Slightly Random

Plans for our big trip are progressing - now that we have two weeks timeshare booked, we are looking at flights. Lots of "early bird" specials available at the moment. We discovered that if we fly Singapore Airlines we can fly direct from Christchurch to Singapore without having to go to Auckland first. Then we can fly direct from Singapore to either Heathrow or Manchester. We are definitely favouring the Manchester option, since we have heard that Heathrow is very congested these days.

Thinking about Manchester reminded me of the English school teacher I was talking to on our previous holiday in the North Island. (She was visiting New Zealand in her summer holidays). One of her questions was: "why do you call sheets, towels etc , manchester?" Well, presumably because a century or so ago, it was all imported from Manchester where there was a huge cotton industry. It hadn't occurred to me, though, that it wasn't called manchester in England! Actually, I think the word is dying out here - lots of big stores now have something like a "bed and bath" department instead.

Different word usage and different accents fascinate me. I have been watching "Survivor" (No doubt quite a few episodes behind the US). I couldn't figure out why a parent would name their child "Poverty" until I saw the name up on the screen and found out it was "Parvati". Over here that would be "Par" as in "Car". I assume that "car" has a long "a" in the US (or maybe everyone calls it an auto!)

Neil over at Citizen of the Month has started a tradition called "Thank Your First Commenter Day". So I checked back - comments were few and far between on my early posts - but my first commenter was m at Creative Voyage. And my first commenter who I hadn't known before I started blogging was the lovely Lynn of the defunct Sprigs, who is now blogging under her real name Dana, at sublimation. Thanks all. Comments make my day!