housekeeping

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Kia ora readers. For those of you who don't keep candlelit vigil on my Twitter account, you may not have absorbed the news that Tim and I are moving house. In the grand scheme of things, a little ho-hum maybe, seeing how people do this all the time. Especially young people living in flatting situations. But considering that we've been at our current digs since November 2006, it's pretty significant.


There's no one real reason we are moving out, but there have been various frustrations that we will be glad to leave behind - including the olive oil on the kitchen shelf regularly solidifying in the cold, the sight of breath in front of our faces as we talk to each other inside the house, the bathroom where long-legged spiders rule with eight iron fists each on slowly crumbling walls, or perhaps the undulating and loose-bricked stairs leading down to our flat from the road which bely the idea that a landlord should have their tenants' wellbeing in mind.


When we first moved in in 2006 it was tantamount to being in a mansion compared to our first flat - there was carpet as opposed to billiard table covering, the toilet wasn't in the same room as the shower, our rent was halved, and there was a hot water cupboard! Oh, and the landlord wasn't going to try and run us down with a steamroller (we had some 'issues' with our first one) And we were students, living with a group of friends, life could not have been sweeter, really. The theme song from Cheers could almost be heard whenever you walked in the door. Now that Tim and I are the last ones left of that initial group and while we could easily carry on living here for a good long time - it's not that bad - we decided that this was to be our final year here.


And then one of my colleagues who is moving overseas lives there and sent round an email asking if anyone knew anyone who knew anyone who wanted to move into her fantastic place in town. Not to be overly dramatic, but I knew this was it. Luckily my instincts, while hysterical, were accurate: the other guy living there seemed to like Tim and I. We got the room.

One of the many exciting things about this new place we're moving to next month - perhaps the single most exciting thing (apart from the fact that it has a sauna, I know) is that it gets sunshine. Real, genuine, sunshine. Imagine you've spent your whole life using synthetic, cheap vanilla essence and then suddenly you inhale the scent of a real vanilla bean (possibly smearing its shiny black seeds on your face to enhance the effect). That's what it will be like. Amazing.

Which will mean exciting things for my food photography potential. Much as I'd personally take content over photography, the wider body of blog-readers seem to demand exquisite, magazine-ready photography as well as scintillating, original prose. Not that I'm claiming I can (or do) provide either, just...I'm going to be in a better position to take nice pictures, which can only be a good thing for us all.

Just realised I used that vanilla analogy in my last post. So much for original prose. And come to think of it, I could have just said "imagine you've been living in a cold dark house and then you move to a nice warm sunny house." Hmm. Anyway, I predict lots of reminiscing from Tim and I between now and when we move, possibly resembling one of those cheesy clip shows that surface occasionally on things like Friends, and Home Improvement, and Saved By The Bell, which was really one giant clip show in a way. Or, knowing Tim and I, it might be more like THIS.

What I'm listening to: A lot of Amanda Palmer, They Might Be Giants, and Michael John LaChiusa.

Next time: Chocolate Guinness Cake!