Emma has been found. Unemployed "man" arrested for her murder.
So cruel. I'm too upset to blog. Maybe later.

Emma Agnew is still missing. This is a heartbreaking time for all involved. I was at our local Mall yesterday while dropping one child off at a birthday party, and found myself face to face with a poster calling for any sightings of "Our Emma" and pleading for information to bring her home safely. It really brought it home to me how awful it is that something like this can happen in our city, in any city.
Hug your kids tight tonight.

We had a stunning day here yesterday, at least 32 degrees and soooo hot. Fantastic. Forced myself to sit in the shade at the bottom of the garden and have a tipple (Champers darling) while the world hazily went about its business. Our "Graham Thomas" roses are looking great and healthy - no idea how that happened as my gardening philosophy usually relies on the "leave it alone" approach.
Having left things alone of course, we found that a bird must have dropped a seed for the above Artichoke into the flower garden. Its growing very well thanks and we leave it alone.

Normally I also leave alone repoting on TV programmes - Steve and Old Cheeser do it so much better anyway, BUT last night I suffered through a TV drama only because Tom Conti was appearing in it. Normally I rate this guy as quite a good actor. With the drama named DNA, Tom stars as a forensic scientist. Sorry but I am super disappointed in the drama. Tom had about as much appeal as week-old lettuce. The story had a semi-reasonable plot and the script was shite, is Tom on a superannuation trip here or what? I had real trouble taking the storyline seriously after about half an hour - up til then it was 'fair enough", I doubt that I'll watch part 2 - has anyone else seen this programme? I note that it doesn't seem to appear on Tom's website - perhaps he's too embarrassed! And for those of you counting the number of times I used the word drama and feeling annoyed - thats kinda like watching the drama DNA. There, I have just saved you two hours of your life.

In the meantime, for those of you in the Northern hemisphere...

An Ode to Winter - by Amanda Stephens ©

Diamond studded spider webs
Frosty, glittering gates
Tuneless icicles dripping
In dew-fresh time, she waits
Her frozen fingers stabbing
At every breath you take.
Fleet footed children
Skimming over lake
Tall shuddering trees
Bent heavy by the snow
And rosy cheeked hurriers
Everywhere you go.

Look at that view - my mate Pixie has this view every morning from her wee house in Wellington....below is the Pixie house. Who wouldn't want to live there?
Anyway, meanwhile in Christchurch there is a blight or blot on the landscape. A young deaf girl has been missing for a week. What is going on in this beautiful country? I feel so bad for the family of this girl, as a mother of two daughters myself anything adversely affecting young women is just heartbreaking. Any parent going through this sort of thing must have shards of glass in their hearts. This used to be a country where you could leave your doors unlocked at nights - yes, I AM old enough to remember that being the case...it wasn't so long ago really! Let's hope the family have some closure on the matter.

Today, after going to the Riccarton Market and NOT buying the pile of Dr Who magazines (too old apparently - the mags not me!!) and I guess with Jon Pertwee on t'front cover one would have to agree they would be mature editions for sure)...my older daughter and I went for a wander to the end of our road to see if we could find some ducklings. The above photo is of part of the Avon River which runs through most of Christchurch. It is rather picturesque...only because I was fussy and didn't take shots where you can see the odd beer bottle, chip packets and plastic supermarket bags floating past!

And then.........

we struck pay dirt! Mother Duck with 10 babes in feathers. We are truly lucky to live this close to a river in such a nice city. A lot of grandparents out today with wee kids, throwing so much bread at the ducks that I'm sure they'll not want to eat for a month! Oh, and we also saw 2 schools of whitebait heading towards someone's net as well. (Altho' having just witnessed the original source of duck poo my daughter may well not be so keen to sample stuff from the water....)

I can almost forget being woken up at midnight last night by 4 drunken hoons, shrieking "F*ck!" at the top of their lungs and kicking the lampposts and screaming again. Sigh.

