The Selfie collection
Click pics for  fun facts about me.


I just realised from the pics I have like three outfits.


The wussy Gardener

September 3, 2018
Yay spring has sprung!!!!!!!! *dancing around the room*
No, not really dancing. 
I'm not out of the winter doldrums fully yet and the 'depression' who I have nicknamed 'Karen', as I HATE the name 'Karen' with a vengeance.  Sorry to all the Karen's I haven't met that may not be betraying conniving slag.
Anyhoo, 'Karen' has hung around a bit longer than expected and even though it gave me a few days off a couple weeks ago so I could go out to a Marae function where I caught the flu.    So even when 'Karen' is being nice she's still a conniving bitch.

I managed to drag my ass outside (yes all of it) to sow some seeds put pot up some seedlings I am now salivating at the thought of getting some plants into my gardens.  I always have big plans for the garden.  I spend a lot of time fitting it all together in my head, which is even more fun than actually doing it, probably because that's when I rediscover that I am not as great at things as I think I am :)
Yes I know, I am still delusional about my abilities and forever hopeful.


 
succulents planted in terrariums I made from recycled
plastic drink bottles :)

The only issue I have, well its a huge issue really, a massive one, is bugs.  And guess what?  Outside is full of them.  They are everywhere, and you can't mass murder them anymore because its not environmentally friendly, so when you come across slimy, icky, scuttling things you have to be okay with it. 
And I'm not. 
I have more phobias than you can poke a spider at. The thing about Otaki is that the bugs are relentless, slugs even slide up the side of the house to get in the tiny gap in the top windows to slither into the dining room *shudder* which is just a horror movie in the making.  The other thing about Otaki is the heat, OMG the beautiful (in the beginning) relentless and stifling (at the middle and toward the end of summer) heat. 
I miss it and yet, at the same time, I am terrified of it.  
It's the horemones.  The last few years have been a time-bomb of hot flushes, anxiety, dumb-arseness and all the other wonderful gifts of 'the Menopause'.  Which is so all encompassing and horrendous it has a "The" in front of it.
Fuck it.  I am sorry but with all the other CRAP that women have to take in their lives starting with the unfair distribution of attention and labour as children, the endless objectifying when we are pubescent through to however long we can tenaciously hold on to our looks for and the invisibility of middle age, this Menopause bullshit really does take the crapola biscuit.

 

In a perfect world...

July 13, 2018

My beautiful son Nathan (Naffa) Henare Astwood
who turned 36 on 10 July 2018

I am a 'go out in to the world and have fun children' sort of mother while silently dying inside.  Not because I don't want them to go off and take the Universe by storm, but because I worry. 
Worry, worry, worry, worry. 
 Because I had parents who worried.  My mother almost drove my brother Johnny crazy when he was gaining his pilots licence, every time he went into the air she would be freaking out on the phone, telli...

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I see a horizon

July 1, 2018

My best mate, my love, my fulla :)

OMG. it has been two months since I've had the ability to touch this blog.   
I have been stuck in a black dog of depression and couldn't find the way out. 
I felt as if I was swathed in bubble wrap and I couldn't feel, hear, see, smell or taste anything but cold and grey.  I didn't have the energy to fall out of bed.  I didn't have the ability to concentrate. I couldn't create anything worthwhile.  I fully had to drag my arse through each day, moment by momen...

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Alone in the dark...

May 9, 2018
Now it is time to return to the joyful task of writing.  I use the term "joyful task" of writing in its widest form as there was a lot of joy, interlaced with a fair portion of angst, loads of self doubt,hysteria, laughs (alone in a dark room) and rewrites, many, many, many rewrites.   
Then of course there are loads more self doubt which can morph into self hatred and then veers right off in the other direction where I imagine myself  the greatest writer who every lived (that lasts a couple o...

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When everyone around you is AMAZING!!!!!!!!

May 6, 2018


My book launch was wickedly fantastic.  Thank you to everyone who came.
My contribution was my famous (in my own mind) onion tart, ham quiche and turkish chicken kebabs (which didn't make it to my side of the room where I was signing books), a feeble speech (as I lost my notes about ten minutes before I had to get up to the lectern) said with "rabbit in the headlights" animation (Luckily my dad laughed at my jokes.) and a reading which was squinty at best as I forgot my glasses.  Also carpel t...

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I have stuff to say ...

March 31, 2018

Today feels like the end of a very long, winding, tiring journey.  I am very tired.  Shagged out tired.  The kind of tired that people get when they just fall on the ground and groan 'Noooooooo I can't go any further.  Save yourselves...'  

Thread through the Whariki
I wrote three good books and all three will soon be out there in the Universe doing their thing,  I'm happy about that.  I hope other people will be happy when they read them, especially the last one. 
It's a fast read, with dialogu...
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Risk...

March 12, 2018
My new rules for my life.

  • In every situation do the right thing and if you can't, do the kind thing.
  • If your name is going to appear on anything make sure "you" are the one to make the last decision on it.
  • Say no when you don't want to do something and be okay about changing your mind, even if it is at the last minute.
  • Remember to eat.
  • When life is scary bed is the best place to be.








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Finally...

February 3, 2018

Me, last night, trying to look clever yet friendly...
it didn't work :)


Finally, finally the last book of the trilogy is done, finito, ka mutu.  'Thread through the Whāriki' 
It has been a loooooooooooooooooong process.  A lot fecking longer than I thought it was going to be. 
This book was a lesson in focus, trust and the ability to know when I am writing complete crap and make myself rewrite...rewrite...rewrite without feeling like a complete and utter failure. 
Tying up the ends of a lot of ...

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Stay'n alive stay'n alive, I, I, I, I'm stay'n aliiiiiiii - hold the note until you pass out - iiiiiive...

November 14, 2017

Hello there, I loves me some beegees :)

My cousin Trevania (lovely lass, amazing singer and beautiful inside and out) met Barry Gibb, the remaining BeeGee when he was staying at the Huka lodge.  She was his Kai Karanga at a Powhiri.  He wore a Kahu Kiwi and said he could feel his brothers with him when he walked on.

I haven't felt like doing much besides being in the garden, reading and writing lately.  I know my housework is piling up around me (it's not, I'm a bit of an obsessive about tidine...

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I'm a Genius - I have a certificate and everything :)

October 19, 2017

Hello, is anybody out there, yoo hoo :)
THE LAST THREE MONTHS 
have had move ups and downs than the springs in a honeymoon night mattress.  I havn't been feeling that great.  Then I had a few blackouts, like alcohol ones but without the alcohol. 
After an incident at the beginning of the year when I was hanging a shower curtain and woke up on the floor with no memory of what happened in between.  I kept zoning out more and more often, and not in a good way, I'd wake up standing in the kitchen,...
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Not good at keeping a diary, my brain is a bit too random but will have a decent go at it.   

About Me


Olivia Giles Kia ora everyone, I am Olivia, I am a writer, and an artist, welcome to my hectic mad world.

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