Uh? But she only blogged this morning?

I am BACK! To stop your incessant going on and on and on...well, that's only one person, I'm sure everyone else has given uo and gone off to do more interesting things like try to manage triplets or twins.

And now, to celebrate my return, I am going downstairs to make a cup of tea.

I'm BACK! again.

So, the work meeting was just fine, aside from the fact that it was actually at 1pm and not noon, and I not only managed to find a very tiny valid parking space when I got home I also managed (after several attempts) to actually park the car in the aforementioned space. I was so impressed with myself I almost took a photo on my phone, but would dent my cool and sophisticated image. So I decided against it.

Life is all about civil union at the moment - we've got the booze sorted, are half-way through organising food, have hired glasses from whence to drink booze, have confirmed our skiing accommodation, have bought rings etc etc and tomorrow I will be flinging myself around the city with gay abandon and doing things like getting our civil union licence, buying fancy underwear, re-registering the hellbeast with the city council, buying thermals (I've taken to wearing them to bed - most foxilicious - but does the trick). Obviously the last two have nothing ot do with civil union, but I thought I'd throw them into the mix. After all that it'll be off ot Martinborough for a family friend's wedding and the first full gathering of the Tarleton clan since May. All of us in a 3 bedroom house. With only one bathroom. And the dog. Should be fabulous.

On the civil union front, we are now only $500 off having everything covered financially and I must admit I am pretty pleased that we've managed to pay for it all ourselves. We are fiscally aware and responsible, how mature.

Aside from that it seems to be birthday season, again, with mine looming ominously on the horizon. I seem to have been adopted by one of the students at the drama school (my boss reckons it is some kind of lesbian mentoring programme that I don't know I've been signed up to) and last weekend we were invited to her 21st birthday party. Luckily there was a fairly random cross-section of guests, so I didn't feel too old and haggardly, but it did make me realise that I don't seem to be able to remember my own 21st. Weird. If anyone out there does remember it, please feel free to let me know what happened. I do remember my 18th and my 22nd, and even my 30th, but 21st has completely gone. Can't have been that interesting, I suppose.

English recipe Heinz baked beans

It's been a day of ups and downs. Surprising only because it isn't yet mid-day.

UPs =
1. Was told yesterday that I didn't have to come into work until noon, and then only for a meeting.
2. It's cold, but the southerly has stopped blasting us (there was ice on the windscreen, a first for me since moving to Wellington).
3. Got to stay in bed a little bit longer.
4. Gert & I enjoyed a refreshing trip to the beach.
5. Stopped off at the supermarket to deal with a sudden hankering for beans on toast and noticed, for the first time since moving to NZ, that they were selling the mythical 'English recipe Heinz baked beans' (bought 4 tins).

DOWNs =
1. Alarm still went off at 6am and Jo kept talking to me whilst I was desperately trying to stay asleep until at least 8am.
2. It's very chilly in the study (note to kind reader - number of lesbians it takes to warm up a room in Wellington depends on multiple factors: size of room, size of lesbian, etc).
3. Staying in bed longer means listening to Radio NZ longer and their crap arse journalists. Today's earth-shattering revelation was that it's taken over a year to investigate and prosecute some bloke who sub-let his council house...for god's sake find something relevant to talk about. And as an ex-civil servant, I think a year is pretty good going.
4. The beach was also freezing.
5. Having flitted about in the car got home to find nowhere to park within a 3 street radius of our house (trust me, this is not good). Spent 20 mins looking for a space and finally gave up and parked in residents only (though we are residents, we haven't coughed up $90 for a permit, so aren't allowed to park there). Last time I did that I got a parking ticket.

But the baked beans were worth it. For those of you who are curious the difference is in the quantity of sugar - NZ baked beans have about 8 or 9g of sugar per 100g, whereas English ones only have 5g.

I have to go to work now, for my meeting. I am very important.

Excuses, excuses.

I came up to the study with every intention of blogging, but have not because it is arse-numbing and finger-incapacitatingly cold. I am now going back downstairs where there is a decent heater.

But I will blog soon. Honest.