As an aside, here's another wee gem

Now that I've mastered image insertion, here's another wee treasure from the very recent Anna files, the reason why the bike smash was so traumatic...?
The image above is the little indentation left on my windscreen, by a flying body after a borderline psychotic IDIOT threw himself at my car as I left town with the two-year-old, to go visiting.
literally.
Darted across the road to the centre line then ran and jumped directly at me as I braked from 60 kms an hour, screaming behind the wheel.
Trying to keel himself.
Fugging fugga, slid down my bonnet, landed on the road and staggered up, ran over to another car coming the other way and did it to them, too.
Talk about determined.

INSANE freak accident.
Only two weeks before the bicycle incident, one day before yet ANOTHER Tsunami warning and subsequent nervous reluctant evacuation ( with two cats yowling) in someone elses car...

INTERESTING TIMES.
Incoming tidal waves and the citizenry snapping and losing it in the street.
Stupid fuggin wossisface taken away strapped down in ambulance, us driven home by my mum in full-blown shock after giving statement to police ( nice constable who I noticed couldn't spell very well... I still signed it as being the true and accurate record, blah, blah.. there's a time and a place to correct spelling..)
(and it MUST be said, I AM wholly sympathetic to genuinely suicidal people but the police told me what he was up to and he apparently had done the whole thing to punish and manipulate his girlfriend who was watching because she had just called the cops on him after a domestic they had just had in the street. They'd been drinking all night and had had NO sleep. like a "you did this to me, so I'm gonna do this to you" type scenario. So, sympathy? Nup. And I really hope she had enough nous to leave him but bet she hasn't...)

Monday phone calls to car insurance company, panelbeaters turning up Tuesday and towing undriveable Toyota away on a truck for three days to replace windscreen.
Fine now. Just like new ( which it is..).
Cue comedy snare drum and crash cymbal, for the punchline..

The only man to hurl himself at me since ages ago and I happen to be accelerating behind the wheel of my car.

Hmmmm......

Update: two of the guys have bailed to stay with seperate friends, thank god and the two other non-contortionising dancers left and booked into a cheap caravan at the Holiday Park up the road.
whoa. Man.
It all got a bit much a bit fast, even for them, garage not that big and unlined, its Autumn and the whole place is JUST TOO SMALL for 14 people, even when two of them would fit in a pillowcase.
Especially with half the group barely talking to the other and two that want to fucken SMACK each other over regularly and theyre all in one room all the time or pacing in a tiny tablecloth-sized courtyard and garden, or trying to sleep
I knew it would be, that little voice that says NO! too late. after you open your mouth and say "Come and stay at my place...., just for a week or two, til you find something else..."
Thats cool, not MUCH harm done, just a squashed garden, cigarette butts everywhere and an apology to them next door, on the other side.....
Moving right along...

there's never really any need for shouty screamy sweary arguments with aggro and really horrible bad shit like that.
even if you are pissed off and mad.
drunken, out of control yelling and slamming doors, people crying and calling out.
No thanks, its hideous.
and certainly not here, at mine.
We hate that stuff.
Angry, aggressive, loud, macho bullshit.

The Norwegians love to read a lot, so theyre fitting in perfectly,they lie still, taking up virtually no room anywhere.
Phil One is having a little bash on my ancient electric lounge-organ stored out there and meanders around up and down the keys , sounds ok.
The backing singers are nice but keep to themselves a lot and go out more than the others.
Pete Bass mainly drifts between tv and sleep mostly, now completely hogging the three-seater. Everyone IS tired and fucken cranky and sick of each other.
Phil Two snapping down the phone at someone.

They've just finished a two month ten-town South Island Summer Tour, anyway..sounded like it went well, otherwise.

IVE discovered thicker-than-thick heavy polar fleece, by way of a large borrowed hoodie.
Niiiiice.
drawn a self portrait.
planted 400 succulents, weaned myself off sugar in coffee,got big bike back (from being fixed), trawled 50 pages of available men on a dating site, met someone who is shaving their long hair for cancer,added a fabulous social worker as a facebook friend,learnt some basic HTML language, worked some, drove some, cooked some and added a pair of Wolf-spiders to the very small menagerie. Found someone who wants to set up a band who would like Anna to sing for it, in a more local and regular way.
QUIITTE
Niiiice.

yip...thas my friday night license....

oh, man, theyre so cool, sucdh grooovy cool yummy crazy people tonight walkd to beach with a bonfire and big bottles of whiskeuy idea.
piers and olaf made fireworks go off in the dark and up everywhere soooobloody wild an pretty.
lotsa noise and fireworks everwhere all over the sky.
its fridawy night nwe wantd to go do domething coool.
phil and trevor peter played someguitars songs they brougth with them and swam in the freaakin cold sea and not very big waaves for some surfing they wantd to do but had a bonfire with lots of sandy blankets on the beach
itstoo cold for bbq though.
havnt had whiskuy forr a reallly longtime ages an ages
stupid typing fingrs check that out ahahahahaaa hopeless
jess and shane had a biut of aarrgument tho but all ok now phil said no more yelling
to them and play nice, but shanes been frigggn idioyt hes the drummer
she thinks hes the man
beautifull big fire down there but wew all home safe now n tucked up in our garage ahahahahhhhhaa but theres som other girls stealing mynice queen bed uuhhoh
coool guys cool band thats why thewy live at my house...............

