Orange is not a colour, it's a state of mind

Every Sunday at about this time I hear a clattering across the road. It’s the tow truck, come to cruise around the car park across the road. They pretty much always catch someone parked illegally. I think they choose this time because there’s lots of people in desperate need of a park – whether to attend the church behind the car park or get their cheap pay with cash only vegies at the market down the road. I try to keep a watch out but other than seeing the odd person come back during the tow process and having a dingdong with the guy (and still getting a ticket to pay the tow fee), I’ve yet to see someone come back to stare at the empty park where they left their car, or at a different car in their spot and see what they do next.

And it’s so totally amazing how those tow truck guys can break into a car, regardless of make or model, in like 2 seconds.

At work on a Saturday – who needs sun stroke or heat exhaustion – supposedly going to be 26 today which is pretty warm for Wellington and it sure is blue out there.

Small fix-it jobs around the house definitely go according to plan when I do the work and the Mister passes the pencil/hammer/hook or whatever it is we’re fixing.

5.30am and we’re up watching the inauguration of Barack Obama. Well at the moment it’s a bunch of New Zealanders trying to run a CNN-style panel discussion. Man the Mall is so full of people and it’s -6 degrees!

Took a road trip over to Martinborough this weekend and went to visit ‘our’ vines (well, more likely vine singular). We bought a very small parcel of Alana shares when they went up for sale 18 months ago and we’ve enjoyed the shareholder discount we sometimes get on their wine but had never actually been to the winery. It’s quite a picturesque place and it did feel kind of special that we owned a tiny part of it … we were trying to figure out what chunk could be ours, a bolt in the door, a flagstone on the terrace, a fence post, a chair in the restaurant … When we claimed aforementioned shareholder discount at the Cellar Door, the guy asked if we’d been to see our vine (note, singular) so we took up his offer to park the car up the driveway and jump across into the vines to say hi to one … whichever one … which we did!

While over there we also stopped off for lunch at the Old Winery Cafe at Margrain – always a lovely spot even though the wind was very strong.

Walked home along the waterfront after dinner-at-a-friend’s last night and for Wellington it was amazingly warm and still. The harbour was calm and perfect looking.

I managed to get this with quite a long shutter speed, although know it’s nowhere near as good as the photo a guy further along the way probably got with his tri-pod, bum-bag and camera with big pokey out lens. His will probably feature on a postcard some day.

A Mr Fixit guy came to visit to look at the broken draws and useless arrangement of built-in units in our wardrobe. He asked if we were “into sanding and painting at all?” Errr, no. He said he “assumed as much.” What!? Quite funny really that a guy can tell that within 5 minutes of meeting us, but so true. When it came to receiving his ideas for a new unit for the wardrobe he said “Where should I post it? Please don’t ask me to use email, I don’t do email.” So I took the chance to say that I “assumed as much.”!!

Well, I’ve done it. Not often do I bow to peer pressure but I have just got my first pair of jandals since, errrr, I think I was 11? They were bright yellow, thick soles with a rainbow canvas top. (Oh, for my international readers, jandals are rubber shoes … flip-flops or thongs you might know them as.) My new ones are brown.

It might seem odd to shop assistants that a person might not know the ‘right’ sized jandal to buy. Needless to say, I did not purchase mine from the surly teenager who when asked “Are these the right size for me?”, replied, “Well you’re not hanging over the edge of them so… uuu … yes”, topped off with a damn eyeroll. I just kicked them off, put on my clomper work shoes and stomped out.

No longer limited to New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, Xero took on the world today with a release of a version that is generic enough that it will allow anyone in the world to use it – you can choose your own currency to input transactions in and choose your own tax rates. Writing the help for it was again a massive job, helped by the able Orange Assistant, but it won’t be an easy ride to Christmas … I’m ashamed to say bits didn’t get finished and I won’t rest until they’re done. Sigh.

First Sunday without our beloved Nikau. However we’re reasonably distracted by work – why release software *just* before Christmas – and a visit from Basel Lisa! She was making an appearance in Wellington city for one day only, heard I was making date scones and coffee and came on over for a lovely 3 hour catch-up. We enjoyed scones and coffee (she said it was the best she’d had in aaaaages) on the floor in the struggling sun and almost forgot that we hadn’t been to Nikau. So great to see Lisa – perhaps in Basel next time!