews.  : )

This afternoon we had the final installment in her week of celebration. The week had begun with our trip to Dublin last weekend, continued with her actual birthday on Tuesday, and rolled on with the arrival on Wednesday of the Silver dress watch I bought for her—a model seen in Dublin on Saturday, and ordered on the internet on Monday. The cake yesterday kept the hearth warm for this afternoon's final event, hanging out in a local cafe with friends we'd invited along. This particular cafe in the Wimbledon Village was selected for serving a range of excellent fruit smoothies—a rare commodity 'round here. We had a good time. So, happy birthday again my love!
 

take me to your leader

As I sit here in the theatre at the Apple Store in Regent Street, the VJ is spinning out the vibes while people engage in that ancient jungle rite of buying Mac gear in time for Christmas... While this may not be the mothership it's a definite Apple experience and far different from any retail store I've been to before. Nick and I came into the city today for my first visit—he came to the store opening last weekend—and we haven't managed to identify a product here we don't want yet. (OK. I don't want the 17" iMac G5, but then, that's because I want the 20" one...) Bronwyn is going to hate this entry! But this is not simple unadulturated consumer lust, it is the pure appreciation of beauty. Truly. Nothing more. Though (totally unreated to today's visit) I feel there is a new Mac in my future.

Posting via the free wireless network at the store. More later... Right now, back to the surrounds. After all, an Apple a day...
 

to blog or not to blog

If you're here because you wanted an update, well, I'd like to oblige, though this hardly counts. I want to blog, but I can't. It's too late.

However, we've packed our final Christmas present ready for dispatch to the Antipodes tonight, the only one we're airmailing this year—much more organised than we were last year. Nice to be sorted. We're even almost sorted on local gifts... truly a record.

I hope to blog properly tomorrow...
 

happy bronwyn day!

Happy 30th birthday, Bronwyn, my love!

Perhaps we'll give more reports on events o' the day later in the week. For now I just want to say how wonderful it is to see Bronwyn so healthy and full of life, a far cry from how she was on my 30th birthday earlier this year. We thank God for the good care she received then and for how excellently he made us, to be able to overcome serious illness.

And we're looking forward to all the new things that the next year may bring... 'Cause we're real adults now, right?
 

home

An entry 'specially for any worrying relatives, simply to say we're home safe and sound. Full trip entries have been written on some tree, so now just gotta digitise... May have to wait till tomorrow—8 hours sleep a requirement of household harmony tonight...
 

dublin some more, then home

The day dawned fine, though it had rained hard in the night. Cold overnight temperatures again rendered our patented rooftop refrigeration technology a success, and I consumed my chilled Mullerrice with glee. An Irish breakfast also under the belt (OK, Continental for Bronwyn) we set out. Being Sunday, first on the agenda today was a Sung Eucharist at Christ Church Cathedral. I impatiently said to Bronwyn, “Of course it's Catholic” as she paused (vital lateness-creating seconds) to read the sign. We were confident her status and experience of Mass as a teacher in a Catholic School now would see us through. Turned out in any case to be Church of Ireland, the local francise of the Anglican Communion and welcoming to boot. Coffee after the service different in a mood-lit crypt.

A converted chimney stack on the grounds of an old distillery (that now only purifies Euros out of tourists) caught our attention with “unrivalled views of Dublin” or similar. In many cities this unassuming 60m tower woud be dwarfed. Here it gave views over a fairly industrial town, a far cry from European gems like Florence, and a town that had the appearance of being recently constructed by boys who knew not of tidying. As Bronwyn first observed, in many ways Dublin reminded us of Berlin—the current renaissance here primarily economic rather than political, though the Republic of Ireland remains young, only founded in 1949. And unlike towns like Florence, this is clearly a city on the move.

Lunch in the Distillery Cafe for a break from all this hard, um, tourism, before beginning the trip home. First on foot—via the Rememberance Gardens—back to our B&B to pick up our luggage, then a walk to another bus route. We walked through streets that I likened to an (unnatural?) melding of London and Palmerston North in style and feel. Bus to the airport and I'm already leaving Dublin behind as I read an abandoned copy of The Independent on Sunday rather than absorb the view. Iraq features.

