It was freezing, the news had threatened snow, the sky was open, the stars were out, and the wind had a pretty mean edge. And yet there we were, huddled side by side on a concrete doorstep. We’d missed the start of the party cause we’d arrived while they were off on one of their ‘need to get provisions’ missions. In short, a house party worth of people were down the road getting booze while we were waiting patiently outside.

We poured cheap vodka into our cans of red bull, found some fun tracks on our phones and had our own little party. On my friends doorstep, in the cold.

By the time my friends had come up the street with their circus, making a racket and dancing along, us two had mostly caught them up: the booze was running high + happy and I was already loud and a little bit obnoxious. It was to be a messy messy night. Sure enough the time came where the floor was blurring with the ceiling. I’d reached the point of too much booze, too many drugs, and the little voice in the back of my head was positively demanding that it was time to make the frozen walk home.

I don’t really remember much of the party, I remember there was Moet (I wrote my name + the date on the cork!), and some one tried to cook something deep fried in the oven (we’re a mix of classy hobos, really). I have vague memories of the walk home (and a friend trying to convince me that it was a good idea to meet him in town. I’m not sure my argument against was especially coherent). But of all the fun things I do remember, what I appreciate most is that private little party on the doorstep. Cold, but perfectly merry.

This is definitely what London is right now. A mix of the outrageously ridiculous and the sometimes but not very classy fun times.

Sinter, the tiny little web design company that I run with Liz has had a facelift! It’s been a long time in coming, and in between all the travel and other random design projects we’ve got going on (the most fun recent one was designin a little Mexican character for a friends learn-to-speak spanish project) I finally managed to get my a into g and pull this together. Fun, right?

If you’re interested in some design work, a blog overhaul or a banner design, let me know. We’d be happy to help :)

PS – Shout out to JJ Keith from JJust Kidding, who let me redesign jjkeith.net for her. That’s her face top right :)

We were in Italy, and the snow was distinctly average. So we took a half day, took the Gondola over to Sestriere, and spent an hour with the dogs learning to sled. Number 96 on The List.

It was ridiculous, and it was hard. There was lots more running than I thought there’d be. And steering the sled? So much more difficult than it looks. There’s a lot of balancing on one ski, and yanking the sled to where you want it to go, hoping that as the dogs pull forward your sled goes where you want it. Otherwise it all goes wrong and you’ll end up on your face. True story.

But other than that, I really enjoyed it. The dogs worked hard, and were lovely – all the ones we got were quite affectionate and happy to be petted and hang out. Once we got going, and I figured out how to best to stand on the sled it was pretty brilliant. It felt pretty amazing to be out there, having the dogs pull you along.

Honestly, it was great day, and this was definitely one of the more fun things on The List that I’ve done so far. I had a huge grin on my face the whole afternoon after – loads of fun! If you get the opportunity to give it a go, do it.

Note: We did it with Luca from Centro sleddog Sestriere. €60 per person per hour, organised through our Neilson rep. Super easy, super amazing. If you’re in Sestriere, they are to the right of the Gondola as you come out. Look for the teepee.

It was a little pub in South West England. A tiny pub, one of those ones with no bar. Instead there’s a room with one wall is covered in handles. You hand someone a glass, and they refill it with the beverage of your choice. Its the kind of pub that you walk through a farmers field to get to, and everyone is wearing plaid shirts + puffer vests. A nice little country pub.

The best part about this little country pub? It has a skittle alley out the back. This long, cold concrete room, with broken window panes + an old green strip of carpet down the middle. It’s got these old yellow lights, and has sorts of random things in there; broken chairs, and old rusted trophy’s. And it’s got skittles.

When you’re boozed, skittles is great fun. Making up the rules, drinking wine, dancing. The skittles are made of wood, and are quite heavy. The balls are even heavier. It’s basically a more fun version of bowling. And oh, did we have fun. I don’t quite remember how much wine we had, or how we made it home (through a few fields, I’m sure), but I do remember that I won. I do remember that I had a great time, and there was lots of laughing, and bragging, and ridiculousness.

Sometimes I think that the most interesting things about places are those things you can’t see, and wouldn’t expect. Having a skittle alley definitely makes this tiny little pub one of my favourites. You’d never know it was there, apparently not that many people play it. It’s a fun little quirk.

What fun quirky things are you guys rocking at the moment?

This morning started with nosebleeds. Epic ones, complete with gushing blood all over my clean and super white sheets. It was bizarre, and cause for panic, but NHS told me to pinch my nose and wait for the blood to clot, and basically wait it out. So, while I was waiting for the blood to stop pouring out my nose (such a bizarre feeling, btw) Wiki told me that ‘a significant number of nosebleeds occur with no obvious cause’, and it felt like something that I wanted to make note of. I wanted to tell someone that my nose was bleeding, and that it was gross, and I had no idea why my body was doing this. Then I realised that’s what’s a blog is for, really. So hey. My nose is bleeding, and it wigs me out.

So let’s catch up. London is pretty amazing right now (nose bleeds aside), the weather has lost it’s edge, and on Saturday we hit up The Camden Lock Market because the sun came out. It was delicious, but also frustrating. There was SO much food I wanted to try, and all of it super cheap. The problem with having a million choices though, is that you hop from one foot to the other at a loss a to which way to turn first. And they offer you free samples, which is ridiculous. I could have filled up on samples.

