Wellington Delights

Wellington, Christmas 2009

An official place

Langford Ink now has a dedicated domain so visit me here!

Life as an independent is suiting me well. Shame I have expensive taste in wine. I learnt early on in my life in the Bay of Islands that this place is not really about one career, one job, one focus. It's all about fingers in pies; the more you can gather around you the better! Especially if you like a nice red.

Taste Bay of Islands

Easily the most enjoyable way to spend a lazy Saturday. Anyone else?

HOUSEBOAT FOR SALE

Another day in paradise?

Either I've lived on the water long enough or I've spent too long a winter ashore. Whichever way, I'm now a landlubber. Our baby Jah/Jar is for sale so that I can get a little home-office on land. Pass it on to anyone you think wants a shot at the alternative watery lifestyle in the paradise that is the Bay of Islands.

Find out more details here

Langford Ink is here.

Temporarily the Langford Ink website is being hosted here. It's my own blog...you can read my story if you check out the archives. Soon Langford Ink will be hosted at www.langfordink.com. Watch this space and get redirected there when it's ready.

So is a blog the right place to have a company website? Good question. The immediate answer is probably 'no' but I'm game to experiment. Recently I've been encouraging some of my clients to look at the potential of blogging websites where they can engage more directly with their audience. Personally I've enjoyed and learned a great deal from the blog components on other business websites: web design, graphic design, marketing consultancy - I love being able to tap into the experiences of other professionals. For one thing, a blog site brings a human element to the business transaction; it shows there's a real-life person behind the brand who really cares about the service they provide.

Langford Ink is nothing if not human. My aim is to dismantle the corporate speak that so often drowns the concept of marketing. Really, marketing is just about showing your best angle to the right people, whilst highlighting what makes you different. There's no reason why we have to dress it up in fancy clothes.

For those small businesses who are new to marketing, I help strip away the fear often experienced when embarking on promotional activities. This 'fear' can obstruct you from finding tailored marketing solutions so that you risk settling for second best. I will guide you toward a professional solution within your budget, with some gentle education along the way.

For those who are experienced in marketing but time poor and perhaps wary of overspend in this area, I offer a sensible, down-to-earth marketing service. No jargon, I promise. First of all, I listen to you. You know your business better than I do. You might just need an objective viewpoint to get you started. And you you might find that having someone trustworthy and external to the business is exactly what you need to help your business grow.

I provide general marketing management, from consultancy and planning to day-to-day administration. I organise good graphic design, full branding programmes, signwriting and web solutions. I offer print management and copywriting. I give fair quotes and I'm realistic about budgets and timescale. I deal direct with associated marketing and promotional contacts to make sure my client is getting the best deal.

I don't know all the answers, but I always know where to look.

absent minds are not the recipe for rich lives.

A man gets into a cab at the airport, but he isn't certain where he's going. He just disembarked a flight from Italy, landing back in his home country as before.

As before.

As the cab draws up, he realises there isn't an as before; the "as before" he knew can't happen now. However, what should or could happen instead is equally obscure. All he knows is that he can't go back.

It is less what actually happened whilst he wandered the foreign streets, with unknown languages blistering across sun-soaked alleys. It is more that while he walked he found himself staring at the face of time, almost holding it in his hands. The intimacy astonished him. Time had become frighteningly present; no way to lose it or be distracted from it.

As the hot Ligurian days passed by in a slumber, a lightness replaced the gaping horror and with lightness, the suggestion of possibility; possibility that he didn't have to be the way he was before. It seemed that only absent mindedness had kept him there for so long.

"Facebook is becomming a bit low rent" (Discuss)

So says Stephen Fry, even though he concedes that online snobbery is absurd. And snobbery only in the UK of course (if the dub dub dub can be country-specific, that is, as not everyone is quite so obsessed by class).

Jury's out for me on Facebook; neither love nor loathe but can't help checking it with ridiculous regularity. I've just learnt how to attach my blog to my facebook page (this bit of technical widgery pokery has taken me a year or so to figure out). I am also learning how to delete friends that aren't really friends. This has also taken a lot longer than it would in real life, because in real life I am blunt and unpleasant sometimes, which is perfect deterrent for unwanted befriending. Hard to cultivate a blunt online persona apparently. Or not? Interestingly, I realise that I'm not online friends (there's another more with it expression for an online friend isn't there?) with some of my very truest bestest real world friends, which is reinforcing my sense that it's all a bit of a farce. Still, I like noseying in on my friends' and associates' business back in the UK while they were sleeping from my 13hr-ahead vantage point. And for a while I liked trying to think of quirky oneliners that might elicit a shes-so-clever smile from my pals; but I soon found I was bored of reading other people's quirky oneliners and that I should probably save myself the bother of dreaming them up.

