I often think I only make plans to give whoever runs the world something to fiddle with and wreck.
Once again, I had planned to join Kristin de Haan's yoga retreat in Hawea, and once again I won't be.
If there is someone out there who thinks a weekend of yoga, vegetarian food, no rugby or any other sort of sport sounds like pure, unadulterated heaven (I'm guessing it won't be a male, but feel free to prove me wrong), email me immediately on miranda@queenstown.co.nz and you can have my place for free.
It starts tonight at 5pm and goes until after lunch on Sunday.
By all accounts, the last one was brilliant and suitable for everyone from absolute beginners to the much more advanced.
My inbox has been bulging this week with friends from all over the world checking we are OK after the earthquake.
I was in Karitane the night it happened and my upstairs room in the Jardines' doll's house by the sea was bouncing me up and down like a trampoline.
Almost fun until I woke up properly and realised what was going on.
Then I worried about a tsunami so I put my head under the covers and hid from it.
That's what I call preparing for an emergency.
My Dad would be prepared.
He has his 6P motto: "Prior preparation prevents p...-poor performance."
I'm a bit grumpy with him.
After managing to turn every conversation round to cross-country skiing and marathons (just so I could mention my own recent stellar performance - I'm still wearing my gold medal for participation), I now hear that during his talk to Probus last week, he told those wide-eyed youngsters that as long as you could shuffle across the room in your slippers, you could take up cross-country skiing.
I've been telling everyone how brave and fit you have to be.
Apropos of brave and fit - have you seen the A-Team movie?
This is the silliest, funniest bit of nonsense I have seen in a long time. It even had a little bit of a story.
I had zero interest in seeing it, but our book club (we're a wildly intellectual group) set off on a rainy Sunday night with husbands in tow, and we all had a great time.
My darling didn't even realise it had no real sex or violence in it and he still enjoyed it.
And the other movie everyone should see is The Concert, a Russian movie whose star was once the conductor of the Bolshoi Orchestra.
As an enemy of the Communist state, he lost his job and 30 years later, gets a chance to shine again. It is quite unbelievable, but delightfully hectic, and the music and actors are heavenly.
Take lots of hankies for the end.
There's always so much happening here, and the next two weekends are no exception.
Tomorrow night is Mary Kisler and Gretchen Albrecht's talk and an exhibition of Gretchen's new paintings at Nadene Milne Gallery.
Mary is a regular arts commentator on National Radio and Gretchen is one of New Zealand's top contemporary artists.
You can book tickets by calling Dorothy Browns Cinema.
Also at Dorothy's is a one-off screening of The Choir on September 15, but it may be just about sold out by now.
And if you want a ticket to Annabel Langbein's foodie book event at Northburn Station on September 21, get it from Paper Plus.
You might have seen her new TV series Free Range Cook, which has just started and features our beautiful region.
If you are a fan, here's a chance to meet her.
She has done more for New Zealand's reputation as a food-producing nation than anyone ever before and has sold nearly a million of her books around the world.
What a star!
I nearly forgot this is a book column.
Luckily, in between all the other things going on, I have managed to read quite a lot of books.
I wouldn't bother with Sloane Crosley's I Was Told There'd Be Cake, which is that sort of tedious, nearly funny American memoir that there are just too many of at the moment.
Sebastian Faulks, who wrote Birdsong - one of my all-time favourite books - and who then wrote many not-very-good other books, has written a tiny and perfect collection of stories in the style of other famous authors. Pistache and I have nearly worn it out flipping through trying to decide which were the best stories.
After much deliberation, I think Oscar Wilde (as an agony uncle) and Beatrix Potter (confronting the nasty moral issues of real animal life with a rude little tale about Peter Rabbit) win.
But there was very stiff competition.
And lastly, a book with so many things I enjoy: Paris, food and love.
Lunch in Paris is the perfect fodder for a Francophile.
Strangely enough, this book is nonfiction and has sold squillions of copies so the lucky cow has made some serious dosh out of something
If only my darling were French ...
Have a fabulous weekend and email me all your latest favourite book suggestions.
