Blithering Idiot

There is one lesson that it seems I am too stubborn to learn.


On the whole (and this is a bit of an air-brushing kind of comment that glosses over various rough edges and so on and so on but if those edges weren't smoothed off, this would very quickly become an awfully long post before I even got to the point I was really intending to make...) I am quite content to be me.


The mistake I keep making though is imagining I will become someone entirely not like myself in some magical turn of events...


When I was a wee lass (up to about the age of 24 and one month), I thought I was going to turn into this different person when I got married. I had this image of this incredibly serene and poised lady who wafted down the aisle, took everything in her stride, had time to say something kind/witty/lovely to every guest, did not fluster, did not get over-excited by life...


Needless to say, that didn't happen. In actual fact, I continued to be me, much to Husbink's relief (I think!). But this is the mistake I keep making, recently in terms of giving talks and writing blogs. I keep attempting to do these things as another, fictional, person (with varying qualities). And of course, it doesn't work, does it?

When it comes to the giving talks side of things, I normally work it out before doing the talk and sort it out, but when it comes to the blogs... Because I can just make up another blog and another blog and do what I want, I don't tend to pause and think and thus it has taken me a while to realise that I have (at times) been trying to write someone else's blog.

Now that I've worked this out...I very much doubt you'll notice any difference in what you read here! But I might.

(In other news...THE headline story on the 6 o'clock news this evening? David Beckham has arrived in Wellington...)

We have a Date. Again.

On Monday we went to the travel agent. I cried on the way there and then had to keep walking out of the office to not embarrass myself too hugely with my blubbing while there. We fortunately had a very understanding travel agent.

We leave here on Feb 5th (sorry Ruthing) and, after a few days in Sydney and Singapore, arrive home in the very wee small hours of Feb 10th. And then? Who knows!

Now that we actually have the flights, I'm a lot less emotional. For a little while anyway. I suspect the next few months are going to be rather punctuated with teary moments!

What is very good is that before we had managed to book our flights, some friends here had booked their flights for a three month jaunt round Europe next Aug-Oct, so at least it isn't saying goodbye to everyone all at once...

I guess what is harder about leaving here is that we don't know that we will come back. Most likely, we will come back for visits at least but we don't know. Leaving England, although it was sad to say goodbye to people, we knew (horrific accidents and so on aside) that we would go back and we would see them again. This time, I guess that is a little more unknown.

But I'm chatting with my parents and despite the horribly early start they will have to make, they will be meeting us at the airport. That will be good. :)

(In other news...only a few days of Movember left! Hurrah! I managed to declare a few days ago that Husbink's mo was ok...as long as it wasn't beneath his nose...)

New Experiences

This last not-yet-quite-eighteen-months has contained many new experiences for me. Some entirely new some "variations on a theme" kind of new.
This week has contained a few new experiences all its own.
On Tuesday night, Husbink and I went to HangDog, our local indoor climbing wall place with some friends. Husbink decided a while back that, since we are both of a competitive nature and don't tend to take kindly to the other one offering advice on how best to do things, it would be good to do something together that we were both really bad at and could thus be all chilled out about. He decided that climbing was that thing. A number of our friends go climbing quite often and had been asking us for a while to go. I had been resisting, which is odd as I always wanted to climb when I was a child, but finally decided I should stop being a big girl's blouse and get on with it. The first time up the "easy" wall I completely froze about half way up. I looked down to find out if it was the height which was bothering me. It wasn't. I don't actually know what was so freaky but I couldn't go any further and came down defeated. The next time I made it a little higher but still not to the top. Finally on my third attempt, I beat that wall! I then went on to climb another (actually easier) wall and back to the first one to finish. After the initial terror, I loved it and will be going again soon.
My second new experience was an entirely unpleasant one. I am supervising exams again this year and have done six sessions this week. This afternoon, for the first time, someone cheated in one of my exams. I strongly suspect it wasn't intentional (having prohibited items at the desk) but I still had to file a report and get the person in question to sign it at the end. I don't think it would be overly professional to go into more detail than that (I'm not sure why, probably from having a doctor for a husband and having worked in various confidential roles in the past, I think I'm very sensitive to that sort of thing now) but it was just all a bit weird and yuck and hmm and things.
What new thing have you done this week?
I also desparately wanted to correct another candidate's spelling but clearly had to resist.

Top Ten Songs I Like But Feel I Shouldn't...

("Shouldn't" for any number of reasons - bad song, not what I like, revile the band etc...)
1) Deeply Dippy by Right Said Fred - so I didn't say this was a modern list! It has some great lyrics...in a few places!
2) Teenagers by My Chemical Romance - I'm too old. Really. But that doesn't stop me wailing along whenever it comes on the radio
3) Back For Good by Take That - I hated Take That. I couldn't stand them. And yet...both the original and Robbie William's "special" version...(you have to go about three minutes through before you get to it...)
4) Thunderstruck by ACDC - It pretty much has to be the live version that Husbink owns, the album version is just a little disappointing. Thunder! (Although this is a live version it isn't as good as the one I know and love.)
5) Walkie Talkie Man by Steriogram - Well, they are Kiwis so I guess that makes it less surprising, but otherwise, I wouldn't expect to like this at all.
6) Jump Around by House of Pain - So yes, it holds many memories of teenage life but really...!
7) They by Jem - So part of the reason I like this is because I call it the "Bob Ballard song"...Bob Ballard being a sports news person on Radio 2...either this means something to you, or it doesn't...anywho, that's just an excuse for liking it really...
8) Anything by Bryan Adams - I just feel I really shouldn't like Bryan Adams. I don't like entirely everything by him but more than I feel I should. And worst of all, it is entirely "Everything I Do"'s fault...so that is the link
9) You Can't Touch This by MC Hammer - So I think most people (around my age anyway) like this because it is just so silly and so memory-filled but we shouldn't, should we?
10) I Just Called to Say I Love You by Stevie Wonder - Ok, so Stevie Wonder is a genius and has many fantastic songs. When you consider that this was probably pretty innovative at the time it makes it a little better to like it. What makes it worse is that I first came across this song on The Cosby Show, Mr Wonder was a guest star...
(And just to make this post a little more embarrassing...While I was finding all the YouTube clips, the ONE track that I couldn't bring myself to click away from before it was finished? Everything I Do. I know no shame...)

