You should be.  I think one post a month certainly constitutes it.

Life goes on in the Oh Waily household.  There would be plenty to write about if I could be bothered sitting down and writing about it.  Then again, it’s fair to say that there is also quite a lot of tiredness in the Oh Waily household these days, so the blog going by the wayside is a pretty obvious response.

Which is sad.

I like writing.  Really.
Not that you’d know if from the great black hole that this blog has become.

Just to prove I still love you all; yes, even you cowering timidly in the corner over there, not brave enough to leave a comment of any sort; here is an actual post.  It is bookish, naturally, and it is listish – also, naturally.  I have been keeping busy, just not here.
I promise you my beloveds, I have not forgotten you and I will post something passing for ‘a day in the life’ shortly.  No doubt it will be about my newest love – “the outdoors” and walking therein.

In the meantime, this will be my supplication for forgiveness over my abandonment of you all.

Book Reviews.  Yes, a fair few this year so far.  None of them here though.  You need to go over to my sister-in-law* blog – 1001 Book to Read Before You Die – if you want to keep up with my reading habit.
If you have really missed me and my book reviews (you poor, lost soul) then you can click on this link here and work your way back through my contributions to the blog.  If you really can’t be bothered with all that, or need a better reason to skim through all five pages of them, here’s a list of the books reviewed by me this year and links directly to them.  Do you love me or do you love me?  I take all the work out of it for you.

• The Wonderful O by James Thurber
• Timbuktu by Paul Auster

And beginning my continuing love affair with the various classic spy and/or private investigator novels…

• Casino Royale by Ian Fleming
• Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler
• Smiley’s People by John le Carré
• The 39 Steps by John Buchan
• The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

And finally getting off, briefly, the spy-PI-go-round for an absolute classic…

• Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

On a small footnote to this last work, should you be looking for old style, wonderful poetry for children then you really should read “A Childs Garden of Verse” by the very talented Mr Stevenson.  Very Victorian, but very evocative.

And there ends the book list for 2013, so far.  I have another spy novel sitting on the bedside table, and hopefully it will be finished for reviewing next week**.   Yet another yummy le Carré work and the last on the list, darn it all.  Lucky for me there is one more Raymond Chandler and as an all-powerful Editor I can nudge others aside for the books of my choice, bwahahaha….  (oh dear, it appears I’ve been infected by Edward Hyde’s evil…help….me….    please…………..)

—
* metaphorically speaking.  The lovely lady editors there are no relation, but I’d be happy if they were.
** Anybody else keen to review a 1001 Book?  Jump over to the blog and check out the Join the Review Crew page – we could really do with one or two more regular contributors.  It’s fun.  I promise.  There is plenty of “light” reading on the list that still need readers & reviewers.

Dulce et decorum est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

- Wilfred Owen

It turns out that I’ve been here quite a while.

According to dear old WP I’ve been here for 7 years.
Yes – seven years.  Where did all that time go?

If you’ve been around since the beginning, well done you for not giving up and thanks for hanging with me.   Despite the occasional episode of blogging hibernation I have never felt the seven year itch, and will no doubt continue to blog on here with the good people of WordPress.

Excuse me while I go crack open a bottle of bubbles to celebrate.  Back soon**.

*Sorry, you really need to be a WP blogger to understand that.
**  Just a reminder people:  friends don’t let friends blog drunk, okay?

Well done New Zealand & her Parliamentarians!

Marriage Equality Bill passed.    77 – 44.

So that sounds like an odd combination, and it would be if I were doing it all in one activity, but no.  I didn’t.  Late morning I took myself off on a walk that I’d been wanting to do for some time and knew would not be possible with the little people yet.

The Pencarrow Lighthouse had been nagging at me for a few months, but as Mr Oh Waily spent most of the first couple of months of the year gadding about overseas, I had to put it off.  But on Saturday I finally got to do it.  Here’s a link to the Google Map for those who aren’t familiar with Wellington.   And, here’s a link to a bit of the history of the lighthouse for the curious.

