I am not good at small talk, or chatter. Particularly not with people I barely know. I don’t know how to insert myself into conversation elegantly, and I certainly don’t know how to exit a conversation with tact. I am all kinds of awkward, and often fill the silent spaces with nervous laughter or babble about myself. Absolutely horrible – for serious.

It wasn’t till I went to a wedding over the weekend and one my friends mentioned that the groom’s sister was FANTASTIC at small talk. And she WAS. Though it wasn’t till she used her skills on me that I realised how fantastic her small talk skills really were: she was confident, asked a few general questions, and then – wait for it – uttered the words ‘take care’ before moving on.

Take. Care.

For exiting conversation, that’s all you need! A simple “take care”, a pat on the arm (if appropriate) and off you go! It’s honest and simple. Says your interested in the persons wellbeing after you leave, but not THAT interested. It’s polite, and IT WORKS!!

After that I was ‘take care’-ing every awkward small chat conversation I found myself in (well, it was either ‘take care’ or ‘oh look, my glass is empty. Excuse me while I fix that’). Take care even worked on the groom, while I was waiting on my turn to farewell the bride!

For all you awkward small talk people out there, it appears that ‘take care’ is your key to leaving the conversation without looking like an absolute twat.

Just thought I’d share, because not all of us can have the poise of the grooms sister. :)

Since I was about 10 years old not one summer has gone by where I haven’t made a sand couch. I’ve got photos of couches I’ve made. Big ones, and little ones. When I was about 12 me and my best friend made a whole living room, complete with coffee tables, a tv and a vcr player (it was back in the day, see).

While I was away over the New Year’s break, I didn’t get a chance to make one. The few beach hours we got in were dedicated to beach cricket, or rugby/touch. And then there was the swimming, and the sunbathing while you gossip. Because we did so much this year, I didn’t get a good couple hours to dedicate to making a sand couch.

So when I got home, Mum and I went to one of the city beaches. They aren’t as nice as the ones further down the coast (the ones that aren’t cocooned in a busy harbour with it’s dirty harbour water) but it was nice enough. And in the sun I had an hour or two to make a very, very small sand couch.

It was pretty odd, actually. Being the only adult playing with the sand. But while I worked I had many visitors, and people who stopped to have a chat about the giant mound of sand I was crafting into couch shape. My favourite visit, though, was a little Macedonian kid. He was about two years old who would take sand from my hand, and carefully pat it onto one side of the side of the couch. He chattered the whole time, though it wasn’t in English. I chattered back, but it wasn’t in Macedonian. In the end, his father came to collect him. They took a photo of him sitting on the couch, which was quite cute, before they wandered on their way. Once I was done, I took photos too:

The random standing behind me was a guy who kicked his soccerball into the couch. It didn’t do any damage, but he felt obliged to pat some sand together with me.

It was a good day, and I’m glad I live in a place where I can spend my summers doing just this.

Jamie Livingston was a man who chronicled his life in polaroid form, from the day he got the camera to the day he died. There is 18 years worth of images, over 6000 photos and it’s an intense way to look at someone’s life.

When he died, his friends Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid created a site to pay tribute to this project, and you can now view the entire collection at photooftheday.hughcrawford.com.

It’s a bit heartbreaking, actually. Towards the end you can see the decline of his health, you can see an image of his very last day. To think that an artist with such a fantastic world view died so young . . . apparently he lost his life to cancer. I’m impressed that all the way through he was still dedicated to his project, and continued to take photos.

As I looked through all the photos (some are hilarious, some heartbreaking) I realised that for Jamie, and probably a fair chunk of his friends and family, these photos were more than just images, they are memories. Duh, you say. Obviously. But thinking back to all the photos I’ve taken, there are some that easily return the day in my mind. Take this one . . .

Looking at it I easily remember the heat of the day and how The Boy and I got lost down another track before making it to the falls. How we’d had a fight earlier that morning and this trip was almost like a soothing balm. How the water was super cold and refreshing and how we’d throw sticks into the streams and watch the current take them away.

Would I remember all that without this photo? Would I have remembered it two, three, four years from now? That day was nothing special – it was just a normal kind of day. What about all the other kind of normal days I’ve had? I don’t doubt that I’ve forgotten many of the moments I’ve lived. I wonder how much of my past is missing from my memories. I wonder if taking a photo every day would change that?