Mo-flamin'-vember

So I think I've done amazingly well to get over half way through Movember without ranting about it...but that show of amazing restraint and will power is now over.
Yes, it is for a good cause. Yes, it is a bonding experience for men all over the country (and I'm sure they could bond with the men in Australia too). But it is an awful, awful thing for a marriage!
The problem is, as I suspect I said around this time last year, is that a mo makes Husbink look like a dirty old man or a sleezy European car sales man or...many other not so flattering things...
And it is also rather painful. Little unsuspecting me who has momentarily forgotten that the monstrosity is there accepts a little peck from Husbink only to recoil in horror: "Ow! Ow! Ow! How did you manage to stab my nose with it?!"
As well as those issues that only relate to Husbink for me, it is just a little nauseating walking round town, the gym, the supermarket, anywhere at the moment. There are VERY few people in the world that suit a moustache and yet here are all these men with squirrels/rats/slugs/whatever attached to their faces. Many of the younger men can't actually grow much of a mo anyway and so you are left with this confusion as you talk to them. "Something isn't right, this person doesn't look like they normally do...oh, I see it, that little line of fuzz on their lip, affecting their entire look..."
Still, I'm sure they all enjoy it...!?!

World Famous in New Zealand Since Ages Ago

One of the things I'm finding most odd about preparing to go home is knowing that Husbink and I now have 18 months of shared culture that no one at home is going to understand or know about.
No one (or basically no one) will know who Dave Dobbyn or Supergroove are
No one will have seen the Trumpet togs/undies ad
No one will know all the words to Why Does Love Do This To Me by The Exponents (compulsory listening for granting of a visa into NZ...)
No one will call their flip-flops jandals or their swimming costumes togs...
And so on...

Of course the flip side to this is that people will understand when I mention Terry, Eurovision, Radio 2, Strictly Come Dancing... People will (hopefully...) understand when I start to sing the Challenge Anneka theme tune whenever required to do something in a limited time frame (though I suspect there might just be one or two people who understand that! And bizarrely it is the thing that comes up most often here that I want to make a reference to and know no one will understand).

Of course, there is also much shared culture. Most films, a lot of music, TV and so on is shared between New Zealand and England (and Australia and the US and...) but even then there is a different take on it all.

What is most strange about this is that it was also one of the hardest things about arriving here. Not knowing who any of the famous people were, not understanding in jokes and cultural comments and all that sort of thing. I'd say we still don't know all that much and there are plenty of times when we are left clueless. But there are times when we are not and it will be just the same when we get home. We've lost 18 months of British culture but we've gained 18 months of NZ culture - when we get confused, we'll just confuse everyone right back!

Camping

Husbink and I went camping for the first time together (not including our stay in the garden) this weekend. I was (and I think he was too) a little apprehensive as we have very different experiences of camping.

My first experiences of camping were in America at lovely campsites with great facilities. (The one I really remember also had a trout farm so you could go along, pay your few dollars, catch a trout, they did all the icky bits and then you could cook it on your bbq (that was part of your site) that night. That was the first time I actually like the taste of fish. Anyway, I digress.) I went camping with my family once in England but lots of our nice flash American stuff got nicked and we were rather put off. My only experience since then has been at festivals (or rather that should be "festival", being Greenbelt, a Christian festival and thus although still lacking in things like flushing toilets (even those it has now having moved site), it was still all rather nice.)

Husbink has done much more of the "proper" camping thing having grown up in the Lake District and done Duke of Edinburgh awards and that sort of thing. For him, campsites are fields that may have a tap if you are lucky. Husbink has also done the festival camping thing but his have been more of the sort where toilets get set on fire and so on...

We arrived at our site on Thursday evening and I got all confused because I'd just read too many almost-the-same descriptions of campsites during the previous few days and had forgotten what this one was actually supposed to be like. Once, I got over that though, all was well.

The weather was glorious all weekend (which didn't stop us getting ridiculously cold at night) and we chilled out very well. My only intention for the weekend was that we "went camping" and got everything in working order before our intended 2.5 week trip in January. Normally when we go away I have a stack of things I want to see or do and it was really nice to be able to chill a little more. We went to Taranaki again (we spent a weekend there back in June when it was cold and snowy) but instead of staying in a posh hotel halfway up the mountain, our campsite was right on the beach (protected by sand dunes, a hedge and the owners house). Not quite from our tent but within a minutes walk from it, we could watch the sunset over the beach and the mountain simultaneously.

We climbed a crazy rock/hill thing in New Plymouth on Friday. It started out as just a steep walk but became full on scrambling before the end - and going down was done pretty much on my bottom. As we were coming down, we met two people going up who do it every day as part of their training regime. One had a prosthetic leg. I was impressed. Near the bottom we also met some vaguely insane people on their way up...one with no shoes on, the others with sandals...I don't think they made it far.

The rest of the time involved lying in parks, reading books, strolling, eating cake, lots of fish and chips, games of cards, Surfer's Highway with the black sands of Taranaki, the adventures of camping cooking and a good time all round.

We've discovered we can camp together though I think Husbink is still not entirely convinced that I enjoyed myself. I'm all set for our big holiday now - just one or two tasks to achieve before then...(more on the rising panic of moving countries again soon)

Right now, it's no fun

Actually, that isn't true, a lot of things are a lot of fun at the moment but there are some big loomers that are less fun.
I don't really want to leave New Zealand. I'm well up for going back to the UK for a holiday, seeing all the people I miss, having a proper pint, going to Tesco and Boots, seeing more people...
But I'm so much not ready to live there again. Or rather, to not live here. And this is even the time of year that I most find it odd here (both the Christmas without family and friends and the light warm Christmas too).
But, I know that we have to go and that we are going and thus I can't be so involved or interested in things here any more. There is quite a lot going on at our church at the moment and I don't feel I can express an opinion - and perhaps don't even feel an opinion because very soon it is going to be so irrelevant to us. And what about friends here? Should I cram in as much time as possible with them or should I start cutting ties so that leaving is less painful?
Generally, I just feel highly in limbo, not one place nor the other, not wanting one place or the other. And it isn't so much fun.
So, one thing led to another and I found myself hunting on YouTube for this...and now I feel a lot better.

