The stuff of life

I did remember to post up those pics. I just forgot to mention it on the blog :) As there are (I'm told) some issues with finding the link among those relatively new to following blogs (Hi Dad!) you need to click here to see the gallery or click here to go stright to the slideshow.

I don't know about you, but the Picasa server seems to be getting slower and slower, making the images change before they've properly loaded. I'm moving the show to something more slick, I think, it would be a sham eto make them smaller files just to suit Mr Google. These days, I have to admit, things like that just have to be Flash-based, such that the whole show loads up before you view it, and your viewer isn't left wondering whether the strange and tediously developing image is supposed to be part of the presentation. Bro' Mark has finally launched himself webward with a fun showcase of his lovely work, nice and clean, simple and Flash. His other page is my favourite, so it's going on the favourite links sidebar :)

Scorching hot again here today, mercifully only 91% humidity so it was only really bad when you went out into the sun. The atmosphere's ultra-clear so you get full-on UV rays, not filtered the way they are back in Spain, and I swear you can actually feel it penetrating right though your hat. In other news, we finally got the growth charts up again and while Elly has achieved a very respectable three centimeters since September, Oscar has managed almost six. Saved us a fortune in summer clothes, as his previously long pants are now cool-looking three-quarter cutoffs.

Niki's term started off really hard, having lost her bessie mate teacher to the posh school Elly goes to, losing our kids after such lovely long holidays and gaining only another classful of incredibly rude and insubordinate ones. It's a real uphill struggle but she seems to be making headway against all the odds and is even starting to push through some changes to the hapless school regime. They don't deserve her, basically, and I've no doubt they'll miss her when we bog off and find somewhere that does. Doing really well on the bike though, being one of those nutters you see out on training rides before it gets light most mornings a week. We'll have her doing that Taupo Ironman yet :))

Me, I'm another uphill struggle. Motivation isn't a problem but direction definitely is. I feel I could do just about anything here at least as well as the best of them, but there's precious little calling or obvious demand for any of it. I see "gaps" everwhere, from reportage wedding photography to wacky patio installations, and whereas the Kiwis seem (on the face of it) to be progessive, up-for-anything types, they're colllectively very conservative, happy with the way they do things and not really up for anything new. Maybe it's just Auckland, in fact we're both convinced it is just Auckland. Our next trip south will be with bags full of very loaded questions and unreasonably high expectations.

I drove out to North Shore tonight to pick up some speakers I won on TradeMe (eBay here is a joke, try it!) They're great, apart from the huge big dent I put in one of them when I dropped it on it's way into the house :-/ It was one of those journeys that typifies living here in a very literal sense: I stopped off for some speaker cable at Dick Smiths (a kind of NZ version of Tandy) over in Sylvia Park, which for me is the worst kind of shopping mall. Not your big out of town mall – nothing in Auckland is out of town – just an ugly, sprawling, concrete carbuncle flanked by motorway flyovers. If it didn't sound like a cross between open greenbelt and a Swedish porn star I'd probably be more forgiving. The traffic was shocking into the city and I crawled along under leaden skies in the sticky heat for what seemed like hours.

Then suddenly I was cruising over the harbour bridge, five lanes of open sea views, volcanic islands to the right, rolling hills to the left. The sun comes out. My seller is a typical Kiwi; affable, honest, vague, a bit odd... but all is in order, the drive back is smooth and clear, and I inevitably think, "why isn't it like this all the time?"

That's just it though, you can't ever pin it down. It changes like the weather and leaves you none the wiser. One thing's for sure: tomorrow, it'll be exactly the same.