krismuff

krustmuffs

and so it begins. or perhaps it should be... when will it stop?

chronology is a tiring concept at the best of times. so there goes the caution and here comes the wind. retro is the new retro right? or something. so it is now. the end of the calendar and finally the concept of a new year makes sense. thanks northern hemisphere.

um. news. we are. new. to chisswick. but don't say it cos people won't get it. chizzock. that's where we @. we have a good as house with 4 others - 1 couple (kiwi and scott who we haven't met yet!), kiwi lass and aussie bloke. house is pretty huge and plush by the standards established by our extensive searching throughout most of the london boroughs.... we are up kinda high but not so much that i hate the walk up the stairs (in fact i kinda pretend i am exercising)... our bedroom looks out towards the sunrise (8AM, just when i am eating my cornflakes cos i don't start till 930!). the sun slides across the horizon at a smooth 15 degree inclination, so out the same window i can see the sun set (was 4.15 when i was awoken from my first london siesta by the glowing orb). huge kitchen and living - so its cool for you to come and have dinner, or maybe stay a little while (nice little dossing spot by the heater). yesterday we walked to the river (the thames that is) and then the cheese shop. along the way we discovered our local brewery (some fruity ale which, contrary to popular myth, is not flat and icky). all in all a nice area - feel a little lost without our baby stroller (or zimmer frame) but its easy and nice.

then you get to come to the east side where its all at. in the ditch. shore ditch. sssshhhhh ... it's shore ditch. i am working east and its fabulous. kinda like cuba st with a couple of bypasses already put thru, ripped up, built on, put thru again and then forgotten about. nice blend of decrepitude and style (all in the beholders eye of course!) - i work in the most picturesque part - Hoxton Square thanks - regular village square - grass, trees, no squirrels... i should really go and enjoy it. but the lure of the internet is too great. there is so much to do! check emails. check emails. download updates. check for new music. find a game. play a game. check emails. send emails. make phone calls. draw a flow diagram (i knew engineering would come in handy). eat chocolate (cos its christmas - did i mention that?). my job is acer than ace. although its kinda tough and most of the time i don't know what i am doing. but everyone smiles and laughs at my jokes. but i am excited about the things i am learning and the power for global domination that it brings. soon, not only will i be able to control all televsision, but also all of teh internet too. very powerful. i think its called new media. or something.

i will let alana tell her story as she is much better than i.

right now its 9pm and i am half way thru my tube (1 change) ride home. good time for emails and blogs huh? alana is cooking me dinner and then we will talk about our day and then probably play twister. sometimes we visit our friends. we have 2. or so. nige and melissa live about 15 mins away, so lotsa good catching up with them. and ARE making other friends. not just new zealanders. but really the people most like new zealanders cos really they are the best people in the world. sad but true. nothing like bit of one eyed myopia.

what else? this is the part where i try to connect with you individually. how are YOU? i probably miss you. and would love to come over for a barbie and a bevvie. or two. i think you can post them though. 72F Chisswick high rd. W4 1SY. London. easy.

do you know anything? new or old is ok. i probably don't know it because we haven't talked for a wee while now. sorry about that. i do hope that life is a fabulous place in which you can act out your greatest dreams and fulfill your deepest desires. because if its not then its not, right? right.

what else. nothing.

now it is 10.15 and I am alana. London is pretty great and pretty crazy at the same time. I my first pay in mr pound tomorrow which will no doubt be pretty great. Jon arriving home so late can be attributed to the pretty crazy side of things. After living in each others pockets (along with spare change, chewing gum and the ubiquitous travel map) since leaving nz in april, this past month in London has been a bread and water fast. i miss our mid afternoon siestas!

what else? jon's pants are now see-through which is rather thrilling. cheap.tho.it may.be (i don't get to see much of him, but when I do...)

My job is a job. i don't love it like jon loves his job hence i get home lots earlier to cook tea. the people at my work are pretty nice, lots of science nerds who are scared of the c word (that would be creativity) and lots of regular ol' englishies who're all rather nice 'n proper. yeah. init. Some days my brain hurts from all the thinking i'm inflicting on it. this can't possibly be good for me in the long run so i'll have to convince them to create (theres that c word again) a science for dummies role just for me. this would be acer.

one day i plan to paint a picture or two, learn more italian, take dancing lessons and plan whirlwind weekend trips to europe. For now I'm content to knit my way to work and back, on my overgound-underground-train. (4 tube stops @ 2 min per stop ain't a bad commute for this town)

London feels like a good place to be. right now. it is a long way from home. and will take a long time to feel like home. if ever. but for now it is our home. and I'm likin' it.