Holiday Home

For the past week, Husbink and I have been on holiday at home. It has been fabulous.


On Monday, we went to Lindale Farm. A petting farm, walk, shops (like a candy shop, a honey shop, an olive shop...and antique-type shops and a cafe or two). We went with our very good friends and their two small children. Child Number One is two and a bit and the perfect age for such activities. Child Number Two is only just over a month old but did admirably considering! Husbink fed lots of the animals (Child Number One was a little scared, particularly of letting the animals eat from her hands, who can blame her?). We got a little too excited by the guinea pigs that they had in one section. I do miss my Loci(McChoki) and Sugar(ly-Boogaly). After we had lunch, I went back round the walking/feeding section with Child Number One. Mostly we fed the chickens and ducks. And a pig. But I was very over excited when a chap from the farm appeared and gave me a bottle so I could feed one of the lambs. So excited. Didn't stop talking about it for the rest of the week...Sadly there was no photographic evidence for this so here's Husbink with a goat...



Tuesday was a bit of a down day, for me anyway. (Mental hormones. More of that another time I expect but for now you are safe.) We had lunch with some of Husbink's colleagues which was ok, but I was not very sociable. We then went to one of my favourite shops to cheer me up (more on this later in the week...) before heading up the valley to the Rimutaka Rail Trail (that of the 63k bike ride some months back) for a gentle stroll (when not biking the whole thing, it is very gentle and pleasant). Sadly, we didn't have the camera with us as it was beautiful and we saw some rainbow lorikeets, not so common here as across the ditch (and by virtue of not being native, are considered pests) but still fun to see. We spent the evening with the same friends as Monday. I had therapy in the form of running around the garden for half an hour with Child Number One before bedtime followed by assisting with Child Number Two's bath. Child Number Two was very unimpressed with my cold hands... The day ended much better than it started.


Wednesday was *probably* the highlight of the week. We went to Rimutaka Forest Park (actually quite a long way from where we went on Tuesday) and did a fantastic walk. We went through so many different areas of habitat: bush bordering on rainforest in density and feel, high meadow, beech forest... The only downside was that it took about an hour longer than expected and we were very ready for our picnic by the time we got back to the car (we'd not taken it with us cos we thought the timing was in our favour). The other less good thing about the walk was that I had discovered a strange downside to living here: not having stairs. The last few times we have done a reasonably uphill kind of walk, I've developed a strange pain in my legs that I've never had before. Husbink suggested that I was getting old...but also said the pain could be caused by having to lift my legs higher than usual. I realised that evening that what has changed is the lack of stairs in my everyday life...crazy!

Wednesday evening was also one of the highlights of the week. We went into Wellington and saw Pluto (ho hum, music fine but no stage presence), Supergroove (oh goodness me, possibly the best live act I've ever seen, so much stage presence, so much fun, so good, so good, so good) and Crowded House (very good but I had two problems with it: first I had meant to get round to getting their new album and educating myself before the gig but I didn't, my bad. second, they did that "wall of sound" thing a little too much - where everyone seems to just be making as much noise as they can and all musicality has gone out of the window, their bad. However, it was still very good, despite the odd moment at the end when they let about eight greyhounds run across the stage. Strange.)


Thursday was rather more low key but did include the return to one of my favourite shops... You see, we went there on Tuesday because I knew there was nothing there that I would be able to justify buying, we didn't need anything from that kind of shop (outdoors) so it was just a cheery-uppy mooch. However. They had a massive sale on tents. And it seems we managed to justify buying a tent after all (our original plan of campervanning round the North Island in January was getting too expensive). Mmm, tent. The rest of Thursday was generally a chill out prior to feeding our home group in the evening.


Friday, we ventured out again and went over the hills (yes, that would be the third mention of the Rimutakas in one post) to the Wairarapa. Where the sun always shines and the wind drops (at least a little.) We stopped off in Carterton at Paua World and enjoyed some kitsch Christmas shopping before driving on to Castlepoint. Which was lovely. Beautiful. We had lunch in the solitary cafe before walking up to the lighthouse. We then walked around the various bits of beach, watching the hundreds and hundreds of birds, paddled, ate cake... It was a grand day out. And finished with a Burger Fuel when we got back to the Hutt before Husbink went to youth group and I watched ANTM...


Saturday was mostly a jobs kind of day until the evening...when we decided to try out our tent so camped in the back garden last night! I was exhausted so we went to bed about 9pm and didn't wake up until nearly 9am (except turning over when the birds started singing and that sort of thing...) So we are pretty chuffed with our tent, sleeping bags and carry mats :) especially since it was raining most of the night and not particularly warm. Hurrah!

Sunday has been absolute down time...as my Grannie would say, it's so tiring enjoying yourself!

I hab a cobe

And it isn't very fun. Not at all. Especially as I was actually really enjoying the place I was working this week and was miffed at having to come home sick today.
Tis the worst cold I've had in a long time with associated wooziness, achiness and nausea (from too much snot. sorry.) The point at which I really knew I was sick today was when, channelling hopping, I came across Emmerdale. And didn't flick away from it.
Day time TV here isn't so good as in the UK. And yes, you might question how I'm using the word "good" there. But in the UK there would always be something that I could at least gormlessly watch for a while. Frasier. Tricia. Diagnosis Murder. Neighbours. Quincy. And so on... Today I really struggled. I watched Ellen. Which was alarming and less entertaining than often (there was a Steve Iwin-esque (well maybe Steve Irwin crossed with David Attenborough and meeting at an alarming point in the middle)American man with a bear, a lion cub, a vulture and a boar... The lion cub tried to bite Ellen, the whole audience including the man were terrifed of the vulture.
Fortunately, Mad Medea had sent me a DVD of Northern Exposure some time ago and for whatever reason I'd not watched it until today. I'm really glad I hadn't as it was sooooo much what I needed. Thank you MM! Though it has made me want to watch Men in Trees again...
Hey ho, only 45 minutes to America's Next Top Model. (Husbink has been out all day and is and youth group tonight. Ho hum...)

