I'm going to vote Hobbs/Green. I've been vacilating back and forth between Labour and Green for my party vote all week but I think voting Green is the best thing for me to do.

My family are all split between Labour/Green and Labour/Labour, my mother and one sister voting the former, my father and the other sister voting the latter. I'm sure between us all some of us will be doing the right thing.

They're taking the elderly residents of their bay to Picton to vote tomorrow, although they joked that my grandmother (a 92 year old National Supporter) would be tied up in the bathroom until voting closes. At least, I think they were joking.

The thing I haven't decided yet is whether to jump on a plane or ferry and go to stay with my parents for election night.. three of us could get there and back for $302 if we plane down on Sounds Air at 4pm tomorrow and ferry back on Sunday on the Interislander at 6:15pm. I haven't had an election with my parents since I was old enough to vote so that would be fantastic.

I'm feeling quite a lot better today - two days sleeping, watching shitty tv and drinking grapefruit juice solidly seems to have cured me.

bfm interview with Don Brash here

Really interesting article about blogs and the election here, via Just Left.

Stuff is reporting Labour 45, National 36. Gah! I'm going to start with some serious nail biting soon.

I love Aro Valley. On my way home on Friday night I saw someone climbing a tree, and someone inside a clothing bin (although they made the mistake of poking their head out just as the police drove past).

On my way to work on Monday morning, I saw a United Future billboard, with the photo of Peter Dunne defaced with the words, 'POO FACE'. This I found highly amusing.

The latest polls are very worrying. If they continue, I might have to vote Labour rather than Green, come September 17. I don't feel very happy about the way things are going. On the other hand, everyone around me seems very excited about the election. My parents tell us that they have a Labour sign on their gate, a Greens sticker on their car, and have been busy meeting their local (Kaikoura) candidates. I'm going to the candidates meeting tonight at Aro Valley Community Hall.

I received a pamphlet from Mark Blumsky that made me very angry. phirate has already written about this, but it made me so furious I filled in the survey without just ticking the nice little options, but wrote a large piece about how manipulative and evil it was, and posted it back this morning.

M and I had a very good (almost laptop free) weekend! We went on a road trip and visited Summer Holiday Place Of My Childhood (Otaki) where we cavorted on the beach and sand dunes. I was carsick in the Akatawara Valley, due to a misguided icecream idea.

There were many asplosions at work, after my last post about it, but by about 8pm Friday it was mostly over.

I'm making a concerted effort this week to train myself back into the habit of getting to work early, since I don't really like working until 7pm. Yesterday, I managed to get here at 8:40, today at 8:20. So we're doing ok. Maybe tomorrow I'll get here at 8 (I doubt it, somehow). I haven't been setting my alarm clock any earlier, just trying to be more efficient about going to bed at a reasonable time and actually getting up soon after the alarm goes off. Before this new resolution, it sometimes takes an hour plus of snoozing to get up. This morning, only 15 minutes.

Buying hair dye is a very bewildering experience.

Tonight, David, (who appears to be wearing makeup in that photo), forced me to stick addresses on envelopes for the Labour party. It's my punishment for planning on voting Green.

Then I came home and discovered this, which is my new favourite toy.