I wonder, like jon does, what it is you do and how and why and when and where and do you have skype? coz its really wicked and we'd love to talk to you.

what else? I have learnt that while the charm in brick is limited, fog never ceases to enchant.

and so, ho ho, a big fat minus five merry ol' norther krismus blowing at you, I guess. Be a gem and send us a little summer. lovin. jalaha

Another time in Venice

sweeping up the read carpet.. ah ahha hah


would be a nice painting


nice domes


kath does venezia


lugging our way thru lucca. nice tree tower.

jonandalanaupatree

jonandalanaupatree
some days the internet is evil

we haven't been able to blog for 3 months. for real.

we want to but we can't.

but we will prevail.

Bec de Roces | Dolomite Refugio

oh yeah so some weird things won't let me publish properly so the text of the blog is in my comment below. hope it doesn't get too confusing.

we love


view from the refugio


i love to go a wandering

Enter the Dolomite

OK. so its not August. but cast your mind back...

yeah so we had cheese for lunch











5 mins from our wee mountain refuge












jon couldn't find anyone to play with (not quite the top of monte cerveza)













you can see our house from here (wee spot in the top right hand corner - the vallage of Roncat...)












alana likes it

so

i am having a wee amount of trouble with new posts.
trying some new things.
but here's a photo from the not too distant past of little house on the praire. or was it heidi? can't remember

we are safe and well @ geoff and kerryns comfy pad in birmingham.

02_09_06 VENEZIA

so this is the story all about how venice rules.
had 3 nights (second time around) here, heading off today southern western wards to Lucca and then cinque terra and then to our final wwoofing appointment near parma (like the ham mmmmmm)

we have been joined by the globe trotting mama kath (arrived italy ~22/8) and we will travel together until we all depart italia mid sept.

better stories will be added with additional visual component.

just wanted to say hi and that we are ace and especially missing our peeps right about now.

i managed to crash the venice film festival (which was brief but ok) and then got invited to the venice short film festival which was mind alteringly neat. more on this later (i guess).

so love and bye

please send massages via comments cos they make us feel snuggly.

26_July_2006 Milano

am. Latte macchiato. Brioche. Gelato. Espresso. Gelato. Panini. Gelato. Pizza. Vino. Mio Dio. pm
Franciscan monks in sack cloth robes taking time out from a dan brown tour for a quick espresso.


The gallery of modern art cunningly disguised as a suburban mansion so we had mr van gogh all to ourselves (and a dozen odd milling attendants).
Armani's emporium? bah. why wouldjah?
Milan night life. didn't make it to where the beautiful people were. all nite disco. strict entry selection. don't know if we want(ed) to be so celeb. maybe we are celebophobic? but got to hang in the park with milanese youth's touting chilli bins of beer. yeah.

27 July 2006 Venice (take 1)

Peggy Guggenheim's gallery of modern art. Tu meke.

Concentration camp of kids @ Balerno beach.

Nice storm(s). Glad we didn't take the campsite...


28_July_2006 Murano

"Don't go there, its not that cool" (Mark Albiston, 2006)
"...and it might threaten your relationship..."

And especially don't go there if neither of you even wants to go there but think that the other really wants to go there so you each go out of your way to accommodate the others wishes and spend 50 stinking hot minutes on a ferry to get there only to find them indifferent about being there once you finally get there so you turn around for another 50 sweltering minutes cruising the venetian scum pond wishing all the time you were at the beach which is where it turns out you both wanted to be in the first place if the other hadn't wanted so badly to go to the island of murano. which they didn't. Thanks mark albiston.

Backlog from July! ...Tho we're actually chilling in GK's lounge in birmingham the next few blogs will take you on a magical journey back in time. oooooooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooo.



