Black, white and wood...

The boy is back at school, the year is well underway but I am still floundering around trying to kickstart 2011. It's times like these I really miss a formal job. 

My son said to me last week, "You're always on holiday Mum because you don't ever go back to work." Ah sweet. And so insulting to the SAHM movement. What he doesn't realise is that I really need a holiday after his holiday ends. 

No holiday but in the meantime some inspiration to get me going on a few jobs around the home. 

I just love the combination of lots of white, lovely old wood and a dash of black. It's the dash of black I am aiming for in the next month or so and much as I would love to conjure up some black framed steel doors or windows I just have chairs to paint.  As you may remember I planned this little job quite a few months ago... then it rained for three months and I forgot about it.

I also have things to throw out (again), things to frame and lists to make. I feel better already.

(Images: 1 Elle Decor, 2 via Pure Style Home, 3 via Driftwood Interiors)

Movies for 2011

It's the Awards season. The red carpet, the acid tongue of Joan Rivers... and all those frocks and botox.

It's also the time of year when movie saturation sets in. And year after year the Oscars roll around and I haven't seen the darn movies. And by the time it's all over I don't really want to.

I have had children for six years now... I blame them. (They're also behind my career collapse, the disordered state of my house and my new grey hairs. I admit that all of that might have happened without them but we humans like to lay blame and they're much shorter than me and don't read my blog.)

Now where was I? Ah yes, watching clips of the King's Speech over and over again until I'm going off Colin Firth.

I have decided it's time for another list.  2011 is the year of the list and catching up and getting current.
First the books, now the movies.

I have trawled through the last eight years or so of Oscars winners and nominees (further back and it started to feel like the special effects would be laughable and the actors so young I'd feel old) and drafted my Movies for 2011.

A warning - this is not a list for film buffs. This is a list for sad old bloggers and their partners who can just struggle down to the local DVD shop on a Saturday and then just stay up long enough to watch the movie and drink half a bottle of red. Three quarters on a big night.

The list is really for my husband. Its hould save him many precious minutes of wandering the aisles aimlessly wondering what to get. Time then to nip next door and buy the wife a slab of chocolate.


Image from here

Seven things...

Once again I have been surprised and pleased to receive another opportunity to talk about ME. It's come in the form of those rather nice blogging awards - the ones I am absolutely hopeless about passing along. I think it's all the lectures we were given about chain letters as children... or it could be my general uselessness. Probably the latter.

This time it's (surprisingly) the Stylish blogger award from the ever stylish Kerry A Tranquil Townhouse and Le at Third on the Right. Thank you both ladies. Before I started I thought I should check the last time I did one of these All About Me lists as;

1. I tend to repeat myself and tell the same story a couple of times... luckily I am terribly witty and interesting and people tend to hang on my every word so of course they don't mind. Except my husband. He cuts me off two sentences in. Poor man. Who could blame him?

2. I love it when my printer whirs into action the first time I press the print button. This last happened in 2007. Inevitably I have the page setting on A3, the connector thingy unconnected, the printer off or no paper. 

3. I love the sun.  I remember vividly the day each spring in London when you could actually feel the warmth of the sunshine on your skin for the first time in months.  At this end of the world the sun is too warm for most of the year and you can get burnt on a cold day. We might all be dodging skin cancer but we are definitely not depressed by a lack of light. I love that.

4. I love swimming in the sea but I like it to be clear beneath me so I can see the nasties that might be lurking. Ideally for me the ocean would be like a huge saltwater swimming pool with the occasional Nemo-type fish swimming by. I think that's why I like Sydney's rock pools so much... (Bronte's my favourite). I know... it's un-Australian to be such a wuss.

5. I also love chocolate which is nothing new. But not all chocolate.  Not chocolate cake, chocolate desserts and those overdone handmade twiddly chocolates (although I demolished half a box last night and will eat a cake to be polite of course). I really like just plain old chocolate, milk not dark if there's a choice.  I have had to go cold turkey quite a few times to check that I can actually survive without it.

6. I love old things, furniture particularly. Not groovy, mid-century stuff, and not those real antiques crafted from mahogany but well-used wooden tables, chests, chairs and useful old things with a solid feel and a lovely patina of age through use. 

7. And I'm sorry fellow bloggers, I love all your blogs but I loathe these little things... 

Inglatie? My brain and fingers freeze and then I type the word it nearly is. Without them I would be a much more efficient and then clearly better blogger.... I think.

Island life...

We spent the weekend at Kawau Island... a little less than an hour north of Auckland and a thirty minute trip across the water from the mainland. It's a little private patch of paradise, coves lined with jetties that lead up to the baches built up on the hills. Our friend's family has had theirs for thirty years.  

 

The weather was not on our side - it was wet but warm enough. We swam a little, kayaked a little, ate a lot and all in all had a lovely weekend. Life on Kawau (Cow-wow) revolves around the jetty...

This is our two year old 'bombing'  - about a two metre drop off the jetty into the water. 

I did spend a few seconds wondering whether we should let him try it but he popped up out of the water like a cork with a big smile on his face, then jumped again and again shouting with glee. The kid is crazy.

We'll have to go back one day when the sun is shining.

Too much water - here AND there...