After eating as much as I could (Spinach Turkish Wraps, Cornbread stuffed with Chicken, Cheese + Avocado, Sushi made right in front of you by the Sushi man, Jamican Ginger Beer + Guinness Chocolate Cake) we sat by the canal and enjoyed the rare English sun with some cider. It was a pretty pleasant way to spend the afternoon, actually. Watching canal boats move up and down the canal, watching the locks fill and empty, and watching the weird collection of people that congregate to grassy areas when London has sun.

When the sun we down, we drank margaritas (oh tequila) with indian headdresses on in preperation for The Queen of Hoxton‘s WigWamBam. I have to say, I took myself home before I could get on the roof and into the giant Teepee, but I heard that there was good times all around. Usually I would have been all up there dancing like a dancing thing, but bars in teepees sell only expensive drinks, and I’m rocking this extreme budgeting exercise at the moment.

In a week + a half I’ll be snowboarding in Italy. Three weeks after that, there’s a festival in the mountains of Austria. There might be a trip back to Egypt in May, a weekend in Norfolk, another in Cambridge, a road trip up Scotland ways, and possibly, if I’m very lucky? A trip to Africa at the end of the year.

My attitude at the moment is to say “yes” to everything. Yes to a weekend out of London, yes to a place I’ve never been, to something I’ve never done, to an adventure I want to be part of. Yes to everything. But saying yes is expensive. So, I’m rocking this extreme budgeting exercise. I’m not a fan of feeling poor, of saying no to burritos at lunch, or passing up a night out. Or having to consider what I’m buying before I do. But these adventures? They will be worth the monetary pain. Or so I hope. The idea of a massive European adventure keeps me going. Eyes on the prize, right?

Do any of you have any exciting adventures planned?

I wasn’t aware that there were *two* nutcrackers, but there were. We saw Matthew Bourne’s one, rather than the original. It was . . . well, fairly interesting. Different from what I expected (lots of bright, modern costumes, and fairly modern music (oh hey rock’n'roll…) – not at all the traditional ballet I had in my head). Some of it was amusing (there were some quite funny moments, two little cherubs in pj’s that give the lead a pretty dress, girls that a dressed like flamingo marshmallows, the salsa dancing allsorts characters etc etc), some of it was really not (I may have fallen asleep a little in the second Act).

In saying that, I was horribly ill, it was cold + miserable and the theatre was full of young small loud wriggling children (I should have expected this at the matinee, really). I’m pretty sure we all napped towards the end.

Not quite as life changing as I thought it would be, but I couldn’t have known that before I saw it. So yes. I went, and the ballet was (mostly) lovely.

Number 95 – Done!

So, it’s no surprise that I have thing for Invader. I’ve mentioned here a few times (like here). Generally, I have thing for street art, and I’ve loved invader well before I left NZ, before Exit through the Gift Shop came out, before I’d ever seen one of his pieces in the flesh. He’d never visited NZ before, so I’d never had the chance.

I made a point to put it on The List. I knew I was coming to London, and I knew that Invader had hit London many times. I wanted to see them!

I did. I convinced friends to look for them when we were wandering around. I easily saw 10. Since then I’ve seen many. I even occasionally spot new ones. There today when it was definitely not there yesterday. One of the great things about going out of my way to spot Invader pieces is that I’ve come to appreciate some of London’s amazing street art. Like Vhils,Stik and Roa. And they are amazing.

Made me really appreciate London’s thriving street art scene, you know?

That number 10, well, it was a pretty amazing moment. I was on a date with a Jimmy when I spotted it on Wardour St. I may have squealed, had a little squee moment, had a bit of a dance, followed quickly by a mad panic when I realised that I didn’t have either a phone or a camera. A guy sitting on the wall right next to it offered to take a photo with his very shit, very old school nokia phone. It was dark, and raining, and we all laughed a little bit at the quality. But still, I had my moment. The 10th Invader piece I’d seen, in person.

So yes. Number 114 on The List, done.

I roasted my chicken on New Years eve. I told my flatmate Duke that when we moved in that roasting a chicken was on The List and that I was going to do it! This year! Yeah!

That was in March. Cut to New Years Eve and I still hadn’t roasted a chicken. Fail. So, on the last day of 2011 I went to the supermarket, got a bunch of things that Jamie Oliver told me I’d need and got to work. It was mostly the easiest meal I’ve ever made.

Things I wasn’t so down with:
* Rubbing down the chicken. I think it was uncomfortable for both of us.
* Stuffing the cavity with herbs, and then discovering that the cavity was too small for the lemon I was meant to get in there. Awkward.
* I went on a limb and added onion + celery to the trivet. I should have known better (not a fan of either).
* Trying to figure out how to carve it. Thank goodness for you tube.
* Trying to figure out how to make gravy, and not having it thicken. The internet not so helpful here.
* The waiting. The waaaaaaaaaiting!

Things that were awesome:
* I didn’t give anyone food poisoning, yay!
* Putting something in oven + just leaving it is a pretty easy way to cook!
* The eating. The glorious glorious eating that came after, and lasted a good four days (I may have over estimated how much food two people can eat).
* Taking a mini container down to the fireworks for Duke. It made for good snacking!

So yes. Number 7. Roast a Chicken. Done!