A Hoist of Angels

I was going to spend some of the weekend getting my diary a bit more up to date, but then I stupidly spent several hours playing the Sims on Friday night, and made the even stupider mistake of sitting on an ordinary chair instead of my proper office chair while doing so, and the even even stupider mistake of sitting on a funny angle, which all added up to me waking up on Saturday with a very sore back. So I thought I’d be best to spend the weekend as far from a computer as possible to give it some vague hope of recovery.

My back’s still a bit sore (carrying a heavy bag home last night was probably a silly move…), but I’m being good and sitting correctly on my ergonomically designed chair at my ergonomically designed desk, and making sure I get up from the computer and walk around my office every half an hour, so it’s slowly improving.


Anyway, we had our proper meetup on Saturday, postponed from Tuesday to suit a couple of people who’d said Saturday suited them better, and guess what? Yep, none of them showed up! So it was just me, lytteltonwitch and awhina and the kitten as usual. We had breakfast at Trattorie, and tidied up the OCZ bookshelf a bit afterwards. I’d brought along a couple of books, but decided in the end to take them back home with me and keep them for Wellington, because the shelf was pretty full, and it didn’t look like the books were moving much (I recognised most of the titles from my previous visits).

A lot of the books are looking a bit shabby, which probably doesn’t appeal much to the clientele of this reasonably up-market cafe. We really should get organised sometime and go through and remove all the shabby books and replace them with better ones, but I’m not sure whether it would be worth it, because the bookcrosser who’s been leaving all the old ripped books there would just keep doing it anyway (and would probably get angry at us for interfering with her books – from previous encounters with her, I know she doesn’t take criticism well, no matter how nicely it’s done). So we’ll probably just leave it as it is 🙁 I’m surprised the cafe owners put up with it, really.


On Sunday, it was time for my annual church visit, to see the kitten in her nativity play. Actually, there were three separate mini-plays, each performed by a different age group. As usual, there was much unintended humour, especially from the 5-6 year olds, whose play not only featured cardboard cutouts of Mary and Joseph being staple-gunned to the scenery (through the forehead, no less!), but also what the young narrator proudly announced as “a hoist of angels” 🙂 The kitten also provided her share of laughs in her play, when she forgot her lines and grabbed for a script hidden in the scenery. Awhina laughed loudly at that, and the kitten, hearing her, turned to where we were sitting in the audience, fixed her mother with a stare and said “oh, shove off”, then with perfect professionalism calmly returned to her place in the script. That brought even more of a laugh from the audience than the hidden script had, but this time most of it was directed at awhina.

I kind of released God Knows by Joseph Heller in the church. When awhina had come to pick me up that morning, she’d spotted it in a pile of books and said it would make a great themed release at her church. I’d demurred, because I didn’t want to offend anyone, but she insisted that everyone at the church was broadminded and would see the joke, so I eventually agreed. However, when we got there and I got it out of my bag to release it, she decided she actually wanted to read it herself, so it didn’t get much of a chance in the wild! She’s promised to release it in the church herself sometime…


I was supposed to go out again last night, to dinner with the Chick Flicks group, but I completely forgot. In my defence, I’d had a pretty fraught day at work, having had some entirely undeserved criticism from someone, which really upset me. Luckily, when I spoke to my boss about it, he agreed it was unwarranted, and said he would speak to the person concerned, which improved my day slightly, but by the time 5 o’clock arrived all I wanted to do was get home and hide from the world, and it didn’t even occur to me to check my diary. So it was a complete shock a couple of hours later when, comfortably ensconced at home, I got a text from lytteltonwitch asking where we were supposed to be meeting, and I remembered I was supposed to be in town at 7.30. I did for a moment contemplate quickly getting ready and taking a taxi into town, but it all seemed like too much effort when I just wanted to curl up in front of something mindless on TV feeling sorry for myself, so I sent back a message with my apologies.

Sorry witch! Hope you had a good time anyway.


Had another catch from my Wellington trip: The Observatory by Emily Grayson (and the catcher actually noticed the themed release!), plus a couple from the Mt Cook trip: The Paradise Tree by Diana L. Paxson, which I’d released in Maheno (yes, I know that’s even further from Mt Cook than Ranfurly is); and Escudo by Thomas Gifford, one of the books in the YHA which I’d stuck a pre-numbered label in.


Currently reading: The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
Currently listening to: My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult

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2 Comments

  1. Sounds like the church plays were funny,I would loved to have seen the kitten do that to her mother.I did my Quail Island and released three books on the island."Once upon an Island","Treasure Island" and "Love’s Perfect Island". Treasure Island has been caught by a school party who were on the island on Monday.Managed to find 5 out of 6 caches on the island.I enjoyed the movie but I am really tired today,everyone eventually turned up.

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