Busy

At the moment, that is what I am. With work, church, life...
Last night I slept for 8 hours solid. For me, this is a minor miracle. What made it even more miraculous was that I then turned over and went back to sleep for another three hours. Fortunately, today was a day off for me and only a half day for Husbink. I was very confused when I woke up. Where had the day gone?
I am now getting an icky sore throat so I'm wondering if it was less of a miracle and more of a lurgy. And I'm hoping it won't stop me from going to my friend's gig tonight. Or going to work tomorrow (I'm working at a vehicle auctioneer this week which is actually much, much fun. Mostly because the people are lovely but the work is ok too.)
I'm sure there was something I wanted to write about but it seems my brain has given up for the afternoon. Which is unfortunate when my tutee is going to arrive in half an hour or so and expect me to teach her something clever and mathsy. Hey ho.

Association

To tie memories together, there is nothing stronger for me than music.
There are a few smells that bring up powerful associations (there is a smell in my grandparents house, I don't know what it is, must be the soap they use or the washing powder or something but their house always smells of it and very few other places do) but nothing comes close to music for the strength of association.

I cannot watch 20th Century Fox films from the beginning unless I want to spend the whole film wishing I was watching Star Wars instead. Not that I don't enjoy other 20th Century Fox films, not that Star Wars is my favourite film (but must be in the top ten - possibly even 3 out of 6 would be in the top ten, anyway, I digress), but the link from the Fox music to the Star Wars theme is so strong that I cannot stop myself singing the Star Wars theme at the end of the Fox music. It was a very clever piece of marketing/music making/whatever you'd like to call it that put the initial blast of the theme music so close to the end of the Fox theme and, in some respects, so similar in style - both their own kind of pomp and circumstance. Husbink certainly has the same experience (and had it independent of me); I wonder how many Star Wars fans are inflicted with this problem?

There is a tape that my brother gave me for my 15th or 16th birthday. It is an EP and only has 5-6 songs on it. I listened to that tape over and over and over again (in the way that only a 15/16 year old can) - while reading Lord of the Rings for about the 4th time. I can neither read Lord of the Rings without thinking of that music nor listen to that music without thinking of Lord of the Rings. Sadly it conjures some of the darker parts of Lord of the Rings and leaves me feeling a little floobly. I just tracked down one of the songs on YouTube to see if it still had the same effect, to be sure I wasn't lying to you. It does, I wasn't, I feel floobly. (Oh, goodness me, by tracking that song down on YouTube, I've also seen this song, my bro listened to this NON STOP when I was about 14. His bedroom was above the kitchen so we all listened to it non stop as it reverberated through the ceiling. My mum made up her own random words for the song because she couldn't make out any of the real ones. Now I'm sitting at the computer, headbanging.)

This morning I cycled to church at about 7.10am (as the sun was breaking over the hills, it was beautiful) to watch the rugby world cup final (once and for all, yes, I'd have liked England to win but I'm not gutted - i think it far better for the sport for a different team to win each year). Cycling along, singing to myself, the song that came to mind was Vindaloo. Because there was a world cup (admittedly the wrong sport) in France. And what can you sing at such a time but Vindaloo? (Perhaps cycling down a quiet street in a nation fundamentally supporting the opposition singing "we're Eng-a-land! We're gonna score one more than you! England!" wasn't the best thing to do...) And of course, singing Vindaloo sends me back to 1998, to that world cup but more to the point, to the end of A levels, the end of my school career, my leavers ball when there was an England game...and we won...and the rest of the evening all the DJ played was Vindaloo and this (not as good as the original, though to be fair you might be pushed to notice the difference). And that was fine with all of us. We had set moves by the end of the night. Teachers included.

I could carry on and on, song after song, as each one takes me to a different memory. But I'll finish with just one last one. One that actually set me off thinking about this.

On Friday nights, I used to go to drama group at church (hello ruth) and, as often as not, my Dad would pick me up afterwards. And we would listen to songs that we liked too loud, singing along and being silly. One such song was this. I think it was this song that led to me sticking my feet out of the sun roof (to see if I could, and then because I could) on more than one occasion. However, the song I was thinking of was this one. I still love this song, now for so many reasons (Terry Wogan singing along being one of them). But what I remember most and is still the thing that makes me happiest when I hear this song; trying to come back in at the right time after the second break. There are two breaks in this song, one near the beginning which is an easy count and you can all come back in right on time but the second break is random, you can't count it, you just have to know. And we would sing this song over and over, me and my dad, trying to get the break right and collapsing in giggles when we didn't. Yesterday, driving to the fruit market, I got it right. :)

Never, ever, ever again

Spin classes. Who came up with that bright idea for torture?!
I thought I was going to die after about five minutes. It took me most of the rest of the day (the class finished at 10am) to be able to breathe deeply again without wheezing and coughing.
I'm not even sure I got much benefit from the class as most of it was damage control: how am I going to get out of here without puking my guts up or dying? Eventually, my knee started to hurt, what a blessed relief! I could rub my knee and pretend that was why I was so awful at the class.
Husbink went to. He has almost persuaded me that it was really good for me and that I should go again. But I think that *almost* will stay an *almost* forever...

In other news...I scare people. I was aware of this when I was a teenager, but I'd forgotten. Hey ho.

Action stations

I love knitting. So therapeutic and yet still "achieving"!
The other day, Husbink was tidying the kitchen and I wanted to keep chatting to him but couldn't really help (due to the shape of our kitchen) so figured I might as well get a bit of knitting done while chatting. So I tucked the ball of wool into my pocket and stood in the kitchen, knitting and chatting. Husbink laughed at me. Which I expected and probably deserved.
A little while later, I did need to do something but didn't want to put my knitting down so tucked the needles into my other pocket, wool stretched across my front. I was wearing cargo(ish) trousers...and Husbink dubbed me All Action Knitting Barbie.
He's called me many things over the last few years but that one is pretty special...

Frightening Times

The other week I went to the supermarket, as I do most weeks.

On my shopping list was loo roll. I wasn't feeling desperately well and so was trying to get the shopping done as quickly as possible, thus grabbing and running as quickly as I could. When I got to the loo roll aisle, I saw that a brand we sometimes use had a 3 4-packs for $5 deal so hurredly grabbed the three packs and left. The only factor taken into consideration was whether they were scented - and to ensure that I picked the unscented variety (really, what purpose does scented loo roll serve in the world? other than to make me feel slightly nauseated when I catch a wiff of it?). So my three unscented four packs went into the trolley and off I went. No problem. Until I opened one of the packets this week and found that the loo roll was decorated.

