Rotorua as a tourist

Last weekend Jenny and I went to Rotorua to be tourists.  I know, it was a bit of a weird experience for me because I am so used to going there to see Bro.  Don't worry we did call in to see him so I could show Jenny his place.  Did I give him a say in the matter, nope but I did let him know roughly when we would be going past so he could be out if he wanted to avoid us lol.  Pretty sure that is a kind little sister thing to do 😇😆

As I have been to Vegas many more times than Jenny, I was left to plan what to do.  Jenny wanted to do a maze which was good cos so did I, but other than that she left it to me.

First off we did the walk around part of the lake from Government Gardens to the Lake Front.  Very enjoyable and a nice little wander.  Then we headed off to the 3D maze, we picked that one because it is my favourite.  Also because the other one is a hedge one and with how much of nature is making me react in a not great way these days we thought it would be best to not have me stuck in a hedge for an hour or so.  The 3D maze was a lot of fun.  We did get lost a couple times, perk to being tall(ish) is being able to see over some of the walls on the upstairs parts so I could work out where we needed to go to get back on track.  We completed the maze, and found most the answers to the scavenger hunt properly (one was found by me looking over the wall lol), and had a great time.

We then headed back to our accommodation for lunch and to rest our tired legs.  In the afternoon we went to a cat cafe.  I do NOT recommend this experience.  I don't know what I was expecting but it was not what I got and I just felt sorry for the poor cats.  There were so many of them in the small space and no outdoor area.  Not even very many interactive things for them.  Jenny said it wasn't a good one, but that they are all pretty similar with the no outdoor area and lots of cats.  Definitely not something I support.

That evening we had dinner at our accommodation (same as the first night we were there, we were doing Rotorua on the cheap lol), watched a movie then had a dip in the hot tub/spa.  Many laughs were had and it topped off a great day.

The following morning, our last morning there, we detoured to find Fred a tyre cos she had had a something (I don't want to call it an accident or incident, but it was a something) at some point that required me giving her attention and money.  Typical female I know... 😜 After this we headed off to a 3D trick art gallery.  I wasn't sure what I expected from this but it looked intriguing online so we figured why not (it was also raining so we didn't want to do anything outdoorsy lol).  While we were wandering around I must admit I thought it was a bit lame and not worth the entry fee.  However once I got home and looked at the photos I changed my mind, it was totally worth it!!! The photos turned out awesome.  Everything was just 2D when we were there, but the photos are not.  Very cool.  Below are some of my favs. 

Overall I would recommend Rotorua as a tourist, however most of the activities are quite expensive now.  We wanted to do things that were below $30 and we achieved this, but it did take many many things off the table.  Doesn't mean I won't be back to do them some stage though 😊

2025 in books

It's that time of year again, that time that I sum up the last year by what I read lol.  I mean it's basically tradition now lol.

This year I knew I wasn't going to get a max amount of books read in the year because I ended up reading both Gone With The Winds and Ulysses.  And neither of them are small books.  Ulysses was a harder read than I expected so it took me about 4 weeks I think, Gone With The Wind was very enjoyable and I will be reading that again at some stage.  Took me about 3 weeks from memory to get that one done.  And yes while reading both I did have another book on the go, usually do these days.  Sometimes I am only reading one book but it would be less often than the reading two or three at a time.

Anyhow, here is the summary:

Total books read: 68

Total pages read: 26,287

Shortest book: 106 pages (thank god cos it was terrible lol)

Longest book: Gone With The Wind (no surprises there)

Average book length: 386 pages

Surprisingly, the book I read that the most other people also did (on the site I use anyhow) was Gone With The Wind, that one surprised me a lot.

Also surprisingly the book with the highest rating on the site was a WWII book - The Forgotten Highlander.  Didn't expect that, it has an average rating of 4.53 (I gave it a 4 if you are wondering).

Genres of books I read are as follows:

Fantasy - 38 books (no surprise its still well above the others)

Sci-Fi - 2

Fiction - 5

Chick-Lit - 12

Crime/Thriller - 3

Non-Fiction - 7

Other - 1 (horror if you were wondering)

How to spot JB at a concert

So I just want to start off saying the concert was inside… so no wind or outside air temps were involved lol.

Went to see Rob Thomas last night (solo artist and also lead singer of the band Matchbox 20) in Wellington, and while the majority of the crowd were happy in single layers, there was me in three layers (tshirt, winter shirt and jumper) plus Jenny’s coat and my coat as blankets AND I was still shivering. And shivering enough that Jenny who was sitting next to me (but we weren’t touching) could feel me shivering. I know I know, my body has a broken internal thermostat, obviously 🙄😂 good thing I had my trusty usb chargeable hand heater with me, it warmed me up enough that I stopped shivering, yay.

