Tag Archives: Christmas

Cats and chocolate – what more do you need?

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Don’t get used to me posting this much – it’s just because for a change having time to post and something to post about (or at least, pretty pictures to fill the page :-) ) have coincided.  I’m sure to drop off again come February.

But in the meantime, pictures of cats “helping” us unwrap presents:

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Parsnips’s preferred approach to wrapping paper is to shred it into tiny pieces.

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Pushkin just finds it a comfy place to sleep.

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And another picture of Parsnips, just because she’s cute.

And to make those of you suffering through a northern-hemisphere winter jealous, here’s what we had for dessert tonight:251212christmas

Merry Christmas

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241212carols

We went into Latimer Square last night, to the YMCA’s Carols by Candlelight. Bit of a chilly night, with enough of a wind that the candles kept blowing out even with the little protective wind shieldy things they were selling, but it’s always a fun night – I may not appreciate the religious side of a carol service, but I love the music, and especially the feeling of singing as part of such a huge crowd. There was quite an emotional moment when they had a minute’s silence for the earthquake victims (very appropriate, seeing as we were right next to the CTV site), followed by Silent Night – really beautiful, as everyone was singing very quietly, caught up in their own thoughts and memories.

Needless to say, I took my camera, to experiment with what I could do with long exposure times. I learnt a lot from the process (mostly that I’ve got a lot more to learn!), but I got a few decent shots of the people around us (the one at the top of this entry is my favourite):

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241212carols

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Anyway, hope you’re all having (or will have) a great Christmas, however you choose to celebrate it (or even if you don’t – I still hope you have a great day).

Pallets and pop-up tearooms

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The “Pallet Pavillion” on the site of the old Park Royal was opened today.  It’s another Gap Filler project, a venue for music or community events, or pretty much anything really.  It’s an amazing space, made almost entirely out of old packing pallets, complete with tables and chairs (made out of vege bins) and a pallet stage. It’s open-air, but the walls are high, and curve in interesting ways, so it kind of feels like being inside – quite a cosy space, really.

Pallet Pavillion

Pallet Pavillion

Pallet Pavillion

The main reason I was there, though, was because it was my friend Jan’s first outing in her new guise of a pop-up tearoom (she’s the blonde one on the right).

Popup Tearoom

I didn’t stay very long (just long enough to be Jan’s first paying customer, and to wish her well in her new venture) because I needed to get home by 1 pm, but first I wanted to have a wee walk through the CBD on my way to the bus exchange, because they’ve opened a few more areas up since I was last in town. I took hundreds of photos, of course, but I won’t bore you with them all, just a few points of interest.

Victoria Square is open now, and looks almost back to normal – if you ignore the cordon fencing in the background, that is:23 12 12 CBD

The view across the river to the Town Hall isn’t so pretty:23 12 12 CBD

For those of you who were at the Christchurch convention, you might remember our hangers-on dinner at the Oxford on Avon (that weird buffet place that turned off the lights before we’d finished eating). A parking place for demolition equipment is all that remains:23 12 12 CBD

Decorations from two Christmases ago on Colombo Street (plus a truck for carting demolition rubble):.

There’s so many buildings gone now you keep coming across unexpected views. This one is from the Gloucester Street bridge, from where you can now see the Cathedral:.

Talking of the Cathedral, they’ve opened up a walkway into the Square again, so I got to see it from a different angle:.

One for Lytteltonwitch – they’ve started demolishing the ANZ building:.

Kate Shepherd is still behind bars:23 12 12 CBD

but Punting on the Avon is back in business:23 12 12 CBD

Christmas decorations in the container mall:23 12 12 CBD

There was also a market on there, and this guy was doing a roaring trade in bagels and breadsticks:
23 12 12 CBD

I made it home in time to meet Jenny and Christian, who we’d arranged to go and see The Hobbit with.  I wasn’t all that sure about seeing it, after reading so many reviews, but it wasn’t as bad as I was dreading.  The first half drags on a bit, and the whole 3D 48 fps thing was horrible (3D gives me a headache anyway, and the 48 fps made everything way too real for a fantasy movie – very jarring.  Plus it made the fight scenes look totally chaotic – I had no idea what was going on for most of them.), but once the story got going it was quite fun.  Of course, it might help that it’s been quite a few years since I last read the book, so the departures from it weren’t as obvious as they could have been.

I’m on holiday!

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Well, it’s the 22nd, and we’re still here.  And more importantly, I’m on holiday for the next 4 weeks! (Yes, I know I already took a 4-week holiday in April, but due to the weird way HR calculated my leave over the two jobs I’ve been doing, I’m still owed a tonne of leave).  We’re not planning on doing anything or going anywhere, just relaxing and making the most of a much-needed break.

Started the break on a high note last night with a bookcrossing Christmas party that turned into a not-bookcrossing Christmas party.  Bruce & co had told me they were already juggling two events so wouldn’t be able to make it, and I hadn’t heard from any of the other regulars (I’m not even sure if the Gwilks are still in Christchurch – Gwilk used to pass me as I was walking to work in the mornings, but I haven’t seen him for months), but I thought Rarsberry and Otakuu were coming, but mysteriously neither showed up (Rars had mentioned she was trying to figure out transport, so I assume that’s why she didn’t make it).  However, the non-bookcrossing part of the party (Harvestbird, Jenny, and their respective partners) did turn up, so it was still a most enjoyable evening – in fact, probably better than if everyone else had been there, because it was a small enough group that conversation flowed easily.