Like this:

They are possibly the freakiest sheep I've ever seen. And the cows aren't great either. I had to assure Husbink that I did not intentionally choose this loo roll in case he thought less of me because of it.

Really, there are enough alarming, scary, upsetting things in the world without being faced with these guys every time I go to the toilet. Only three more rolls to go... I haven't dared check what the other packs contain!

Is it me?

For the last week or so I've been amazed and vaguely horrified by the news coverage of the Diana/Dodi inquest.
Is it normal for jurors to be taken to the scene of a crash? To be shown the route taken? To be shown marks on a pillar? To be shown round a hotel? I accept this is not a normal case but equally it is not the first time this case has been delved into.
Is it really front page news compared to other stories that could be there? Is it really something that needs to make the headlines half way round the world? I guess if there were some really monumental findings from all this, they could be of significance... What irritates me the most is the longer it goes on, the more I see links to pages about it or hear the headlines on the news about it, the more I find myself thinking that I want to know what they have to say.
Also on the front page of the BBC website today is this article about the UN and Burma that has some really hopeful bits in it. The fact that China have turned around and stopped objecting to a statement by the UN Security Council "deploring Burma's military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters" is, I hope very, very much, a sign of a turn in the tide. The article is not all good news but a start is a start.

Good things about wet days

I love it when the clouds come down low, so low that they seem to be where they should not be. So low that they hug the hills, hiding parts of them. So low that it feels like I could run up into the hills and be in the clouds. Cuddled up in a great big ball of cotton wool, hiding and hidden. I know if I did run into the hills, I wouldn't be able to tell when I reached the middle of the clouds, that it would be cotton woolly, just as I know that if I jumped out of a 747 at altitude, the clouds that look so wonderful, as if they would be the perfect ski fields, the perfect place to play and rest, would not be. This knowledge stops me doing these things but doesn't stop me looking and imagining.

I love that all this rain makes it so easy for mummy and daddy blackbird to bring food to their new chicks. I love that I could look out of the window at almost any point yesterday and see one of them flying into or out of our hedge bringing food or going to collect more. I love that when there was no sign of the blackbirds I could instead watch the thrush (also building a nest in our hedge) hopping over the water logged lawn, tipping his head to listen for the insects.

I love the wonderfulness of coming inside again. Of finding that it is warm and is dry. Knowing that I can stay warm and dry as long as I like. I like the excuse wet days give for cups of tea and bisuits. I love being inside watching outside.

I love the sound of the rain. Sometimes, it is so loud that it wakes me in the night but lying there listening to it is wonderful.

I love that even the smallest excursion into the outdoors feels like a wonderful and noble thing, something to be rewarded for.

I love what it means, that I know it will stop and when it does, the ground will be refreshed, the grass a little longer, the flowers a little more fed.

Where next?

In the past few weeks, through one thing and another - and about one thing and another, not just Burma - I've realised that something that I thought had died in me is still there and struggling to get out - my passion.

When I was younger I was always deeply passionate about something (though that thing changed with alarming regularity) but over the past few years (maybe as many as seven), I've struggled to raise my passion's weary head and get caught up in a moment, a cause, a plan. I've exerted more energy on worrying than on caring, more on anxiety than on action.

But now that seems to be starting to turn around. It perhaps started with some rather insignificant, silly things, that got me excited again. Now those silly little passions seem to be building towards something bigger, a more useful outlet for all that enthusiasm and excitement. So the problem that now arises is how to channel it, how to not be like my teenage self, so enthusiastic but for so many things that I failed to achieve much at all. Right now, I want to do everything, save the world, in one giant leap. I know I'm not a very practical person, much more of an ideas person. (I used to think that because I'm quite organised, I'm quite practical but I've realised that just isn't the case.) So how do I choose something, get off my backside and actually start acting?!

(In other news, I did turn down the job with the changed description, and feel a whole heap better for it!)

Saturday

On Saturday we did go and participate in the International Day of Action for Burma.
The Wellington Burmese community had played a large part in the organisation of the event and as a newbee to such things, I was impressed.
I wanted to go for the sake of going but it was a bonus to have about six speakers talking from a range of angles (NZ MPs, Amnesty, Trade Unions, local Burmese...) giving me heaps more information (much of which I fear went in one ear and out the other). I think their turnout was about double what they were expecting. I'm dreadful at estimating sizes of places, numbers of people etc etc, but I think there were about 200 there.

I'm still undecided on the whole sanctions issue (though I suppose it isn't really a thing for me to decide - though I would need to decide before writing letters requesting it I suppose). Today my brain is not really with me (having service led and preached at last night's service - plus all the crazy getting up in the middle of the night over the weekend to watch rugby) so I can't quite be applying my mind to such things right now. (Even thinking about thinking is giving me a headache!)

Flurble

I have heaps of half-blogs floating round my head but I'm currently being distracted by silly fretting so I thought if I got this out of my head then I might manage more coherent thoughts...

A little while back I temped in a school for a few days. I really liked it and said I'd be happy to work there again. They then asked for me to be there officer manager type for 4-6 weeks while they found a replacement. Although I tend not to go for full time work, it fitted quite nicely so I thought I'd take it.

Today, having agreed and got it all sorted I got a revised job description... No longer is it office manager but reception/admin assistant... The wage remains the same, the hours remain the same (which are not the hours of the receptionist) but I am concerned that I'm going to get there and discover that really all I'm going to be doing for 4-6 weeks is reception work.

I've not done a vast amount of reception work but it's been enough to know that it really isn't my cup of tea. I can tolerate it for a few days...but 4-6 weeks? When I thought I was going to be doing an interesting job? I don't know...