Airport, shmareport, same as all the others. Run pre-recorded tape: Duncan sits at departure gate while Bronwyn shops—efforts partly thwarted this time by Duncan having her book, and thus her boarding pass, preventing her from buying anything at duty free stores, free of duty or otherwise. “Early” check-in on a budget airline (ie. 2 hours pre-flight) means although they do not have assigned seating we got “Priority” boarding and were able to pick bulkhead seats. Soon back at Luton.

Further confusion regarding the trains to and from Luton, as this time our tickets all the way back to Wimbledon cost just £10.10 each, a further 10p discount. We are assured the tickets do not cover Tube travel and so try to take the 15 minutes longer Thameslink route. But when we find the Thameslink doesn't even run to Wimbledon after 5pm on a Sunday, we try our luck and find Tube gates open without complaint. Bemused. Finally home at 9:45pm, later than hoped but safe and happy and acceptably relaxed about work tomorrow. Ah. Home.
 

dublin wanderings

Bronwyn's original plan had been to take the train out to a coastal town today, but drizzerable weather and a developing cold for Duncan put a dampener on this idea. Uncharacteristically, Duncan encouraged wandering the shops, and we soaked up Dublin essence while searching jewellery shops for a possible 30th present for Bronwyn. A visit to the (fully operative) general post office provided an introduction to Dublin history—this building having been the headquarters of resistance and focal point during the Easter Uprising of 1916, which ultimately led to the founding of the Irish Republic.

Despite the typically-seasoned weather, streets were busy as we wandered past the 2003 “Spire", over the River Liffey, and into the touristy Temple Bar area. The Tourist Information Centre, in an attractive old church building, provided information and tickets to a later event. Then headed for but missed a walking tour on Dublin history, that had left just before from Trinity College. Opted instead for lunch in the bustling Avoca department store's cafe, where a Cranberry, Pear, and Pecan scone was followed by a bill in a colourful cover printed “The Damage”. Rated Life Scone #2, beaten only by recent sconage in the Lake District.

Further wandering found a 17 inch iMac G5, the first we've seen of the new design, this model being the baby brother of the 20 inch monster we're to order soon. Later saw a 20 inch Sony Vaio, a much more expensive machine that gave Bronwyn her first glimpse of the screen size we're getting ourselves in for! Yum. From there, wandered to the Natural History and Archaeology Museum—"free tour 3:30pm... tickets €2”. ?!? Turned out to be the former, a good deal. Scribing these thoughts filled space for me, while Bronwyn wandered for an hour, marking time...

Our tour guide was a 20-something Irish woman, surely an Archaeology graduate, and she enthused her way knowledgeably through the tour. The museum, like many others, is able to display on 5&prcnt; of its collection at any one time. The nominal value of the vast collection of gold Celtic relics is in the billions of Euros. “James Bond” lasers guard the place, we were told. We staggered about, fluey and sleep deprived, suitably impressed. After the tour we collapsed in the Recent History room, ignoring the artefacts to watch the silent slide show of the 1916 Easter Uprising play out on four massive plasma screens. (N.B. Revolutionaries: It didn't end well.)

We meandered across town, on a (too late discovered to be) futile plan to eat dinner in a well-recommended soup restaurant that had closed at 5pm. Opted instead for The Oval, self-congratulatingly renowned for “The Best Irish Stew in Dublin”. Settled into seats on the top floor, well served by another plasma screen this time silently playing out the first minutes of the All Blacks-Wales test. Err, of course. We knew that was on. Fervent supporters. Just why we're here. Go Black! Stretched Irish Stew/Soup and half pints of Guinness out to 80 mins with a slice of ordinary Black Forest... let's say sponge. 26-25 win good enough but felt like Bush back in the White House—clear victory, slim mandate.

Prebooked entertainment awaited, live Irish music with explanatory standup (sitdown?) comedy from two Irishmen on a facilitated pub crawl. At times familiar, at times hilarious. Greatest national disaster in Ireland, they told us: Brewery strikes. Like meteorologists name hurricanes, the Irish give them names... “Brewery Strike Beatrice”. “That's a Category Three Brewery Strike.” Bronwyn says she had tears in her eyes with laughter... Near the end a call for volunteers, an old Irish custom—did anyone want to go up and sing a song, or play a piece of music? A gorgeous brunette Kiwi got up and wowed the crowd with a Maori waiata, the only offering. Personally, I was so impressed I took her home with me...
 

london—dublin

We could not have faced our NZ-based Irish friends had we lived in the UK for two years and never made the short hop across to Ireland. With Bronwyn's 30th for impetus we booked a short break—our first overseas trip for just the weekend.

