Secret Friend/

/Secret Santa/Angels & Mortals/Psychotic supporter

Whatever you know it as, we're doing it at work this week. My secret friend is spoiling me rotten. I think I've almost worked out who it is, but I could still be surprised. Today I received a new coffee mug. Not just any old mug, but a heat activated All Blacks one. Now before you start worrying what gets revealed when it gets hot I'll put you out of your misery and tell you that it develops a very nice bright silver fern. When it cools again the fern goes back to grey. This is particularly good, as last week someone broke my previous mug, and left it, in pieces, on the bench, without so much as an apology. I received that mug as a gift on January 26th 1991, and while it was never my favourite, it was memorable for a number of reasons. Fie to the nasty unconfessed mug-breaker.

I've been enjoying spoiling my friend-ee. Today he may have received (courier-willing) some freshly roasted and ground-ready-for-plunger coffee.

Meanwhile, our erstwhile captain is elected rugby player of the year by his peers. You can't be player of the year AND a cheat. Not when it's friend AND foe that are voting.

"To ensure against bias and prejudice, players are not eligible to vote for a player in their own national squad. They must vote for players from another country."

So take that, you whinging Northerners.

oh.. and in case you were wondering? One more sleep!

Which reminds me. Today we had a special keepsake section in the Herald. By the time I got to work it had vanished - all I wanted to see was a photo of a friend, from Herald coverage of a U2 visit years ago - looking, according to his wife, much younger. Smirk. I sent a very pointy email to all-staff suggesting the selfish baggage might like to go and buy their own keepsake instead of stealing the one that belonged to all of us, but no, it didn't reappear. Grrr. (I bet it was the same person as the mug-breaker - surely we can't have 2 scumbags on staff?)

2

more sleeps!!!!!!!!!

5 more sleeps.......

I'm keeping an eye on the set-list each night in Oz, and there's only very small variation. Wonder if they'll do "One Tree Hill" here in Auckland - specially since it's lost it's tree since they were last here.

Sculpted

Last weekend there was a sculpture exhibition on the north shore. In spite of having been quite ill during the week before, I decided that an outing was in order, and so along I went. It was fab, and I was caught being arty-farty.






The being ill thing caught up on me though - by the time we'd been right round, I felt totally shattered and it took all the rest of the weekend and till about Tuesday to recover!

One of the sculptures particularly caught my eye - a pair of tui, in bronze. I didn't realise at the time that it was by Paul Dibble, who created the Southern Stand NZ Memorial in London, also opened last weekend. I didn't get up to watch the dedication "live", but did enjoy the edited highlights on tv the following morning.

Sweet sweet scent

I can't remember the last time my Gardenia flowered. I've had it about 7 or 8 years, and it did well in the first 2 or 3, but for the last few it gets to a certain point in spring, when all the leaves turn yellow and drop off, along with the buds. This year I hunted down some advice on the internet, and the result was I fed it with Epsom salts a few times once the yellowing was evident. It worked! Right now it has 22 blooms out, with more than twice that still to come. The best bit is the amaaaaaaazing scent. It's just heavenly.

Still alive

yeah...
Dearie me - that month and a bit went fast!
Condensed version - traded in my car for another newer one, went away for a weekend in the holidays, which was jolly nice too, had a cold and am brewing another one, dammit, we got a new principal, I appointed my replacement (assisant HOD) though he won't start till next year - meanwhile we feel very shortstaffed at the top end of my faculty, yet to appoint the other half of my replacement (in charge of chemistry), had a friend to stay for a week on her return from 17 months in England, and I'm sure there's been more than that, but it's kept me busy!!

Thanks for the emails wondering about my continued existence.
Hugs to Rose who's lost a daughter in that time.