More on Burma

I have had various people point me towards various sources of information in the last few days and have continued to read the BBC website and any other info I can on Burma. I still feel deeply uninformed and helpless but...
I'm hoping to go to a protest tomorrow in the centre of Wellington. If you haven't seen anywhere else, Saturday, October 6th is a day of international action for Burma. The link in the previous post (also here), tells you about protests all over the world.
This blog that I have just come across thanks to Rosanna, has lots of information on it, heaps and heaps of links. (Oh, and there is heaps on Facebook too.)
The question I feel unable to resolve myself with all that I've read so far is whether or not sanctions and boycotts are a good thing. It is a question that I often ponder whether they are good things or bad things (e.g. in the case of slave labour for clothes, the principal is not to stop buying the products as then you take away the only wage they have - instead you should shop noisily). The only boycott I have ever stuck to is that of Nestle (on the whole baby milk front, not as a globalisation issue) - it had just become habit until recently when Husbink did some research and I think he is probably more actively pro the boycott than I am. I have generally thought of boycotts as something that protects my own sense of morality rather than impacting the big multinational company (for example, when I heard of a particular designers racial "issues", I decided I would never buy anything of their's again not because it would impact them but because I would not need to worry about where my money was going - seeing as I'm not particularly into labels, this wasn't really a hardship for me!).
Does anyone have any thoughts on sanctions and boycotts?

Feeling Helpless

Yesterday, I received an email with this link to sign a petition regarding the horrific events of the past few days and weeks in Burma as the ruling military junta have attacked, killed or imprisoned many, many peaceful monks and protesters. The aim of the petition is really focussed on China, as a major force in Burma and one that perhaps does not want things to change there. (I don't claim to know very much at all, please look at the link and other sources rather than taking what I say as fact.)
Burma has been a "situation" that has blipped on and off my radar a number of times over the past 5-10 years. I think I first became aware of the situation through a talk at some women's event or other about the example set by Aung San Suu Kyi and every once in a while, something comes up that reminds me of the situation and that, for them nothing has changed.
After signing the petition yesterday, I sat here feeling useless. What on earth can I do for these people other than sign some petition that yes, is going to be delivered to some UN bod, and yes, has now almost 480,000 signatures (that is around 150000 signatures since I signed sometime less than 24 hours ago). I can join marches, I can protest (I have not protested for anything before but I have found that there is a local protest on Saturday), I can pray, but can I really do anything?
In the case of natural disasters and the like, although I mostly don't do anything, I always feel I can, or rather could. I could send money, food, clothes, whatever the need was...it feels like something can be done. Against something like this, it just feels such a world away in terms of knowledge, experience, abilities...
I went onto the BBC website this morning to read more, see if there was anymore news, see if I could understand anymore. There was nothing on the front page. I did track down heaps on information eventually (after a couple of wrong guesses at where Burma would be bracketed in the BBC's global chunks - falling on the border between their South Asia pages and their Asia-Pacific pages (the second one having the more information)).
When it comes down to it, petitions (there is lots more information out there about other petitions, ways of making your voice heard etc etc), rallies and prayers are probably all I can offer in this instance so I shall have to do my best with all of them.

Spring is Sprung

Spring has sprung, the grass is riz

Look at where the birdies is

The birdies on the wing.

On the wing? But that's absurd!

The wing is on the bird.

(Having hunted for this poem that my dad used to say when I was little, it seems there is a wide range of versions and almost as wide a range of possible authors, so no credits here!)

Spring have sprung means the winds, the winds have returned! Today is the worst day yet this spring and, having not spent spring in this house before, it is kinda scary. Everything is rattling, the chimney is howling, as Husbink put it, we don't have a draft in the bathroom, we have a breeze!

Very, very glad Husbink took the car to work this morning instead of cycling...

Things I Don't Do Enough

1. Breathe

Not normal breathing, but slow, deep breathing.

I went to yoga this week for the first time in quite a while and after that first five minutes I was ready to leave - not because it was bad but because I'd done what I really needed to do. I'd sat still, comfortably but with good posture, and I'd focussed on my breathing. Slow, deep breaths. I felt instantly amazing and healthy.

2. Go to this cinema

Husbink and I went for a date on Tuesday afternoon. The cinema is small and lovely and has a cafe. We went in to watch the film, sat down on our two seater sofa, cushions and all, me with a pot of earl grey (I'm still liking coffee but I'm back on tea too!), Husbink with his moccachino and had a thoroughly enjoyable time.

3. Watch

As you are by now all well aware, I "do" a lot. I have lists, I must achieve! But watching, like deep breathing, is so good. Today, I'm watching the rain (and being grateful for my long socks and little heater). But watching the sea, watching people, watching birds, watching flowers in the breeze, watching sun and shadows...

4. Stop procrastinating

This week, I've been writing two talks and a reflection for our church's women's retreat this weekend. It is my top priority at the moment, I really want to do it - and to do it well so that the women get something out of the weekend...and yet, here I am. So much of this week has disappeared in a fog of procrastination!

5. Smile

It's not that I don't smile a lot anyway, but I think that is an area where there is always room for improvement.

Falling Over

Husbink starts nights tonight so got up at 5am this morning (so that he could be tired by lunch time and go back to sleep). When I got up he made me pancakes (yum) and we still had a few hours to kill before he needed to sleep and it is yet another beautiful day (yay) so we decided we had to go somewhere. And after a bit of umming and ahhing we thought we'd go to Mt Victoria in Wellington - for the views from the top and also it allegedly has many Lord of the Rings filming sites (according to our book). We know now that we will never actually find the sites listed in said book but it usually provides a decent enough trip out.

We got to the lookout and I had much fun snap happying the views and the planes landing and taking off. Then we went to climb an extra little bit to get more views (particularly decent views back to the Hutt) and that is when the falling started happening. I suppose that makes it sound like there was heaps and heaps of falling but really, I'm an adult, falling over twice in the space of five minutes probably counts as "heaps of falling". My old and battered trainers (I had them last time we were out this way so they are over four years old) just could not cope. The first fall I had the camera in my hands and so all I was thinking about was not breaking it - so my elbow got a little broken instead. The second fall was a rather more classic feet-from-under-me-on-my-bum...

So we gave up on Mt Vic and the paths around it and took a little detour on the way home to the Botantic Gardens. Where they really believe it is spring. It was beautiful.

What a weekend

We have just come back from three nights up in Napier. It was beautiful. Gorgeous weather. We went to Napier in October last year and it was beautiful then too. We'd prepared ourselves that it might not be so beautiful this time but it really, really was.

