Things that have made my day in Manly

White Lady Funerals - A woman's understanding.

Katie and Pen fail to make a porno

I'm not sure where we went wrong. I mean, we had all the ingredients. Two exceptionally hot women wearing very little in the way of sleepwear, a broken stove, dubious music and the stove repair man. An unattractive stove repair man, which if my knowledge of porn is to be believed, means he's well hung.

He came in, he fixed the stove, he left. Didn't even want a cup of tea.

We're still shaking our heads over how we failed to recognise the potential in this situation. I think we were too busy talking about whether or not to do a load of washing.

We need help.

I don't like teenagers

I went to Matt and Ruth's wedding (nice do) on the weekend. At about 10.30pm, the wine was flowing and people were in a good mood. Unfortunately, I had to leave as the mothership had arrived to pick me up. I went to get my bag, and do to so had to climb around two teens sitting close on a step looking like they'd love to be more intimate but were constrained by guests and their official roles as bar keep and waitress.

As I climbed over them, I said 'Excuse me, canoodlers, I have to get my bag.'
As I climbed back past, the teenage boy decided it was high time he showed his smarts and masculinity, and said 'That's not even a real word. Haven't you heard of the Oxford dictionary?'
Cue tittering from the teenage girl and smirking from the boy.

It was like like I was Marty McFly in Back to the Future and someone had called me chicken. He pulled out Oxford! I saw red. Fueled by at least half a bottle of champagne, I turned around and stalked back to them (stalking was easy, it was a lawn and I was wearing pointy heeled shoes).

I said 'Young man, I am an EDITOR. And it is too a word.' (Slightly childish response there, considering canoodlers is not a work, but fucking teenagers need to be put in their place.)

He said 'Harrumph, sheesh.'
The girl said 'I told you it was a word'.

I sailed off over the lawn on the high seas of smugness.

Ups to me because I give the awards

Have I mentioned how much I like aioli? Because I like it. Are you allowed to eat it with a spoon? Do I care? It is the savoury equivalent of chocolate sauce. Maybe I wouldn’t smear it all over myself in order for some lucky victim to lick it off but that’s mostly because I’d see that as a massive waste of aioli. Same goes for chocolate sauce.

Other food-related points – I quite often fail to see the point of cucumber.

So, the bigger Whitson came to stay and it was all magical, like we were living in the enchanted forest and any moment now we’d come across the magic faraway tree and discover that at the top of the tree was The Land of Take What you Want and we’d just go nuts and come home with ponies and candy floss and ovens that produce cookies whenever you clap your hands.

Nic brought me a belated Christmas present, which was lovely, except I didn’t have anything for him because we’d said NO PRESENTS. Anyway, he gave me a bottle of Cougar bourbon and told me to drink it with Jess and act appropriately. We drank the bourbon but failed miserably to pounce on any very young men. Maybe next time – we were a bit distracted by Sorority Boys – men in drag make us swoon.

Yes, I have a Jessa in my arms. It’s very nice. She smells good. Probably because she washes her hair.

We also had the fleetingness of a Justin. He was here for ages but, well, you know Justin. He’s very hard to catch. He’s the sort of person for whom those gladiator nets were invented.

Three weeks left of work, hurrah. This whole working ‘thing’ is killing me. Yes, yes, it’s a nice job, but unemployment elsewhere shimmies enticingly in front of me, and by jingo, I’m going to get my aioli-smeared hands all over that stuff.

We had cats for the weekend. They liked my room the best and peed on my bed. I wish they'd liked Oren's the best. He's back from Israel and he's allergic to cats. It would have been hilarious. For me.

He brought us chocolate. We left it in the sun. It's still tasty.

Carbon Hairprint of Shame

Yes, once again I fly to Auckland to ... get my hair cut and reblonded by the Amazing Brandon. He's a magician of sorts and never tries to make balloon animals but instead produces a mean cup of tea.

I've done the math and sadly, it is actually cheaper to fly up here than frequent someone I DO NOT TRUST with my dirty blonde locks in Wellington. So far my hair has cost me $100 for the flights and $25 for lunch. Cheap, I tell you. And the chance to catch up with the other Auckland lot, although Jase is currently in the dogbox for double booking and choosing the other invite. This, let me tell you, is precisely the reason I am not attending his wedding in Raro later this year, and not my dubious finances.

Other stuff. Everyone else I know, and thousands I don't, have been attending the evening concerts at the gardens. I can't because of my job, and I just need to reiterate here that it is only the fact that I usually rather like my job, that prevents me from not throwing massive FOMO tanties when everyone else is clearly having fun and I am asking reporters 'Did you really mean this, or do you mean that, and if you did, then why didn't you just say that?'

We have a new French flatmate - she told me her name and I can't pronounce it or spell it so I just call her the French flatmate. Lazy, I know, but I hardly ever see her and she'll be gone in two weeks when our beloved Oren comes back with presents from Israel. Dear God, they had better be good presents to make up for the fact that I've had to deal with losing my partner in nerd tv watching for two months.

I went to Christchurch for a reunion with the witches. I also saw Ben and Karen's new place and had a nice chat to their child who likes boobs and curls. Smart little boy, that one. The witches were in ace form - Fi's partner lasted a whole 30 minutes with us before declaring that he couldn't take any more of it and he hid in his study with a bag of licorice allsorts for the rest of the night. This was probably very sensible. Christ, we were in what I can only describe as a form so good that we floated in a realm somewhere above cloud nine. However, the gods don't like it when mortals hang above them and I was punished with another bladder infection. Someone up there does not like me.

Other things I have learned this month are that elbow grease and vinegar and baking soda are excellent cleaning tools. I know this because I watched Melissa use all these things to clean our oven. I encouraged her, like a good flatmate ought to, and she did an excellent job. Well done her.

I went to a party (yes, I am that popular) on Friday night where most of the guests seemed to have a link to Palmerston North. This was somewhat amusing, and even more so, whilst being slightly odd, when nice chap said to me: 'Penelope -didn't you go out with Karl in 6th form?' This was completely true and for a moment I was taken back 16 - SIXTEEN years, thank you - to 1994 for my long, by high school standards, relationship with Karl that lasted exactly three weeks. He was my first boyfriend, it was intense, we broke up and he called me a bitch and then said he was joking about meaning that. I wish him well in his endeavours.

The be-tanned one, also known as Whitson Major, arrives tomorrow. This will be nice. I like him. Even if he does have a better tan than I do, but I think anyone who lives in Wellington will agree that, given our weather of late, the fact that I have any tan at all is impressive.

Rumble in Himatangi

If you're looking for some thugs to bash over new years, may I recommend the docile summer beach village of Himatangi.

Sadly, even though H, Katie and I were totally prepared to wrestle some youths to the ground after pulling out some insulting hand gestures, I think all the locals just wear black hoodies to keep out the sand. Not to threaten or intimidate. Pity. So we talked to the bambi we found instead.

Himatangi is a windy place. Windy and sandy. Is nice when it's not windy. But it's pretty windy. Did I mention the sand? I don't really like sand. Gets into all sorts of inappropriate places that do not need exfoliating.

New year's eve itself involved a nasty game or ten of scrabble. There was whisky, some swearing, maybe some name calling. Thoroughly enjoyable. I like going on holiday with nerds.

Christmas was also nice - was the only child home so came in for some spoiling. Had some very good conversations with the cat, who may appear to be only able to purr, but I know different. Realised I was on my way to becoming a sad old cat lady when I found several minutes of video footage of the cat on my camera. She's not doing much, pretty much just being a cat, but she's so cute! You'd love our cat. No, really.

Have had my contract at the paper extended till the end of Feb, which is all good and nicely ties in my very loose plans for world domination sometime after I turn 32 and Kit marries John in March. However, these night shifts make me a little sad when I realise that everyone else is probably doing something fun, like hanging out with friends at the pub on a sunny evening, and I am slaving over depressing headlines about road tolls. It's just as well we're having a pretty bad summer so at least they can't have their drinks outside. It's the little things you have to focus on.

Rhiannon and the Gold Dust Woman hit the 'naki

I would like to lick Stevie Nicks' tambourine. I want to be her beribboned microphone.

Rhiannon and I met up with another Fleetwood enthusiast and his not such an enthusiast wife who very nicely put up with us practically crying and warbling and clutching each other shrieking 'I love Stevie'. Frack, it was ace.

Full, full points to the person in the audience, who shouted 'Stuuuuuvvvviiiieeeeeeee' in a full-on Kiwi accent. The legendary Nicks would have been thrilled from her heeled toes to top-hatted head to have inspired such devotion. No one carries off a sparkly dress like she does. And people were trying. Badly.

The 'naki gave us some rain but quite frankly it could have snowed and it still would have worked with the music. An audience who knows all the words to all the songs is always a nice place to be.

And then we left the 'naki at midnight, only six hours after we got there, because we had business elsewhere. Like breakfast with my dad and godparents in PN. Had my spinster t-shirt admired by the locals, though. Ace, ace weekend. Oh God, I am still swooning.

Three more days of work, my mother is back in the country and I have a Katie and Debs en route. I love summer.