s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

Stephen’s parents brought me two boxes of the “Hot Tamales” cinnamon candy, so I took one of them into work. Cinnamon isn’t a flavor they generally use in candies over here — especially not the “hot/spicy” cinnamon like we get in Red Hots or the Cinnamon Altoids (or Hot Tamales) in the States. One of my co-workers, who’d had Big Red chewing gum previously, liked the Hot Tamales. Everyone else thought they were the weirdest thing. Several people who tried them made faces; one actually spat them out. One person said they “taste like soap”, and another compared them — favorably, for what that’s worth — to “those nasty salty licorice Finnish lollies.” So there you have it. At home, several of the people we hang out with liked them just fine, having been exposed to the flavor previously, but the average Kiwi Joe doesn’t grok cinnamon candy.

Wellington Moment of the Week: I was walking to the train station on Friday and passed a group of about a half-dozen business-people playing hopscotch on the waterfront in their Friday half-casuals (although one guy was in a shirt and tie). They were using one of the women’s earrings as the stone and one of the men was keeping time on his watch. Hee.

Saturday we went up to the Manawatu A&P show. It was a noticably smaller show this year, although the alpaca section was bigger. It’ll be nice to not make that drive again for a while (two hours each way). Didn’t go into town for Guy Fawkes afterwards, because Stephen wasn’t feeling that great, but you could hear the booms all the way out at our place, and see the red light reflecting off the clouds. It was a little ominous — like Wellington was being carpet-bombed.

Sunday we did some halter and pen work with the boys — got all of them but Oak to let us pick up their feet and trim their nails, them took them in pairs down to the stream and got them all to go over it. Stephen got Oak to walk around *in* it, which was a first, and Hyouki jumped back and forth over it several times. Good boys ! Had Stuart over for tea — he showed off his shiny new tractor, and I showed off my knife collection. Then we (Stephen and I — Stuart went home) played some “Gauntlet” on the PS2. “Archer needs food !” “Valkyrie has gained a level !” Whee !