Naturally at this time of year the weather was a bit hit and miss.  I started out in sun only to be greeted fairly shortly into the walk by a rain front coming up from the south and across the Strait.  This made my plan to stop and take my time photographing things a bit difficult.  In the end I managed to get some photographs before the rain and at the lighthouse but that was all.  So here they are…

Yes, it’s true.  We are a nation of sheep.  They even go to the beach like the rest of us when the sun is out.

No, really – all the way along the walk they were either on the beach, under the scrub or hanging off the side of a cliff. Although, as you can tell, they aren’t fond of surprise visitors gate-crashing their seaside picnic.

And while the sun was out I was chased and flirted with, then flitted off from by a huge number of Silvereyes (or Wax-eyes – you tell me what the difference is?) so I was lucky enough to find a tree they decided to sit in at one point. Otherwise they’d have kept giving me the bird equivalent of a thumbed nose and there would’ve been no actual wildlife photographs at all. (Sheep don’t count.)

And, a slightly different angle after waiting patiently for another one to land and hang around.

I like them. They’re pretty, small, nippy and cheery birds to watch playing amongst themselves. I’m also amazed that I managed to get even one image vaguely in focus considering how fast they move, the large lense that I had on the camera and my own innate wobbliness.

So some time later (approximately an hour and a half – thanks rain & wind) the stubborn person that I am, made it out to the lower lighthouse.  It turns out that I could not have timed my eventual arrival any better.  Serendipitous I’d have to say.  The Interisland Ferry just happened to be entering the harbour just as I arrived at my destination.

And it came so darn close to shore I could probably have had a chat with the Master.

It would’ve been nice, at this point to have caught a ride back to town, as I discovered that my walking shoes were not quite as broken in as I had thought.  Ouchie.  A nasty big blister eventually appeared by the time I made it back to the car and Eastbourne.
But it’s a small price to pay for having knocked off a walk that I’d been wanting to do for ages.  Next time I’ll give the upper lighthouse a go, but only if it’s not windy.

After a short while at home feeling like the conquering hero and bragging to my small people about how fabulous their Mum was at walking for miles and miles and miles, I got myself and my dodgy blistered feet back into the car and drove in to town.  I was going to have a night at the rugby.

And like the good little trooper I am, I was dedicated to both my adopted team, the Hurricanes, and to my reviewing responsibilities over at t’other blog.

Capping off a great day out, the lovely boys in the background gave the visiting Waratahs what for.  I couldn’t have asked for a better end to the day.

Have you had a day out lately?  What did you get up to? Something fun, challenging or both?

Well, we’re back.  From holiday, that is.  I may even be rested enough that blogging becomes a regular habit again.  Maybe.  We’ll let time decide that one.  In the meantime, here is why I love our once a year holiday to Fiji.  In photographs.

How we try to spend our time…

What Miss Oh wants the minute we land these days, but tougher to do with her new shorter ‘do…

One of my favourite natives, and by far the simplest to photograph…

And why having a room with a view is a nice way to end the day…

And for those who may be dubious about the redness of that last photograph – no I didn’t fiddle about with it in Lightroom, other than a small bit of cropping.

There may be a few more photographs to share later, but for now….

*ahhhhhhhh*

That’d be the sound of Ms Oh Waily feeling refreshed and relaxed.  It’s been a while since it was last heard around these parts.  A big thanks to Mr Oh Waily and Nana & Poppa Oh Waily for a great holiday where I didn’t have to be Mum all of the time.

Aroha nui.

If you’ve hung around here anywhere near long enough you will know that I have a very big, squidgy spot for all things Lord of the Rings.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE IT!

I’m sorry.  I had to share.  Turn away if it gets too much.

For the Trek-geeks…

And it’s a doozy.

Harold Bloom‘s Western Canon.

1524 books later….

Ouch.  My eyes just crossed.

Take a look and see how many you may already have read, and let me know if you are crazy enough to be working your way through it.