And to cap it all off, we are in the middle of re-doing our pool. We have drained it, cleaned it, fixed the leaks, snadblasted it and are now waiting ofr the two girls to decide what colour they want it painted...so today me and the gals played handball in the drained pool. It was alot of fun, the ball didn't wander off and we got to spend some more time doing crazy stuff. Great day!

WEIRD WEDNESDAY - Boots! Proof I have a sense of humour or high fashion??

Well, went to a funeral today and made it home. That's always a plus. Mind you, I suspect I was amongst the youngest there. Also a plus, granted!

Funeral's always make me wonder about things - did people really think that when the deceased was alive? did they tell him/her? Is it true that people shag like mad after funerals? (Presumably the living anyway!!)

However, today as I watched the Lone Piper walking slowly in front of the herse, apart from wondering why they never play "Donald Where's yer troosers?" it made me think that what I really would like would be a very loud car (probably American or maybe a bright red Morris Minor with air horn) with tin cans and balloons tied to the bumper with "JUST DEAD" scribbled in shaving foam and/or whipped cream over the windows of aforementioned loud car. Does that make me a bad person? Would the council object? Could I really have a tarten coffin? (Get it? Mwaaah) Ah well, those of you who know me feel free to make sure the above happens... I won't haunt you or even peek in the windows at the wrong time. I promise.Truly. You can trust me. I am not remotely nosey. Or vindictive.

Meanwhile, had dinner tonight with my least favourite person in the world. The dreaded brother-in-law. He's so bad he'd make an onion cry.

I guess that may be a mean observation - I prefer witty and insightful.

Feeling cheeky or cocky?

Have a look at this...when you read the thing you will have a giggle...well I did...but I was born giggling apparently!

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand

And if you really want a chuckle - type "Australia" into the search engine.

Am home with two sick kids today so while they are sleeping I am catching up on this important bit.
Now that the madness we know as Guy Fawkes is over for at least this year (if not next as well), time for a spot of comedy I say!
I have been following a show called The Flight of the Conchords...they are so funny! The humour is so dead-pan that I was surprised to find that the guys are a real hit in the USA. I didn't think the American's would get the humour.
One of the good bits of the show (I say good, the Stud says its annoying but I think he hasn't ever gotten over being forced to watch Cliff Richard's Summer Holiday) is when they go all musical. The songs are hilarious. Driving to work the other morning, Business Time was playing. Now I have to say I had the girls with me as I take them to school first then head off to work...honestly, we all had tears rolling down our faces by the time we got there. Now as I'm not too PC savvy I haven't worked out how to download the actual video (Hats off to you Simon, you are a pro at that!!) so you will need to click on the link. Trust me, its worth it.

Fireworks again. Not "public" until Monday 5 November when we.. er celebrate the fact that Guy Fawkes DIDN'T blow up Parliament. Ah well, points for trying i guess.
Thought this was a tad "arty farty" and the vino was jolly too.

These are a few of my favourite things!

Here is a smidge of proof, Simon...my very own "Cocktail Glasses", very Ab Fab don't you know! (Or more Dame Edna??)

The Lido cafe in Wellington. It's been there for ages, and never fails to be a great meeting place. Met up with the friend who has now moved in with my ex. We had wine and made small talk, things have changed actually. It's kinda sad but there you go. Maybe its one of those things that time might fix, maybe not. We'll wait and see.

Meanwhile, last night we had a fantastic sunset; this is a bit of our grape plant (not sure if its the Reisling or the Chardonnay) and that rather er..."fetching" shadow is actually our umbrella (down Simon, down!)

On the way to my youngest daughter's school this morning we saw this family of ducks, they were initially stretched across the road but by the time I got my camera and had parked the car safely they had waddled off into this property. It was really sweet to see them, we last saw them about 3 weeks ago and I didn't know that ducklings grow so fast. If you click on the actual photo you get a bigger view!

Right, am off to watch The F Word. Nothing I can say to that.