My alarm clocks slept in this morning, so I woke up 10 minutes past the point where I should have actually been leaving the house.

But my boss is away in The States at the mo’ and his boss didn’t bother coming in today, so it was no biggie.

Been finding it pretty hard to get out of bed at the moment. In addition to my day job, I’ve got the tutoring job during the week and I also do a landscape maintenance job on the weekend. And then there’s all the other shit that needs doing around the home. That’s a lot of jobs.

Still. It’s good to be busy. I just want a decent sleep-in for once, that’s all I’m saying.

Had to plant hundreds of trees last weekend.
Have to drive a truck tomorrow to help my father-in-law pick up a kitchen for my brother-in-law as it sounds like the supplier might be about to go under.
Then I have to plant some more trees.

But it hasn’t all been hard work. There’s been some time for play.

Harmonica Dude came over with his ukulele last weekend and we ended up jamming for about seven hours. Got some potential new songs out of it.

Remember how he was annoyed with me when I went to see a ukulele orchestra perform earlier in the year and didn’t invite him? I’d been on the look out for another uke concert to invite him to in order to redeem myself and finally managed to find one on Wednesday with this talented chick visiting from The States.

But then my friend pulled out at the last minute, saying he was sick.


So fuck it. I tried. I’m absolved of my sins.

And so I went anyway.


She was performing at the Cross St Studios in the city, which was an experience in itself, what with being nestled amongst brothels, where ladies and cross-dressers of the night wait as cars crawl past by with their lights switched off.



I think I scared one of the hookers off as I was standing around waiting for the doors to open. Maybe I look like a cop or something.

Then, ha, I saw the artist herself walking towards the gig, filming the street with a portable camera. I think I managed to scare her as well when she looked up and saw me grinning at her. I tried not to take it too personally. I met myself in a dark alley once and it scared the shit out of me as well.

Anyway. This gig was serving as the warm up for her New Zealand tour.
About 50 people there to watch her plug in her semi-electric ukulele and do her thing.

She’s got great stage presence and it was impressive how she could belt out those little well-crafted songs with just her and her uke.


The audience was relaxed, but still pretty resistant (in that reserved Kiwi way) to indulging her craving for a good old fashioned crowd sing-along. But she persevered and was eventually rewarded with one near the end.

So yeah. Brilliant. Was impressed enough to buy a couple of her CDs.

And now I get to annoy my friend by telling him how much fun I had at yet another ukulele concert that he didn’t go to.

Cos I’m a prick like that.

Brilliant.

I also went out to a disco tonight. It was a dance party for kindergarten kids. I tell you, you’ll never feel so terrifyingly alive than getting into a moshpit with preschoolers.

Fortunately, it was all over by 7pm, as they had to go home to bed.