So, it's not low rent, it's just old news. And that's the internet for you I suppose. My blog's old news - ex-colleagues looked at it for relief from their cavernous dungeon in Farringdon for a couple of months, just to see where in the world I was. Now that I really have stopped moving, I'm just another worker bee trying to find a moment of individuality in a samey world. Sadly, if Facebook or a google blog is the place to display our quirky one-offness, then all our moments of creativity are a bit samey too.

Same old shit, different hemisphere

Holy cow, no specs AND a man

Straight from the tin

I'm eating tuna (lemon and ginger flavour) straight from the tin. Gross. It's a cute mini size can with a ring-pull top and now that I'm over the sensation of eating cat food, it tastes rebellious and rather nice. Cuppa soup coming up. Yes, seriously. A subtropical front is blowing through at 100 miles an hour and while temperatures may be in the low 20s, it feels cold. Soup called for.

Today in the Bay: Jeff, our printer, has been stabbed in the thigh by a marlin; flights to London in July cost over $2700; only English people park their boats in bumpy places during storms (idiots); I am experiencing the return of the dreadlocks; tomorrow morning it is Mia's birthday party (she turns 3) with about 11 children and I am looking forward to it.

Wonders never cease, apparently.

Oh, and it'll take more than a bit of wind and rain for them to cancel racing tonight...hell yes, sailing will be ON. Damn damn damn.

Boat bottoms

Should be dated Jan 11th 2009. Undine, Valdora and the Jar in Matauwhi (matarfi) Bay. Tall Ships. We won the biggest bottle of rum in the world. Spot prize, nothing to do with our sailing.

Whangaroa Race, AGAIN.

I am chronologically challenged. And I'm also in shock. This is the second Whangaroa race I have particpated in. This is the second time I have travelled up the coast in Sarrie with an all female crew with the inimitable Antje skippering. That's a milestone, a yearstone, a gemstone or just a piece of pumice gradually wearing away quietly whispering "there's no place like home, there's no place like home..." ?





It was hot and there was no wind. As we were in the cruising divisions, we were entitled to motor for two hours during the 35m (or 45m?) trip. Good thing otherwise it would've taken a week to get to the Nine Pin - normally a big crashing mess of water, birds and rock....mainly rock.

The Frog-Eyed Sprites

Here we are, the Frog-Eyed Sprites venturing along the treacherous back roads of the Far North.

Sunday driving?
Pah!

This is rally racing at its best, complete with salt liquorice and Molly the Dog.




This is a fmaous spot called Mt Bledisloe; it's a hill that mostly you drive up and only have to walk the last 100 metres until you get to a funky ceramic compass, about three foot across. It tells you how far to all sorts of useful places (London, Suva, Ruapekapeka, Kaitaia...errrr). Lord Bledisloe owned all the land round here once upon a Governor-Generalship but gave all 1000 acres back to the people of New Zealand in 1932. This 'trust' land became known as the birthplace of the nation and was the site of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi...and there my knowledge ends. Google Waitangi.

So, after a jaunt up a hill, some posing with Sprite cans on our arms and a few pieces of salt liquorice we hit Lily Pond Farm. This place is under-10s heaven: guinea pigs roaming free among a llama, a donkey, an emu (did you know they have DRUMS in their tummies?!), a couple of scrawny lambs and goats and a blind highland cow called Jock. I was so beside myself with excitement that I forgot to take any pictures. Still, it was hot and dusty at the farm, so instead of hitting the main road we turned right past Captain Bucko's place and down to the swimming hole. Later I learned that this is one of the most polluted swimming spots in the country but at that stifling moment I couldn't have cared less. It was COOL and WET.

Molly made an exhibition of herself chasing sticks while Marg, Jonny and I swam in our underwear. Jonny was wearing shiny green boxers brought for the dog (who rightly turned up her nose at the ignomy of such attire...jonny didn't seem so perturbed though). Sophie was wearing white knickers so declined to take part. I won't damage you with pictures of us in wet underwear, but this is the spot:



And then, instead of having just a hot dog, we had a hot, tired dog.



We then drove for hours, ate cheese and rice crackers, took the back road to Kawakawa, answered lots of silly questions and finally...sat down for an official sponsor beer.


We didn't win even though that's the only reason we took part. Apparently the bonus questions at the back were part of the rally and not just there to disctract the back seat drivers...

Photos that could've been: Sophie in a bunny suit; Marg apple bobbing; Jonny kayaking to glorious victory earning us our barbecue vouchers and ten extra points.