07_07_06 HAPPY 5TH WEEDING ANNIVERSARY TO US

so in keeping with our tradition of having romantic gettaways for our anniversaries... we figured that pretty much our whole trip has been one extended romantic gettaway, so we stayed @ villagio verde... watching the sunset over the swiss alps (waaaay in the distance, but still the swiss alps), getting nibbled by the tender mossies, being serenaded by the biker beer fest that arrived in the park next to the house (including the tribute bands included g'n'r, helloween and iron maiden... good covers just bad music. thanks for the memories tho...), drinking the local asti (and it was spumante!) we felt pretty special. made us think lots back to a time in a dark room in a cold palmerston north filled with all the best people in the world. sorry if you couldn't be there. we are thinking of getting remarried at the earliest opportunity, so will keep you informed...

10_07_06 VILLAGIO VERDE, ROMAGNANO, PIEDMONTE [getting kinda close to switzerland and france]

kinda wondering how many mind blowing places 1 human being can experience in 3 months. have been welcomed to a new organic farm - villagio verde - here is the blurb...

'Villaggio Verde' is a community project situated in the Novarese hills between Valsesia and the lakes. The property is of 8 hectares of which 3 are cultivated as pasture, fruit orchard and for vegetables and the rest is woodland. There are 15 horses and they also have 7 beehives. Accommodation in room (may need to share) or caravan (trailer). Meals in the communal dining room and are vegetarian and using organic produce as much as possible. Length of visits to be arranged between April and October. Children welcome (there are 5 in the community), any cats or dogs need to be able to socialise with theirs! English, French, Spanish and Japanese spoken.

anyone wanna come stay? surrounded (again) by a regional park (little streams, mighty oaks and tender ferns) we are sharing this place with 5 families, the above animals and perhaps the country's highest concentration of mosquitoes (there is no room for exageration... they swarm, on any m.trukka in any uniform... all day and night... no respite... the DEET is helping my faux acne but frying my brain... but i am investing in a leather gimp suit so i can at least perform our WWOOFer tasks (mostly weeding the cool gardens... growing pomadori, melanzani, pepperoni, basilico, potatti, zuchinni, cippolla (as far as my vocab stretches...) all organic, using permaculture styles... so we are learning some good gardening skills and honing hand eye co-ordination annihilating mossies (it is my new mission in life).

i digress... the community is a centre for all things spiritual and peaceful - they run courses in yoga, shiatsu, aikido and a bunch of other stuff that i don't know the names of yet... they share meals in the weekends so during the week we have free reign of the industrial kitchen (and industrial fridge yeah!)... some people work full time managing the gardens / courses etc and some work in regular jobs. it is a very relaxed and peaceful environment, we can be as involved as we want to be, with there being no pressure to behave in any way... so a nice opportunity for us to do our own thing but maybe learn some stuff too. yes.

10 July 2006

italy wins the football world cup (soccer that is). italian's are the best winner's i've ever seen. they love winning. It also happens they're really good at it. not necessarily the winning bit which after all is just a means to an end, the end being able take your pants off and run around in your undies hugging and kissing, dancing and shouting for hours on end. italians (without exception) are 90% more enthusiastic than your typical rugby fan (and 130% less homophobic). it shouldn't come as a surprise that they're so good at it; italy has more public holidays than the usofa has wars. these festivals, while under the guise of celebrating the lives of italy's numerous saints, are pretty much for the express purpose of practicing (and training the next generation in the art of ) jumping up and down and being enthusiastic. The esteemed celebrated saint (the merits of whom can read a little like a psychological diagnostic text; heard voices, believed they were god's chosen, lived as a hermit on the top of a pole...) and their relics (flagellation tools, mummified body, fragments of femur, dried drop of blood...) generally don't really get much of a mention on their feast day. it also seems that often their very sainthood came about under rather dubious circumstances; it used to be heaps easier to become a saint (mother teresa barely makes the grade today). but lets not dwell too deep. lets be italian; have desiccated finger: can party. i don't care if i don't learn to speak italian. i just wanna party italian.


11_07_06 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY (j) MUM!

we are still figuring out our lives (3 months of holiday just hasn't been enough!), so we are trying to find another italian wwoofing place for one more month... (cos we still can't speak italian). mother keenan, who is currently jetsetting around the world, is due to pay us a visit next month... maybe we will find ourselves in germany for the world cup of ponies?

