Ingredients:7 weeks backpacking around Asia1 shipping container, with all personal possessions, delayed for no good reason1 vintage car, ready for import, and assorted bureaucratic requirements4 weeks of staying in someone else's house1 9-day bad head-cold1 sporadic internet connection1 wedding in far-off Wales2 small children, aged three and four years1 flat, damaged in multiple small but
In the red corner, weighing in at 51 million people and 50,352 square miles, we have England! England has been around the world a few times, conquering vulnerable nations and dishing out abusive imperialist diatribes to all challengers. England comes complete with a Northern Hemisphere resume, including efficient internet shopping, and more old shit than you can shake a stick at. To survive a
The sun had finally broken through, and a lightness filled our heart as we set off around the East Cape of New Zealand, into a Maori heartland with few hotels and even fewer lunch stops selling anything but the ubiquitous toasted sandwich.This is not an urban area. There are no towns for miles, and miles, and miles. I'm not sure it even qualifies as rural. I think it barely qualifies as
It has been difficult locating my Christmas spirit this year. I've been homesick, and blazing hot sunshine and a thirteen hour time difference from old friends and ever-expanding family puts a dampener on any chance to remedy the issue. On the way home last night I was nearly reduced to tears when I saw a tiny penguin chick that was clearly ill, floating with the current in the harbour.I
I shouted at someone in a meeting today. Things are obviously getting to me, in some kind of undefinable way. I need to work it out, and then I'll write it down.
It appears that I have been overdoing things. I have succumbed to my first illness in nearly 3 years. I am rarely sick, so when it happens, I morph into a blob and bellyache my way through the day. It is possible to relate my overall sense of well-being by reference to my hair. Today's hair looks like it was mauled by a wild boar. Yesterday morning I woke up feeling like crap. My nose was
I had been back in New Zealand for less than 24 hours when I received the call every migrant dreads."Hello. How was your holiday?" said my mother, but her voice sounded like it was missing something. Hollow, and exhausted. I launched into stories about what a great time we'd had, but how it had been marred with having to deal with the problems of our tenants. "That's nice." she replied, and it
In July we reported that a pair of non-resident landlords had been having serious problems with their tenants. The tenants had stopped paying rent and the day after notice to quit was served, a large portion of the ceiling in the main bedroom mysteriously collapsed.Following these events, and despite repeated written demands, the tenants failed to pay rent and threatened to counter-claim for
It's a lovely sunny day, so of course I just got back from another episode with my temperamental vintage Italian. He's 41 years old, but there's really no excuse for the gearbox giving up twice in less than 30 miles of driving.At least we're getting our (and everyone else's) value for money from the AA. Your premiums are higher because people like me need towing every two months. I'm
Cowboy was chewing the fat with the owner of the holiday apartments we were staying at in Noosa, and asked if there was anything worth seeing on the way down to Brisbane to catch our evening flight back to Aotearoa."Montville is worth a look", said the owner, whose double-forked beard had to be seen to be believed. "It's very European." We looked it up in the guidebooks, which did indeed
The next day we went up to the nearby ski-field of Coronet Peak, so that I could drop my illusions on the floor and watch them shatter. If Mount Dobson were the Dino of the ski-field world, Coronet Peak would be the Toyota SUV with bull-bars and floodlights.We decided to go for only half a day to practice what we'd learnt, because a full day including a lesson would have emptied my bank account
5 June 2008 is World Environment Day. It is also the day that Cowboy and I will celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary. Only, we won't be celebrating it together. This year, our wedding anniversary will be less about this... ...and more about this: Village IdiotThis year will be remembered forever (and probably relayed to children, and children's children) as the year where instead of
Waking up in the morning and realising I had not flipped my mortal coil was, you'll appreciate, a relief. However, 10am check-out times are never a thing of beauty. Combined with an overwhelming desire to be on my own alone for just a little while, without having to organise, answer questions, or re-pack my bag in an emergencified state, a 10am check-out time, sans breakfast opportunity, put me
...there were two hours of uninterrupted silence. The birds have flown. I have had insomnia for the last two nights. I physically could not cycle to work this morning, so I stood at the bus-stop. Alarmingly, I didn't even have the energy for anger. I passively stood at the bus-stop and didn't care one whit whether the bus would show up, and if so, when. I stared vacantly into space and when
Today, readers, is my 30th birthday. I have endeavoured to ignore this astonishing fact, but there it is. I'm old. Of course, I still think of myself as nineteen, at the same time looking at other people who are 30 and observing that they appear mature, confident, intelligent, and authoritative. What's that Atwood quote? "Everyone else my age is an adult, but I am merely in disguise."Later
It looks like I am out of NaBlo. Dammit, I was doing so well - planning my posts in my head on the way home, fretting if it got to 5pm and I still had nothing to write about. And on those days, I still managed to pull a Dilbert cartoon out of my arse. But it couldn't last. I tempted fate. I commented last week on Jonathan's blog that I was secretly hoping that my shitty old Packard Bell would
I finally figured out why my most recent batch of cookies were a miserable failure, and the results of my extensive study make for disturbing reading. Yes, it's all the fault of the USA.*Exhibit 1: The Measuring Cup)Measuring cups are a ridiculous invention, especially when the humble weighing scale already existed. Ingredients have different densities. Thus, a cup full of margarine will not
Here is why, despite the mountain views, I am often hit with the desperate desire to go home.I applied for a dream job shortly before my visit to the UK. If I could have written my own job summary according to exactly what I'd like to earn money doing, with a few very minor tweaks, this job would have been it, reduced to a four-word job-title. I was approached by one of the agencies I had
Ever since I got back from the trip home, something indefinable has been nagging at me. I'm willing to admit that New Zealand isn't home: there's something very unique about Britain that isn't readily quantifiable but is somehow comforting. I suppose that's true of everyone's home country. That's as much thought as I'd really invested in things since I returned to NZ.Then, on Friday, I think I
There's a gap, and I've set up a new home in it. It's the emotional gap between loving every moment of seeing your long lost friends (and most moments of communing with your family), and needing two days where the only thing you do is lie in bed under a huge duvet with a book and a giant mug of hot chocolate, while Radio 4 plays unobtrusively in the background. The yin hemisphere of my brain