Singular Scene

I have discovered the joy of achieving great things by not going to work.

Hah.

No early morning staff meeting.
No washing up roster.
No interruptions.
No “Dee, could you just help me on this?”
“Or this?”
“Or that???”

Nope, today, capitilising on my fragile state (I have a cold) and the fact that the church yoof are having a monumentally ear splitting conference at the moment I elected to Work From Home.

Marvellous isn’t it? Having a web based job and a tidy laptop to work on!

I managed to work my way through ‘Cold Mountain’ on DVD, all the episodes of CSI:NY and Miami that I missed while I was away, and a Cold Case and Without a Trace episode each for good measure!!!

It was brilliant!

I do have to say in my defence, that work got more attention than the TV. (Just in case anyone from work is reading this…)

Happily, it is true. I didn’t even manage to get emotionally involved enough in Cold Mountain to cry so that was good.

Because I hate movies that make you cry. Really hate them.

And so, I have an ecard for our next big secret men’s business gig to show for my efforts and lots of speedy email replies sent and only 3 hours of tv to catch up on.

I think the weather forecast for tomorrow suggests Working From Home would be advisable for those afearing that wind and rain will make their delicate health even more fragile.

So, if you were looking for me tomorrow (or Friday) may I suggest come back next week… On Wednesday… because the weekend will be 4 days long for me and the rest of the staff…

*smirk*

Yep.

Home.

Right here back in Australia.

At the risk of amusing Miss Lisa even further I will try and keep this post perhaps a little less poetical than the post on the occasion of arriving back in NZ… Still, the holiday back home has certainly given me much Food for Thought and has settled the moving back dilemma for the immediate and not so immediate future.

In short… Here in Sydney is plenty close enough to NZ and plenty far away enough as well.

New Zealand itself has changed a lot since I left …

1. Prostitution has been legalised.
2. Civil Unions between homosexual couples will have legal recognition on a par with marriage from April 26th of this year.
3. The Death with Dignity bill was only just defeated by 2 votes in Parliament in 2003.

These are issues I believe have really tainted the atmosphere in NZ. I am by no means glorifying Australia’s political atmosphere but NZ used to have an innocence about it and it seems to me the seriously liberal government there is hell bent on turning NZ into a poster child for Humanism and the Utopian ideal. Makes me cringe. Ed. “Pardon me Dee but your right wing sensibilities are showing” “Shut up Ed. I am of the Conservative Element. There I said it…”

*listens* Oh good, you are still there… I can hear you breathing.

So the prospect of returning to the fresh, innocent NZ of my youth, is gone.

However, Ticker, the new addition to the deeleea clan is lovely… and the time with Scooter and Jem and Kit et al was lovely too. I am definitely a Kiwi girl still but let’s just say that one can have somewhat misty impressions of life in the green green grass the other side of the fence.

If I can get my cr*p sorted out here, sometime, somehow maybe I’ll be less inclined to look for other options. If I think about it, it isn’t actually the place I’m unhappy with at the moment.

It’s me.

Well, after 40 odd days of counting down and 2 weeks of holiday I’m in countdown (hours) to takeoff time again.

In rather a cliched fashion I am mystified at the speed at which 2 weeks of doing very little can go so very fast… I finished my holiday with a night and day with Hun and Sil and Jem and Kit. As is customary when Kit and I get to see each other we get together to do something girly. This time was a sleepover and a DVD, we watched the Incredibles and of course Jem loved that too. To close out my time with them and to celebrate Hun’s 30th we went here to see the night glow which is an annual event. Picnics in the dark, fireworks and treat food… every kid’s dream!!!!

I spent last night with Muvva and soaked in a hot bath to ease my aching back after 2 weeks in 5 different beds and now I am writing my last Kiwi blog entry before heading back to the “West Island” and to the office tomorrow morning.

In the time since I have been gone I have had inquiries for quotes for 2 more small contracts… yikes and I have a list of about 10 people who are looking forward to catching up!! Looks like the next couple of weeks are going to be busy ones… Not the least of which is our 1st ever Australian Wibmeet… at the Blackbird Cafenext Sunday 24th 4pm. Wibloggers, Wibreaders and all interested parties invited!

Sis and Mr Sis and I elected to go and see this movie at the local cinema this evening. So we dropped Scooter at his aunty’s who was elected babysitter (no, not me, his other aunty) and toddled off to the multiplex.

The Taupo Multiplex.

Taupo is not a sprawling metropolis… and before I forget it’s pronounced Tow(as in Ow!) Po (as in Oh!).

As the movie, (known in English as Seducing Dr Lewis) is a bit ‘arty’ (being in French and all) one doesn’t expect to see it in ‘The Grande Theatre’… so we were booked for ‘the Lounge Theatre’ (given that the paper advised booking as A Good Thing)…

Being a big city chick I had envisioned the Lounge Theatre to be decked out with your favourite lazy boy type chairs and tuxedoed waiters serving champers and hors d’ouvres… Just Laaavly Dahling!!! For which one expects to pay a bit of a premium etc… but which serves to heighten the experience…

But no.

Remember? This is Taupo, not Sydney….

So we were directed to our allocated viewing room (which I suspect is just the kind of room you might see at some body’s private screening room) and were surprised to find…

Eleven seats (hence the need to book)

A Sony Home Theatre system with speakers in all corners of the room, (subwoofer peeking out from under the curtains which lined the walls)

The DVD title menu playing giving away the method of projection (which negated the need to sit through ghastly advertisements…).

We were the only ones there, clearly French language movies are not the mode du jour for the general populace… but the movie was charming and highly recommended.

Funnily, there were some rather bizarre choices where the subtitles were concerned. Someone in the translation department forgot that they were translating for English Speakers rather than the Deaf so where there was moaning and groaning or bells ringing, (which one could concievably imagine would sound the same in any language), the subtitler thought it prudent to advise the viewers that there was indeed (moaning) (groaning) and (church bells ringing).

Anyhoo, I am leaving Taupo for Cambridge (which is smaller than Taupo, it doesn’t have a cinema, let alone a multiplex) for my last two nights and heading back to Sydney on Sunday. What was God thinking when he made holiday weeks move at twice the speed of normal weeks? It isn’t right…

[ed. Have realised that the references to moaning and groaning might indicate a somewhat different movie than I had intended. Rest assured Seducing Dr Lewis, while it may sound slightly saucy, is not ‘that’ kind of movie at all…tame, very tame indeed.]