12 July 2006

villagio verde_a secret training ground for the worlds most ferocious biting insects. the vege garden thing is a cover up; i think they may be farming our blood and selling it to vampires. have retired the DEET - it had started to corrode my sunglasses - and moved on to a herbal mixup including tea tree oil, rosmary, sage and eucalyptus. kinda feels like self-basting yourself before you slowly roasting in the sun. gravy anyone?

spending a shady afternoon thinking about how good it is to be here and wondering where the goodness we will be in the next month or so. for todaaaay i'm listening to franks beautiful soulful mix (thanks frank and others for cd mixes: you are bless) ...and drinking beer whilst planning day trips to turin (home of the shroud and nutella), the lakes and milan...

phat cat

phat cat is a really really fat cat. we love phat cat. but we fear his thunderous affection.

later

another storm breaks overhead. phat'r than phat cat. you're not in wellington now darling honeroa, look how the lightening lingers all day thundering up the sky. and maybe we shouldn't have gone walking when all seemed calm but really was the eye of worse to come. and maybe it wasn't so smart to take that turn and end up in the torrential rain on a busy main road that led to i'm not sure but i think homes this way and isn't that lightening awfully close. but maybe i could lost and saturated with you forever?


lago maggiore

seems this is where all the english go on holiday when the italians are at the beach. snowy sun starved flesh on show and glowing. despite being such a popular spot it was surprisingly quiet. italian boat tour touts sporting short shorts and sailor caps (jon was jealous) were keen to show us a good time. but we were already having one. not wanting to get ripped off we declined the offer and took an overpriced ferry to Isola Bella (where we discovered the local taxi which was much smarter but we already has our return tickets so sucks us). we swam. swam. swam. (we didn't quite swim far enough to get to switzerland, but we could have) swam. lay in sun. swam. lay in sun. swam. drank wine. lay in sun. feel asleep. swam. drank more wine. had lunch. swam. lay in sun. swam. The island once belonged to a man who was rich and also he was a priest and maybe was in hiding or didn't want to catch the flu so he made himself a castle and gardens that looked like a botanical tiered cake and together they covered the entire tiny island. he (or maybe it was one of his relatives) had napolean to stay (with his lady and his mistress), and later mussollinnii and churchill visited. they didn't manage to stop world war II but they had a really nice time.

20_July_2006 Buon compleanni alla bella Kerryn!

21_July_2006

lago d'orta

we love you two times. so good we came back for more. 20yrs ago this enchanting lake was a stagnant catchment pool for local industry effluent but thanks to a splendid water treatment plan (we heart planners!) lago d'orta is now good enuf to drink. but we preferred to swim in its 23 degree deep blue depths, followed by a spot of lying on our favourite jetty overlooking the medieval village on the island in the middle of the lake which we visited later by boat as the sun was setting before winding our way home through quaint cobbled streets... ahhhhhh lago d'orta. also happens to be the home of the best gelato in the whole of italy. mio dio.

23_July_2006 Happiest birthday in front of warm log fire out of stormy winters way to the lovely Karen.

10_06_06 SIENA :: To infinity and beyond ::

many things were found...

1. SANTA MARGHERITA, VILLE DI CORSANO, TUSCANY. Lisa, Maria and Fiorentino.
Once upon a time (1997) a fair maiden called alana discovered the wonderous souls Lisa, Maria and Fiorentino, on her travels thru the countryside in search of ponies and happiness.

Maria and Fiorentino (Fiore) started their organic farm a wee while before alana discovered them, converting a 12th century farm house (maybe more a palace?) into the family home and the surround countryside into a haven for the happiest goats and ponies and dogs and goats and chickens and cherries and cats and geckos in the whole of tuscany.

