Autumn Zebra

I love going to the farmer's market on Saturday morning, because I love buying all the yummy stuff there, and I'm always amazed at what you can buy. Since it is seasonal, the selection is always gradually changing, which keeps it interesting. This week I got this, plus a coffee, for $50. It's amazing how little you can buy for $50 now-a-days. The "made goods" cost a lot more - if I take out the falafel, broad bean salad and cornish pasties, cheese and coffee, then it goes down to only $20. But I really like buying the made goods here, because they are a lot nicer than supermarket ones, and although more expensive than the cheap mass-produced cheese and so on, they are cheaper I think than equal quality supermarket and deli sold goods. Full list, with prices as far as I can remember now: Falafel with a little pottle of tahini sauce $5 Two cornish pasties $9.40 Chedder cheese off-cuts (the best chedder ever! It actually says on it Tasty cheese, but I don't know ...

Ages ago we went for a walk over some farmland towards a beach on the peninsula, although it turned out we couldn't get onto the beach as it was blocked off due to breeding penguins or something. I saw lots of new bugs on this trips. I think I saw a native bee, and I saw a butterfly (I've seen butterflies on about 4 occasions in the last 5 years; they're not very common), and I think a stiletto fly - they live near beaches so even though I only got a quick look and had never seen one before, it's a reasonably likely identity. I also got pictures of this beetle, which is apparently a tiger beetle. They live in holes in clay banks, which matches the landscape in which we saw them. They are fairly well camouflaged. The ones pictured in my insect book are Cicindela tuberculata which looks very similar to these photos, and apparently looks very similar to the most common South Island tiger beetle, Cicindela latecinta . Since I am in the South Island, I assume this is what i...

In the late afternoon of mince pie day, my sister came over to cook various stuff. I think she made a crazy Polish cake, most of the trifle, and here she is doing her famous salad from the vegetarian cookbook with lots of Polish recipes in it because the author is Polish. Mum is becoming a hippie again, so she is not wearing shoes. I don't wear shoes much myself, but Mum has generally been a shoe-wearer. From the other photos I have, I see we were drinking beer and wine this afternoon. At some point, my sister and I went down to the supermarket to get crazy Polish cake ingredients, mostly. It was great fun, as for some reason when go places together, we often act quite weird. I guess it is a sister thing :) It's always stuff that is really funny at the time, that no one else finds funny, and isn't actually funny at all.

Every Christmas we make a zillion (fruit) mince pies that aren't anything like the shop ones. This year my brother got to help - as in, he was here and available. I also managed to take a photo of him without his hands over his face for a change. He enjoyed helping, which was pretty cool. Mum had to leave for an appointment part way through, and my brother had to leave to go to a nearby town to do a fire performance there with his group, so I had to finish them by myself. These are the mince pies we made. I made the giant ugly monster one last out of the left-overs. Since the buses don't come very often, my brother and I walked to Mum's from town, which took about 45 minutes maybe. The previous bus had come about 10 minutes ago, and they come every 40 minutes, so the 30 minutes wait plus actually taking the bus plus the 10 minute walk at the end made walking seem more sensible. As it does every time to anyone capable of walking the distance when they consider taking a bus...

So, it is 2011 already, as it is 1:22 AM here now. I have read a few people's "the year in review" posts and wanted to post something as I enjoy the occasional band-wagon. However, I'm not sure what to post as I want it to be positive but I don't have much positive to say. And then the negative things are rather personal things that I don't really want to share, partly because I'd have to explain for years to make sure you didn't get the wrong idea. However. This is more a review of the last 10 years or my life, rather than 2010. When I was younger, I used to be able to concentrate. Hyper-concentrate. And then when I got older, I didn't use that ability anymore because there was never enough time - at work you don't have enough time to really work before someone interrupts you. At home there is dinner to be cooked. And you have to go to bed at a reasonable time so you're not f*cked the next day because you have to get up early to go to work...