In a mix of muddled thinking, some limitations in our geographical knowledge, and a period of too-stressed-to-plan, we hadn't really been thinking of this trip to Ireland as going “overseas” per se. It was an afterthought while packing for me to get out our €100 left over from our last trip and put it in my wallet even. But by the time we'd finished packing we'd got ourselves straight.

The trip to Luton was uneventful though we were left slightly bemused when Duncan's Wimbledon-Kings Cross plus St Pancras-Luton Airport Parkway combined ticked was £10.20, while Bronwyn's ticket for just the (shorter) second leg came to £10.40! We made it to Luton nonetheless, Bronwyn reflecting that with £2.50 fares Wimbledon-Heathrow on the tube, flying on “cheaper” flights from Luton wasn't always the deal made out to be. We've now racked up flights out of almost all of London's airports though—Heathrow (a number of trips), Gatwick (Berlin and Prague I think?), Stanstead (Rome), and now Luton—with the sole exception of City airport in the Docklands. Flights from there tend to be pricier thanks to convenience, but the view on takeoff and landing over the city are reputedly more than worth it.

Our Ryanair flight 50mins to Dublin was uneventful, bulkhead seats leaving sufficient legroom for oversized D. Were that the bus journey so uncomplicated... Though we agreed to catch the €5pp shuttle to the city due to the hour (9.30pm), when faced with the option of a €1.60 local bus I got all huff-huff-tourist-tax and we caught the local.

To be continued... Internet cafe closing.

Sitting upstairs on the local bus we became steadily nervous about the time we'd arrive at our B&B as the time ticked by. I was working hard to positively reframe the excessively noisy and profane youths in the back seat... with some success until we were partly drenched with strawberry milk. The still 1/3 full projectile itself wedged in the seat-front next to me, giving the man in the row ahead the most thorough of our lactose baptisms. Bus came to a halt. Police ("Garda") called. The youths in question eventually scarpered, after quite a while but in time to not answer for their apparently racially-motivated milk crime. A number of angry passengers, not least the black Frenchman at whom the missile appeared to have been targeted.

We arrived at the city, reading at that point (and for the first time) the part of our instructions for our B&B that noted we must confirm our arrival time. Phonebox provided an opportunity, playing police-related-incident-on-the-bus trump card for sympathy. Route 19a soon had us at our final destination anyway.

B&B nice. Sloping roof on Duncan's side of the bed made for amusing rising. TV in the room a sleep-delaying novelty—as always, even the ads are entertaining since we don't have TV at home. Ireland strongly reminiscent of New Zealand in tone, a feeling reinforced by their television programmes. Another midnight lights off, ending a week of foolishly late nights.
 

c is for cookie

Three things that are good enough for me:

• double chocolate cookies in a paper bag
• an episode of Stargate with the family
• and being all packed for our trip to Dublin tomorrow, an early birthday trip for Bronwyn's 30th next week!

..."cookie cookie cookie starts with C”... Ah, there's nothing like the classics. We may be able to blog from Dublin... we'll certainly be jotting some notes down on WiPly if we can't find anything else, so some updates will appear when we're back at the worst.

Now, everybody, aaaand “A is for A Cookie, that's good enough for me..."
 

eye of the yawn

There is a time, between sleep deprivation and the final payback. You've gone beyond the initial bloodshot eyes and rattled feeling of waking after only 5.25 hours sleep, through the jaded sleepy workday, and you (or your spouse) are yet to experience the period of unreasonable irritability that will come on the second day. You've entered the eye of the yawn. Everything seems calm, and you know you are at peace with the world. You've suffered few ill effects from staying up till 1:45am last night, and it was all worthwhile.

Stay tuned, boys and girls, because as surely as a hurricane is simply a rewound tornado, this one will be coming back from the other side tomorrow. But for now, I can have no regrets about staying up and finally finishing a certain festive season project that was rapidly heading for a hard deadline. I'm pleased with the work, but now have to wait for the result to arrive. I'll let you know how it all turns out—after Christmas obviously—if I remember to!

