Easily influenced? Who me?

I enjoyed Julie and Julia a lot - it's a fabulous movie and I recommend it to anyone who will listen to me. Merryl Streep as Julia - Brilliant. I see Aspiring Writer is also doing her best to spread the Julie and Julia word.

Loved the movie, went home dreaming about food, found myself thinking I was just going to have to cook a boeuf bourguignon, and not just any boeuf bourguignon, no, it would have to be Julia's boeuf bourguignon. But how could I do this if I didn't have the recipe?

Hmmmm.

So not only did I go and acquire Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck, I also had to get Julie Powell's book Julie and Julia, and while I was at it, Julie Powell's next culinary adventure Cleaving: A story of Marriage, Meat and Obsession.

I am an advertiser's dream target audience!

Mental note to self, must grow some self-control, must grow some self-control...

Things that made me happy...

...Launching Containment with grand style surrounded by friends, family and fellow book-lovers.

...Getting to trot out in my flash retro-style green and purple frock with fushia pink cardy.

...That the University Book Shop as well as putting on a fabulous spread of nibbles knew my novels well enough to provide a massive bowl of ToffeePops.

...Watching the well timed and sneaky hit and run raids done on the ToffeePop bowl by the swag of kids present.

...Listening to the kind and thoughtful words of Tania Roxborogh who launched the book for me.

...Hearing the lovely comments about Containment from those who had already devoured it.

...Leaving UBS with a big smile and the sense of having had a fabulous occasion.

Out of Containment

My baby has made it to the shelves. Containment is out there, jostling for attention, saying, pick me, pick me, take me home to read. We went for a wander into town yesterday and I got quite a surprise to see it in the shops, and was very pleased to see how much shelf space I got at Paper Plus, bless them.

Now I have a book launch to look forward to. So if you happen to be in Dunedin tomorrow (Tuesday) evening come along to the University Book Shop at 6.00pm and join me and a bunch of friends, family and fellow book lovers for some drinks nibbles and a few speeches.

The speeches will be short, promise.

What I'm reading...

Just to prove that I'm not spending all of my time swanning around playing ladies, I am reading a few books too. I always have several on the go at any one time. This doesn't display a lack of focus on my part, more a complete panic at how many books I want to read, and how little time there is to do it!

So, here they are in no particular order:

Fiction:

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler.

Death and the Running Patterer by Robin Adair

Non-Fiction:

By the Sword: A history of Gladiators, Musketeers, Samuri, Swashbucklers and Olympic Champions by Richard Cohen

The World Through Maps: A History of Cartography by John Rennie Short

Fashion: A History from the 18th to the 20th century by Tashen

Kid's Bed Time reading:

Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams


For the fun of it I thought I'd jot down on a piece of paper a Christmas wish list of books I'd be rather delighted to acquire. I had to stop in the end. The list was getting a little, er, ambitious. Hmmmm.

Playing ladies.

After the great success I had in mood elevation to fend of the rejection letter blues of yesterday, I trotted out again in my finery today. I had to go and have a hair cut, and if I was going to have a hair cut, I thought I may as well get flossied up to match the new do, so my sparkly shoes were pulled into service again along with my floral green dress and apple green cardy (I'm having a one-woman protest at the amount of black people wear in Dunedin)

Seeing as I had the frock, the shoes and the hair do, I felt a movie was in order so grabbed a friend who also needed cheering up and wallowed for two hours in the delight of Meryl Streep in Julie and Julia.

Ahhhh, what a wonderful movie. I loved watching Julia Child when I was a kid, and adored the sound of her quirky voice, and the way she used to drink more of the wine than she put in the food. Seeing Meryl transform into Julia was a heavenly experience.

Now I have urges to cook, french cuisine, naturally. I feel a Boeuf Bourguignon coming on...

Nice shoes fix most ills...

Today I got my traditional rejection letter from the latest round of Creative New Zealand Arts Grants. Then I got the traditional emails from my writer friends who were also declined.

This left me feeling a bit glum, so I did what I usually do when feeling blah and needing a pick me up - I popped on a nice frock, my sparkly high heeled summer shoes, popped on some make-up, pretty jewelery and went to town.

In town I swanned around the shops, met a friend for coffee, met hubby for lunch, and generally swished around in my fancy shoes.

I feel much better now.

Don't fence me in

Not being one to rest on my laurels (not that I've earned any of those) I decided this old girl needed to learn some new tricks. So at fencing on Saturday I had my first lesson in the use of the sabre. A lady needs to add new weapons to her repertoire don't you think?

For those not in the know fencing with a foil you score points with the tip of the blade and the target area is your torso. In sabre you can score with the tip, but most points come through hitting your opponent with the edge of the blade, yup, you try and slice them! Also in sabre everything is target from your hips up, so you can score a point by hitting someone on the torso, but also on the mask, or on the arm.

Oh, it was fun!