it's 10.46pm

and I'm finally in my hotel room eating cold burger room service and watching/listening to the C4 music channel. I think it's Icehouse on a the moment singing "Crazy".

I have to say singers ought to be careful what they sing cause having lines like

"You gotta be crazy, baby to want a guy like me"

and have the spectacular mullet the Icehouse guy has

- I think his name is Ivor something -

you are going to get a pretty blunt and straight up

"Yes I am utterly insane and my strange and inexplicable attraction for you is an example of this." - that may be slightly long winded for a crazy woman answer.

Tuwanda may be more appropriate.

So today has been a busy, busy day.

I started in Wellington with a meeting with Beef&Lamb and MAF at 8.30am.

Not a big fan of meetings with no result but hey... actually there is no up side to that so ignore that hey.

I forgot my phone and had to drive back to Erica's place to pick it up.

The only reason I knew I'd forgotten it was that Erica's flatmate noticed the phone somewhere and kindly left it sititng on the front passenger wheel so I could grab it real quick.

She must have thought Erica mad to suggest putting it there but it did the job.

Then I drove like the clappers (that means I drove slightly over the speed limit) up and over the Rimutakas and raced all the way to Woodville

Woodville is famous for Yummy Mummys cheesecakes - they are freaken awesome.

But did I stop, nope.

I drove sedately through Woodville to

Rowdy's house, which for a farm is so close to town.

Sedately cause I was on the phone rehashing my morning meeting the Boss.

Yes on speaker phone!

Rowdy is the loveliest guy and is the East Coast Regional Chairman

He is great, totally laid back and just takes everything in his stride.

Then I took of like a bat out of Woodville to get to Havelock North

but not before making a tit of myself by trying to leave Rowdy's place via the wrong driveway.

I needed to be in Havelock North by 3.15pm to sign up 10 girls to the

Woodford Iona Young Farmers Club

Very polite young things.

A bit worried about the two that wanted to marry farmers as their career choice

I explained to them they would have to bring more to the table than a desire to marry a farmer

they would be smarter to get a degree in accounting and that would get them a farmer for a husband for sure.

I also asked them why they couldn't be the farmer.

Anyhoo

After Woodford Iona club I meandered back south to Norsewood

What to say about Norsewood...

I feel like I should have an affinity with Norsewood because Mags's maternal family are Norwegians who would have stopped in Norsewood on their way further south

But sitting in my borrowed car answering emails

while I waited for the 20 or so Young Farmers to arrive

didn't really endear Norsewood to me for no other reason than
I distinctly felt like I might not make it out of town.

Maybe because the pub was full and loud

Maybe because in my minds eye that part of the country is like a Grimm's fairytale forest

Maybe because I was over tired and had driven lots of hundreds of miles

oh let's face it, Norsewood is off the main road cause it's a bit feral

keep that in perspective though cause I have been to some pretty feral places

since starting with Young Farmers

to be fair, I've just been to lots of feral places.

But then Rowdy and Spudly turned up and life became a little more secure.

Spudly is great too.

He is one of the three Vice Presidents of Young Farmers

and just the nicest, most genuine guy.

I think lots of the girls have crushes on him which is just the cutest thing cause he is so levelheaded that he is just fine with all that.

Spudly is a cunning wee operator though.

He gets things done, just quietly sorts people out.

Spudly is a man to watch, just as a tip for the future.

I am very blessed to have great people to work with and that I get to hang out with them too.

I am now going to be very gross and go to bed without brushing my teeth.

Please note: While the names look like they have been changed to protect the innocent, neither of them are innocent nor are their names overly secretive. Young Farmers will know who they are.

I used to believe

Mags has been crazy funny today.

I think it's her giant nostrils, too much oxygen intake. It's true she has massive, almost hairless nostrils. Hairless on the inside, there's a whole other story about hairs on the outside of noses but that can wait til certain people die.

So Nana, Mags's mum, my grandmother, always told Mags that her nose was her Norwegian heritage. Personally I would have gone for blond, healthy outdoors overall look but Mags got a Norwegian nose. She has always imagined that one day when she goes to Rakkestad to visit our far removed relatives that she will be in the land of the Norwegian noses and giant nostrils.

When I was a kid I seriously believed that her nostrils were the size they were because she picked *her nose (come on, we all do, just some more than others) but it turns out it's the Norwegians fault.

Now while we are talking about Norwegians, I will now state very clearly that my olive skin, Mags's darker olive skin, Nana's even darker olive skin (you see the pattern here) all the way back to Anna and Anders Larsen and then all the Dangstorp family were really dark skinned Norwegians. I know! How weird is that?

When I was a kid I thought they must come from a heavily forested area in Norway because in my young mind dark skinned people must come from dark places, like forests - I didn't know that the sun makes you browner cause everyone knows Norwegians are blond, fair skinned muppets not brown eyed, brown haired, olive skinned folk like my family. Besides it was the 70s and 80s when we still sunbathed and got very brown - see it makes sense.. except for the forest bit.

So for today for your laugh out loud reading pleasure... please go to I used to believe - you'll pee in your pants laughing about what adults used to believe when they were kids and sometimes not so little kids. Then you can add what you used to believe.

Just so you know, my nose is similar to Mags but without the giant nostrils - could be due to less nose picking.

*Mags denies any nose picking, Pippapotamus will be the judge of that.