An offline wilderness

I am terrible at spending gift vouchers. Actually, I'm not a great shopper at all, but I can easily spend months pondering what to spend a gift voucher on and more often than not redeem them close to their expiry date. I have been carrying around $170 of Farmers vouchers for about six months now, a couple of $10 Westfield vouchers, and $20 credit at the iTunes Store. I finally used $60 in last week's Farmers sale (still more to go - actually, some of that came from trading in airpoints that were about to expire, lol), but the Westfield vouchers remain in my wallet.

While I generally like the idea of vouchers as gifts, either giving or receiving, it takes me more time than almost anyone else to research all my possible spending options before finally redeeming them, usually during some kind of sale or when I'm in desperate need of an item. I've always been like that; I'm not sure why spending is so hard for me when others seem to love it!

Next week, we are going away to a place with no cell phone coverage, no Internet access (I don't credit 13 KB dial-up as being 'Internet'), and very cautious use of electricity and water. Some would call that bliss; I call it cold turkey. I'll surgically remove my laptop from my side and switch off my cell phone before we leave, but have already collected a supply of books to read and a backup: my trusty iPod touch. Up until now, this prize has been an occasional toy; next week it will be my lifeline in a non-digital world! (Am I exaggerating? Not sure ...)

I have spent some time today preparing my iPod touch. My 60GB iPod holds my entire music collection but will be left behind; 16GB is a struggle for me, especially when sharing the available space with other applications, so I have put together some basic playlists to see me through the week. I also went shopping at the iTunes Store and almost spent all of my $20 voucher. Almost.

What did I buy? A few games that I've been playing the lite versions of, some more expensive than I would have bought myself (well, all of them really - I've only played freebies so far):

• Diner Dash - I would consider this a living nightmare in real life, but I've just signed up for 50 virtual levels and can't wait!
  
• Cooking Dash - ditto
• Fling - it's fun flinging things around on an iPod touch
  
• Fuzzle - strangely addictive
• Moonlight Mahjong - I've only ever played mahjong online and this is quite a cool version
• SimCity - I used to love playing this on my PC, so I'll see if I can achieve the same results on a 3.5" screen.

So, I'm nearly ready for my big week offline without email, Facebook, Twitter, blogging (although I might be able to prepare posts on my touch). Anyone would think I was heading for the depths of a jungle wilderness! I am looking forward to going away, really!

Gingerbread decorations

As we will be away for Christmas, our families are having our Christmas dinners a couple of days before the big event. I am going to make gingerbread cupcakes with ginger caramel frosting for everybody. Today, I made the little gingerbread decorations in advance. The last time I made gingerbread was as a child but I remember having fun pressing out different shapes and eating the dough. Today's decorations were quite small as they will go on top of the cupcakes I make next week, so I used my icing cutters instead of cookie cutters.

Gingerbread

Ingredients

• 115 g butter
• 175 g brown sugar
• 4 T golden syrup
• 340 g plain flour
• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 egg

Method

1. Place the butter, sugar and syrup into a saucepan and stir over a low heat until the butter has melted. Sift the flour with the ginger and baking soda into a bowl. Pour the syrup mixture and the lightly beaten egg. Mix together until a soft dough is formed in the bowl, then tip onto a lightly floured bench and knead into a ball.
2. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Lightly grease a baking tray or line it with baking paper.
4. Sprinkle some flour onto the work surface and rolling pin. Roll out the dough to 0.5 cm thickness. Use your choice of cutters to make shapes and place them on the prepared tray.
5. Bake for 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.
6. Allow to cool. Store in an airtight container for up to one week.

Gingerbread decorations

Things I have learned today about making gingerbread decorations:

• Don't be deceived. Just because they are small does not mean they are easier to make.
• There's a very fine line between lightly browned (ie, cooked) and burnt. Watch them extremely closely in the oven and time them for a couple of minutes at a time. Small things cook faster, but I had to write off my first tray.
• Gold and silver glitter sprinkled on top while they are still hot might sound like a good idea and look great in cookbooks, but it will be a while before I learn how to make it look even. Luckily I practised on my first, written-off batch.
• Even burnt gingerbread still tastes good. ;-)
  

Telecom tree

On Saturday night, I dragged my sweetie into town to see what is known as the Telecom tree. He will loudly proclaim that it's not a tree but a crane with lights on it, but I say that anything with 37500 fairy lights on it is the ultimate in cool.

This is the first year the Telecom tree has been constructed in Wellington. Apparently there are 16 million possible colour combinations and it took a week to erect. (I forget how many people were involved - there are information boxes lit up around the base of the tree where you can find out more facts.) Beneath the tree are dozens of bean bags, so you can find a comfortable spot, lie back, and look up at all the lights. There are also boxes where you can leave gifts for charity; I sure hope they don't get 'opened' by anyone other than those they are intended for.

