The males in the house are watching some awful spaghetti-western Kung-fu movie with a LOT of fighting, of course, and they should all be in bed, really. I'm not noticing. I watched Without a Trace up in the bedroom but it was rather impersonal and disjointed, maybe Suilven was right, the fifth season isn't as riveting. There's just no personal thing going on.

Anyway, I'm going to go write. And I am thinking about a road trip after Easter, to research the central North Island bush. I have to go north anyway, with the children, to see my mother, but I might plan a rather diversionary route, maybe go right off the track like come up through Wanganui, even visit my friend on the farm in Hurleyville, then swing west up towards the mountains, past Raetihi perhaps - central North Island, creeping up on Ruapehu, Ngauruhoe and Tongariro from behind *g* (they're huge snow covered mountains). I'd really like to go back to Taumaranui, that was in my head when I started creating Breathing Space, but I haven't been there for a zillion years, not since I did a boarding school teacher-parent night up there with a couple of the priests from school. I stayed the night in...wait for it... a convent!!! Yeah, I really did, a country convent, an elderly two storey building from about 1910, with a few quiet nuns living in there. I was petrified, but the priest I drove up there with had thought I could stay where he was staying, but suddenly it was deemed unseemly for me to stay in the presbytery with him! As if... *snort*

It was fun meeting the country parents who all came into town for a shared meal and some speeches. There was an important Maori chief whose son was in my class, and he spoke for ages, praising our work and school. It was quite moving. And this was a long way from the school, probably over 300 kilometres. I recall the road looking like a ribbon laid in the bush. For miles you saw nothing but thick bush and this grey ribbon of a road curling across the rugged undulations of hills and valleys. I'd love to try to write all about that...

Ooh, and I got a parcel in the mail today VBG!!! I'm glad it didn't come yesterday because it poured yesterday and the parcel in the mail got soaked (and it turned out it was for the man over the road!) Anyway, this was from greenpizzazz6 and you know what? It was like a care parcel, because it made me feel so great, and it made me smile. How lucky is that?