I know, I know, I haven’t written anything. I could use the excuse that “I’m busy” but it doesn’t seem to be a very satisfying one. I hope to write more soon. In the meantime, avid reader, I have been playing with time lapse photography from my balcony. Behold, this is what I see every evening, if I look through the sliding doors towards the harbour:
Drink Infusions
I’m always on the lookout for a new cocktail recipe. New tastes come up in the most unlikely contexts. For example, after choir on Monday evenings I usually go to a bar called “The Grange” in Ponsonby for a drink with the other choir members. This bar has a drink I’m really fond of called a “Coco Spice”. It involves Chilli infused Vodka and Creme de Cacao.
I have to admit that after trying Chilly Vodka, I have become kind of obsessed with this idea of infusing alcohol with all sorts of interesting flavours. This picture shows three of my recent experiments (from left to right): Vanilla Vodka, Fruit Whiskey and Cinnamon Vodka.
Beca Ball 2009
“You should come to the Beca Ball†Sam insisted in that demanding, almost pleading way he has about him. I rolled my eyes. “It will be fun, and you can have us over for drinks beforehandâ€.
“Oh, all right.†I conceded reluctantly. “I suppose I could convince a guy to dress up in drag…â€
“Or you could invite Theresa, I’m sure she’d love to comeâ€.
Thus began many weeks’ worth of cajoling before Sam could convince me not only to buy tickets to my work ball, but to ask Theresa (a mutual friend) to come along as my “date†and to have everyone over to my place for drinks beforehand.
Southland Holiday
Wow, I haven’t written anything in quite some time. Isn’t it always the way that when life is most interesting you don’t have time to reflect!
Anyway, last week I had a fantastic little holiday to the South Island for a week. This is the first time I spent more than a few hours in the South Island, so I made the most of it!
I plan on writing a whole lot of words about it, but for now, I am just excited to get my pictures out. Here is a link to the collection of pictures for my Southland Holiday.
I’ll post detail later. In the meantime, I have a number of panoramic photos I am rather proud of: Continue reading Southland Holiday
Harbour Bridge Stamp
I was keeping it under my hat for a while, but now that it’s official I’m pleased to report that one of my photos is being used for a stamp!
Details of the stamp issue are available here: Auckland Harbour Bridge 50th Anniversary stamp issue. Mine is the $1.00 stamp. I didn’t get paid for it, but the idea that in 100 years time someone will still be collecting these stamps, maybe even the first day cover with my name on it, well, you can’t put a price on that.
Skittles Vodka
It started at a bar in downtown Auckland called Traffic. I looked at a glass bottle of dark orange murky substance behind the bar. “What’s that†I enquired with inebriated exuberance “Skittles Vodka†the barman announced proudly “special recipeâ€.
Making Skittles Vodka, as the name would suggest, involves dissolving skittles in Vodka. I tried sorting the Skittles into their colours.
The hard thing is knowing what ratio of different kinds of skittles to use. My current theory is 4 bags worth of one colour to 500ml of Vodka.
Method: dump the Skittles into the Vodka and leave it overnight. As the Skittles dissolve, give the bottle a vigorous shake, dislodging the melting skittles at the bottom. After about 2 days, the skittles will be dissolved and you’ll see white stuff suspended in the Vodka, so you’ll need to strain it. What seems to work best is filtering it through a clean tea towel (coffee filters are too fine).
In the end, you have very colourful sweet Vodka which tastes like something between paint thinners and cough syrup 🙂
Top Gear Live
Sarah & I have long been fans of Top Gear. Well, to be honest, Sarah likes Top Gear and go with the flow. The TV show involves a bunch of middle-aged men behaving like a bunch of kids, playing with fast cars, burning lots of petrol. On Friday the 13th of February, a group of us went to see Top Gear Live.
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My first flight
Ever since my break up with Sebastian and moving into the new apartment I’ve been experiencing a profound sense of listlessness. In Afrikaans, we would use the term “is nie lus nieâ€. There’s no direct translation but it speaks of a general lack of desire. It’s a nasty sense of boredom. Not that there’s nothing to do, just that you don’t feel like doing anything. It’s the first rung on the ladder to depression and I’m not about to let that happen.Â
Happy Clappy
Last weekend was a long weekend for those of us in Auckland: Auckland Anniversary weekend, to be precise. Now usually I don’t plan my holidays very well in advance and this one was no exception. In fact, it turned out that I planned my holiday so poorly that I didn’t actually have one.
I had, instead, agreed (in collaboration with my friend Alastair) to prepare the church service for that Sunday.
Now, it’s a great honour to be asked to do something like this and so I do take it seriously. It does mean a great deal of work, though, particularly around choosing the songs. If you choose a song that’s too old, then you scare away the young people (we have far too few of them at our church as it is). If you choose songs with too much “heâ€, “him†and “father†business, you upset the Lesbians (and we have too few of those as well). If you change the words to someone’s favourite song, however, you’re going to have a grumpy old man on your hands. Frankly though, we have quite a few of those at our church, so we can afford to ruffle a few feathers from time to time.
Break in
Well, this is a particularly distressing story to tell, so soon after I related the previous one about my car being whole again.
Last night, I drove up from Hamilton, my car in tact, hoping to make it to a friend’s place for a late Christmas party they were throwing. I made it in time (just before midnight). Socialised and had a few drinks. I then took a little nap to sober up before the short drive home. When I got back to my car (at around 4am), this sight greeted me: