rosa-bulldozer

Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans....

2011-10-22T19:19:00.004+01:00

Huh.
Summary: didn't do Loch Tay quadrathalon. But did do the 'Big Ben Nevis' half triathalon. Touted as the toughest off-road tri in the UK. It was the hardest but the bestest thing me and G have done. completed september 2010. Same year as the BEST TIME OF MY LIFE. 3 weeks in South Africa, with family Mendes. for the world cup. Special times. I've probably said it before, but I am so blessed/lucky/special to be related to these people I call my family. I am still learning from them all.

Anyway,enter 2011. The rollercoaster continues. I am entering the 8th week of sick leave. Och it's a long and boring story but it is the biggest challenge of my wee life so far. I'd like to think I am improving in the fight to return to my life. I have good bits of kit in my toolbox to help me: The people in the photo above. Amazing friends. Humour. The sea. Music. The sun. Trees. And who could do anything without a series or 3 of Kath & Kim and Father Ted.
This song I think sums it up so far.... (you will have to copy and paste into your URL cos I can't figure out how to do it any other way! It's worth it for the song by the way!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLgWyHSyx9Q

Lyrics below:
"Choir" - Malcolm Middleton

There’s a choir behind me
Egging me on
Placing their bets and hoping I’ll do no wrong
I’ll do no wrong
There’s a guy inside me
Biding his time
Standing in line and waiting for me to fall
For me to fall
Self-preservation threatens us all
Health deterioration comes to us all
There’s a fag beside me
Waiting to be lit
Trying to trick me
And make me forget I’ve quit
I forget I’ve quit
I take a risk everyday when I get up
Do I try harder?
Or continue to fuck up
Fuck up
There's a bear in my bed
Wanting to be loved
Eyes like marbles
All he needs is a hug
My beginner’s luck is wearing thin
I’ll need to rely on skill if I'm going to win
I’m going to win

To see if I can...

2009-02-02T16:41:00.002Z

That's the main reason I do anything. And the main reason I've done stuff up to now. Call it 'being pig-headed' as my Aunty Joan so eloquently puts it, or a family trait (have noticed mad relations doing things as I do just because) it also makes for a good story, which is the other reason my family/friends also attempt things...
To see if I can. If I can, cool! If I fail miserably, ah well, that wasn't meant for me was it? Not a talent I can put down on me list of attributes. move on....preferably onto a beach for a coupla weeks...

Anyway, So what is this all about Rosa? I hear you say. Whachya gonna do now?

Well, I cannot take the inspiration to try this. I have a mad acquaintance (well, I have several mad acquaintances, but that's another story) who has roped me into trying to complete a Quadrathalon in central Scotland in July. Sounds interesting hey? not even a bi-athalon, or triathalon, but flicken Quadrathalon. Not that I've ever attempted any kind of 'athalon' apart from doing a half marathon 9 years ago (yep, 9 years ago, to see if I could, and swearing I'd never do that again). ...
This whole idea was thought up by some mad laird up on an estate on Loch Tay who wanted his mates to do something when they came up to Scotland in the summer hol's.
And I was placated with the fact that there's no running in it! (hoorah!) but there is
1) a 1.2 km swim across Loch Tay, water temp. in summer: 6deg. peaty, murky water, needs a navigator to swim in front so you don't end up in circles.
2) a 15mile hill-walk across 5 munro's including Ben Lawyer (quite a tall chap), website interestingly states: hillwalk/run. (!!!! fell-runners are just bananas, even more than me!)
3) a 7km kayak back across Loch Tay, to original starting point.
4) a 50 odd km bike ride around the circumference of Loch Tay.
5) stop the clock and the race timer by slicing a watermelon with a samurai sword and eating the melon. (something the Laird invented to make use of his samurai sword collection, and you have to eat the melon, cos it costs him £1.50 each don't ya know!)

Ah sure, I just about fainted watching it one sunday avo when my mate text me and said 'this is the challenge I was talking about! you can do it with a bit of training no bother at all!'. yep she's a bit deluded.
So even after watching the physical and mental pain of last year's contestants, I thought 'jeez, it'd be good to have a crack at it, not many people will be able to say they've swum across Loch Tay', and for aforementioned reasoning (however unrealistic that reasoning is).
So I've started training (after a delay with getting crook at New Years). I'm not committing to doing the whole event (i.e. all 4 events) as you can enter as a team, as long as there's 2 of you doing one of the events. So G got interested at the swimming bit too (?gluttons for punishment) and he'll be a teammate. nothing like sharing the pain I reckon.
At about Easter time I reckon we'll have an idea of what we'll be able to do.From how training is going currently, I'll be lucky to get away with the swim and hill-walk (stress walk, there is absolutely no way on this earth I am running up scottish mountains thanks very muchly).
Just to add a bit more pressure (and to again make a good story out of it), I've decided to try to do a masters module in neurology, assessment of case-study essay, to be handed in day before easter. (insert: to see if I can here).

These things always remind me of a really good (bad) joke whenever I'm out training in gale-force winds and hail: A bloke on a construction site at tea-break, sees this Irishman/(insert ethnicity of choice here) hitting his head with a hammer. He rushes up to him and says: "what the bloody hell you doing that for?" The Irishman replies "Cos it feels so good when I stop!"

God loves a trier......

Wherein one gatecrashes a marathon and rubs with the celebs....

2008-09-28T18:22:00.002+01:00

So...the leaves are turning gold and yellow and jade, the mornings are crisp and your boiler decides to die properly....it must be autumn in Scotland!

I must admit I'm quite fond of Autumn, even if it does mean the noticeable quickening of days getting shorter and shorter, and cold grey weather for 6 months. ah well. I'm quite fond of Autumn in Scotland too. As G says, the light is liquid and you find yourself staring at a field full of hay bales for a good hour, watching the light pour itself around soft shapes and darting birds, before being distracted by say, traffic (oh yeah! i'm driving home:) or someone asking you a work question.

So the other saturday morning was a cracker autumnal dundee day: windy, sunny, grey, windy, sunny, grey etc etc. I had an overwhelming desire to inhale great lungfuls of sea air while I still could in the morning, without my breath freezing and being unable to feel my face.
'that's it! I'm away to broughty ferry for a docile jog along the waterfront for a bit'. I announced to G. Parked the car at the usual place, and start a very unchallenging paced jog along the waterfront, watching the herons and oystercatchers and other great gangly birds feeding etc.
soon enough I notice skinny blokes with numbers attached to their front singlets and running shorts shoot past me in a blur of hot pink and blue. 'must be a local comp on today' I muse as I begin to break into a sweat. Then onto the castle, where Stewards wearing hi-vis jackets are standing around and look at me very strangely as I approach. Nothing new there, me thinks, peeps usually look at me strangely when I attempt to run/jog.
The no's of runners flying past me begin to increase as I get onto the beach promenade proper, so I take a quick look behind me before launching off to complete the beach circuit. A rather large fluro yellow "14 MILES" sign is posted on the pole behind me. A little 'click' is audibly heard from between my ears, as I instantly remember a conversation with Amy and radio station conversations about the Dundee marathon being this weekend. of course! Now it's impossible at this point for me not to get any redder in the face, so when I find a space in the dunes from the road, I dash into it and run back to the castle onto the beach. bloody hard work but a respite nonetheless. However, I must get back to the car, and the beach runs out before this. So I find myself back at the 14 mile mark and join the throng of runners. Thank goodness there is no way I could be mistaken for a competitor in my baggy shorts and daggy shirt and cap. I do get the odd clap of encouragement on the way back to the car, which is quite nice from the norm really.....

Today me and G head to 'teuchter territory' up in Perthshire, for a wander and a late lunch at this great pub that I always pass on my travels at work and have always wanted to stop off at.
Great choice. It's another great Autumn day (see above for staring at the same field for half an hour, except this time it's a river). A good Pub for live folk sessions and as we eat our very appeasable lunch someone cracks open the guitar case and plays a few tunes. Then as we're finishing off, Dylan Moran wanders through the door (well, staggers), ruffling his hair and orders food and drink before wandering out to smoke in the very agreeable beer garden on the banks of the Tay river. Now there's not much unusual about that, me thinks, I knew he was touring and was disappointed he was sold out otherwise I woulda gone, but bugger me if he doesn't look like the spitting image of G's mate, just with longer hair. So both G and me resist the temptation very narrowly to say 'Oi! Jamesey! why didn't you tell us you were coming here!'

more later on commercial wave farms and the raging debate of the 'size does matter' on waves between Britain and Portugal.

ok that's just ridiculous

2008-09-19T22:17:00.001+01:00

well what did I see when nipping into the local supermarche a couple of weeks ago (yes, 2 weeks ago). Christmas cards and christmas wrapping paper.
'bloody hell' I thought, that's just typical of the "evil multi-national taking-over-the-world supermarket" that I frequent because I'm a hypocrite and don't go to local shops (during the week anyhoo, in local shops on weekends, i promise!!) christmas in the first week of september??? it hasn't even been halloween to consumerise over yet!

but hey-ho whaddya know, every shop I've been into since that day 2 weeks ago has bloody christmas bloody paraphenalia in it!!

If my ma and pa weren't coming over for Christmas I might have considered boycotting the 25th of dec this year I'm so disgusted with the galling materialism of the concept.

no pressy's for us, ma and pa are the best yet.

Parklife

2008-08-09T17:47:00.002+01:00

As the poet and legend John Lennon said:
Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans....

A beautiful lady reminded me to update this blog, so I'm attempting to!

In short (or not so short), moved out of Pitkerro rd, sadly, at the end of November. moved into Pete's (G's mate) to save money for a bit while we decided what to do for the next few years. The plan changed a fair few times along the way, bit of a rollercoaster of emotion trying to decide what to do, shortly after Xmas decided to get a wee place here in Bonnie Dundee. Thus ensued lots of nosying at lots and lots of different places where we discovered a few truths about hoose's (location location!) and found a lovely wee flat opposite Baxter Park which is my absolutely most favouritist park in Dundee. (also amazed at the fact that we had a good chance of living in the street that I always wanted to live in when G first walked me around Baxter Park when I first met him, weird!) Thus ensued many horrible nights of not knowing what the hell was going on as we don't understand the legal/monetary system that is getting a mortgage and buying a place, and not wanting to thank you very much! finally the day before we both decided to pull out and get a round the world ticket to anywhere, the bloody thing went through (what happens when you buy at the start of the credit crunch, and i'm so sad to realise I even have an inkling what that term means). We have decided after all that carryon that we're never moving again!!!
And so we live in a wee flat all of our own (well, i think the deposit paid for the front door. everything else belongs to the bank). It's very peaceful and to be all hippy-like, there's great vibes here, man.

Moving day, as opposed to moving out of Pitkerro Rd, (which was one of the most stressful and horrible moving days) was great fun. G's lovely mates all turned up and many laughs were had as I discovered I absolutely adore driving white transit vans all about Dundee (with G's mates in the back). It has to be said that it has been the longest move-in both G and I have ever participated in, due to a)having more than a backpack of stuff to move and b) donations of furniture from mates/relatives/distantly related pets etc, it seems every week we have had another bit of furniture to pick up. We are very blessed and very lucky to know such great people. (with great taste in furniture!) looking around the flat we both realised all we have contributed to has been a flatpack coffee table, 2 canvas wardrobes and our very treasured CD collection.
An added bonus has been the arrival of Amy, a mate I studied OT with in NZ, who has returned to scotland and been locuming up in Angus, and thus boarding with us. Am truly spoilt to spend so much time with her, she's a special gal.

In between moving we've been over to Portugal to see ma and pa, which was great, attended cricket matches down in Durham and even been to a great summer music festival, which wasn't attended by thousands and had lots of hippies to people-watch and lovely Irish bands that we chatted to and made me very homesick for Ireland, if that makes sense!
And now I sit at the dining table (donated by our financial advisor!) and watch the leafy trees move about in the park. (it's been a windy summer!)

I never would have thought I'd be content having my own wee patch on the earth. Sure, the twinge of travel calls me, but I reckon I'm gonna try have my cake and eat it, too! Gotta be worth a go, anyhoo....

nowt stranger than folk....

2007-10-21T19:42:00.001+01:00

well well well....(3 holes in the ground as my mate Kev from the lab used to say. Bless you Kevin, wherever you are!)

16th October 2007 I meant to blog as a conscientious blogger should, but me being neither conscientious, nor a blogger, this didn't happen. No disappointment then hey?

16th October 2007 and I've been away from enzed 5 years. Phewee bro. Imagine that!

That's the thing. I would never have imagined it. Little did I know 5 years ago that I would be living in a wee tenement flat in Dundee, Scotland; shacked up with some strange dundonian bloke,hell, even married to this strange scottish bloke (or married to anyone for that matter), after living in Dublin for 2 years, wandering around a bit, climbing the highest hill in Africa, climbing hills in the republic of Ireland, staying at the most bombed hotel in europe for easter with a mad but very special Australian, going to my brothers wedding in South Africa, meeting my oldest and bestest mate in northern italy for great coffee, meeting up with old mates in Nice and swanning about monaco in shorts, just to name a few great memories in the 5 years past since departing on a 26 hour flight from Auckland to Dublin on 15 Oct 2002.

Life is great hey.....

I do like the fact you can't see what's around the corner. Yes bad stuff has gone down but hey, I don't think I would've signed up to half of the stuff if it hadn't of just happened.

Must go, stop looking through those rose-coloured glasses and check the pumpkin soup. I must admit I'm still struggling that the only time you can make pumpkin soup in Europe is when it's Halloween. It's just wrong. But when I get my allotment, that'll all change! There'll be pumpkin soup in spring, dammit! just you wait!

Thoughts from a disqualified colonial.....

2007-10-07T16:56:00.000+01:00

yes well we all know that it's been far too long between drinks for me writing this blog.
sorry chaps. life has got in the way a bit. will slowly plough away at writing re: the wedding and so forth......

Every ting i've learnt has been from random nonegenerians....

So said aforementioned nonegenerian to me on friday (see opening title). She 's been a prisoner in the 'jap camps' in the first world war, speaks frightfully well, and says her only mistake in life has been to outlive everyone, especially her precious husband...first question when finding out I too was a 'disqualified colonial' was 'what the bloody hell are you doing in this god-awful place then eh what?'. I explain I had the (mis)fortune of meeting a bloody scot and look where it got me. Her deep blue eyes twinkled and face creased into long-established laugh lines. 'yes, happens to the best of us.' Next question: 'do you get homesick?' and I didn't even have to explain the sentence "it comes and it goes". She merely nodded and deep eyes again revealed all understanding.

So today was a cracker autumnal day. crisp. golden. sun warming your face. wander through baxter park. read. occasionally getting hugs from passing puppy's. people-watch.

Life is good.

Enjoy

Can I just say...

2007-06-13T19:34:00.000+01:00

That my stupid, girley, teenage crush on Johnny Depp has never subsided.

Went to see Pirates of the Carribean:3 at the movies last week.

my god, those eyes!!!

and of course he's a brilliant actor. saved the movie really.

You know when you've been in a place too long....

2007-06-11T20:12:00.000+01:00

When you go to a wedding reception and your local pub landlord and his wife are also there and make you dance with them and won't let you leave. eeek!

Yep, time to leave dundee soon!

Pretty full-on weekend, went to aforementioned local pub friday night for well-deserved drink after hectic week. great chats with Mr G, home to episodes of Kath&Kim. 'you know your beeswax? why don't you mind it?' before the very regular occurence of Rosa falling asleep on the sofa.

Saturday 'dotting aboot the toon' as the G says, doin' stuff for the bloody wedding (can it end now please?). met up with couple of G's mates, for more of a blether before retreating up the road deciding that we couldn't be bothered going to wedding reception.
chipper splashed out for dinner cos we knew we were'nt going wedding receptioning, then sudden attack of guilt at 8pm after the 2nd Peter Kay Phoenix Nights episode, slapped on some war paint and a dress (yes G looks pretty good in a mini-dress :) and nipped down 'for a quick look-in, and dropping off the present'. 4 hours later after meeting up with publican landlord, talking shite intermittently with talking in Kath&Kim quotes with Australian guests of the wedding, dropped off back to the local by good mate to 'the balmore after 10'. A very different place. my word. The balmore after 10. Not for the faint-hearted. Great for professional people-watchers, such as myself. experience needed tho not to get caught and therefore discovered as 'not a local'.

Sunday: wasted. just as well it was crap weather.
It's warming up tho. hooray!

Rosa's extra special weather report and 'filems' review

2007-06-03T18:43:00.001+01:00

well exciting this will be for all 2 of you that read this, as the title reads; earth-shattering hold-your-breath stuff today...well it is a lazy sunday after all.

And I would be hill-walking today, but for the lovely summer weather that has introduced summer in Scotland: rain, rain, fog, fog and more fog (or har as they say here). Well, you do live next to the north sea MR G says, so serves me right I guess. But the fog makes a welcome change to continous rain for the last week in May. It's nice and humid too. Very strange. As one of my patients said to me on Friday 'well, scotland does only get 2 months of summer; june and july'. cheers. really lifted me up.

onto the movies (also called filems here in scotland, as they do in ireland). Being a recipient of the scheme; 'love film' where for a monthly fee instead of only bills dropping through the letterbox you also get DVD's regularly, considering that TV is a waste of resources and electricity lately, you get stuff that you really really want, including all those cool old black&white movies and great comedy series, like KATH & KIM!!!! This has fuelled both me and Mr G's obsession with Kath's wedding and Sharon's future netballing injuries. A great Australian comedy series with great aussie humour where only the aussies can point and laugh at themselves the best. We are considering having a Kath&Kim themed wedding, following on from Kath's preparation 'oh Kimmee I've got so much to do re: the wedding'. it's great.
Then just this week we watched 'Little Miss Sunshine' which I've wanted to watch for ages. My god what a brilliant film. Great casting, great acting, great characters and great plot. Just watch it, if you haven't already.
We also saw 'wah-wah', for all you Richard E Grant fans (myself a big one) on new years eve actually (before driving up to Stonehaven for hogmanay to watch the fireball ceremony, but that's another story and probably one already told). T'was a bit freaky to know as we watched wah-wah, Richards autobiography of his childhood in Swaziland, my bro and sister-in-law were in swaziland for new years. hah! anyway, i digress, Wah-wah is also bloody fantastic, well cast and acted etc etc. Just watch it no. 2.
Black&whites: the african queen (which ma will laugh at me for!) was fantastic, as was 'the big sleep'. Watched chinatown with a very young Jack Nicholson, brilliant and was ashamed i'd never heard of it before (the shame the shame).
and all the Peter Kay DVD's! priceless.
I've turned into one of those annoying people who just have their conversation as a mish-mash of different catch-phrases from comedy series/movies.

oh that's nice, it's different, it's unusual.

sorry. better go. It's children of men tonight :)
next time will be better i promise!

Passwords and other nonsense

2007-05-28T16:04:00.000+01:00

well!

I would've posted ages ago (well, maybe 2 weeks ago) with my latest journal entry and I had all sorts of rubbish I'd saved up to discuss with....well, me mostly but you know what, I'd forgotten my bloody password to this blog! As I have recently with several passwords needed at work, to use online banking, several different email accounts etc etc. 'they' (i.e. IT boys at work) keep advising me, if not forcing me to keep changing my passwords, and make every account different, which is all well and good for security so no-one will ever pass as me, but it's so secure EVEN THE REAL ROSA CANNOT ENTER! Because, as I said before, I keep forgetting them. And you know when you've got a creative flow on,really needing just to get on and start writing, only to find you can't remember your password, then need to email the website to get another password, only to forget that, it kindof loses all concentration and creative flow!

So now I find myself blogging about bloody feckin passwords! ugggh!

How are you all anyway! Today is a Bank hol in the UK, and more importantly, for Perth&Kinross NHS Tayside, so I get a holiday! hooray! Yesterday me and the G came back from a couple days in Geordie-land (Whitburn, on the coast near south shields and Sunderland/Newcastle, to be exact) to catch up with friends and participate in the great british tradition of having a BBQ on may bank hol weekend where it'll rain continously as soon as you get the BBQ out. which duly happened. Prior to that however, it was quite a nice day, as we ambled through Whitburn village perusing the local fancy-dress shop (elvis accessories!) and watching mad dogs and englishmen frolic on the beach whilst eating icecream, as you do when you're on a beach in northern UK.
then back to my mates place to put up the gazebo to shelter the BBQ from the thunderstorms. T'was great fun. Apart from the trip back. Which would be 10times worse if we'd come back today (traffic!!!!!) didn't avoid watching suicidal maniacs overtaking on blind corners to catch up to caravans and trucks. idiots.

Anyway! time is skipping past quite freely, as I plan for my hens weekend, a weekend hillwalking in the Cairngorms in elvis costumes and more BBQ's in the scottish rain. Went up to Braemar to pay for the deposit where we're staying. Good to note the owner has an old collie dog pathologically obsessed with playing catch to entertain us. The place looks good. Just linen provided on bunk beds. huge kitchen, and outdoor BBQ area. hooray! must remember waterproofs.

Do you know when you say to people that you're having an informal, casual 'non-traditional' wedding, this is translated as 'oh they need help with turning this into a traditional "proper" Wedding, the poor things'. It's a full-time job to keep the bloody thing casual. If I didn't hate Las Vegas so much or wasn't keen on Gretna Green it would've happened there.

Yep, all things previously noted to be re-written as funny anecdotes now completely forgotten.

yay for holidays!

Memories are made of these....

2007-05-06T19:07:00.000+01:00

So Mistah G is away on his 'smoker' (aka stag do) in Amsterdam this weekend. Good luck amsterdam is all I can say!

Time for Rosa to: eat onions! pickled onions, red onion, spring onion, onion and tuna sandwiches, hell even onions all by themselves. and green stuff! lots and lots of green stuff. I've turned into a onion salad eating machine the last couple days. (note: G doesn't like or tolerate onions in any foodstuffs except for indian food, he loves indian food, which is mainly onion based. weirdo). I haven't had a chance to eat macaroni and cheese (his other pet hate) but that can wait.

Also Time for Rosa to catch up with all the other jobs put to one side to have general hilarity and mayhem with aforementioned G.
So i finally get around to a mental list of things I must attend to:
1) unpack all the boxes shipped over from Enzed, oh about 3 months ago, that have made it impossible to get into the spare room for about 3months.
2) eat onions! buy onions. look at onion based recipes. have onions as a snack shortly after breakfast. (did i mention I kindof miss not eating onions).
3) practice my ukelele
4) attend cheesy scottish-based functions where I won't hear constant moaning about how 'this is a load of shite, you do know real scots don't act like this, this is a carry-on for tourists like you, bloody teuchters, can we go home now....etc etc'
5) sleep diagonally across the bed, changing position whenever I want to, even to kick the cat out of bed, without any whinging or snoring...(bliss!)
6) tidy the house

So, it's approx 7.30pm on sunday night, and I have acheived 4 out of 6 on the list. no ukelele practice (but i still have tonight!) and no tidying house. oh well.

What I did do that i'm immensely proud of is unpack the boxes. What a mission! T'was great fun, a real step-back in time although I am a little perplexed why i kept so much rubbish and then had it shipped over about 15000 miles. I spent all of saturday (a good 9hour day) unloading boxes, which mainly involved me stopping every time I found more photos and old journals and old letters I'd written and received. I realised how just reading these and looking at stuff really brought memories flooding back, for e.g. i didn't quite realise how obsessed I was with swimming in the river in Dad's village in Portugal during my trip there when I was 8. Or how this obesession didn't seem to subside when I travelled to Tahiti for an exchange. (swimming every day. grumpy if this didn't happen). fantastic photos, of family/friends, trips to oz, OT training, Africa, USA, Tahiti, the list goes on and on.

So anyway, I should keep a journal more often. Maybe this electronic one will be a start. I don't really care if no-one reads it, it'll be good for me.
Saturday night, after not having left the flat all day, went up to a Friends ceilegh (ok ok I don't know how to spell it properly, it's pronounced 'kay-lee', but it's scottish dancing and party!) at the Alyth Town Hall. Alyth is part of my catchment area for work, so I was half expecting to see some ex-patients (or current ones?) . A small rural town. Population: prob around 1000.
Whilst I waited for my friend to turn up (notoriously late, even later than me, so we were both about 2 hours late). I arrived at the hall clutching my ticket. Stepping around the door past the club sandwiches and sausage rolls set out for 'half-time' I felt like I'd stepped back in time. Accordian, fiddler and organ player slowly droning away on the stage of the hall that looked like the hall I used to go to dance practice when I was about 6. Big heavy wine-coloured velvet curtains framed the stage and the windows. Blue-rinse-& hairset brigade and husbands sitting at trestle tables with balloons to liven the place up. So anyway, the place slowly fills up ('Alyth time', as the clock on the wall attested to, varied from 15-45mins behind the real time, and only had one hand. 'an obvious money saver' my friends husband said in jest). Kilts aplenty. Get your drinks from 'the bar': wooden trestle tables and 2 skulky looking teenagers. My Friend Elaine turns up with her husband, both from lancashire. Hilarious. Peter Kay impressions continue all night. As do anecdotes of trying to get accepted into rural scottish farming cliques. Interspersed with Dancing! Reels and round we go! flying kilts and flying women. Great fun, especially as me and my friend and her husband had no idea what we were doing. Just make it up as you go along. Glad I wasn't drinking, awfully dizzy enough thanks very much. which was even funnier as about halfway through the night the 'young folk' came in, some of whom could hardly stand and staggered about the reels. Great fun.

Back home to a huge bed. Awake today and out to watch G's neice at footy (she's better than the prem team!), and try not to get blown over with the wind, or the dog trying to bite his lead off. then wedding stuff shopping, then dinner (roast lamb!mmmm) with G's ma and pa in the ferry, sitting next to Jim McLean and chatting bout Chelsea losing the premiership, as you do (D Utd glory days! ha, G will be so jealous) then home.

Come back G! I've run out of onions!

'i'd like one of those trendy velcro wallets.....'

2007-04-28T14:28:00.000+01:00

Another beautiful sunny spring day in dundee. the silvery Tay sparkling as i meander down for a swim. a few therapeutic lengths, enjoy the feeling of the weightless-freedom, immersed of water. back out to the warming honey sunshine, i think back to the conversation with mistah G last night in the pub as i wander up the hill..... see part of Mr G's mid-life crisis was epitomised last night when he mentioned he wanted 'one of those trendy wallets'. this to co-ordinate with his G-unit hoody, g-unit shirt and cammo trousers recently purchased, to go with his bike whilst listening on his mp3 player to his hip-hop/funk/reggae/dancefloor/indie latest fly tunes. he's also requesting a skateboard.
bless.

so as i'm walking past the dept store on the way up the hill, dive in to get some pliers (as you do) and hey presto, what's on sale for cheap cheap, but one of those trendy wallets, even better,has a brand name. present it to mr G on my return who's a very happy man.
bless.

this in the week when one of my fave GP's i work with (well, the only GP i work with that i can bear to look at), he's quite a character, reveals that he couldn't wait to get home to play the newest version of online gaming 'lord of the rings' game, or some such thing. i shake my head and mutter about mr G better not find out about that one, when he remarks, hey, there's worse things we could do (ie. have outrageous affairs, gamble the house on a GG). there's reasoning for you. I remark mr G proudly reports he's 12. The GP reports likewise, as most blokes are. He (the GP) just grew up for a short period to graduate from medical school, so he could buy bigger toys and not get them taken off him.
bless.

they're good entertainment value at least.

A spoonful of Irish

2007-04-15T20:37:00.000+01:00

IT'S SPRING!!!!!!!!!!

hooray!

a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to have an extended long weekend in Ireland, in particular in the Dingle penisula, for a spoonful of irish and a great catch up with Sarah and Ruairi and Liz and Mike for great craic..
god it was therapeutic.

the usual craic in greystones: too much red wine and dancing on chairs, with hemp seeds for breakfast and a drive down to tralee for a walk up Mt Brendan, only a wee bit lost where even Rosa got some vertigo with a detour through heather and sheeptracks to the road where we got a lift back to the village with blackie the dog in the sheep trailer back to the best tasting pint of guinness i've tasted in a long time...to the usual tourist recycling route through the ring of kerry via killarney with minimal feckin american tourists, the best irish sun of the year please god.

it was great.

Back to a sunny edinburgh and dundee. put away the fleece jacket. sunglasses out.
there is a god.

there is a god. sun warming your face. washing drying on the line out in the back yard.
no tulips this year but. sprouted green in the pots, but no blooms. ah well, next time maybe.

Otahuhu sold. moving on. tulip and stock blooms on karolines memorial. moving on.

sun warming your face.
Spring!

Days s-l-o-w-l-y becoming days

2007-02-19T18:20:00.000Z

Jeepers creepers (where'd you get those sneakers!)just realised haven't posted here since 2006.

Happy new year!
still alive (but you would know that anyway).
it's time for a british themed 'weather' and 'the balmore' update

Thank God feb is nearly over. January was truly a depressing month. i don't mind cold weather, but the dark and greyness really does get to you after a while...it's been a very wet wet drizzly winter (and mild). thank goodness we've had a patch of cold but lovely crisp sunny blue sky weather, yeah sure a bit of snow came with it too, but at least it's pretty. So now it's light when i'm driving to work (lovely sunrises) and gets dark about 5pm. hooray! in about a month we'll be on british summer time. counting the days!! AND, my tulips (bought on trip to amsterdam) have sprouted! can't wait to see if they bloom.

had Sam up (mate from South shields, well, actually, she's from west-midlands but don't hold it against her ;) last week for a couple days which was nice. we went up to Bruar falls in the snow, introduced her to haggis (don't think what's in it, and it tastes delicious!) and she got some of mary's homemade tablet from the best sweetie shop in scotland (until i find one better) in 'the hilltoon', dundee. I went with Sammy to Bulgaria last year snowboarding, and this year both of us couldn't afford to go, so i guess we were a bit sad about that. I love snowboarding, and when there's been snow on the scottish slopes(which isn't often this year), i haven't been able to get up there either :(

So sammy obviously had to attend 'the balmore' (the local. an 'old mans pub') latest update from there, 'the only gay in the balmore' has been absent for a while (as have we really, didn't go much in jan and only returned when sammy came up. think the bar staff thought we'd left town!) and recently returned. he's a lovely chap and his partner of 16 years died, so he's not so good. poor chappy. another regular has up-sticks and moved to a farm in donegal. as you do. it's still so easy to tell who in the pub puts music on the jukebox. including us. i did hear on the news that the chaps for 'the campaign for real ale' in Britain are worried that too many pubs are shutting down in britain. 40 every day, apparently. Don't think they have anything to worry about in scotland. what i do worry about however, is wandering down to dundee city centre last weekend (again, hadn't been down for about 1 month) to find a crap bingo hall recently installed next to one of my fave cafes on the high st. buggers. even a pound-stretcher shop would've been better than that (which is what was there previously, funnily enough)

My boxes from NZ arrived today (shipped over in 3months!). Gosh i'm a bit of a hoarder. of crap. but it really hit home that there will no longer be 'home' in otahuhu. gosh. now i just have to find places for all the sentimental rubbish. gave Mr G a laugh at my old photos though.

Enough of the melancholy.
sorry can't be bit more chipper.
will work on it

more later. love, me

Mass....and Religion

2006-12-24T18:33:00.000Z

For a variety of reasons, I decided to go to Mass today.

For those that don't know, I'm a Catholic, self-described as 'non-practising' for a few years now, for reasons which would take up another chapter and a half in this post, so i will leave it for now....

Anyway, I went to Mass today. At St Patricks Cathedral, Stobswell, Dundee. a 5 min walk from my flat, in the freezing fog this morning, visibility 2 metres; passing council workers sweeping up leaves and shopper's rubbish and the odd bit of vomit near the pubs, past the butchers open early for xmas orders to be collected, past the newsagents selling macaroni cheese pies with half price christmas cards, into the church i walked up the steps behind a 4ft tiny man with a walking stick wearing a 'tammy' and gloves.

Nice church. Big. Lovely woodwork and stained glass. Stained glass windows on my side a few panes were broken, so kept my coat on. could see your breath after saying 'amen'. Eavesdrop to 'the regulars' gossiping about the 'new neighbours' who were about to move in, did Ron know anything bout the 'hart's?' big family, but there's 2 names on the door, don't know the mcCarthy's. hmmm.....

Anyway, mass starts. I look around. Silver hair rebounds off the woodwork. I'm the youngest one there by a couple of decades. Apart from the altar boys, and the priest looks about 50ish. No families. No babies crying and people in the row behind making faces at them to keep them entertained. They still say 'our father who art in heaven'. still answer the gospel reading with latin. Hymns: only know one. the rest are based on Emmanuel and latin. etc. etc.
This really is Europe. Some things are comforting, familiar. the priest sings....'through him, with him, in him....' the crib is up. Peace be with you. a smile as you turn around.

But they wonder why young people are leaving the church? The Pope still advocates no contraception, still judges against gay people, still judges...
I think back to my primary school and early teenage school masses.....
Tongan choir, a capella. one family taking up a whole pew. kids playing with toy cars on the top of the pew. Irish catholic nuns in habits singing heartily. the Christmas pageant. packed church. feeling faint, stuffy. too hot.

maybe it's just too cold for Christmas.

I think as an organised religion, Catholics have a lot to offer. But if European Catholics keep on like that, they'll keep wondering why the churches are a third full of silver-haired people on a sunday morning, why the numbers keep dwindling,why the doors are only open when mass is on.

just an opinion, like.

proper thanks

2006-12-24T18:08:00.000Z

first of all, i'd like to say; especially at this time of year, that I am so lucky to know so many great people, all yous fullas, for starters!

Thanks for all your support and letters and hugs. even if I've been a few thousand miles away from you, i've felt them. It really means a lot to me and has kept me going.

I hope you all have a great Christmas and New Years.

I've been doing lots of thinking this year (i know, dangerous as that is!) and inspired by what Mr G wrote in a forum, this is my "the good, the bad" for 2006.

The good
I met some beautiful people.
I got engaged to a beautiful person. Bloody hell, I got engaged!!!
I went snowboarding and didn't break a bone! and also loved it.
I laughed, a lot.
I people-watched in the best places.
I went to Amsterdam.
I hugged one of my bestest friends.
I hugged my dad.
I kept in touch with people.
I went to South Africa with a cool person.
I hugged my brother and got to know my sister-in-law better. she's cool (but i already knew that).
I just hugged a lot of beautiful people.
I went to some cool gigs.
I got a cat! a cool cat

The bad
A beautiful person was taken away from us.
My bestest friend got sick.
i didn't hug my mum.
I didn't hug some friends when they needed it.
I didn't see nz/whanau.
I got frustrated and unhappy about little silly things.

