I went on a library forage today and procured with intent to read:

–The Raging Quiet by Sherryl Jordan

–The Shadow of the Lion by Mercedes Lackey, Dave Freer and Eric Flint

–The Stone Fey by Robin McKinley

–Kushiel’s Dart by Jacqueline Carey

–Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris

–All Together Dead by Charlaine Harris

The latter two are from the ‘Sookie Stackhouse Chronicles’ which the series True Blood was based on. I’ve recently watched and loved that series (its adult vampire detective  from HBO) and I think Anna Pacquin well deserved her Golden Globe for it. On my first brief dip into the books I found them immediately engaging and I am looking forward to getting to know the world of Bontemps a lot better.

Gwendolen the frog is proving to be a prodigy. She not only catches her flies by jumping straight up in the air to catch them in her mouth when they are on the wing,  I learned tonight that she can sit quite happily on the glass of her tank, even though it is straight up and down. Velcro frog.

I am finding some great  places to eat and helpful people recently. I’ve lived in Christchurch for a very long time but even so all of these I’ve only just discovered. So, I want to start sharing my finds be they human or culinary or experiential. I am definitely not paid to do this and many of these people don’t know me from Adam.

Finds for this week

*Copenhagen Bakery: Tiny tasty chicken pies and custard and strawberry filled croissants were my dinner tonight. Its the best bakery food I’ve ever had and stands up against the best French Patisseries I visited for taste and quality of product. It was inexpensive too. I’m going back tomorrow!

*Dr Linterman: The best dentist ever. I love this man. Not in a wrong way. Seriously good helpful people, fantastic skills, attention to comfort during the process. I’m really dentist phobic but I’m beginning to not mind stepping into his office.

*Rohan: I had a ring fall to bits some weeks ago and took it to Rohan Jewellers on Victoria St. They quoted an inexpensive price for repairs then went way above and beyond the call of duty to complete them to a high standard. To do this they ended up having to source a stone from Tanzania, and cut it in house, but they never raised the price of the beautifully finished repairs at all. Highly recommended if you need jewellery made or repaired.

*The Avon Riverbank, to the North of the Bridge of Rememberance, on the strip side: a fabulous spot for watching trout, salmon, eels, late ducklings, scops and paradise ducks at the moment. Nice dappled shade under trees – just avoid the duck splats.

Today I also decided to start sharing the wonderful little stories that I hear around Christchurch, the true ones, here. I heard this one at lunch in Drexels from my friend Rosie:

You know how if Camelias grow together they have a hollow space under them? When I was small my brother and I made that our Kingdom and he was the King.We played there until he got bored with it, and then my best friend and I took it over, and made it our Queendom… one day my grandfather gave me a strange pot. It was a lidded jar that was joined to the centre of a plate at its base. He told me that it was a magic pot and that by magic a different treat appeared in it every day. We kept it hidden in the Queendom and the trees were up against our fence. It took me years to figure out that my grandfather was traveling across town, climbing our fence, and secretly leaving me a different treat every single day and so I totally believed in magic.

I hear beautiful tales of  life in my world often enough, and so circulated and repeated, that I think we have a sort of neglected urban folklore in peoples treasured anecdotes. I mentally hoard all such stories that I hear and it’s entirely pleasant to begin taking them out of my head – where they are at  risk of being forgotten and cannot be seen and enjoyed – and storing them here for future reference.