On Thursday we mooched up through the Wairarapa but still arrived in Napier too early so had to play frisbee on the beach (shucks) before heading to our B&B. Which was lovely - above is the view from our balcony where we sat to drink tea and eat home made biscuits (more left in our room each day - yum!)

The purpose of the trip was to go on a wine tour that my brother and sister in law gave us for Christmas last year so that was Friday. It was great fun. Five wineries (we reckon about 35 wines in the day, I'm very glad I limited myself to a sip for most of them!), heaps of info, beautiful settings, a fantastic lunch. The photo is at the fourth winery. Considering that, I don't think we look too bad!

One winery in particular was amazing - very small, very enthusiastic, very interesting wine and let us taste from the barrel which was cool - a chardonnay before all the oak and a red (we can't quite remember, a merlot we think) when it was very new and young and fresh.

We tried to be restrained...we only came home with five bottles of wine...but we are waiting on an email about a port from the very good winery (which is called Moana Park by the way, should you ever come across them.)

We also drove up to the top of Te Mata Peak and got amazing views of the area.

The rest of the trip saw us cycling, playing mini golf, visiting a farmers market, playing with the camera and tripod, going to the aquarium (bit disappointing, compared to Sydney), eating far too much, going to a chocolate factory to balance all the wine...

We stopped on the way home at a DOC bird sanctuary. It was a slightly random unplanned stop and we didn't know quite what was there but as it turned out, we were just in time for the kaka (North Island parrots) feeding. The kaka are wild, free flying and not dependent on the feeding to survive. The feeding is mainly used by the staff to keep a track of the population - if they don't see a bird there for a while they go out in the forest to track them down and make sure that all is well. The project started with around 20 birds about 10-15 years ago and now has over a hundred. And a heck of a lot of predators gone from the forest. Their wild kiwi population has gone from 7 to 19 in four years. Very good!

All round, a fantastic trip - that has hopefully led to Husbink being fully healthy again and me being fully chilled again. :)

"Wild" life

I mentioned a while back how relaxed the ducks round here are getting about cars.

I had just driven past this guy. I must have gone within inches of him. He didn't flinch.

And far more excitingly, kereru (native NZ pigeons) have started visiting our garden. They make a fantastic sound when flying. I won't attempt to describe it...

Something is wrong...

For years, since about the age of 8, I've been a tea drinker. It's not that I haven't dabbled in other hot beverages - I've been quite committed to hot blackcurrant at times, the occasional hot chocolate and so on. But for the last few years, since uni really, I have been a very dedicated tea drinker. Those of you who know me will already know that my tea drinking is a little "different" (weak and black) but it is still tea!
But this last week or so I've been getting bored of tea. I've not really been enjoying my morning cup of tea, sometimes I've even skipped it, and I've certainly not put the kettle on again for seconds.
But what is really, really odd is that I've been craving coffee instead... I've sometimes dallied with liking coffee in the past but have mostly been put off by it not liking me. (I would expand to double my normal size within a few minutes of drinking it...people would ask when the baby was due...) In the UK I could ONLY drink coffee from Costa - Starbucks, Nero anywhere else and boom, blowing up like a balloon.
But here, I have been slowly discovering, I can drink coffee. And Husbink got an exciting new coffee pot thing last week that makes really nice coffee. And a zizzer so there can be frothy milk too. And now I'm wanting coffee. Which is just very much not me (I think le welsh will confirm). I'm wondering what aliens abducted me without my knowledge...

BLEUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGH!

That is all.

A very bitty post. Not quite a list, just lots of bits...

Bit 1. So first of all, is it some kind of blogger rule (as in www.blogger..., not as in bloggers) that I must never, ever, ever be able to get the word verification right the first time? And yet I can always get it the second time (except just now when I actually couldn't tell at all what the letters were meant to be). I don't think I have some strange perception issue that means I can type a random assortment of letters correctly the second time I try but never the first...and it isn't like they stay the same. So yes, I have concluded blogger is out to get me...



Bit 2. Today is the kind of day when I would never need to live anywhere but here ever again. The sky is blue and the hills are green and it is lovely and warm (in the car, in the sun....it is actually really rather chilly). Ah.... (The pic is from Saturday, which was another lovely, sunny day).

Bit 3. There are lots of ducks at the end of our road and they are no longer in any way afraid of cars. A number of times recently I've had to just sit and wait for them to move. Which is quite fun in an odd sort of way when you aren't trying to get anywhere very fast. They are also showing signs that it is spring and have started pairing up, sitting cosily in twos. I'm looking forward to seeing all the ducklings!

Bit4. (Quite a lot related to bit three). Several families of blackbird and starling are making nests in our garden. Hurrah!

The Wonder of Husbink

Yesterday, Husbink and I were both off, Husbink's yucky cold/flu was sufficiently gone and there were no pressing jobs to be done. So I took Husbink into town for the afternoon and evening to treat him on my wages (seeing as I don't have wages all that often).

We took the train. Mooched around some shops (and bought me some heeled work shoes to cope with the very long trousers I have just bought (I'm still having to hem them)). Went to a cafe and had cake. Bought a tripod which we've been trying to do for ages. Spent a long time mooching in a second hand book shop. Had a drink in a nice pub/cafe. Went to a Turkish restaurant for dinner. Caught the train home. Took silly pictures of ourselves using the new tripod. All good. Except...

Husbink had persuaded me to wear a skirt (which I wanted to do anyway but was feeling too grumpy to do without persuasion) which meant I was wearing my almost knee high beige boots that are rather old and tired now.

We let a little later than we meant to for the train and had to rush a bit. We walked around quite a lot of town. After our dinner, we left a little later for the train than we meant to and had to rush a lot. All this meant that by the time we got back to our station and had the fifteen minute walk home ahead of us, my feet were feeling very broken.

I hobbled up to the top of the bridge to get out of the station and knew I couldn't wear my boots any longer. It was quite cold and wet but taking my shoes off was the only option. I considered putting on my new shoes but with their heels and their brand newness, I didn't think this would help. I walked down the bridge, along the pavement, across the road barefoot. About a minutes worth of walking. When Husbink said "would you like my shoes?" and I said "yes". So I put his shoes on and became capable of making it him. He rolled up his trousers against the wet and walked the rest of the way home barefoot.

He is very wonderful my Husbink.

