The cab pulls up outside a slightly dilapidated single-story house nestling on a corner in a quiet neighbourhood ten minutes drive from the city centre. The door clicks open, and a tipsy couple in their early thirties emerges. "Thank you!" the man says, as he closes the cab's door. The driver begins to execute a wide u-turn as the man directs his next statement at his companion. "Can you get

Can you feel it coming? Personally, I was excited enough at the giant Red Kangaroo I saw in a field on the drive from the airport, where we landed at 8.30am. But I have been persuaded that unless I do this, I will regret it forever. I've been awake since 4am, so I'm more malleable than usual. My wallet is creaking open... I am extracting Crikey! $104 Australian Dollars, and handing them to a

5 June 2008 is World Environment Day. It is also the day that Cowboy and I will celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. Only, we won't be celebrating it together. This year, our wedding anniversary will be less about this... ...and more about this: Village IdiotThis year will be remembered forever (and probably relayed to children, and children's children) as the year where instead of

Going up!How do you spell Bungy? I've seen many spellings, and none seems quite right. Phonetically, bungy or bungee ought to have soft g-sound, rather than the juh of the actual word. Bunjy makes most sense to me, but then it looks rather heavy on the right-hand side, if you see what I mean. Possibly Bunjie resolves this, being pleasingly balanced, but my idea doesn't seem to have caught on

Cowboy returned this morning, after being in Sydney for four days on a course which apparently provided the astonishing ability to avoid inputting any brainpower into providing solutions, by instead asking incessant questions of others. So now, if I make a statement indicating dissatisfaction with some aspect of life, the universe and everything, he'll respond "So, of those four complaints,

Regular readers will know that I am a woman who values her mooching-time. I like to spend some time, every few days, with no commitments, and nothing to do. It keeps me sane. Regular readers will also know that Cowboy prefers perpetual motion, and this dependency on activity is the only aspect of his character which has been known to forge in my inner being a white-hot scimitar of fury. We

I have been living for the Christmas break for the last two months. Ever since I started a real job, which involves 45 hours a week of non-sofa time, and had to think up unsuccessful strategies to find the time to do the things I used to take for granted, I feel like I have been constantly on the back foot. Teetering on the brink.For me, a break means slobbing about the house, reading and being

I would love to say that Cowboy and I met in an unbearably romantic setting. I would love to say that we were both supping espresso in a cafe in Santiago and that when we simultaneously looked up from our coincidental copies of Pride & Prejudice, our eyes locked, violin music uttered from the heavens, and we haven't been able to spend a moment apart since.I would love to say that we had to

Today, readers, is my 30th birthday. I have endeavoured to ignore this astonishing fact, but there it is. I'm old. Of course, I still think of myself as nineteen, at the same time looking at other people who are 30 and observing that they appear mature, confident, intelligent, and authoritative. What's that Atwood quote? "Everyone else my age is an adult, but I am merely in disguise."Later

It was evening, the silence interrupted only by the occasional flick of pages turned by two readers, prone, side by side under a thick duvet. "There's a spider up there", the woman observed. The tone was calm, but it portended a mounting concern. "Maybe you should put it outside. There's no way I can reach it." The man stared at the woman in mild disbelief, such that she felt it was time to

You have to buy special city council bin-bags from the supermarket in New Zealand. The refuse managers will only collect certified council bin-bags: other bags get left behind, and if they are there past a certain time of day, may result in a fine for littering. You can leave recycling out too, sorted into glass/plastic and paper, and it has to be bagged up, though you can use any old bag for

Since I left the UK, I have been trying to shy away from whining angsty negativity in my blogular musings. God knows there was enough of it early on. I think I've been moderately successful, so I hope you'll excuse this momentary lapse in my pursuit of sweetness and light, and indulge me while I dwell deep in the cave of relationship conundrum.There was a time when, as a young student, I had

The only 'admin' I'm able to do at the moment involves this blog, and so I have gone back and edited all the posts in my archives to give them labels, and placed them in the sidebar. Now, if you want to know what I'm like when I'm being a bitch, you can check out Rantus Maximus, or if you need to know about the latest hippy issue at the Fort, check out Hair Shirt. I've also added a few

This morning, I had just finished an email to Activist in which (inter alia) I bitched about the fact that I still hadn't received the results of my masters degree. It was a long email, and it took quite some time to write. I was concentrating hard, since Activist's state of mind is fragile due to an ongoing battle with anorexia, and I worry about saying the wrong thing. I didn't notice the

Cowboy and I have run ourselves into the ground this weekend, but it was worth it. But for a few things that need putting away in an as-yet-undetermined location, we have unpacked. I only had one strop based around the fact that Cowboy was gleefully re-wiring everything in sight and simultaneously ignoring pleas that tuning in the VCR that we never use was not exactly top priority, while I did

You know that Margaret Atwood quote? "...everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise." That's exactly how I feel. Today is my 29th birthday. So far I have had a lovely day: Cowboy woke me up before he went to work, to give me a cup of tea and my presents. I got some fabulous things. Activist sent me a copy of "I Am A Bird Now", by Antony & The Johnsons, which I love;

I'm discovering what a nightmare it is to have a husband at home when you're trying to work on something really important. I'm at the stage of writing up, and so I need long blocks of time where I can focus my brain on producing 10,000 words that hang together. I do not need the siblings-in-law to come around with two babies in tow at a time that's convenient for them, so that they can

I'm at my parents' holiday home, on 'holiday'. I'm actually working like a dawg, coding articles for my research, while Cowboy goes Kitesurfing during the day and lounges on the sofa on his return.All that my brain can really handle at this point is a list of things that I'm finding irritating at the moment, because there's nothing interesting to do.1. Dial-up internet access.2. Eating Jacob's

I should start by saying that it appears that the Elephants upstairs have moved out. There was the sound of the ceiling crashing to the floor yesterday (all day) and a moving van outside the flat. Plus, we eventually heard from the landlady (after contacting her directly ourselves through her father, whose phone number we found amidst some papers) and she is going to put carpet down and fix