(no subject)

[drcuriosity]

I'm not sure why, but whenever I hear or see someone saying or writing "Go The All Blacks!", I find myself thinking of the "The people called Romans, they go the house?!" scene from The Life of Brian.

Have been settling into the new flat well, though I still need to find time to unpack a few bits'n'pieces. I also met my flatmate Scott's family yesterday, which went decently - they seem like a nice bunch, and it hasn't taken long for them to start treating me as one of the tribe.

Speaking of the tribe, Christmas went relatively well too, despite me nodding off in inopportune places. A fairly low-stress Christmas was had by all. My nephew Alexander already seems to be investigating facial expressions and gaze tracking, and given another couple of months he'll probably be capable of what it would take a computer science PhD a few years to achieve. Humans are cool like that. As best I can tell, he's a relatively well-behaved young sprogling; he doesn't cry at the hideously painful pitch of some people's children, and he's already learning that he can vocalise a little bit without yelling continuously to get someone's attention.

To be fair, I think that my sister and her husband are doing a pretty decent job on the parenting side of things, too - a combination of geekily active involvement in understanding the parenting process, and perhaps a bit of support from my parents (who are pretty awesome and live just down the road). All things concerned, a child could have a heck of a lot worse a start in life than this one.

In other news, I have new pants and a random domestic hints book. Certainly, the idea of freezing parsley and/or chives so that you can just crumble them into whatever you're cooking without bothering to chop is a nifty idea.

Comments

[drcuriosity]

I don't travel as much as I should, perhaps - I got rather severely discouraged from outdoor pursuits when I was young, for reasons I shan't go into. I shall most certainly bear you in mind, should I ever find myself in need of a Canadian cake guide, thank you :-)

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Awww. You won't show me on the dolly where nature touched you?

[drcuriosity]

It was more a case of people injuring me a lot when I went on school camps, bush walks and the like. It's hard to appreciate nature as well when your peers are ramming you headfirst into a gorse bush, tripping or outright kicking you down a scree slope or trying to push you off a waterfall. Heck, schoolyard cricket was dangerous enough without letting people use natural beauty against you as well.

I did get pretty good at breakfalls, though, and didn't break any bones, so it could have been a lot worse.

Most of my travelling was done with my family on holidays, so I didn't get an awful lot of time to go exploring by myself. One of these days I'll get myself a licence and some time to see the country properly, I'm sure.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Yeah, my school trips were all like that. Well, not all of them, grade seven was a nice respite, because the classes had a game called DITCH JHAYNE which meant that they wouldn't be caught within ten feet of me. I would walk around the school with a book and people would scatter away form me like that little kid science experiment with water tension and pepper. That made life easier for a year.

Permit?

[drcuriosity]

Permit? Sorry, I've lost you there.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

You require a license?

[drcuriosity]

For the purposes of driving places. There's only so many places you can get to easily by bus, train or bicycle.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Ah-HAH. I was thinking "a permit to visit the countryside, how novel." I supposed it must be to protect the wildlife from being trampled.

[drcuriosity]

*nod* There are in fact a fair number of places where you can't go without a permit from the Department of Conservation because they're home to rare/endangered species. Mostly that's offshore islands that are used as breeding habitats away from things like rats, but not such an outlandish idea at all. New Zealand generally tends to take conservation and biosecurity issues relatively seriously.

[porphyre.livejournal.com]

Ah-HAH. knew it made sense.

Oh me, it's awfully late, though. I'm a few hours ahead of you. it's time for bed.

[drcuriosity]

Rest well, dear lady.