i'd like to wrap the blog with a story as relayed by my mother after her weekly reading session with some un-named kids at an un-named school in an un-named community. it's got everything i strive for in a blog post: style, inappropriately mentioned body parts, and poop.

And next was N. I didn't see her and said to M - is N away. NOPE she just looks different. She cut her own hair! At which point N looked up and said really loud - don't ya think I look like the Jonas brothers?

Her haircut is hilarious. Very much longer on one side and looks like someone tried to tidy it but >>>>>> ya know how that goes. She is very cute! She told me she used her moms good scissors and I asked what her mom said to her and she said NOT MUCH! She wasn't happy. BUT then the best line of the day. She was looking at the Olympoop torch pictures near where we were sitting and she shouted out - look Dianne theres CROTCHY! She was looking at the mascots. I had a hard time recovering from that and she kept asking me - what's so funny!

We read a story and then I asked her about the new baby cuzzin twins and she said they stink. They have poo in their diapers and it stinks and I don’t like that smell. And I have to look after them. I said all by your self. Nope with my grandma and grandpa and I liked them better before the babies were born. OOOOPS!

thank you un-named child, you made my day!!

and now, to nicaragua!
luv me

didn't i start this blog by quoting the infamous 80's hair band, europe? whatever, there's never enough 80's hair band quoting these days.

ok, bear with me, there's a lot to cover, and a lot of photos.

first, a shout out... to the nelson library: for accommodating my bum in comfortable chairs through many hours of working (and emailing) in a more ergonomically beneficial setting than, say, a bunk bed; for the free internet (aotearoa people's network kaharoa - woot!); for the somewhat out of date but helpful nonetheless lonely planet nicaragua, with some handy spanish phrases i photocopied out of the back; for the very out of date but very entertaining lonely planet BC - yikes, glad i'm not travelling there; for accepting everyone under its roof, especially the leather-clad fellow who liked to wear his sunglasses while rocking out at the listening station to janis joplin, the hippy raver who couldn't stop the dancing while reading, and all of us tourists sponging off your publicly funded spaces; and most especially, for the exceptionally clean and perfectly functioning bathrooms. i have enjoyed my library time greatly. nelson sets an example we should all learn from.

i would also like to do a shout out to those why defy gravity... a couple weekends ago nelson hosted 'buskerburgoo' - an annual buskers festival. do we have those in vancouver? because we should! it was great fun. i particularly enjoyed the circus. seriously gravity-defying. the mind boggles.



observe where the pink-legged feet are. plus the thing they were on was spinning!





seriously. seriously?? seriously!



then the trapeze came out and it just got ridonkulous.



not sure how they all felt by the end of the show, but i left with cramps in my legs and ass, not even from sympathy pain, just from being old and sitting on pavement in awe. it still hurts my brain to think of it. and my back is starting to ache.

aside from the library and buskers, i've also enjoyed the fruit and flowers in nelson. the fruit i don't have a photo of, because it's in my tummy (and in the sewer system below the library). tonight i made excellent progress on my final half-kilo bag of local organic blueberries. will probably be visiting the library tomorrow.

but the flowers, the flowers are sure pretty! this is the smelling-so-nice flower i enjoyed on my way home from the movies a while back, thanks to frances it has been determined to be jasmine. it smelled goooood.



and an impressive chunk-o-bougainvillea that i used to walk past near the student housing.



a week ago i left nelson for a wee jaunt out to golden bay. i took the vomit comet over the hill to takaka (takaka? takaka. takaaka. taaakaka. takaka.) - ok ok emphasis is on the ta. the kaka just rolls off yer tongue. so to speak. :|

takaka has one main street that goes for one long block. pretty much covers everything a town needs - library, gelato, lunch, hardware. and an excessive number of hippies. they all dress the same, smell the same (BO + patchouli), and hug each other just a little too long the same. it's something to do with 'rainbow', which i'm fairly certain is a cult, because seriously, there is a uniform! a uniform of vegetable dyed hemp in a rainbow of colours that hangs off the body and is woven into hair. their 'rainbow' is not roygbiv or the gay signifier that you and i may think of. it's something else, because people refer to it without an article, it's not 'a rainbow' or even 'the rainbow', just 'rainbow'. 'have you heard of rainbow?' they might say slowly, softly, in a glazed kind of way. at which point, i advise pretending you just heard someone call your name, and you really must go.

