Smokey the Magnificent

Have had an interesting few days. The Swedish-girl-who-turned-out-to-be-Danish - she hasn’t given me permission to use her name on my blog, so we’ll call her Hamlet - turned up yesterday and she, April and I went out for dinner. Sans pig. It was marvellous.

Then today, being one of Hamlet’s last days in New Zealand and her first time in our glorious city, was dedicated to sight-seeing… and our glorious city being what it is, we tactfully put her in the car and drove elsewhere. To Tirau, as it happens: a small, quaint, whimsical town mostly consisting of homeware stores, Kiwiana and a giant corrugated iron sheep. It’s not the Taj Mahal, but it’s better than our glorious city. So we spent most of the day shopping and eating, then returned to our gl. c. to visit the public gardens and take photos of our hair.

That isn’t as odd as it sounds: Hamlet belongs to a long hair forum April and I belong to. It’s customary at such meets to post pictures of the rear view of oneself and one’s friends and show them to the rest of the community afterwards in a gloating way… which doesn’t make the proceedings sound any less odd, now I come to think of it, so pay it no heed. Suffice it to say that trying to set up timer shots and dash to put our noses to artistic backdrops so our hair could be seen in all its glory, while members of the public gave us curious looks and the snortlepig kept dashing down paths, was quite an experience. Then at the height of it all Hamlet rope-braided my hair with April’s and took a photo of the resulting two-toned conjoined braid… who says one needs hallucinogenic drugs to have fun? (Hamlet’s hair was about a foot shorter than ours, or we could have attempted a French braid; but what’s the bets one of us would have lost a head in the detangling process?)

Anyhoo, what with all these larks and high spirits it’s been a sort of messy week, and my points have suffered accordingly. Helpdesk Man has been sick for the past two days, too. So assuming he revives during the night (which would be financially savvy, no pressure to his languishing system or anything), I intend to spend tomorrow being virtuously domestic.

Also, answer me this: Would you accept a million dollars on the condition that you never have a shower again?