We have just spent a wonderful weekend away in another beautiful part of New Zealand  but it was wet, so wet that the usually clear aqua water turned an ugly silty brown.

When we returned to Auckland last night we found that a king tide and a sea swollen with rain had caused  flooding in parts of the city. Nothing of course like Australia's issues... but it did make me think once again of the massive clean-up in Queensland and the continuing crisis in Victoria.

Books have been on my mind too - thanks for all your suggestions for my 2011 Reading List. I spent some time on Sunday grilling my Kiwi friends about must read NZ books so they'll be there too. It's beginning to look like my Reading List for Life!

Then today I found mention on Twitter (I lurk there but don't tweet) of Writers on Rafts.

A whole bunch of Australian writers (130 so far) have got together to raise money for the Premier's Disaster Relief Appeal. There are wonderful prizes on offer - the raffle tickets are $5 each and you can win book packs, help with your own writing, author visits to your school, local library or book club and tickets to writers festivals or even the chance to have a character named after you in a book... that rather appealed to me (as if starring in my own blog isn't enough!).

So if you're in Australia and you're a book lover - head on over and get buying. Every little bit helps and 100% goes to the Appeal.  Actually if you're anywhere in the world you can enter (I checked) but you won't qualify for a book visit - book packs and online writing support could be yours though and a warm fuzzy feeling for helping!

I also have a small thank you of my own too (all business here today). If you look up to the top of the screen at my site address you will see a lovely little house now adorns http://myvillalife.blogspot.com/  

I didn't know but it's called a favicon - short for favourites icon.  Cool isn't it? I won it in a lovely and very unexpected giveaway over at Striking Keys.  It's a giveaway you don't even have to enter... My very favourite way to win! Thanks again Angela for the gift and the blog tutorial!

Reading in 2011... the list goes live

I've been promising you a reading list for 2011. It's done and you can find it here.

You can also get to the page anytime on the top right hand side of the blog... just click '2011 Reading List'. 

I want to give my reading some direction this year and a list will also make it easy for me to order ahead from the library or buy on Amazon or Book Depository. 

There are some books listed that I  should have read years ago (and I'm almost embarrassed to admit I haven't) and others I may struggle to finish. Many have won or been shortlisted for awards but that is not the only reason they're there.  In fact some are there despite that. Like movies I tend to go off a book if I hear too much about it.

I would love to know if you think there's a book I should add. Or one I should take off the list!

I don't do self-help books - blogging my New Year's resolutions is about as 'self-help' as I get and I haven't even done that yet this year.  I'm really trying not to fall back into reading too many crime yarns (Sayers is new to me so that's ok) and I am banning aiport-lite chick lit (mostly!).

One book I definitely won't EVER be reading is Little Vampire Women.   I came across it on my book search and couldn't quite believe that a) someone has written it  b) someone else published it and c) people are buying it. Surely they're not reading it too?! 

By the way, you can buy the pictured book jackets here.  I thought they'd make great wrapping paper for a book gift but I certainly will not be covering the books on my shelf. That would be a little odd... 

And the award goes to...

I just love the Awards season. LOVE it. People who have known me for a long time will think that sounds odd. I will do almost anything to avoid dressing up myself and I'd always rather be the least dressed up in the room.

I did dress up a little and walk the red carpet at the BAFTAs (the TV BAFTAs not the film ones) a couple of times in London. We didn't really 'walk' the red carpet but rather scurried in past the press pack with a lot of scantily clad soap stars and Joan Collins.  It felt great until a whole pack of snappers told us greasy journos to get out of the way with a 'move along love' and a wave of the hand.

Hollywood red carpet events involving big time celebs? I cannot get enough. And I don't really care who won what.

I love the frocks. The good, the bad and the downright shouldn't-have-got-out-of-the-limo-in-that-love-what-were-you-thinking?

E's Fashion Police has evolved into the very best bit. A 3D camera? Excellent, frozen spinning celebs in all their botoxed, bosomed glory - surely they all wear spanx? Apparently this season it's all about black, no peach, no blush, ummm no, emerald. I'm confused but I do hate peach.

I love the inane conversations and that wonderful question which makes no sense at all. Cue simpering, "So who are you wearing?" And that rare and wonderful moment when some new starlet forgets.

I love the palpable discomfort when the red carpet interview does not go that smoothly. It happens quite a lot. Interesting how ill-prepared the interviewers are and how unhelpful many of the actors are - surely it's their job to co-operate? Perhaps some are a little out of their depth with no script and the others are too famous to need to worry.

I like Ryan Seacrest trying to do serious.

When Michael Douglas (jokingly) told Ryan Seacrest that he Ryan had been his inspiration during his cancer battle this year, Ryan didn't miss a beat "Thank you" he said "You're inspirational to me too."  Eeergh. It was a JOKE.

It got even better this year when the show itself got underway and Ricky Gervais let loose (again! Who asked him back?). Introducing Bruce Willis as Ashton Kutcher's dad and that sort of thing... he was so mean and so on target with his jokes I almost felt sorry for Angelina. Almost.


**For those concerned (yes you Mum) that I may have watched four hours of TV yesterday - I didn't. I recorded it and watched it at high speed with my beloved Sky remote. The only way to watch anything these days. Now bring on the Oscars.