I was going to go up to Rutherglen this weekend to see Meg (hi Meg), but cancelled due to what I thought was a cold. Man I woke up with *such* a sore throat, and all the symptoms of a head cold but it turned out to be a very cantankerous wisdom tooth. OMg. I'm still not right.. all the flipping antibiotics and Nurophen made me feel really sick too - I'm such a delicate creature. who knew??

I was awake and in pain all night Thursday with this stupid tooth but managed to get an appointment with a local dentist on Friday afternoon. I wanted somewhere close as I wasn't feeling up to organising any complicated public transport, and this dentist was just a couple of blocks walk away. I got there, early (who else would be so keen to get to the dentist) and he saw me straight away (pale and fragile looking = me) and took xrays and determined that my tooth was too complicated to extract himself and I would have to see a specialist in the city. Fair enough, I'm a complicated person.

So, I stood at the reception desk waiting for him to write the letter to the specialist and figure my bill, when I felt a bit strange: kind of cold and hot at the same time and as I was thinking I might sit down - next thing I know, I was -on the coffee table - across the other side of the room. I've never fainted before in my life and had always thought if I did, I would sink into a graceful heap not throw myself bodily across a dental reception, slamming into a wall and landing on the coffee table. but there I was, sat and woke up with three very concerned people gathered around me and all i could think was "thank god I didn't break the coffee table" (i may be a fragile bird but I weigh the same as a baby elephant) I sat for a while feeling quite stupid and trying not to get annoyed with the dentist saying that my nerves got the better of me, when in fact it was the pain and lack of sleep *actually*. I made my way unsteadily home and plonked myself back into bed for the rest of the weekend.

Today my tooth/gum still hurts but no where near as badly. I haven't phoned the specialist because I start my 4 week contracted work on Monday and I can't take time off to have a tooth extracted (three days, apparently) so I'll make an appointment for July and hope it doesn't flare up again until then.

Speaking of medical adventures: did you hear about Simon? I only ask because maybe you did.. maybe I told you.. maybe greg phoned *everyone* cos he can't keep a secret. But simon spent three weeks in Thailand recently, sending me emails saying things like "Mum, i'm in big trouble, I've managed bail but you have to call me urgenly! oh and PS: Chapelle Corby says hello" little mongrel he is.. well he did end up getting into trouble.. the drinking kind of trouble only boys can manage. Seems he was out and drinking loads and quite drunk (which is unusual for Simon cos he usually talks too much to drink enough to get drunk) and took a tuktuk home to his hotel. the story goes that the tuktuk didn't stop where it was sposed to so, instead of saying "I say, driver, would you mind *awfully* stopping, as you've driven past my stop." he decided to just.. get off.. the tuk tuk.. I can understand that, the road looks like if you just run a bit you could get off a ride no problem - I know this because it's a problem when using workshop machinery that you think you can touch it and then you nearly lose your hand.. but I thought that was just me, but it seems my son is genetically predisposed to stupid behaviour as well - i blame his father.

So Simon leapt from the tuk tuk which, btw, was travelling at about 30 mph, and thank good, his head broke his fall. I say that because the thickest bones in Simon's body are in his head - some of which, now, are fractured though, and he is off work and going for his second CT scan today. He's very lucky his head didn't watermelon all over that asian street. He has whiplash, fractures and a few nerve problems that they hope (they being nz doctors) will come right over time. He has 6 weeks off work and has become hyperactive and annoying on the medicine they've given him... yes.. even *more* hyperactive and annoying.. now *that* is hard to imagine.

But he's fine, given all that. And I'm fine, thanks for asking.

In the first week of this year, I spent 7 days at the Wanganui Summer of Arts learning about alternative photographic processes. It's okay, I didn't know what that was before I did the course either. We learned two processes: Cyanotype, which produces a blue photograph and Gum Bichromate which is very similar, but with the addition of pigment, can produce any colour photograph - I tended towards brown pigments. These processes are the old techniques used to create a photograph before the fancy cameras and modern methods used by local Camera House stores to develop your photos today. cake tin pinhole camera image

I learned how to make a pinhole camera from a cake tin and then how to create prints from the photos I took with it. By the end of my week, I had quite a nice collection of work. pinhole camera photo with cyanotype process

pinhole camera photo with cyanotype process

I was hooked almost instantly on developing photographs both in the dark room and with the alternative processes. Making the photos with a pinhole made the whole process unpredictable and exciting - I never knew exactly what image I had captured, or if my exposure was right until I was seeing it appear in the developing tray. The exposure times varied from 10 minutes to 3 hours depending on which pinhole camera I used so when you consider how impatient I am generally, you might understand how hard I had to work to keep my eye on the ball, so to speak. It turned out I couldn't get enough time in my day to work with these new ideas and skills and time just flew. If Wanganui had turned on more sunshine/UV rays, I would have had a lot more cyanotype and gum bichromate examples but the damp weather made for the lengthy exposure times - in the end that ended up being a good thing because the low UV meant I got some beautiful subtle mid-tones in my negatives and consequently, my prints. Arriving back in Auckland with this renewed passion for film based photography, I set about enrolling in a (reasonably) local community college course that offered a darkroom component. Now, each Monday night I go along to Selwyn College and am learning to develop black and white film in a more conventional, modern way than the alternative processes I learned in Wanganui. We're in Week 4 of a 7 week course and have developed a roll of black and white film, created a contact sheet and tonight we set about enlarging and developing photos from those negatives. I'm really happy with the results of my first film. I seem to photograph different subjects than my fellow students but then again, I see more concrete and glass than flowers and family so that's to be expected. developing black and white photos