The last two nights we'd had New Zealand friend/Melbourne resident Russell staying with us. Russell is accompanying a couple of Australian dance champions on a dancing and teaching tour, though he's no dance slouch himself and teaches as well as having won a few awards. (I think the schoolboy routine was just an excuse not to tuck in his shirt...) It was nice to have him here, and catch up on old times. Last night he was out burning up the dancefloor and expected home on the last tube. Thanks to my little project, “I won't be seeing you tonight Russell” turned into “I'll move out to the kitchen Russell so you can go to sleep...” He's headed off this morning, though we may be seeing him again next Monday. In the meantime, in his honour and in remembrance of old times (cheers Russ!), I watched a couple of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes from Nick and Hayley's DVD collection tonight. I'm almost through the first season... Ah, the quality acting. But you know I love it.
 

or...

Or... maybe not more tomorrow!
 

the update's over there...

Had a good day, not measured in achievement. The main thing I want to say in this quickly scribbled entry is that the real update's over there at timandmegan.babbage.tv. While Bronwyn went out to an open day at school this morning, I stayed in bed and redesigned their site. I hope you like it... (I hope they'll like it!)

This afternoon we went shopping for a 30th birthday present for Bronwyn. We're looking at getting her a nice dress watch, something that'll last her a long time, if not a lifetime. We went down to Old Bond Street in London, though the Lamborghini Diablo parked outside one of the stores we were looking in perhaps should have alerted us that we'd headed to the wrong part of town. Most expensive women's watch seen today: £27,950. Nice. To date we have refrained.

From there we headed down to the Thames, to see the free fireworks display that was celebrating the inauguration of the new Lord Mayor of London today. Unlike the Mayor of the City of London, the Lord Mayor is a figurehead position but it's always fun to have a bit of pomp and stare-omony. Due to a miscalculation we were a bridge further west on the Thames than would have been ideal. This meant we saw the fireworks somewhat in the distance, but on the other hand nicely framed by the London Eye.

We'd met New Zealand friends Salena and Steve at Westminster Tube station to see the fireworks, and afterwards brought them back out to ours. A roast dinner was waiting in the oven, a welcome thing to return home to on this cold November day. (Seven degrees, they reckoned.) Good to spend an evening catching up—the years do not diminish genuine friendship. Found my anecdote-telling somewhat quenched by Salena knowing many of the punchlines, due to having read this blog! (Hiya Salena!) An odd experience though: telling someone things you know you haven't already told them, yet feeling like the dreadful bore at the party who only knows the one joke! Good to end the evening praying to the God who binds us together, and who is calling all of us into the future...

Time for sleep. Only 11:12pm. We're doing well, by our recent standards. More tomorrow! (I onna roll.)
 

get up, back up, rack up

At 7.15am on Tuesdays a small group of us have a prayer meeting down at our local church here in Wimbledon. It's the only day I get up early... sometimes it feels too early. Since one of the batteries went on my watch some months back, the only alarm I've got is on my mobile. Lately I've been just waking up with Bronwyn's alarm, and getting up a little after her. But Tuesday I needed something early. So I set the mobile—6:15am. Evening passed, morning came. That was... well, so the alarm goes off, I feel ugh not enough sleep, but get up and head for the shower. Bronwyn expected to be hitting the shower about 15 mins later, in our strict bathroom order to get everyone to work. I shave. She never shows. Five minutes before Hayley is due to take over the bathroom, I head back to our room. “You've missed your shower...” quoth I. “It's 5:40am", her unassailable reply.

D'oh. My mobile was still on British Summer Time. I'd gotten up at 5:15am. I'd gone to bed close to 11pm too. Right now, it feels like I'm getting to old for stunts like this, even by accident. I stayed up, sent emails, tried to ring some friends in New Zealand. Ah, Titahi Bay. So, productive morning, but went through the day feeling totally surreal. Sleep. More sleep. I really gonna try to not do that again.

Tonight I've finally backed up our personal data from our computer. Turns out it was over four months since I'd last done this, which is despicable. I know that it's only a matter of time till we have a hard drive failure... It is inevitable. Why do I tempt disaster? Well I'd like to think I've learned, but... So if you haven't done a backup lately, just do it. Go. And do it. Now...

Finally, racking up the entries is my sister-in-law Megan on her new blog. As housemate Hayley commented tonight, she's managing to update more frequently than any of us despite having a three-week-old first baby. Scary. Makin' us look bad, Megan. Stand aside, coming through, got some high speed bloggin goin on...   : )
 

ready, aim...

