We have a 'travelling yoga teacher' here at the moment doing a 5 day workshop. 630am practices, a full room and lovely sunny mornings to welcome us out afterwards.

The yoga teacher seems pretty focused on making sure no one is hurting their knees – I mean really making sure. He is also doing a bit of chanting while folk get through the first part of the standing sequence. It’s in Sanskrit so I obviously can’t understand it. But I don’t think that is the point. It sounds very beautiful however, which is perhaps the best way to understand it. Thanks mate.

On Saturday night there is to be a little dinner – bring a dish – for which I am going to cook my two favourite Indian dishes; paneer tikka and mutter paneer. Tried to find the paneer in the local supermarkets but to no avail. No problem though, it’s easy to make – just boil some milk up and add lemon juice to curdle, then strain the curds from the whey and there you have it. Very nice of the local Indian restaurant to oblige and make me about a kilo which is now sitting, round, pressed and slightly creamy in colour, in the fridge.

In other news, still looking for somewhere to call my own round here – almost sealed the deal twice over the weekend only for unforeseen circumstances to crop up and ruin the party in both cases. Back to square one, ads in the paper and so on. No drama though as I have a month so go so should be plenty of time – plus the fact that at least two people have offered me rooms in their houses should the need arise.

Life is getting more transient by the minute anyway – all my junk is now stored in one of those self storage facilities where it has air con, security and all for just $30 per month. I really did not miss any of it for 5 months and don’t yet need it day to day here.

Latest ipod acquisitions are the new albums from Shapeshifter, the NZ drum and bass act, and British Soul artist Amy Winehouse. Both spanking albums. Also, I can heartily recommend George FM - this Auckland radio station plays an uplifting range of music - and I mean range, unlike the rock based drivel which intersperses the ads on most local NZ stations - which is a true sound for sore ears at these verdant, warm and seductively barren latitudes.