2007: bring it on. I'm glad i don't know what's round the corner, it makes you appreciate every day that little bit more. I'm going to say what i always say (i don't believe in resolutions) but more of a guide for me: 'be true to yourself'. bloody hard to do, but i keep trying.......

there are no answers.

2006-12-19T21:44:00.000Z

So

the funeral and memorial service has been.
and yet. I still think it's all a bad dream and i'll turn up to work and she'll breeze in the door...'sorry i'm late'.

yet i know that will not happen.

life goes on.
can I just stop for a minute please?
can i get off at this stop? take a tea break? recompose myself?
There are no answers. Yes, it's not fair. Yes, it doesn't make sense.
But we still miss her, it still hurts.

Time doesn't heal. But it helps.
and hope is a great thing

Another day dawns....

2006-12-01T04:38:00.000Z

i read this somewhere, i think it was even a sunday newspaper article, and it's only a recollection of what they wrote (a while ago now), so it's not from me, but it really got me.....

'another day dawns. Somewhere a mother looks out her window to the rising sun, watching people emerge from their houses, clutching briefcases and bags, waving goodbye through windows to children, rubbish collectors diving through traffic to pick up bins, school kids wandering up to the school gates joking with each other, people swearing at traffic. Somewhere this day someone will blow out candles, someone will be born, someone will sit an exam, someone will be getting married, and someone will be late for another meeting. It's just another day. The mother moves from the window, and prepares to go to her child's funeral.'

On wednesday night a work colleague and moreover, a very good friend of mine died in a car crash near Blairgowrie, where she lives. She had recently got engaged, and was even more happy than her permanent bubbliness and vitality. It has rocked our wee team at Blair. We can't even imagine what her parents and family and fiancee are going through.

So I didn't get a chance to say it, but Goodbye and God bless, Karoline with a K, you will be missed every day.

it's oh so quiet

2006-11-21T20:36:00.000Z

So, already a week since returning from South Africa.

No crickets or frogs croaking in the evening, no cicada's warming up with the rising sun, no thumping of dog's tails against the wall to wake me up, no 'lurie' bird calling, no loquaz singing for attention, no watching the wide open african sky to watch it put on it's 24-hour technicolour show, no blethering with my bro and marieke, no, 'have a listen to this', no 'more coffee?', and 'i think we should have breakfast now'.....

no braai's, no playing cricket in the back yard with Lecia being the best wicketkeeper, no sitting in the back of the bakkie watching the world (and goats) go by, no sitting in Nandos in Adderley st in capetown watching the flower market and the locals stroll past, no mocking american tourists boasting of sharkdives in capetown backpackers or following fat tourists clutching wads of rands, looking at maps with digital cameras slung round their neck in downtown capetown, no jacaranda blossoms falling driving up to union buildings in pretoria, no stumbling into the china exhibition in the 'african window' museum, no people watching at 5.30am walking, walking walking to work, no diversion of 10km to get great biltong, no waking up at 5am to watch a rhino family stroll across the road or dung beetles literally pushing shit uphill, no feeling like we were the only people in the world; trying not to get blown off table mountain, no 'i think we need a beer', no stopping biking up a hill to watch whales play near the shore, no strolling to a great sushi place with the friendliest waiters in the world, no warm, fat rain drops with proper thunderstorms, no feeling the sun warm your face, no laughing at sister-in-law's attempts to fatally injure pesky baboons with ice cubes, no midnight swims, no 'enter at your own risk' to anything!, no 'beautiful mess'

So looks like i have a fairly bad case of post-holiday depression.

Good holiday though.
Bit hard to get on the plane.
But at least Guinness remembered who we were. got good cat hugs.
And hey, look on the bright side, it might snow soon!! (let me please look on the bright side)

26-10

2006-10-30T12:20:00.000Z

'The Balmore'
26-10 is an essential piece of knowledge when one is attending the lounge bar of the balmore.
To avoid getting chucked out and not being allowed to ever use the jukebox again, you need to put in no. 26-10 for your first song. This is 'laid' by James, and boy you know every single word after spending even 5 mins in the place.

The balmore this week was more of the usual: don't mess with the dominoe's players on wednesday nights. Like garry says: there's a reason domino players have blunt objects in their care when playing. and why darts players have sharp fast objects.
'the only gay in the balmore' had a 45min debate with G last night about bad/not bad british comedians. He liked Les Dawson or something like that and Garry didn't, i have no idea who he is, my contribution was well, what about Billy Connolly? of course everyone was in agreement with that (in the positive)so my comments went amiss, obviously not controversial enough.

and i'd forgotten how much dundonians swear. passing through the lounge bar to the loo every conversation i was in ear-shot of was well; blue. even the pensioners in the corner talking about the queue at the post office on tuesday. the c word was well in attendance.

weather watch: mucho of the wet stuff this week. and w-i-n-d-y. luvly stormy stuff. not so much fun driving in it but. Watching the red and gold leaves whirling about you was fun though.
Still very mild for this time of year. it'll prob snow when we get back from SA.

better go. planes to catch, brothers to see :) :) :)

KARAOKE TAXI'S!!!!! and the best things in life......

2006-10-24T21:39:00.000+01:00

So.....it's been a busy few weeks. Nipped over to Limerick a couple weekends ago to catch up with 'the mad Sarah'. Self-timer and arm-extension shots a plenty, multiple hugs and laughing at irish signs done with, nipped back home.
Then, went to Manchester on the weekend to have a mini-reunion with my dear mates I trained with in enzed. Present and (in)correct were: me, Varsh, Ash, Anna (who's house we took over), Ange, Brenda. Missing in Action was Amy, who had better things to do (well, she said she couldn't get away) but that was ok, cos me and Ash imitated her the whole weekend so we wouldn't miss the bouncy happiness that is the A-to-the-M-to-the-Y. Also missing in action were Lisa and Tish and Shazza but they had a nearly reasonable excuse, being on the other side of the world (you in favona lisa bro?)

My word it was good.
Being woken up 7.30am on sat am to watch the NPC final by Anna's fulla (moooooloooos) made me realise how choice kiwi's are. As also was my inability to speak anything apart from 'bro-speak'. At one stage there were 10 kiwi's in a 3-bedroomed end-terrace house, and boy it was funny walking out the door to suburban manchester.

so we mucked about central manchester, going to cool shops and had lunch in a record shop, yes, proper records, where I even found a 'traditional maori songs' 33". cher bro. sum cuz musta left ut thur eh bro....Varsh even got a shopping fix, although her time in Wales has raised concerns that the queen of 'accessorise, accessorise, accessorise, girls!' has turned into 'where can i get the best trackies from?'.
but the bestest ever was on deciding to dine on 'the curry mile', after putting off the taxi for the 6th time and then it not coming, and then taking 15 self-timer shots (just one more!) we dashed for the taxi and lo! and behold. The reason modern technology should be embraced....

