Beach Bums Sploring in New Zealand Woman's Weekly
Another week at Mohawk Media and TMet Recordings. Drinking bubbly on a Tuesday night with Otis and Slave, and then filming on a beach on Wednesday. I hate my job. Having to go to Piha on a sunny day and being paid to run around and splash in the waves. It's a hard life, but someone has to live it. Oh and I'm in this week's issue of New Zealand Womens's Weekly to round off the weirdness.

Mohawk is making a TV ident to celebrate the upcoming summer holidays, so Monday started with a run to the op shop to find costumes. I love op shopping let alone being paid to do it. On Tuesday evening I rocked along to Galatos bar for the Splore launch party, with bubbles, sushi and a presentation from the irrepressible Slave & Otis. They seem just the same in real life as they do on radio & TV, open, friendly and very very funny.

Splore is a bi-annual outdoor arts & music festival which is held over 3 days in stunning surroundings. It's one of Auckland's best kept secrets and this year it will be taking place at Tapapakanga south of Auckland which has a beach 3 minutes walk away. The organisers are also the team behind the Trash to Fashion Awards held ever year in Waitakere, so I'm really looking forward to seeing their work in an outdoor setting. Splore runs from the 17th - 19th February 2006, and for more details check out www.splore.net

Today I got to run around on Piha Beach pretending to fly a kite. It was a beautiful, sunny day and after a week of rain we had perfect conditions for filming. Piha is one of the locations made famous by the cult Xena series, with its iconic Lion Rock and black sand beach. On the way back we put the top down on the car and cruised through the Waitakere Ranges, with an azure blue sky behind the rainforest canopy. I spent the whole day thinking that life doesn't get much better than this.



The other crazy thing to happen this week is seeing my mugshot in New Zealand Womans's Weely, the biggest selling weekly magazine in the country. With around a million copies shifted each week, it's read by almost a quarter of the population. On the cover is Susan Wood and her battle to keep her $450K a year paypacket. There's gossip about Jen and Vince, Courtney Cox's baby heartache and Kate Winslet's new body. Then on page 45 there's a piece on some mad chick who has purple and pink hair and runs a record label.

I'm really happy with the way the piece has been written as it gets across how lucky I feel to be doing what I love every day. Only a few years ago I was living in the UK, unfit, overweight and stressed out in a job I hated. Now I get to run around on beaches, and hang out in op shops for a living. The other woman in the NZWW article is an amazing chick called Jo Sutton, who survived a serious road accident and has set up her own business. It's so inspiring to read her story, and I hope telling my tale will encourage more Kiwis to follow their dreams.