I don’t know if I’ll bother trying to organise a bookcrossing party next year, though.  I’m getting a bit tired of the paucity of RSVPs from the local group – it’s bad enough trying to organise meetups when I never know how many people to book a table for, much worse trying to organise parties.

Still, a great evening, the experimental vegetarian pizza worked (at least, it disappeared very fast, so I assume everyone enjoyed it), the house looked pretty, and the company was good.  And that’s all that matters really.

And now, I’m off to curl up in a corner with a book.

Cats and birds

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I am very very very tired.  Some of that is because I went to my boss’s place for a Christmas party last night (which was really nice – it was a beautiful evening so we sat out in his garden and talked and ate and drank until the sun went down – very relaxing), and didn’t get home until nearly 11.  Some of it is because it’s stinking hot today, and the builders were being particularly noisy so we could either have the windows open and be slightly cool but not be able to hear ourselves think over the drilling and crashing, or we could have the windows closed and have peace but no air.  But mostly it’s thanks to the cats, who have discovered the wonderful world of birds.

They’ve been catching flies and insects for ages, but so far nothing bigger (well, apart from a thrush Pushkin dragged in a couple of months ago, but I suspect that she’d found it already dead, probably from flying into a window or something – it didn’t look particularly cat-mauled).  But when I got home last night MrPloppy said he’d found a few feathers on the floor in the study, plus enough things knocked off the desks to show they’d been chasing something around.  There was no sign of a bird though, so we assumed it must have either flown back out a window or they’d eaten it.

Fast forward to about 3 am, when we were woken up by a crashing from the bookcase beside the bed – Pushkin was trying to push her way behind the books (it’s an old baker’s stand turned into a bookshelf, so there’s lots of gaps between the bars) and had knocked a pile of them onto the floor.  Next there was scratching and scrabbling as Parsnips tried to burrow under the bottom shelf.  But an exploratory mood isn’t particularly unusual for either of them, so we just assumed they’d suddenly discovered the bookcase’s potential as a climbing frame and tried to ignore them and go back to sleep.  But after Pushkin tried to clamber her way up to the top shelf, we decided it was time to herd them out of the bedroom and shut the door.

I was just drifting back to sleep when MrPloppy said “I can still hear something scratching – I wonder if that bird is in here?”  We turned on the light and I moved some books, and sure enough, there was a blackbird perched on one of the bars at the back of the shelf.  She looked a bit the worse for wear, but was definitely still alive and able to fly (as she demonstrated when I tried to pick her up).  So then we had the fun task of trying to herd her towards the open window without panicking her any more than necessary – not easy!  We finally got her out though, and finally all was quiet enough to get back to sleep… for a couple of hours until the alarm went off, anyway.

So it’s official, the cats now know how to catch birds, even if they’re not entirely sure what to do with them once they’ve caught them.  I predict a summer filled with feathers…

Moving on

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December is suddenly upon us, and the round of Christmas/end of year functions has started – I’ve already been to three, and it’s only the 9th.  One was combined with a farewell – Jan, a very-like-minded colleague from another department, is leaving to set up a tea shop in a gap-filler space in the CBD.  Sounds like an exciting new direction for her, but I’ll miss our ranting phone calls whenever one or the other of us had to deal with one of our irritations-in-common and needed a sympathetic ear to share the frustrations with.

And that’s just the beginning of the farewells, too – two other good friends (I won’t mention names as I’m not sure how official their departures are yet) are heading off for pastures new soon, one to Lincoln and the other to Brisbane.  Work just won’t be the same without spontaneous yum cha.  Still, I’m pleased for all of them that they’ve found such great opportunities.  And opportunity is quietly peeking over the horizon for me too – I don’t want to say much in case I jinx it, but there’s a distinct possibility of new and exciting things.

Anyway, Christmas is approaching fast, so we put up the Christmas tree yesterday (and are taking bets on how long it lasts before the kittens destroy it…):

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Only two new ornaments this year, both from the Newbridge silverware factory, which we visited during the Dublin Convention.

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Sorry about the glare – shiny stainless steel is very hard to photograph!

Chocolatey Fruity Oaty Biscuits

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It’s a while since I’ve posted a recipe here, so as I was doing a bit of experimental baking this morning to create some biscuits to take to Otakuu’s Christmas do, I documented the process:

Ingredients

  • 115g butter
  • 115g brown sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 150g flour
  • slightly less than 2 tsp baking powder*
  • 75g berry-flavoured Light ‘n’ Tasty cereal**
  • 115g dark chocolate
  • 115g white chocolate

* I replaced self-raising flour in the original recipe with plain flour + baking powder, because I always think self-raising flour leaves a funny taste.  By my calculation the exact substitution should be 1 7/8 tsp baking powder, so if you really want, you can measure out 7 x 1/8 teaspoons, or just do it the easy way and make your second teaspoonful slightly short.