The concert was good, Jenny def enjoyed it more than me but she is a way bigger Rob Thomas fan. I mostly came for the road trip and the chance to see my Welly friends (who are doing good btw, we had a lovely catch up before the concert). 

We are staying at Waikanae Beach and had a fun Welly public transport experience getting into town, starting with buses replacing trains for a chunk of the trip so the 1hr trip took just over 2hrs. Still worth it to stay out here though, for starters our trip home today is only gonna be 3hrs 🥳 and we didn’t have to drive in Wellington, total win lol. We wandered down to the beach yesterday, it was blowing a gale so we didn’t stay long, but it was pretty 🤩 

Some photos from my happenings the last few weeks

Too lazy to write heaps about what I’ve been up to so here are some pics with brief explanations. If you would like to know anything in more detail feel free to reach out 🙃 

Aunty Susan’s bear was a perfect hot water bottle looker-afterer during the day

It’s not every day your friends name is on a gallery sign 💜 such gorgeous work on display, very lovingly made

At my friend Betty’s wedding with Tiare 

Some new friends I made when Jo showed me around Hohepa in Clive

Beach fun with Elyse who visited from the States for a week. I went and read under a tree shortly after this while she paddled some more

Up Te Mata Peak, trying not to be blown away

Fred enjoying the view from up Te Mata Peak, she was not worried about being blown away lol

Off on an adventure, aka exploring Hobbiton after paying a fortune for the pleasure to do so… lol

Helping out by doing some washing in a hobbits home

Doing some desk work, still in the hobbits home

Helping knit some of the hobbits scarf, possibly the most fun part of the tour hehe

Picking up Elyse for the adventure, got our walking sticks ready so must mean we are prepared 😂 

Elyse giving driving on the left hand side a go

Lake Taupo

Going for a wander round Lake Rotorua with bro this morning(ish)

My super exciting weekend

Hehe did you think I actually did super exciting stuff?? Well I sort of did, just not the sort of super exciting stuff that requires energy 😄 

I read, in a few different spots, and in some of my fav spots as well. And I napped, a lot. And watched some Dr Who. But there are no photos of the last two, just photos of my reading for your enjoyment. Made them black and white to make them look more exciting, cos I’m cool like that (well maybe not cool but it was fun lol) 😝

Boy has it been a while...

Fully intended to do a post before now but as per normal life happened and time went by faster than I expected or planned and now here we are at the shortest day of the year already.  Yay for me because it means the walk to work in the mornings will (in theory) only get brighter.  Of course being Hastings there will be those mega foggy mornings when you can't quite see to the other side of the road but for now those can be ignored lol.  I am just going to be happy about the it being slightly lighter each morning when I walk to work.  And I am enjoying that I am back to being able to walk to work (atlst most morning I do).

As some of you know my health has been doing it thing again, you know that thing, that thing where it reminds me I am not as well and healthy as I look.  It is never fun when it does it, and this time it did a solid number on me and knocked me an awful lot (I ended up needing just over a week off work, well technically the doctor said I needed more but I ran out of sick leave so went back).  I am slowing crawling my way back to my normal level of unwell, and am definitely closer than I have been for quite a while.  Its a nice feeling to be honest, though its also a little sad that where I am trying to get is still not what I would consider well but I will still be happy to get there.  Its the little things as they say, whoever they are...

Work is going well, I am still loving my role which surprises me a little (normally I get bored after a year, if not sooner).  I even am quite liking the surgeons I deal with which very much surprises me, I didn't think that day would ever come.  ED is still my fav department though, but then I see them in person more which I think has something to do with it.  Well that and one of the consultants answers my rather random questions when I have them, and that is always a bonus.  Not so sure about the last one though where she said it wasn't a weird question, paused then said for you...
My team also thinks I am very unique and I often get told I say the most random/entertaining things in conversation.  I don't see what is so random or entertaining about it, to me it's just things a normal person would say.  But they all seem to say things like that with kindness so I just roll with it lol.  Sides I like me too much to change and people always seem to think I think different so it would likely be a losing battle anyhow :)

I have had a rather large pause from crafting, see above where I have been unwell, it affected my energy levels so badly I havent been able to craft, or do anything other than exist really. But I am slowly getting back into it and am pretending I don't care about how delayed some of the projects now are.  And by slowly getting back into it I really do mean slowly, none of this spending the afternoon crafting like I used to.  But I will get there, eventually.  On the bright side my book reading is going extremely well and I have watched quite a few documentaries so it's not like I have just been sitting here just twiddling my thumbs lol.