A KARAOKE TAXI! I thought my eyes were decieving me till Anna confirmed that indeed the wee screen behind the driver's seat was nothing but a monitor for the karaoke songs! The driver even handed us a microphone, and we were away. Whitney houston eat your heart out. We made the driver take the long way so we could finish our aria's.

It was great. But what I reflected on the 6 hour train ride home was: friends are great. They make your life great. They keep things in perspective, keep you sane (or insane, which is far better). They're better than any drugs or medical attention. A real Tonic. And you never see them enough.

So, if you can get past all the cheesiness, I'm bloody lucky to know everyone I do. And they give me so much. In the words of a big maori rugby-player fulla I met on the weekend:

Chur cuz. See you afta.

When in Rome (or Britain)....

2006-10-15T19:05:00.000+01:00

I know I've been here too long. I almost constantly and enthusiastically talk about

'The Weather'.

It's fantastic! You don't have to discuss your feelings or talk about anything relevant to your job, and can avoid all confrontation by immediately switching to what the weather is doing.
This is particularly good for Scotland, where the best piece of advice (given to me by an Irishwoman!, nice one Liz) was "If you don't like the weather in Scotland, wait 5 mins".

My how true. You get 'proper' weather in this part of the globe. So it may only hang about for 5 mins, but hell, it's a spectacular 5 mins. So I guess this will be a regular feature of this blog.

So, it's Autumn in north-east Scotland. Today was grey, but 'close'. Close is a great word the Scots use to describe the sticky/muggy/humidity of the air. It's fab. (Talking about language must also wait for another blog). So 'close' like your t-shirt will stick to you, that slightly clammy feeling. Yesterday however, was an absolute stunner, one out of the box, bright blue autumnal skies with the golden hues of the trees reflected by the honey sun. I stared out the window yesterday for about 20mins, just watching the trees literally change colour before my eyes.
a few days last week however, you may has well not have bothered to get out of bed. It was dark and grey, lights on allday type affair, and a steady drizzle of rain pattered down (well, apart from short 5 mins periods of blazing sunshine, but only about 3 of those in the day). Well and truly was a 'drookit' day. Another fab scottish word. The scots are just as good at describing weather as the Irish. I remember when i was in ireland there were at least 11 different words to describe rain, and all forms of it. But that's stereotyping. Must avoid that. I had some great long sunny days in dublin. it rained no more than Auckland. Explains why everything's so green.

Look at that! i'm so proud of myself. A massive long paragraph talking bout the weather.
must away before i get onto other proper things. Daylight savings goes into winter time the end of this month.....1 day before i bugger off to the bright light of South Africa. Ha! suckers.....

My Aunty may was right

2006-10-15T19:00:00.000+01:00

It's a sign, a definite sign. I'm very paranoid. I just tried to type my blogspot website address and misspelt 1 and only 1 letter in the address, and the website for: rosa-bulldozer.blogpot.com displayed:

Amazing Bible Story, with a page of the wailing wall in Jerusulem. A virtual mega-library of everything religious.

Ok ok, does this mean i should have a full catholic wedding and immediately start attending every religious place within a 5 mile radius of my home? It's not good. I'm destined for the elevator going down to the uncomfortably warm place when i kick the bucket......

mwuaha-ha-ha! my evil plan is working.....

2006-10-14T21:15:00.000+01:00

Well who would've thought it.
Mistah G purchased hiking boots today :)
no influence from me of course. No 'jesus mary and joseph you'll never get boots as cheap as that as they are today' statements.
It was great. Millets (TM, and no i'm not getting commission, although i should ask them,they are my fave shop) was having a sale today, and we wandered in 'for a nosy' after leaving the music shop eyeing up a ukelele.
We'll be walking the sidlaw's (hills near dundee) on christmas day and it'll all be grand so it will....

ah, the big sigh of contentment is so satisfying sometimes.

In other news, I have decided a regular feature of this blog will be.......

Balmore Street....*sung to the theme-tune of 'neighbours' in a bad-out-of-tune-karaoke style.

Balmore St is where our local pub is situated, called 'the balmore' funnily enough, in the heart of the Stobswell region of Dundee (aka 'stobey' to the locals) For those unfamiliar with British culture, the pub is an extension to people's living room, except much more social than the typical NZ pub. It's where neighbours and friends meet to chew the fat, (aka talk rubbish, or 'haver shite' as the scots say). Yes beer is drunk at the balmore, but that is not the primary purpose of the British pub. The primary purpose of the british pub (in my humble opinion) is to talk rubbish with friends and neighbours, and where the TV is absent (apart from catching the football scores, which in turn provides more discussion and debate and talking rubbish).

Now the 'stobey' region of dundee is particularly interesting in terms of it's high ratio of traditionally defined 'freaks/nutters' in complete unpolitically correctedness (god i love bad grammer).
e.g. when wandering down on a saturday morn (our fave time to peruse the characters of stobey) no-one bats an eyelid at volunteer workers turning up to the charity shops with humpbacks wearing marilyn monroe frocks, or young lads caressing the face of a statue of a butcher merrily holding a plaster-of-paris cleaver outside the local butcher shop. Mistah G and me however, sidle past hoping no-one will notice us and dash for the library doors. (which is a fab red sandstone building).
So.....my point is:
'The Balmore' is where a lot of the residents of Stobey congregate. It's fantastic people watching. So I hope to bring a weekly round-up of the latest happenings. But to introduce the basics:
there is, in the tradition of little Britain: 'the only gay in the balmore' a lovely bloke (originally from geordieland) who lives around the corner from us who mentioned that he was gay only approx 10 times the first time he started talking to us. G and him have heated debates about music, especially the validity of The Clash on modern music, and how G doesn't like enough female artists, so this makes him homophobic. I nearly hit him (as in the only gay in the balmore) tonight when he compared The chilli peppers to Phil Collins, before i realised he was, in the great British tradition, taking the mick. (he said the Chilli peppers were boring! how ludicrous is that).
There is also: Daniel* (not his real name, as all the characters will be) who is an institution at the pub, and always requests one song and one song only on the jukebox whenever you wander up to it ( a 'james' song).
It does have an infamous incident when one of mistah G's mates was visiting when a aforementioned 'freak' came to join our table and said 'Are you gay?' We all looked at each other and said 'no, but what's it to you?' The english mate of Garry did add (in what i thought was comedy genius) 'no, but I am English, which does confuse people'. The aforementioned freak (lets call him fred) said 'well it's just that last week there was a bunch of ukrainian potato-dressers in the balmore'. We responded: 'well, were they gay?' in some hope of finding relevancy to the opening question/conversation.
'Nah', said Fred, and wandered off to rejoin his imaginary friends.

God bless the Balmore.

So everyone wants to be a psychologist...