Probably not, actually. Still, you should check out Jamie Livingston’s Collection, hey. It really is wonderful.

Working where I do is an absolute pleasure – I’m still waiting for the flipside. Perhaps I’m still in that ‘new’ phase, where I don’t know better yet, and no one has spilled anyone else’s secrets.

But regardless, still loving this company. Because I started so late in the year I didn’t have any leave stored up, but the bosses were quite happy for me to take whatever days I wanted. So, I rather politely took a couple days between Christmas and New Years, and went back on the third.

On the fourth, the bosses came in all carefree and wonderful, and said that if I wanted I could take more time off. The office was quiet and it would be much nicer if I was outside enjoying the sun than inside doing not much. Sure, they said. Take a few days off, just email us to let us know – no problem!

So, I did. And after spending yesterday with The Out-of-town Bride shopping for bridal shoes (found an excellent pair at Maher’s – a pair of almost Bollywood-sparkly stilettos, to set off the very demure, very elegant dress), and this morning lounging around with The Boy, I’m very very thankful that work saw fit to give me a few more days to enjoy the summer.

And with today being all blue skies, I’m very very glad that work is as lovely as it is.

This small something is a classic example of what it was like this past summer. In short, hanging out in the sun with nothing to do but be stupid.

Not to mention it was amusing to watch the boys pose for a video, particularly after Rob (in the yellow) had pointed his video camera at us at every opportunity. :)

Darius Twin is an epic artist who does some brilliant things with a couple torches from the 99c store. Darius Twin is into light painting. When I saw his stuff, I was blown away, for serious. Check it –

Amazing, right? Anyway, today I came across a tutorial he did about light painting and realised that as a medium it’s something anyone with a torch and camera can do. So I pulled out my old school point and click camera, fiddled around with the settings and ta da – did some light painting of my own.

Okay, so its a bit like a kid with fingerpaint imitating Picasso or whatever, but it was a cute little something that passed the time. And alas, while The Boy is off back to hickville (ooOOoo – did I just say that? My bad) I’m glad of things that pass the time till he comes home.

While you couldn’t find it in the supermarkets (despite the empty bins which suggested that there WAS some at some point) the street vendors in Waihi always had LOADS of fresh corn. I’ve been eating it by the bucketload, and made a point of stopping at one of the street stalls on the way home to stock up.

This is another one of those reasons why I love and adore summer. Woo!

Wow, what an EPIC week in which to celebrate the coming of the New Year! I won’t recap my 2008 in bullet point form, nor will create a list of my aspirations and resolutions for 2009. I WILL however, share the last week or so, which was full of many fantastic moments, and some less than fantastic too.

I’ve known K since school – she’s fantastic, really she is. And this year she proved it once again by inviting me down to camp on her section at Waihi Beach. And not only me, oh no, she gave me an OPEN INVITE. Little did she know what was going to happen – I invited The Square, who invited their friends and before you know it there were just over twenty of us setting up camp on her section and it was GREAT! We had our own little tent village going on, and oh the things we got up to!

There was some epic beach cricket games, the start up of an acoustic radio sing along which was incredibly novel. We swam in the ocean, and sunbathed on rocks beside waterfalls. We danced all night to Tiki Tane (I’m so in love!) and walked the 7.4 km back to the campsite in the dark, just cause we could. There were day trips to the Mount, where there was more sunbathing and bbq’s and beach rugby/touch. There was drinking of mohitos, and bakery goodness and endless games of Bastard. There was tent water proofing and fireworks and frisbee and walks through Karangahake Gorge. There was sunburn and embarrassing videos and cooking on little camp stoves.

On New Years night there was kisses at midnight, and singing on the beach and more fireworks and more mohitos and dancing by the fire. There was alot of love, and alot of dramatic couple fights that tent walls couldn’t block out (thankfully none of them involved The Boy or I, but my heart cried for those that were hurting).

It was an EPIC week or so, and while I’m at home now I can’t believe how lucky I was to be a part of such a crazy week. I may not have appreciated it so much at the time (particularly when it was raining the tent decided that being waterproof was overrated) but sitting at home in the city while the oppressive heavy heat is here to stay I can honestly say that I miss the camping.

Good times where had with many good people. And what better way to ring in the New Year?