so hippies aside, i enjoyed my time in takaka greatly. that is mostly thanks to the place i stayed, which happens to be up for sale if you've got a spare half mill and feel like living in a town overrun by hippies. if you are headed to takaka soon (as i'm sure you all will be) i can't recommend Carlconna House enough. The owners and hosts, Tony and Kath, have done an incredible job with the house - they gutted it and rebuilt it using much recycled wood and it is an absolute beaut. i stayed in a room with a balcony overlooking the garden... what a place to park my ass for a week.



along with running the nicest place in the world, Tony also makes delicious muesli, and very generously took me and another guest out on a little roadtrip on my last day there to see some of the sights nearby.

first to the abel tasman memorial, where we read about colonialism (bad), and saw lovely views (good).

(click to make the cheesy panorama bigger)



and on the other side where we could see some climbers





then back round the corner to Pohara, which seemed to be full of campers and tents and vehicles but there was almost no one on the beach except us, my toes, and Zoe the miniature dog (also co-owner of Carlconna House).









on the way back we stopped at the Grove Scenic Reserve which had crazy rad trees and rocks growing around and out of each other like i've never seen before. new zealand does trees and rocks growing together well, you may recall the trees growing out of the rocks on the road to portobello, but this was a step above.

first, a pattern. do our trees look this cool on the inside??



snakey-palm, or palmy-snake?



it kind of looks like a hollowed out old tree horizontally at the bottom there, but it's not, it's a rock. with two giant trees growing out of it.



narrow pathway between 2 rocks with a gazillion tree roots growing up (down?) on each side



rocks. with holes. i thought it was cool.



this gives a whole new definition to tree-hugger. also sort of makes me think of an alien latching onto its human host and sucking the life out of it. but in a nice way.



and finally, the soundtrack to this past month... a cicada. seriously, can you keep it down for just a damn minute???



so obviously, a big shout out to Tony and Kath and Zoe, thank you, thank you, thank you.

another shout out should go to the immensely talented artists of Golden Bay who have contributed their brilliant designs over the years to the World of Wearable Art annual competition. Dianne and i went to see the WOW museum in Nelson back in January, but i appear to have been so obsessed with tommy and his horses that i neglected to mention it. which is sort of sad, actually. because the museum was incredible. not much else i can say other than point you in the direction of the WOW website, which doesn't do it justice either - it is something you have to experience in person. Sorry. Anyhoo, back to Golden Bay... so, at the very small one-room Golden Bay museum in takaka, there is currently an exhibition of past winning WOW entries by local artists. it is unbelievable the things these people come up with! they are all stunningly beautiful, and when you get close up you realize what crazy stuff it's made of. one piece was made entirely of fish skins. i kid you not. fish skins, attached together in the form of a cape. FISH SKINS.

anyhoo, go Golden Bay wearable artists!

the final Golden Bay shout out goes to Chrissy and Willie, a delightful couple from the UK who were also staying at Carlconna, and who very, very kindly offered to let me tag along with them on a daytrip out to Farewell Spit, Wharariki Beach and all points in between - which otherwise would've been totally inaccessible to me being sans vehicle and all.

when we started our drive in the morning, the rain was just a trickle, which very quickly became a thundering downpour, so we stopped first in the Golden Bay Machinery and Settlers Museum. it was no settlers of catan (how geeky is that??), but the old machines were cool! the building was mainly filled with tractors and i found this sassy little number. no idea what The Lister does, but who wouldn't want one when they look that good?



and also tried my hand as switchboard operator. you know, in case my career as a celebrity blogger doesn't pan out. always good to learn new skills.



from there we headed up to farewell spit, where the sky spat a bit and we looked out at the land curving far into the distance.



the most impressive views of the day were at wharariki beach (pronounced FAR-a-ree-kee)







it was a little windy, i think i'm still cleaning the sand out of my ears



blowing sand = cool patterns



but the awesomest part was the big posse of baby seals!!! there were about 15 pups and one adult - talk about bad child care ratios. plus she was sleeping on the job. anyhoo they were tucked into a rock formation that had a big hole cut out of it, and with the tide being low, you can just walk right in. i guess they must be used to gentle humans visiting regularly because she didn't seem to mind, and the pups just kept on playing in their little pool - one kept popping out to get a better look at the kids standing nearby. there were 8 of us humans in their vicinity, 3 kids and 5 grown ups, and we all stood quietly and still about 5 feet away from them. growing up in vanc, i never thought i would be awe-struck by baby seals, but i was awe-struck alright. though i still think they look like slugs. very, very cute slugs with huuuuge eyes.













the rock was also very cool and had weird squidgy slimy red things growing on the side of it that looked like a cross between nipples and dog penises and mushrooms. or some other combination of things. feedback welcome.



and that covers my time up in Golden Bay. big, big, big thanks to Chrissy and Willie for putting up with me for the day - it was a great one.

so people, we are coming to the end of my new zealand blog. one more day in nelson and then i am off on a long journey that will eventually get me to Nicaragua, where plans are afoot to re-enact blue crush.

from left to right: marnie, eli, denise, nate, and that's me holding the big glass of orange juice.



thanks to everyone who read along and stayed in touch with me on this trip - there have been moments where it's felt very long and moments where it's been rather lonely and the close contact i had with you made all the difference in the world!! special shout outs to wheezler and thi for the skype experiences, marnie and denise for the messages and videos from my small pals, my mom for every article about olympic mayhem, benjamin for the frequent and epic emails, joshie and reesey for poems, frances for cooking and floral advice, and the rest of you who stayed in touch as much or more as we do when i'm in my regular time zone... THANK YOU!! i miss you! see you soon!

a couple of weekends ago i dropped by the speed shearing competition down the street to watch some sheep become bald, quickly. i went after a visit to the art gallery. because what goes better with art than sheep shearing? the answer is: nothing.

so first of all, they make the farmers all wear slippers and tank tops. not sure why on either front (though i'm guessing the slippers have no-slip bottoms and ensure the sheep is not stepped on by something hard, like a boot). they also wear pants, but specific trouser fashion choices are left to the discretion of the shearer. no sequins though. they'd get caught in the wool.

first up were the 'clean' shearers - not so much a speed competition as how precise and tidy a haircut you give. they were kind of like the opening band. not as good or as exciting as the main act, but a little bit of up-and-coming talent to get you warmed up.

the big excitement was in the speed shearing. the speed shearers also have to do a clean cut - your time will be disqualified if you do a sloppy job or leave the sheep bleeding. the sheep kinda looked like they don't know what hit them, but for the most part, they just went with it. it didn't appear to hurt them (at least not any more than i hurt myself when i shave my legs, which, let's be honest, sometimes hurts if i'm in a rush).

it all happened so quickly but i tried to capture the 27 seconds (i kid you not! this guy was amazing!) in photographs.

still wooley



balder on the belly



hairless left side



i done!



rinse, repeat.

the sheep were pretty quiet post-shaving, not sure if they were organizing a silent revolution from the back of the truck or just feeling self-conscious. their new haircuts did make them all look quite a bit younger.

luv me

no, not the kind of irritation you get from chafing. the kind you get when technology makes you sad.

i just found out today that blogger is shutting down their ftp service. that's how i make this blog work. that's how i've made it work since before i got on my first really long flight to see new and exciting things all by my big self. for those of you keeping track, that was before blogger was bought out by google and before i was a crusty old lady. in the life of technology: a long time ago.

before this trip i had thought about switching the blog over to wordpress. you know, because that's what the kids are doing. i've built a few sites in wordpress and for the most part, i do like how it works. it serves a purpose, that's for sure. but when i logged back into blogger a few months ago, i remembered why i liked it so much in the first place. it's minimal. you don't have to upgrade every five minutes and worry about what's going to break when you upgrade. there aren't pointless widgets coming out of your hoo hoo. my templates are all built in html, which means i know how to change them without destroying how it all works. it's not fragile. the entire thing actually lives on my webspace, in html, so i can take the files away - by FTP - and do what i want with them. i can move them. i can archive them. it takes seconds. it's easy. it's not flashy, but it works. it works really well.

it sort of reminds me of new zealand, actually. it's not flashy, but it's easy, and it works. and it's just, you know, really quite good.

why do we have to ruin all these things in an attempt to make them flashier, which ends up not being better? should i be moving into the woods to become a crusty luddite? am i already there, minus the living in the woods part?

ok. that's the end of my technology rant. next time, sheep shearing, i promise.
luv me