2006-09-24T15:37:00.000+01:00

not that i'm an expert or anything.
Went to Dundee open uni day on wednesday so the G could have a look about and see if he wanted to go back to college or something, who knows what goes on in that wee head of his. I tagged along because i was quite nosy and keen to have a day off in the middle of the week, oh and to 'support him' of course. ...
anyway, of the 3 schools that we went to look at, psychology was the most, well, suprising. it was the busiest, bursting with pretty young things and their mothers. Apart from the aforementioned beautiful people chatting to their mates on their mobiles, as i looked about the room i realised that psychology is awfully glam. kindof like physio is in the rehab world. Has it always been like this?? I won't bore you with the details of the presentation, but lets just say i was a tad disappointed with it. G did have to hold me back when one of the lecturers tried to explain visual perception. i know he was trying to explain a very complicated thing on a basic level, but man, he tried a bit hard to 'glam it up' and managed to confuse everyone instead of just trying to stick with what the fundamentals were. but i digress....
anyway, we also went along to the school of philosophy and the school of english. man they were great! The school of philosophy was far more realistic than the school of pyschology, and the english dept were excellent! a stereotypical nutty english professor talked for a good 1 and a bit hours answering one question. he was great.
and i realised that i missed out big time on my uni experience. i want to go back to uni, so i can get 2 lectures and 2 tutorials a week, and phaff about looking wind-swept and interesting with dark rimmed glasses, instead of my 8am starts with 2 lectures and 2 tutorials per day sometimes, stumbling through the door wearing whatever was on my floor when i woke up.

just waiting for that lotto ticket to come through (guess i'll have to buy one first) and i'll sign up to study philosophy, in barbados maybe......

anyway, continuing on the pyschology theme, watched parkinson last night (yes yes at home on saturday night, only because i've been way-laid with a cold. excellent, i get a cold on the weekend, so i can't even pull a sickey at work! ;( and he had trinny and susannah on, for those that don't know, are 'fashion guru's' who are suposed to tell you what to wear and not to wear, and if you wear what they suggest you will be happy for the rest of your life and no longer have any self esteem issues or relationship trouble. So Parkinson quite subtly made a point of questioning whether they have the appropriate skills and knowledge to deal with some of the issues that come up on their shows as they've just finished filming a show 'making over' couples, many of whom had 'troubled' marriages. They defended themselves by saying that they've been through shit relationships and stuff and as an outsider they could come in and say what many of their friends have been saying to them for ages and the 'troubled' couples would listen to them more, i.e. they were more cathartic than people who knew them better. ??? a little worrying! (so, everyone wants to be psychologists?)To which Helen mirren (who was also on) said ' no-body would tell me what to wear or not to wear, i'll wear whatever i bloody want to wear'. but of course, the piece de resistence, was when Dame Edna Everage came on (wearing a fabulous bright yellow and black sequined zebra pattern dress) and completely took the mick out of trinny and susannah. it was great to watch you have to see it if you can.
I want Dame Edna Everage to be my psychologist.

In other news, it's raining today. lots. A good day to be sick then. Guinness the cat has figured out that when she goes out she can jump back in the kitchen window. And if she miaows long enough, i will get up in the morning to feed her. She miaows in scottish too, rolls her rrrrr's. "rrrrrrrrrriow". A controversial book called 'the scots and the union' being released next month, claims that "many parlimentarians went willingly into the union between the poms and the scots in 1707, and the men who negotiated the union treaty should be celebrated rather than maligned as a shower of rogues, as other historians have described." when i get clever, i'll put the link into the newspaper that i just read this from into my blog.

ciao for now.

She is here....

2006-09-15T22:47:00.000+01:00

well well well 3 holes in the ground, here I am, and as my Uncle Dick would say 'she is here, she has arrived.'
It was a collective agreement that took a lot of convincing on my part that a 'blog' would be the way to go instead of inflicting group emails on people's full email inbox's. (mainly because i didn't know what the hell a blog is! So living up to my nana rosa nickname once again).
So here you go! if you ever need to know if Rosa is alive, just check this site. And i'm going to be grammatically incorrect to my heart's content and rant and rave and say whatever i feel (censored by me), hopefully with what i've been up to (or not). So probably just meaningful to me, but hey, it'll be proof to myself that I haven't imagined a lot of the more surreal things that is life that I observe.

Let's start with life lately in Rosa world. Mainly consisting of FAR too much involvement/time spent at work/work-related. what's that all about? not much fun, that's what it's all about. I'm not going into it, mainly because it's friday night and I don't feel like it much. Let's just say I'm counting the days till me and the G head to South Africa for a hol (53 days), and for Mr G to finally meet a member of my family.
I also know I owe about 50 people personal emails, and i will get around to it.
I've decided the older i get, the more I realise I don't know much about the world, or myself. It was quite good being a teenager/young adult and thinking you knew it all. I've also been thinking a lot about the philosophy night classes i used to go to in Dublin. Which despite the title of philosophising about the world, were suprisingly simple. Life is simple; you've just gotta get on with it, eh. hard to put into action sometimes, i know. But i'm trying. So, for random thoughts on a humid friday night in an autumnal Dundee:

For wedding presents we'd both like: bongo drums, ukelele's, and I'd like an Alessi Kettle which costs 120 squid. That's all. i know, it has been mentioned to me that it should'nt cost 120 quid for a device that boils water. it's the ferrari of kettles i tell you! It suprises me how materialistic I am. But maybe it shouldn't suprise me so much.

I've been joined up to a gym for the past 6 weeks. it's great, especially the swimming, but i'm missing the hills. It still gives me a wee buzz every other day when i drive over the hill to descend into the perthshire valley to my workplace what an amazingly beauty part of the world i live in. I really need to get stuck into it.

The older i get, the more i miss my family. I' m just 'coming out' of a particularly bad spell of homesickness for family. however, if homesickness is the greatest of my worries, i'm pretty lucky.

This weekend is looking pretty good. Tomorrow we get to go to an 'open door' event happening in dundee, so we're getting tours round a mosque 'doon the toon', and the restored victorian pavillion at baxter park where we're hoping to get hitched in. baxter park is just round the corner from our flat. and then, the highlight of the year: THE BLACK SEEDS ARE PLAYING IN DUNDEE!!!!!!!! V excited. They played around this time last year, and yeah, me and Barney (the lead singer of the legendary wellington band) are on first name basis. I'm sure he'll remember me. probably why they came back to dundee (yes it's late friday night, delirium sets in). The last gig i went to was in edinburgh's usher hall in July, which is a fantastic venue, saw Seu Jorge and amazing support bands. (Seu Jorge is the brazilian dude who sang David Bowie songs in 'life aquatic' movie, but that's not his best work, believe me). That night i was extremely fatigued so couldn't completly participate(i.e dance, just stood at the side tapping my foot, how boring) in what was an amazing show, but that's when i decided i wanted to learn to play the ukelele.
One day i'll be artistic/creative. One day.

must away, pots of tea to drink and lots of sleep to have.
till next time

Rosa

PS for those just entering into my world, Mr G is Garry, who i'm getting hitched to. yes! as they say in the aussie just juice ad: "hard to believe". a mad scotsman, who used to be a chain-smoking mad scotsman, but he's calmed down a bit now. still mad. still wears orange trousers though. He fit right in in Amsterdam.