#52 Lists - List 10

* some notes on some, but not all, of the above:

• Mum's chicken soup recipe is so easy, and what's great is, it always tastes as good as she made, even when I've cooked it!
• By custard, I mean any type, including packet custard, but Faye's ice-cream custard recipe is fab and if you've got an egg in the house you can make it!
• I inherited my dad's lazy-boy chair and it's under a good light and perfect spot to read a good book.
• When I win lotto, I'm getting the bath put back in this house ... or buying a new house with a HUGE bath in it!
• I mean cashmere wool
• A duvet is the 'correct' term for a duna ;-)
• My sister-in-law bought me some yoga pants in the States and they have a gorgeous velvet feel to them - yet are just a knit fabric. They feel gorgeous, thanks Ali x
• My friend Della does the best roast dinner, which I am always grateful for, as living by yourself, you don't tend to cook a leg of lamb, or a whole chicken.

and finally, (not matching the above list) NOTHING beats a good hug.

#52Lists - List 9

An OLD list.

I just discovered a List I drew up 14 years ago, in 1999.  I was backpacking around Europe, had been living in Dublin and was on my last few weeks before flying home to New Zealand.

The list says:

I want to:

• do a varsity paper on something interesting
• do a photography course
• get a better car
• buy a house, or an apartment that I can decorate
• read some excellent books
• get back into piano
• be in a musical
• go to a ball!

I think that last one was because I was leaving Dell Computers just before the Christmas Ball which was due to be a pretty flash affair, black tie event in one of the posh hotels in Dublin.  I missed out on a Christmas Bonus of around 700 Irish pounds too.

But that list... well, I can say 14 years later...

I have:

• completed not just a varsity paper but a postgraduate degree... in HR.  I guess that's up to you whether you think that's interesting!
• completed a photography course
• bought a brand new car
• bought a house ... that I kind of didn't get around to decorating - I did paint the bedroom!  I'm currently decorating a different house, slowly, thanks to EQC.
• read some pretty excellent books ... don't ask me to name 14 years worth of reading
• not quite got back into piano - but I do now have one in the house
• haven't been in a musical... but I did form a very short-lived band for a one-off appearance at a work do!
• haven't gone to a ball.

So now, in 2013 I want to... well, I'm still working on that one, so it will show up in another blog!

52 Lists - List 8

Favourite Words

This is a hard one.  I do enjoy watching "Miranda" and love it when she gets a word she likes and has a play with it ... a recent episode had the word "plunge".   I don't know that I have favourite words.  I enjoy words.  I like a good word play and I love a bad pun... but these are some words I love to hear, so I'll settle on the following:-


Summery

Delicious

Salubrious

Pinot Noir

Stylish

Stunning

Mystical

and one from a colleague at work "GlamORRus".  I agree, the word glamorous doesn't sound as cool when it's pronounced correctly.  Sometimes you just have to play with the english language!

#52 Lists - List 7

Great Reads I've Read Lately (... or in the last 12 months)

Pip Lincoln's  list is recent reads... I'm stretching back a bit further as I read a lot of books (but a side-effect from the earthquakes is my concentration levels are lower and if I don't get into a book quickly it goes by the way-side).  I've learned that this is quite common.  I have some friends in a book club and they say most of them have found it challenging in the last two years.  So my hit rate is lower these days, despite my appetite for books and the library.  For this reason I'm looking at books I've read lately... or in the last 12 months.

In no particular order, my best "ahem, recent" reads have been:

Oh Dear Sylvia - Dawn French
The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared - Jonas Jonasson
The Little Coffee Shop of Kabul - Deborah Rodriguez
The Prisoner of Heaven - Carlos Zafron Ruiz
The Drowning Girl - Margaret Leroy
The Legacy - Katherine Webb
The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern
The Table Comes First - Adam Gopnik (non-fiction)

Only one non-fiction in that list, but I do read a lot of articles and I've been concentrating on travel books with my non-fiction in preparation for trip to Europe.

I don't have one particular genre that I prefer.  I read the odd historical drama ("Painting Mona Lisa"), a bit of Chick Lit (Celia Ahern), Bloke Lit (Mike Gayle/Nick Hornby),  contemporary (Colm Toibin/Roddy Doyle), and everything in between.  Hey, I've even read all the Harry Potters.  On my bookshelf I have the classics (Victor Hugo, Jane Austen) and the medieval (both french and english literature)... so it's fair to say I have a wide interest.  I'll give anything a go, but I do have a page rule.  If I can't get to page 130 within 3 attempts... it goes.

Erin Morgenstern's book is one of the best I've read and it's a gorgeous book if you get the hard copy (the black pages and red edging are a delight).  I follow Erin's blog too (listed to the right) - where she regular writes a 10 sentence essay based on a photograph.  Definitely worth checking out.

My favourite author though, Maggie O'Farrell, isn't on this list as I'm waiting for her new book out (due  mid year).  "The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox" is a book that side-swiped me with its twist, and all of her books are stunning.  "After You'd Gone" was the book that introduced me to Maggie and it is a beautiful book.  It was a recommended read by Lisa Jewell, another author I enjoy - she's funny and witty and her books are all different.  I recommend you search both Lisa and Maggie out.

#52Lists - List 6

List 6 = (Some of) The Flowers I Like

Peonies

"Fresia" Rose

Gladioli

Baby Camelia

Trilium

Daffodils

Lillies

"Jubilee" Rose

The best thing about this list, is that all the photos come from my garden!  I do love other flowers too, but these are some of my favourites.

#52 Lists - List 5

Today's list is Things I Do Everyday...

Things like walking and exercise should be there, but that's something I do "nearly every day!"  Hey, even my PT says you should have a couple of days off!   I do at least one or two yoga stretches everyday, but not enough to call it a routine - just enough to wake me up or stretch out after using a computer.

#52 Lists - List 4

I'm veering away from Pip's topic today, and creating my own topic.  Today is Waitangi Day, a public holiday.  It has been called New Zealand day in the past and then got changed back to Waitangi Day.  I  consider myself reasonably patriotic, but to be honest, this particular holiday tends to pass me by as "just a day off".

But today, seeing it's List time, and Waitangi Day I decided to write the things I love about New Zealand.

*It's green - in that there are lush, lush places to visit, beautiful beaches, snow capped mountains, rivers, forests; you're never far from nature
*You're also never far from a beach
*We don't really have traffic, except in Auckland
*The rugby team is pretty good.  And they dress in black
*You can be sporty... or not
*We have some pretty cool musicians/bands - too many to list but I must mention the next on the list as it began my love of "newzildmuzic"
*The Dunedin Sound
*It never takes long to travel anywhere
*Kumara (the vegetable, not the place, although the races at the place are legendary)
*L&P (preferrably with bourbon as a mixer)
*The Kaikoura Coast
*Our sense of humour
*Our can-do attitude 
*Zambesi & Karen Walker
*Whittakers Chocolate
*Wellywood
*Cargill's Castle
*Central Pinot Noir (and if you like your whites, Marlborough Sav)
*We laugh at ourselves... and our cricketers.  Actually it might be more of a cringe at the cricketers.
*Speights
*The Pier at Governor's Bay
*Nor'westers
and, of course, because I live there, earthquakes and all, 
*CHRISTCHURCH

I'm not saying my place is better than your place - just what I love about it.  I lived in Dublin and loved it there - the view of Killiney beach as you come out of the tunnel from Dalkey on the DART rivals the Kaikoura Coast - on a much smaller scale.  Spain has beautiful food, Paris has the Eiffel Tower. Ireland has Bulmers, and a WICKED sense of humour so there are lots of things I love about lots of places... but today, it's about being ...

A kiwi :  A small flightless bird surviving against extinction...and about 4.4 million people.
  

#52 Lists - List 3

Favourite Smells!

Smell is one of the most powerful senses we have.  There is plenty of neuroscience that links the olfactory bulb with both the hippocampus (important in memory association) and the thalamus and is probably the reason why smells evoke memories, and often strong ones at that.

Whenever I smell coal, I'm transported to holidays as a child on the West Coast, visiting Nana or my brother when he was working in Greymouth.

I dislike the smell of hospitals (have spent too many hours in them or visiting people in them).  I love the smell of good food, or a great wine.

But here is my list of favourite smells (in no particular order, it depends on my mood and my memories!)

#52 Lists - List 2

This week's list .... Favourite childhood TV Shows.  Boy this was quite hard, once you start thinking of one, you think of heaps...


* The Wombles
* Top Cat
* Thunderbirds
* Wacky Races
* I Dream of Jeanie
* Bewitched
* The Goodies
* The Brady Bunch
* The Tomorrow People

I must admit, I always wanted to be Jeanie!  and Top Cat, well he was soooo cool.  

And the catchiest theme song you ever heard, altogether now "Underground, Overground Wombling Free ..."  (hehe how many of you are singing it now?!)

#52 Lists - List 1

I follow Pip's blog (meetmeatmikes.com) and although I'm a little late on the uptake, I am going to do the 52 lists thing.  So here's this week's list: -

Jobs I have done...

Oh and I should have student in there, as I've studied on and off the whole time!  :-)