** The original recipe called for porridge oats, but not having any on hand, I substituted some of MrPloppy’s cereal stash (don’t tell him ;-) ), which had the bonus of having lots of chewy fruity bits.  You could substitute pretty much any muesli-type cereal depending on the taste you wanted.

butter and sugar

Step 1: Soften butter (or over-soften in my case, because I always soften butter by putting the bowl in a sink full of hot water, and I forgot that since the electrician replaced the thermostat on the hot water cylinder, the hot water has been a lot hotter than it used to be) and cream together with brown sugar until light and fluffy.

eggs and vanilla

Step 2: Add egg and vanilla essence (insert standard rant here about using proper essence and not the fake “vanilla flavouring” because it tastes rubbish) and beat well.

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Step 3: Add sifted flour and baking powder, and mix (yeah, theoretically it should be gently folded in, but realistically, you’re making biscuits, not a sponge cake – electric beaters on slightly slower speed is fine).

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Step 4: Add roughly chopped chocolate (important note: don’t do what I did and wonder if you could save some effort chopping up all that chocolate by using the nut grinding attachment on your food processor. “Grind” means exactly that, so you end up with powdered white chocolate before you realise what’s happening and switch it off. And powdered white chocolate, while it sounds like a nice concept, in baking terms acts like an extra measure of sugar, so the biscuits come out much crunchier than they should have) and cereal, and mix in (this bit *is* better done with a spoon, because a mixer would crush the cereal too much).  PS. If you’re wondering about the pink flakes in the white chocolate, that’s because I didn’t have enough white chocolate chips, so I threw in a few squares of Whittaker’s Raspberry White Chocolate to make up the weight.  I wouldn’t advise doing this though, because Whittaker’s Raspberry White Chocolate is the food of the gods, and should never be wasted on mere baking!

All mixed together and ready for the final stage.

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Step 5: Spoon out onto lined (or greased, if you are really into hard work and like cleaning oven trays. I don’t, which is why baking paper was invented) trays, leaving plenty of space for spreading.  Heaped teaspoonfuls is about right.  Bake at 180 C for 15 minutes.

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Yeah, you know what I said about leaving plenty of room for spreading? Though mine did spread a bit more than they should because of the powdered chocolate acting like sugar thing. Mine are also a bit crunchier round the edges than they should be too. But the final verdict from the official taste tester MrPloppy was that they tasted “ok for home made biscuits”, which is high praise for him! (He even forgave me for commandeering his Light ‘n’ Tasty)

2011 in review

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So many ways to sum up a year.

First(ish) sentences:

  • January: I know I said we were going to have a quiet night and probably not even see the New Year in, but plans do have a habit of changing.
  • February: It’s the first of February, so that means TWO MONTHS UNTIL AMERICA!!!
  • March: We’re back in Christchurch, and feeling much refreshed and ready to face whatever this city throws at us.
  • April: In just a few hours I’ll go to the airport to fly to Auckland, where I’ve got a couple of hours’ wait before I fly for another 12 hours to San Francisco, and then it’ll *still* be the morning of the first of April! (I love time travel ;-) )
  • May: We’ve just come back from Riccarton, where we almost but not quite bought a new vacuum cleaner (our trusty old Dyson has so many parts needing replacing that it’s been looking more and more economical to just get a new one – and we realised it must be about 11 or 12 years old now, so it’s actually lasted quite well).
  • June: Another big aftershock this morning.
  • July: In the last couple of weeks I’ve actually ventured in to town a couple of times.
  • August: Too late to back out now, I’ve booked my flights.
  • September: One year ago today, the people of Christchurch thought we’d had a disaster, but we had no idea how much worse it was going to get as the year progressed.
  • October: After a couple of incredibly busy weeks trying to catch up with work and study after my unplanned break, I had my final exam on Friday, which means I have finished my BA!!!
  • November: Yay! I managed to release 11 books at 11 am on 11/11/11.
  • December: Yesterday’s mail: I got a corporate Christmas card, MrPloppy got a bank statement, and George got a parcel from Lytteltonwitch.

Photos (a few of which never made it into my diary, me being so slack at updating this year!):

  • January
  • February
  • March
  • April
  • May
  • June
  • July
  • August

    (Ok, that was actually taken in July, but it snowed in August as well)
  • September
  • October
  • November
  • December

Or just in thoughts. This has been such a huge year. The bad stuff (earthquakes, depression, work uncertainties, Stepfather dying, more earthquakes…) has been so prominent it’s hard sometimes to remember that this year also contained some pretty good stuff. The American roadtrip, for a start – I keep forgetting that was only 8 months ago! There were enough wonderful moments in that trip to last a lifetime. And looking back through the year’s entries I’ve been reminded of all the other good times of 2011: going camping (and goat hunting!) with brother and the kids, making bookmarks with mum, fishing for yabbies with dad, welcoming MrPloppy home from his trip, all the laughter and catching up with friends at conventions in DC and in Wellington, finishing my degree and being accepted for honours… yeah, for a stink year it’s actually been quite good, really :-)