The herd of ~150 laughing goats give their precious milk to be used in making cheese - a method maria and fiore have develped themselves, utilising hand milking, unpasteurised processing producing many wonderful and delicious flavours...

it was tough being presented with a huge jug of fresh goat's milk every morning... needless to say the lattes were good as was lisa's standard breakfast (bowl of milk, choc nestle and cornflakes...)

our duties were sparse (seeing as fiore and maria were like a whirlwind of organisation)... there were the donkeys to talk to (they needed company cos there was a new baby one)... riding ponies... cleaning ponies... feeding ponies... walking ponies... watering ponies... alana hated it... oh yeah sometimes we helped in the cheese dairy... taste testing being a crucial component of the process... and alana showed that 10 years caressing cow udders has not been a futile experience by adeptly handling the caprine teats...

sometimes we had to check the temperature of the lake and then there were the trees in the forest to find (to make sure none were getting lost)

once again we were overwhelmed by the generosity of our italian (perhaps sienese?) friends who opened there home and lives to us so willingly.

we were introduced to the mayhem of il palio (barebacked horse race around the sienese town square... mental doesn't begin to describe... imagine yassar arafat's funeral without the AK-47s and you get a little of the idea... the town's 15 districts / contradas continuing century old rivalries (why are they your enemy? they just are!) bigger than christmas, everyone comes to town so the medieval streets are packed with locals and tourists... huge street dinners and not so latent fanatiscism...)

2. SIENA, PISA, SAN GALGANO, SAN GIMIGNANO, FIRENZE. Helen and Nigel. Sylvia and Gerhard.

So, we began our trip with the Hawke-Keenan FGC in Sydney, continued with Geoff and Kerryn in Sicily, so it only made sense that my folks (Helen and Nigel) would come and join us for a wee taste of italy.

Was way cool to share some of our siena time with them, cruising the tuscan countryside @ a leisurely stroll... taking in the ruins of the Abbazia di San Galgano, pisan towers with certain leanings (we forgot to buy a teatowel... am bummed so might have to go back), more castles and towers than you could write a travelling blog about (that was siena and san gimignano). oh yeah and then there was firenze (florence for those who can't speak italian yet after 2 months being here. hmmmm. do you have a bathroom? how much is that gelato? sure you can take my picture) which for was pretty cool. saw michaelangelo's david maybe 3 times (without managing to make it to the original). there were some churches and some paintings and some tourists. and sometimes it got to be very tiring. but the pizza was good and sunset just at the right time.

but perhaps the coolest thing was meeting sylvia and gerhard (thanks lisa for finding them for us!) - they rented mapa an apartment in the converted stables of one of the pope guys (mr picolonimi...?)... just happened to be on the adjacent property to santa margherita (a short jaunt thru the donkey paddock)... complete with roman signal tower and ruins of the road to rome (apparently there are a few)... and as luck would have it gerhard is THE tour guide extraordinaire... introducing us to lotsa interesting stuff (see aforementioned) as well as his own concepts of responsible tourism / development... and the most amazing of Tuscan meals (whole sage deep fried with anchovies, much antipasti, spinach tortolinni, argentinian hunk of meat grilled over glowing coals, mmmmmerangue and berries mmmmmm) cooked for us by Sylvia (did i mention they are german?) shared amongst the fire flies looking over the tuscan hills (ouccccch). fire flies are a miracle of nature incidentally. they go well with techno. i like techno. i don't care if guns'n'roses are cool again.

3. CLARE FRANCIS

Clare is not a place but a person. In fact she is a palmerstonian of origin and was alana's best chum at catholic school. she came to visit too (this is a hint to pretty much everyone there... to please come and visit. whereever we are. whoever you are. you can be homie whereever our homie is. the more you come visiting the less we feel homesick and longer we'll stay over here for you to come visit.) Clare swept into tuscany for 24hrs of country sunshine and goodness (well below the WHO recommendations for fresh air required to counteract the effects living in london, she will need to visit again, and for longer) ... she oooed and ahhhhed and allora'd as was appropriate, which was just as well coz jon's parents, now removed left of stage to engleland, were starting to doubt the reality of the wonders of their weeks stay in tuscany. this in turn was making us a little uncertain as to whether we were truly living in paradise or praps we'd just acclimatised like you do when you live in the hutt and you tell yourself everyday that its not so bad (when it actually is). So, we are thankful to have clare to witness to the utter amaaaazing beauty of all and sundry that was ville di corsano; Dining al fresco nuovo tuscankiwi style, icycold dips alla icecream head in forrest stream, driving through the ridiculously rolling countryside (we tried to give the car back after jon's parents left but they made us keep it for longer for less $ go figure), the obligatory sienan promendade and il campo pizza. thanks clare for making us look good to our italian friends (she speaks such good italian!)...helps to hide the fact that we are lucky to find the bathroom (afore...)