Resurrection

Welcome to 2011 everyone! Following on Karen's e-mail suggestion to resurrect the Wrighters Block this is our new first issue.

Contents

1. Aunty Karen's Icecream recipe
2. An earthquake tale from Wayne
3. A blathering Sydney update from Sarah and Carl
4. Books I have been reading (initiated by Karen, added to by Sarah)

Karen’s not so Secret Icecream recipe

Ingredients

2 eggs- room temp

3/4 cup castor sugar

300ml cream

vanilla essence

Method

Separate eggs, and whip whites till stiff.

Add half the sugar slowly as you continue whipping (like making a meringue)

Whip the cream with a measure of the remaining sugar, and splash of essence till thick, then add yolks and whip again. Blend the two mixes.

Now make it interesting – to make a mocha ripple mix 1tbsp cocoa, 1 tbsp coffee & the rest of the sugar.

Add 2tbsp boiling water and mix thoroughly till dissolved. Add one tbsp of icecream mix, and spoon through a la ripple.

Or – halve the original amount of sugar, & melt one 200g cake chocolate, mix in with your icecream mix, and add 6-8 chopped Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Leaving that 9^th one to munch on while you work.

Makes 1.5 litre of icecream, and normally takes eight-ten hours to freeze.

An Earthquake Tale

A major earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale hit this morning, with the epicentre in Hampshire St, Christchurch. The earthquake decimated the area causing approximately $30 worth of damage when a full crate of Lion Brown fell from a resident's bed.

Several priceless collections of mementos from the Hampshire Appreciation Society and the Hampshire Progress Hall were damaged beyond repair.

Three areas of historic burnt out cars were disturbed.

Many locals were woken well before their welfare cheques arrived. One resident - Tracy Sharon Smith, a 15-year-old mother of 5 said "It was such a shock, my little Chardonnay Mercedes came running into my bedroom crying. My youngest two, Tyler-Titan and Megan-Storm slept through it all. I was still shaking when I was watching Jerry Springer the next morning".

Apparently, looting, muggings and car crime carried on as normal.

The Red Cross has so far managed to ship 4,000 crates of Marmite and 70,000 bottles of Lion Red to the area to help the stricken locals. Rescue workers are still searching through the rubble and have found large quantities of personal belongings, which include benefit books, Warriors jerseys; jewellery from the $2 shop and bone china from the Warehouse.

HOW YOU CAN HELP
This appeal is to raise money for food and clothing parcels for those unfortunate to be caught up in this disaster. Clothing is most sought after.

Items most needed include:

Baseball caps, flannelette shirts, thongs and tracksuits.
Food parcels may be harder to come by, but are needed all the same.
Required foodstuffs include McDonalds, KFC, ice cream and cans of Woodstock Bourbon or Bacardi Breezers.

If you would prefer to donate money, 25c buys a biro for filling in compensation forms; $5.00 buys chips, battered fish, crisps and fizzy drinks for a family of 9; $10.00 will pay for a packet of Winfield Blues and a lighter to calm the nerves of those affected.

PLEASE do not send tents for shelter, as the sight of posh housing is unfair on the population of the neighbouring areas.

The Prime Minister, John Key, announced a grant for those suffering hardship would be paid immediately. Mayor, Bob Parker is not concerned about the expected queue bringing traffic to a halt in the area of the Social Welfare office as the announcement was made at 11:30am when most residents were sleeping.

The Maori Party member of parliament, Hone Harawera, has condemned the action of the White Mother F**kers for deliberately centring the quake so close to his people.

A Blathering Sydney Update
So it is Australia Day today which I am thankful for as it means I get a day off work. Carlos has also been given the day off (as we know retail get the suck end of everything and generally have to work EVERY public holiday) and is diligently doing house work “before it gets too hot”. It’s currently 10.20am and my phone says the current temperature is 30.1◦C with a humidity of 68%. This morning (at 8.30am) it was 24◦C and 80% humidity. There are areas of Sydney that are expecting to get up to 42◦C today. So on that note, I will be stopping for a while as I have been sufficiently guilted in to assisting with the housework.

So it is now 3pm and it’s still bloody hot. Carlos has done a few loads of washing, most of which are hanging out on the line drying, he’s vacuumed, done the dishes and cleared the bench. I’ve folded some clothes, made a token gesture in the ‘garden’ (also known as weed central) and taken a work call.

So overall there isn't a great deal of an update to give. We have now been in Sydney for over year. Because it turns out we’re both workaholics we haven’t actually been out of Sydney, or many places other than where our friends live while we’ve been here. Carlos is much more au fait with Sydney than I am as in the time we have been here he has worked at four Telstra stores in various areas of Sydney. He also had the pleasure of finding us somewhere to live when we first moved here, so did a lot of trips to various places then.

We’re pretty settled in now, our flat is above a wedding shop so it’s nice and quiet and no food smells. It’s not overly flash but the rent is very reasonable and it’s close to the train station and the Earlwood shops so everything we need.

Work has been a hard slog for both of us, but it’s definitely been a challenge so can’t really complain given that’s what we were looking for when we came over here.

August was a pretty busy month where we had people visiting pretty much every weekend for the month. A favourite destination is the zoo – have included below one of my favourite pictures from the first time we went there. It’s also a real novelty where we live as there are bats living in the trees down by the river and they fly along the river most nights, and we have wild cockatoos!! Anyways, don’t really know what else to say so will finish off with some pictures.

One of the Baby Elephants playing in the dirt

The Tiger having a sleep in his plastic bed

Our second trip to the Zoo the Tiger was much more active

Following this he started stalking everyone who was watching him

The Bat Tree

The Bats heading up the river

Cockatoos on the way to the train station

Books I have been reading

Rachel's Holiday - Marian Keen (Karen)
*** - not bad for a chick flick

The Brave - Nicholas Evans (Karen)
*** - his usual style, a good read

The Last Everday Hero - R Brook (Karen)
** - interesting, but too many cricket refs for me to understand it properly

The Reversal - Michael Connelly (Sarah)
*** -the latest Bosch story, although more focused on Haller this time. As usual I enjoyed the story, would have liked to see more Bosch

Play Dead - Harlan Coben (Sarah)
*** - There is a note from Harlan Coben at the start to not read this if it is your first novel of his as it is the first novel he wrote. His writing style has definitely developed in his later work, but it was a good easy read with a twist at the end

Still recommending:

Water for Elephants

Traitor (NZ Fiction by Stephen Paisley)

Call for contributions

I have been hassling Mum to do a contribution, however I might add that to the next issue so this one gets legs and gets out there.

If you can send any submissions either to Karen or myself by 20th Feb I'll aim to get the next one out around the end of Feb.