Last year we stayed amateur with our fireworks appreciation, but on Friday we went professional. You could argue the bonfire alone may have been worth the £6 entry free to the Wimbledon Park fireworks, with the 10-12 foot high pile of pallets producing flames we thought were about 5 stories high. Behind the fence some 100ft away we could still well and truly feel the heat. We were there not just to watch the sky light up but also to celebrate the launch of another kind—Sonja and Colin's engagement recently, at Victoria Falls in South Africa. Great to see Colin again, recently arrived back from SA for a short visit. A hard time to have a long-distance relationship. Their wedding plans sound amazing, with talk of a three day event at a private game reserve in Africa. The stuff of fairytales... but fitting for an adventurous and international couple. Nice too to see my past Palmy colleague “Sexy Sue” and her fiancé there, who hauled the huge distance all the way down from northeast London for what ended up being a short visit with Sonja and Colin in the southwest. London is a big town.

Not content with just the Friday explosions, our church homegroup had a bonfire night at Chris and Carolyn's new home. This wonder in Merton Park is atypical for London real estate... with an unassuming frontage, this lovely house has a back yard that would make a lifestyler on the outskirts of Ashhurst happy... it's truly enormous. I baked up a storm and took along this creation I unassumingly dubbed “Choc-henge”. With the bonfire down in one corner, Chris and pastor Richard let off an array of fireworks—some of which would surely have required a commercial license in New Zealand. A couple were particularly spectacular by failing to take off and exploding at ground level, or falling over sideways and firing projectiles at the assembled children. They loved it. At the end the largest firework of all, a box about 20cm x 20cm x 30cm, failed to properly light, thanks no doubt to the light rain we'd been having. So it's drying out, and I understand the explosions are scheduled to continue at homegroup this coming Tuesday!

Finally, munitions and relationships aren't the only thing being launched around here this weekend. I'm pleased to welcome to the blogosphere the journal of my sister-in-law and my brother: timandmegan.babbage.tv. Ironically, it's almost exactly a year since a first attempt to get them online. This time, with a driving force being news regarding my baby nephew Fin, I think there will be more impetus to keep it going... And it's habit-forming, blogging, once you get properly started.

meh

I worked hard today. But I broke my own rules, probably a necessity but it left me with a bad taste at the end of the day. I have nominated Thursdays as a day when my time belongs not to my main employer, but to another service that contracts me for 1.5 days a week. I even hang a large bright orange sign on the door: “Not available for [local service's] work.” My colleagues are pretty good at respecting this; not trying to grab me for local problems. If only the guy sitting behind the door would follow the rules... Instead I ended up spending most of the morning preparing stuff for the local service for tomorrow. Problem is when I got to the end of the day I found not only had I not dictated the reports I intended to write today, but my backlog was bigger than I realised. Ugrh. I'm entertaining fantasies of going in at 6.30am tomorrow and clearing it.

I cooked dinner tonight. While I was cooking I was interrupted by a phone call from someone in an overseas country we're more than slightly familiar with, wishing to be my future employer. They'd received a copy of my CV from someone by a slightly roundabout route... Anyway, they wanted to know if I'd got their email on Monday (yes) and if I was potentially interested in their position (no). Oh. Er. Well, thank you, says she. I'm distracted. We ring off. The job wasn't even in the area I specialise in, and I've got Moroccan chicken wraps, made with turkey, about to be served. (It should be nice to be wanted, but, well, meh.) Return to the kitchen where Bronwyn, who to my twisted thinking forced this call upon me while I was cooking in the first place by not just taking a message, has added mushrooms to my Moroccan chicken—an ingredient not called for in the recipe. More like mushroom cloud in the seconds that follow, if you get my drift. I finish cooking, we inhale food. I then spent most of the rest of the evening bleaching the bathroom ceiling—if the landlord ever replaces the floorboards that are rotting we don't think we'll have to do this, but in the meantime... So I now have a clean bathroom, and a robust bleach headache. I'm munted.

Finally, Bush has won the presidential election, so as a number of people have observed we can no longer sympathise with the Americans thinking they have a president they didn't really want... Now they've definitely chosen him. I've already been boycotting the States in any ways possible. In particular, on the off-chance that we might fly to New Zealand at some point (er, ahem) I can say we will quite deliberately not be flying via American cities. This rules out flying through Canada too, as all routes through Canada then pass through LA or San Francisco. A pity. But worth it. Stick it to the man.