HOLY MOLY BATMAN..INCOMING MUSICIANS..good grief

They were desperate and homeless, what's a girl to do....

Arrived home after a busy day playing Amateur Photographers, to an UH-OH SHIT WADDA WE DO phone call from My Cyanide Licence, a (large) group of people that make up a kick-ass contemporary blues/grunge/rock band I occasionally work and record with (on the big gigs). More like a roadshow than a band. (see below)
More like a bloody nightmare in two Hi-Ace vans, actually.
Got Big Day Out in our sights, though, one day...
Phil Two (There's two) the Lead guitarist and unofficial bigmouthpiece for the group tells me they've all just got back from their latest two-month South Island Tour to find that their measly 'orrible landlord has changed the locks and installed new tenants in their absence...
Talk about Band on the Run..
Complications with the rent and too many zonked-out zombiegroupies hanging around, he reckons. Trouble with the neighbours.
Talked him down to something resembling coherence and got a word in edgewise, I then felt the only decent thing to do was offer them all( I KNOOOOW...they INSIST on living together, its some democratic egalitarian musical social experiment-thing) some temporary crashspace in my garage, while they look for somethin else.
Hmmmm....
So now Anna has two male guitarists, a bassist, drummer, keyboard player, two female backing singers, four hot dancers (including two tiny little lithe contortionists)and a couple of long-haired bearded Blonde Norwegian Pyrotechnicians ( we use a LOT of fire and explosions, that sort of thing..)doin it Marae-styles in her garage.
Toyota's out on the roadside, sulking.
At least the gear is still on its way back from Invercargill, small mercies.
Hells Blinkin Bells.. Musicians...
(Dancers....the fussing in the bathroom has started already and they've only been here 8 hours.) This is going to be fun, fun, FUUUUNNNN.
FFFUUUUUNNNNNNneh.
And we can't even plug in and practise while they're here, cause my (lovely) landlord lives RIGHT NEXT DOOR, just through the fence.
'Bout five metres away.
A 13 part home invasion.
At least they're all smoking outside and putting their empty beers in the recycling and getting their own takeaways...tonight.
Psyche and Shnuni (The Cat-girls)have PANICKED and hidden under my bed and in the shrubbery, respectively.
The sofas' are covered in hairy boys harassing each other, fighting over the remote and flinging their damn shoes around.
The Norwegians are LOUD and gesture a lot with their huge arms (there's not a lot of room, this is a two-room UNIT for goodness' sake..I have ORNAMENTS..)
Trepidation.
Off to sleep now, I can hear them all still talking out there and clonking around.
WHAT have I done....

.................WHAT THE.....

TWO WHEELS BAD, FOUR WHEELS GOOD....


Where Anna wonders whether cars do, in fact, feel they are superior to bicycles simply by being bigger, more solid and more upright.
You know....
Taller.
Smarter. Noisier.
And more of them.
Some behave like they do, charging around dominating the whole show.
(In an Animal Farm kind of way)

Just that in recent news, this funny (Hysterical!!) thing happened the other day... a beautiful, sunny day, making myself head out and about from my curtained-off corner in the world, WHEN:
A reasonably large, buttercup-yellow Four-Wheel Drive truck comes moving firmly and in an authorative way through the intersection I happened to be riding across on my mountainbike, round five on a Sunday.

Bloody freakin b***ery bang smash, on the road.
Which actually, wasn't that funny, really.
And happened VERY quickly.
Still kind of not funny, six weeks later,'nough said.
The blind female driver of the truck, having left her seeing-eye Golden Lab at home, hit the frame of the bike with her bumper, sending me flying over her bonnet, onto the road and breaking my bike into four large bits, fortunately not actually running us over. Just knocking off, hard and fast...

She stopped, talked me down and gave myself and bike bits a ride back home, apologising several times.
I ended up in A and E for a hell of a long time waiting for x-rays and plaster for the wrist I had taken my impact on. At the time, a seriously painful area and suspected fracture in the whatsit under my thumb, inside right wrist.
And I discover there is apparently a chronic shortage of available doctors in every area of my local Accident and Emergency Department, especially when there happens to be a particularly nasty run of serious emergency ambulance admissions happening all at once.
As there was.

Staff mentioned that it was basically a normal extremely busy night, insisting that I write in and complain, giving me appropriate forms to take home and fill out, not really thinking about the fact that my entire hand was in solid plaster and there was no way I could hold a pen for a while...

Point being? stay off the damn road, maybe? maintain a 360 degree perimeter at all times? Bikes are too dangerous for roads these days?
The Hmm Found It Out Along The Way Point being? that the local DHB simply doesn't allocate anywhere near enough funding to entice enough doctors into it's A and E to cope with the accident traffic they have.. not particularly acceptable...
The most Painfully Clear Point being, that in a battle for ownership of the tarmac,cars win. And casts are a pain.

थिस ब्लॉग

(Test Pattern)

Today, Wednesday the 21st of April, this blog is 4 nights old, still just a newborn. Primary construction is still frenetically being carried out behind the scenes, a lot of material is still not in place.
Thanks for your patience while I build this up soon.
Anna.