Last weeks little moments.

I can't be trusted. With my dear friend Cheyenne, (the owner of the Paia Meditation) on the mainland, I'd been nominated as an official time keeper for a twenty minute morning meditation session. As any good facilitator would, I arrived with 10 minutes to spare but was suddenly grabbed by the thought "wouldn't it be funny to send Cheyenne a photo of me taking my facilitator duties seriously"? Well clearly I thought so, as I set the self timer and started to leap.


Close to our start time of 7:30am, Eric arrived and being the good student that he is, joined right in! With minutes to spare we plonked our smiley energized selves onto cushions, sat cross legged, b r e a t h e d deeply and proceeded to start our practice. I think it took me the whole twenty minutes just to get my heart rate down! You too can come and rest you mind any time (minus aerobic workout), simply check the schedule at paiameditation.com

Describing my mother as a 'ferocious reader with an addictive personality' is (I'm sure she'll agree) an accurate statement. This is a good thing for her sharp and intelligent mind, but not so good if you have limited storage space in a small flat. Above is the latest culling of her all-new-read-once collection of books. The lucky recipient of these black bin bags exploding with words will be the local charity shop... unless anyone fancy's a surprise box of books in the mail?! I've often wondered if I should try to convert her into the book electronic arena?

Like these Kindle people! Though I confess the new ipad looks infinitely more appealing. Mum, would you miss turning the page & the smell of a new book?

Talking of words, today I bought some mushrooms with the lofty claim that they are 'more fun than a pickle', then I thought "I'll show you fun"....


...."check out the giant asparagus growing at my neighbour's house"!

Nice Weaseed.

I’ve inherited the peculiar habit of letter flipping and I know I’m not the only one. I was in the gym the other day and a local dude had a
t-shirt that boldly proclaimed “Duck Fat” which I found pleasantly amusing.

Calling all wordsmiths.

I was half listening to the radio the other day when my ears pricked up as the words ‘bonkers’ and ‘phor’ came wafting across the airwaves. It turns out the Oxford English Dictionary is resorting to the British public in the hopes of receiving help in the origin of some modern day words. They have a colorful 'appeal' list of words whose origins are uncertain or unknown. The inventory of their most wanted words is classic and reminds me of the list you’d create for someone who is leaning British-English and wants to sound like a native. They include; mucky pup, tosser, prat, dogs bollocks, wally, kinky and my personal favorite, wazzock!

Now, my Queens English is a bit rusty but here goes; I had an ‘ex’ who I originally thought was the dogs bollocks, but it turned out not only was he a mucky pup but he was also a real kinky prat. Bloody hell, I was a total wally for liking him, thank God I woke up & dumped that tosser, what a wazzock!

In an efforft to redeem myself (yes-that's my traitoresque household dictionary above) I just signed up for the OED's word or the day service-todays word is 'verify'. Bloody hell-not exactly the dogs bollocks.....