I’ve always been a bit of a curtain twitcher.

Call me interested, a snoop, nosey neighbour, whatever - I like to be in the loop of what’s going on in my hood.

Last night I met my neighbours at a meeting to combat the recent spate of burglaries in the street (seven, in a street of about 40 houses!).

We got a flyer through the mail, the second in as many months, informing us of yet another break in and information about the gathering of locals to voice concerns.

It was all very novel, exciting and somewhat scary meeting people I share my street with.

Did they recognise me as the girl who has to get in to her car through the passenger side because I’m too cheap to pay someone to retrieve my broken car key from inside the driver’s door lock?

Or do they think of me as the girl who stumbles out of a taxi, slightly tipsy, and struggles against the strong sea breeze to get up the tower of stairs to my door numerous times a week?

Typical, Google travels all the way to the remote beachside blips around the country, up hill and down blimmin’ dale, and they don’t come to Island Bay.

Hmph.

I was one of what seems like thousands who logged on to Google maps yesterday to check what state their home was in when it was snapped by one of the roving fleet vehicles.

I was let down when I discovered that for some bizarre reason the best part of the south coast was left off like some estranged, embarrassing cousin from Levin is left off a family’s Christmas party list.  

Apparently it was something to do with the weather (couldn’t find a “nice” day to take pics!) but I’m not so convinced; it’s always sunny in Island Bay.

My Dad wants to get a Facebook page, bless him.

At the ripe age of 60-something, he’s a long way off Ivy Bean - Facebook’s oldest living member, aged a sprightly 102-years-old (and with almost 5000 fans!). But it’s fair to say that he’s somewhat out of the target demographic.

I’m all for it. He already gets a somewhat disturbing insight in to my life through this blog, which makes the weekly or fortnightly calls home an interesting and almost redundant concept.

“How’s you leg?” he asked the other day.

“How did you know I had a sore leg?” I quizzed, amazed at his apparent psychic abilities.

“Your blog.”

Oh, right.  At least I know one person is reading it - good old whanau, always there to offer virtual support with the click of a mouse.

I always say I’m “not that much of a Christmas person”. I don’t know why, I suppose it’s an attempt to convince myself that it’s okay to offer - yep, offer - to work on Christmas Day for the second year in a row, and to publicise the fact that I’m not from a ridiculously close family of people who feel the need to live in each other’s pockets.

(First, apologies for the comments that were deleted on the last post, it was a stuff-up, across all of Stuff blogs) 

Saturday was a right-off; a hangover, from what can only be described as a loose and rowdy farewell party on Friday, ensured that I spent most of the day on the couch, watching our cricketers, flailing about like a fish flapping around on the carpet after the tank has smashed.

Because of my dismal Saturday, I had decided that Sunday was going to be extremely productive, starting by switching all the furniture in my room around, just coz.

While doing so, I had to undergo a certain veto process that one does when they are trying to get one’s life in to some type of structure.

So, the blonde v brunette debate got a bit testy, and surprisingly everyone assumed it applied to females only.

No one mentioned boys who dye their hair for whatever reason (what are those reasons by the way? enlighten me…) and everyone fired up. Awesome stuff, give yourselves a pat on the back and jog it in.

Whether you’re a man or woman though, it appears we all have our insecurities, which is why this article made me giggle and spit gluten-free brownie over my keyboard (again).

Finally, like a ripe grape ready to be squished into glorious wine, my Wairarapa cherry has been popped.

On Sunday, I was one of what seemed like millions who descended upon beautiful Martinborough to drink away the day at Toast.

As our bus came over the hill from Featherston, I was given my first view of this mystical place that I had previously referred to as the much-touted promised land (and where all the “cool” people in Wellington go for mini breaks).

Finally, I was going to be one of those cool people.

First stop, Te Kairanga vineyard, where the preferred uniform of the day was a straw hat and not too much else.

I’ve dyed my hair more times than Winston’s made the headlines, more times than I’ve mentioned Chop Chop chicken in a blog post and more times than the Black Caps have choked. (Actually, probably more than all of those combined.)

It’s fair to say, it gets a bit of a hammering (my hair that is, but I spose it works for all of the above too.)

I remember my first experience with hair dye. I was about five-years-old, a happy-go-lucky little “waka blonde” (as people refer to me when they see my childhood photos.)

My sister, bless her, was (and still is, funny that) 10 years older than me and going through her “I’m-15-years-old-and-hate-my-lil-sister-and-want-to-rebel stage,” so decided to dye her hair red, and put the left over gunk in my hair.

I used to live my life by that horrid nineties label “No Fear” - fear nothing, live life to the max, yada yada… but then I got old and fretful.

That’s why my trip to Hong Kong last week was a success for numerous reasons that I am now going to list (and I think a virtual round of applause after each bullet point would be fitting).

1.) I got over my fear of flying

Hailing from an island nation, I thought I was going to be confined to these lovely shores for eternity as my fear leapt in insurmountable ways as I got older.

I’ve tried hypnotherapy, getting drunk, holding people’s hands (generally people I knew, although I cannot confirm if I have a penchant to accidently molest strangers), attempting to sleep - you name it, I was petrified.

Saturday night marked the pinnacle of my geekiness.

As I lounged in the lounge watching election coverage, I assumed the position; my warm laptop on my knees, chips and dip nestled in the gap between my flattie and I and a CC and dry whiskey perched precariously on the arm of the couch  (gotta love duty free - had a great trip to Hong Kong thankyouverymuch).

The remote remained firmly in my hand (oh, the power) as I flicked between TV One and TV3, comparing coverage but mainly just moaning about various bad hosts, bizarre graphics that resembled a flat-lining hospital patient and confusing commentary from people with longer names and even longer titles.

So here we were, the TV was blaring, the bollocks coming out of our mouths was dipping to lower levels, and then someone asked who was older: John Key or Obama.

“47,” I blurted. “Oh no wait, Obama’s 47. I’ll Google it, please hold.”