Month: September 2007

Okay, here’s my problem: I don’t do “happy” well. Sure, I enjoy, appreciate, even prefer it in my actual life, but for blogging purposes it’s a complete washout. Give me a miserable, sweltering, painful day in the middle of Texas and I can whip off paragraphs of hilarious bitching with ease. But joy? Delight? Contentment? … Read more

I have a great new idea for a book I’m going to write. It will be a big, glossy coffee table book about the cemetaries in the most beautiful places in the world. Naturally, I’m calling it A View To Die For. Now all I need it a publishing contract, a photographer, a travel budget … Read more

Jiggety, as they say, jig.But as usual, a little behind on the updates. Blogging will continue until it stops.

I was going to do lots of updating today, since I’m back in Auckland getting ready to leave, but it has been very hard getting on the computer. (Long story. Short version: the Westin here really needs to reconsider their business center setup. If all goes well, I should be reporting again tomorrow, except that … Read more

We left the Hobbiton farm at around eleven-thirty in the morning and pointed ourselves north. (Well, actually, south for about ten miles, then west for a while back to Cambridge, but our general goal was North.)We were headed for the Bay of Islands, which is in the northernmost part of the North Island, but we … Read more

1. Whakamara2. Whakamaramara3. Whakamaru4. Whakapara5. Ngamatapouri

Yesterday evening we managed, after much perilous negotiation of roundabouts, to ind ourselves lodging at a modest but pleasant B&B on the outskirts of Cambridge. The area was described by both of my guidebooks as an almost overwhelmingly charming Victorian horse-country town, but looked to me more like a modest outer suburb of, say, Baltimore, … Read more

Bread and butterBread and olive oilBread with your soupTartar sauceKetchupButter pats