We tried out the fireworks setting on my sweetie's camera, exposing the lens for ten seconds before capturing the image - a tripod or stand is essential. Here is one of the successful shots:

Telecom tree

Around the base of the tree are four old-style telephone boxes. Each of these houses a free Santa hotline, where you can let him know what you want to find under your own tree.

Santa line telephone box

We also took a couple of videos. I was going to post a short one tonight, where you can see some of the colour changes, but the option for uploading video seems to have disappeared from my menu bar. We also took a longer video, about a minute long, and I'd like to experiment in iMovie to see if I can add a soundtrack to it, but that will be another night's project.

Christmas cheer

'Tis the season for Christmas mayhem. Personally, I prefer to ignore the mass commercialism that bombards us from October each year; it's not what Christmas is really about.

This year, Christmas is going to be very different for my family. Our whole extended whanau is getting together for Christmas on the Chatham Islands, where our grandparents lived and our parents were born. Almost all 18 of my first cousins will be there, some coming from overseas and a few that we haven't seen since our grandparents' funerals about ten years ago. There are many children and partners that we haven't met yet, so this will be a rather large-scale introduction. We are expecting somewhere around 80 people for Christmas dinner! My sister-in-law and I are almost done with adding finishing touches to the Christmas baubles we are making for all the children. I have decided to make several batches of chocolate truffles to give as gifts and treats to all and sundry. They freeze well, so if I start soon then the task should be less onerous.

I met some former colleagues for brunch this morning. We managed to pick the day that summer finally decided to arrive in Wellington - and what a beauty it was! I had a list of errands to run in town afterwards and came across some very pleasant, less-intrusive reminders that Christmas is coming. I thought I'd share them with you and hopefully elicit a few smiles.

Large Christmas tree at Midland Park

I'm not sure how tall it is, but look at the height of the trees - pretty impressive without being overly ostentatious.

Salvation Army brass band playing Christmas carols

You know Christmas is coming once you hear these guys out in force. I was pleased to be able to make a small donation to support the work they do in the community.

Christmas cupcake designs at tempt

I got some good ideas here for decorating my own Christmas cupcakes, although I doubt they will look as perfect as these ones!

The system is down

I was at Warehouse Stationery this afternoon looking to buy a diary for 2010. A few people were already waiting at the counter so I browsed for a while before hearing those dreaded words: "your card has been declined". An embarrassed customer asked to try again with another card and promptly received the same response from the machine. Another customer tried to use their card - same thing. The queues lengthened, then the ubiquitous verdict was declared by two counter staff: "The system is down".

The tension started to rise. One customer left her purchases behind, another decided to wait for a while and try again. It didn't help things that a staff member at another counter declared loudly that her EFTPOS terminal was working just fine and perhaps they had just done something wrong when processing the sale, or should have hit F7, or something. She was promptly hushed when her system also started declining transactions.

Having only intended to buy a diary with a 25% discount, I offered to pay cash. I was immediately ushered to the front of the queue and my $4.50 transaction was processed by a relieved cashier: a successful sale! But almost everyone else was cashless. I walked out, diary in hand, and pondered the growing mayhem inside.

A couple of weeks ago, a similar thing happened at my local doctor's surgery when I went to pick up a prescription. The queue at reception grew. When asked by a receptionist, "who's waiting?", about four people replied, "we all are!". Oh no: the system was down! Invoices were promised and manual transactions attempted. I offered to pay cash and was told by the now-flustered receptionist, "no, sorry, you can't: our system is down". It took her a moment to relax a bit after I laughingly pointed out that things must be really bad if she couldn't accept a $10 note. There were giggles all round as I left everyone to sort out their payments.

As we increasingly move towards becoming a cashless society, I can't help but wonder what is Plan B for when the system is down and people no longer carry even small amounts of cash?

The Color Purple - Alice Walker

The Color Purple (1982) is a Pulitzer prize-winning novel by Alice Walker, an American author who has written at length on issues of race and gender. I first became aware of the story after watching the movie of the same name many years ago. The novel has long been on my TBR list.

The Color Purple is written as a series of letters from the main character, Celie, to God, and later between Celie and her sister, Nettie. Celie, a poor uneducated young black woman growing up in Georgia in the 1930s, is twice raped by the man she calls 'Pa' before he forces into a marriage against her will. Years of abuse ensue before the arrival of Shug Avery, her husband's long-term mistress. Shug is everything that Celie is not: beautiful, glamorous, a singer, and the holder of Celie's husband's heart. The relationships between Shug, Celie, and other strong characters, such as Sofia, ultimately set her free. Also, the hope of once again seeing her beloved sister, Nettie, a missionary working in Africa with Celie's two children, gives Celie the strength to overcome the hardships in her life and be true to herself.

This is a powerful, moving story which is superbly told. It is easy to build an affinity for the characters and admire the strength and aptitude that they develop. Highly recommended.