For those who might have lost track of time this year, I have 6 weeks (minus 1 day) of being in my 30s.  Then it is on to the next decade for me.  Am I doing anything much for my birthday I hear you ask... well no, that requires having enough energy to make plans and know you can keep them which I have not been very good at this year (thankfully I have very understanding friends).  So on my bday I am going to have a very quiet lunch with a few good friends, then I will see my parents and brother a couple weeks after that for a birthday thing.  Just nice, quiet, small things this year.  But you can be rest assured that inside I will be celebrating like normal me, and I will be all excited and stoked that I have made it to another bday.  Ever since seeing someone comment that they are like video game levels and each bday is a level up I like to think of them like that to now :) and I am more than happy to keep levelling up hehe.

Well I think that is about it from me for now, hopefully it won't be quite as long between this and the next update as it was between this and the last one.  I hope you are all well and happy, stay warm my friends 💜💛💚

2024 in books

It is that time of year again, the time of year I let you know what my last year looked like in books :)

Total books - 74
Shortest book - 107 pages
Longest book - 582 pages 
Average book length* - 352 pages
Pages read* - 26,121 pages
*note the last two do not include the last 4 books I read, for some reason they tally the stats before Christmas which is not really a full year of reading but oh well.

This year I have done a graph that has previous years on it as well, just cos I wanted to.

In case the graph is too small to read properly here are the books read per genre for 2024:

Fantasy - 23

Sci Fi - 4 (one of those was the longest book)

Fiction - 19

Chick Lit - 12

Crime/Thriller - 8

Non Fiction - 8 (one of these was the shortest book)

Other - 0 (have included this cos its on the graph.  Other is either western or horror).

Just some random stuff

I have either realised the following things recently, or known them for a while, but I think all are worth sharing. That and I don’t really have enough for a proper post but some of these are cool enough that should be mentioned methinks 🙃

- All my towels are folded in thirds at some point in the folding sequence. 

- I leave my wardrobe doors ajar so the monsters don’t feel trapped. 

- Chocolate self saucing pudding is so much better if you use chocolate chips instead of cocoa in the pudding part (cocoa still in the sauce part).

- Bruising a bruise is never fun nor painless. 

- My hidden mural brings me more happiness than I was expecting it too (see pic below for the mural).

- It is entirely possible, and common in my house, to decide what to cook for dinner based purely on what condiment you want to have. 

- Coke and crepe paper aren’t friends, highly recommend not dropping the end of your Christmas decoration in your cup of coke while hanging them, leads to a shorter decoration than expected lol 

- When you are slightly addicted to your fav cafes bread it’s wonderful to discover they have a bread loyalty card (like a coffee one, I get a free loaf when I buy a certain number of loaves, yay). 

- One tap dancer might seem a bit meh, but a group of them performing to a symphony style piece of music is incredible and very moving. 

My superpower

I’ve decided, and hear me out on this cos it is probably going to sound like I’ve lost it, my superpower is getting sick. Told ya it would sound like I’ve lost it lol. But I’ve got reasons, maybe not great ones, maybe not even good ones, but there are certainly some reasons for this conclusion. Here we go…

1. A superpower is something only a few ppl have. And getting sick often and as badly as I seem to isn’t something that just anyone can claim. Most people probably only get laid low (like properly laid low, I’m not talking about a little cough and it’s oh I’ve got a bad cold kinda laid low, I’m talking the standing for any length of time greater than a few minutes is a mission and sitting unaided is a goal yet to be achieved kinda laid low) once every couple of years. Me, this seems to happen at least twice a year, if not more often. Therefore it’s like a unique gift (I’m looking on the bright side if you haven’t noticed already) and so I’m gonna call it a superpower. 
2. Superpowers bring out the best or worst in people, and I would say getting sick brings out the worst in me. I mean when I’m sick I do tend to swear at the world a lot, and at Glenny who goes into hiding so he doesn’t get disinfectant sprayed at the end of it. Does this make me a super villain if I go bad not good with my superpower… hmmm that is a cool pondering to be done. 
3. People with superpowers don’t share them. And no matter how hard I try no one around me ever seems to get as sick as I do and definitely not as frequently as me. Again, this is therefore a superpower. 
4. In my opinion superpowers teach you things, and I bet most people would have no idea how to work out what to make for lunch/dinner based on a mix of the food they have and how much energy they can expend and still be able to eat it before they need to rest, aka nap, again. Or even worse fall asleep while cooking, burn it and then have to start over (that ones the worst, obviously). And if you want to make enough for leftovers taking into account the energy it takes for all that (dividing the meal, finding lids and containers, getting them into the fridge etc). Doing the dishes is a whole separate adventure, and where possible you just cook stuff that allows you to reuse pots and pans, if you were wondering. 

So as you can see being sick is obviously my superpower, no question about it. Now I’m not saying getting sick often and bad would be my superpower of choice, but no one gets to pick their superpower in the comics and books and films so I’m not unusual there. Hmmm I wonder if someone will write a comic about me and my superpower… lol