A huge success!

A big thank you to everyone who participated in Girls Night at the Movies!

We achieved above and beyond out fund raising target - our total donation to the NZ Breast Cancer Foundation is $2120 which is just O for Orsum.

Big thanks go to our sponsors who were so generous with their donations.

Thank you once again - and see you next year!

A Little Pink from A Little Ink

My friend Jenny from A Little Ink creates the most divine original poetic artwork for children. The little watercolour characters each have their own story - you can even create your own customised piece. You can use your child's name and their favourite animal or pet .... how cute is that! These limited edition prints also make the perfect Christmas gift. My current favourite is the shoe-loving Sammy the Centipede.

Valued at $95 we are incredibly lucky to have one of these to give away - thanks Jenny!

And to (pink) cap it all off....

The very lovely Jeanette Thomas is supporting Firestone's Pink Cap Drive which aims to sell 100,000 pink tyre valve caps at $2 each and give 100% of the proceeds to The New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation. These caps are absolutely adorable and are available at any Firestone store or online at www.pinkcapdrive.co.nz

Firestone have raised nearly $150,000 so far from the sale of more than 70,000 sets! And we're very lucky to have 5 sets to give away.... I am going to go and buy some right now as they will look fantastic on my sporty black Swift.

Give me strength....

You will very lucky if these make it to the 10th of November in one piece... I mean really. I have a box - I kid you not - a whole BOX of Black Forest Tim Tams sitting in my office - in beautiful Pink packaging. 24 packets to be exact. And you expect me to leave them intact, unopened, untouched, unlicked, undunked in my coffee until then? I think not. Perhaps there might be only 23 packets by movie night.... or maybe 22, or possibly even 21. Actually I think a baker's dozen is a good number for a prize. Or maybe just a dozen. That sounds about right. Give or take.

The good folk at Arnotts Tim Tams have come up with a great idea - they have set up a Facebook page where you can make a donation and they will match it dollar for dollar - cool eh?! They are aiming for $55,000 - nice!

Sinta the Sook

My partner's daughter Georgie has just got the most gorgeous puppy - it's a spoodle with the tightest, curliest, shinest black hair which looks incredibly similar to Georgie's brother's hair funnily enough. When they are side by side it's hard to tell whose hair is whose.... Anyway - when Georgie first collected the puppy she came around to ours where the, as yet unnamed, puppy set about having a tentative explore around the living room. When she came to the stairs she flatly refused to go down them and stood at the top whimpering. Rob suggested her new name should be Sookie ... however she is now called Sinta and is having a lovely old life being carried up and down stairs and being terrorised by the family cat who chases her around the house.....






I think Sinta could use this very handy ramp from Petpost...

and she could leave this fake puppy lying around to trick the cat....

 Thanks to the online pet store PetPost for a $50 voucher!

Fullers Ferries and Stonyridge Vineyard - a Match Made in Heaven

I hope you all had a wonderful Labour weekend - not a lot of labouring was done at ours I must admit... as the sun was out and so was the beanbag on the deck.....which reminded me of the many happy and sunny weeks Linda and I have spent on Waiheke. We used to rent a house over the New Year holidays for a few years in a row and would arrive on Boxing Day - with a bunch of friends and, very importantly, a chilly bin and a blender. Linda was in charge of beach picnics and cocktail manufacture and I was the sun screen police ("Bruce - I think you've missed a bit on the back of your left ankle"). A lot of fun was had, including many memorable hours spent under the olive trees in the hot sun listening to cool jazz and drinking even cooler wine at the winealicious Stonyridge vineyard.

We are very happy to be bringing you a $120 lunch voucher from the very generous Stephen White and of course, how else to get there but by the good folks at Fullers Ferries who are providing 2 return tickets to the island. And did you know that on average it's 5C warmer on Waiheke than in Auckland? Oh those were the days.... when it was ALWAYS sunny during summer, the blender was always whirring and sun screen was for pussies.

Going overseas?

Then this $50 voucher from DFS is just the ticket.... nothing like a bit of duty free shopping BEFORE you fly I say. Because you got there 3 hours early like they tell you to and you get through all the security checks including getting swabbed for explosives and because they're so efficient or no-one else is travelling that day you get to the boarding gate with 2 hours to spare .... What else are you going to do with all that time you've got before you get on the plane except cruise through the perfume and cosmetics counters at DFS?