(I still wince when walking today. Tomorrow I'm doing a new temping job and planning on wearing the new heels. I think I'm probably mad.)

That's us. Using the tripod. Displying my knitting escapades. :) (We both have very sore feet at this point. Our smiles may appear a little forced!)

Memory

I have been reminded just now, by Rosanna's post of perhaps one of the oddest but loveliest while sad nights I've spent in a youth hostel.
It was September 11th (you know, the first one, the one that gained it the meaning). We were in a room that was really just a room in a house, just outside the family's dining room. We were on the West coast of Canada. Vancouver I think but a long way out of town. We'd been woken up at some point that morning but the son of the house banging on the door and telling us we had to put the telly on. And the day had been "odd" from there on...
There were four of us in the room, me and my travelling partner (I think I've previously called her Anne on here), a woman, I don't remember where she was from - Eastern Europe maybe and quite a quiet chappy, again I don't remember where from, perhaps south America. Anyway, after we'd all watched the TV for a couple of hours, it was time to try to do something with the day so Anne and I went out. We already knew it was the european woman's birthday and we felt we had to do something about it, after all her birthday would always be associated with that date from then on.
We'd already bought each other fluffy moose (we were in Canada) and I think we decided to furnish her with a similar fluffy moose.
The day was all very disorienting. But that night, we were all back in the dorm, quite early, all not quite sure how we felt.
And it all got very silly. We lay there that night, lights out, no one able to sleep, debating what noise moose make. And demonstrating. Heaps of madness. Bonding.
We all went our separate ways the next morning with no contact details, no thought we'd ever get in touch again. Just a strange day that we will all remember.

Proactive

Yesterday disappeared on me. It was one of those days that just didn't work. This morning, I woke up at 6am stressing because I'd realised I'd forgotten (keep up!) that our contents insurance expires next week and I'd need to sort it...and not keep feeling so happy about money (or rather fripperies...) and that our WOF (the NZ car fitness test thing) is due next week too. And it was all a bit wargh.
However, it did mean that by the time Husbink left for work at 7.30 I was more than ready to start the day. So I having bible studied and gotten dressed at a far earlier hour than I'd really intended for a Saturday, I went walking with the camera because it is a beautiful morning. Sadly I couldn't get close enough to the weirdy weirdy bird that Husbink and I saw a few weeks ago that seems to live round the corner from us. I don't think I can describe it either. Very odd bird!
Now I'm going to sort out the insurance thing and do other jobs.
And not let the day disappear. I've planned to go "fleh" at some point but I want to avoid accidentally doing it all day...

Socially Inept

I seem to have lost my social skills over the last few days. I can't quite put my finger on exactly what has gone wrong but every time I leave a social setting I just have the distinct feeling that I've been really weird.
Last night, we had people over, as we do every Thursday, for bible study. And at the end of the evening, I got the distinct impression they wanted to run away and hide! I'm not *just* being paranoid, I had been acting really quite oddly all evening.
And today I met a good friend for a cafe moment (not a McCafe moment) and was clearly being odd as she asked several times if all was well... I think I became more normal as time went on but really not great!
But at least I have an evening on my own...I can't scare anyone else...or perhaps I will just hone my weirdy weirdy skills so by the time I'm next in public I can really work the weirdness!

Priorities

A while back, as I think you know but I'm not going to do all that back reading to be sure, I was all set to tell the temping agency to take me off there books. I didn't need work financially and I wasn't going to keep doing dreadful jobs (like the day in the tobacco firm or the awful, awful call centre) just for the sake of it. Instead, I would fill my time with voluntary stuff and other such priorities.
Then the agency brought out the prison job. Which I loved, and which I told them I would happily do again (or other work in the prison or...). And then they come up with a job in a school - the work itself is probably going to be of the dishwater variety but I'm quite keen to go into a school and maybe if I make some friends there I could observe a class or two and decide whether or not Husbink is mad for suggesting I do a PGCE when we get home... (Admittedly the school I'm going into at this point is primary and I'd be wanting to do secondary if anything but at least it means the agency knows what interests me).
All these other things that I had decided were priorities are now having to jostle their way in. I'm still working very part time (I finished on Tuesday at lunchtime and I next work next Thursday) but I had successfully filled my time with other things. Some of which it is easy to squeeze out whether or not I want to.
I'm quite happy to be going with the flow, it is all part of this adventuring thing, and while good work is turning up, I can take it, as long as I remain happy to turn down the naff jobs. But I do feel a little like a reed blowing in the wind making my decisions this way. The only thing that is a set priority is that I don't work Sundays and I make sure that Husbink and I have at least one day fully off together a week. Should I be more decisive and set more priorities? More definites? More fixed points? Or is blowing in the wind a valid way to go, for now at least? I think as time goes on the priorities will become clearer, as I cease to have the time to do everything, it will be obvious what I need to be doing.

Blogging in my head

Over the past week while I have been quiet on here, I have written heaps of blogs in my head. They were incredibly entertaining, showing masterful wit, inspiring, heart warming pieces. Of course, you'll have to take my word for it because I never got the chance to write them down and one by one they were driven from my mind...
Ah well. I've finished at the prison now. I've got a cold. (But not as badly as many people round here have had it.) Generally I feel a bit mushy.
And I'm looking through pictures on facebook of a friend's wedding. Well, I guess a friend of a friend. We were in the same "group" at school but were never quite friends in our own right. It is odd looking through the pics in that whole "here are people I was friends with now I'm not really and yet there they all are" way. Which is something that facebook does a lot. Shows me heaps of people that were at one point important in my life to varying degrees and yet now I have nothing to do with them except this little facebook string. Mostly this just produces an "oh right" kind of feeling in me. It is nice to see what people are up to, that they are doing well, whatever, but that is about as far as it goes. I'm not really saddened that we aren't friends any more and thus I'm not jubilant that we have this way of becoming friends again. But I'm not horrified either.
But there are one or two that this fake contact with really saddens me. The friends that I never understood why we lost touch anyway. Facebook doesn't seem to have provided the way back in those cases. Yes, we are "friends" according to facebook but there is no renewed communication or any other sign of actual friends. And it makes me feel really yucky though I'm not sure I can describe it any more eloquently than "yucky". Certainly a little sad and a little confused but also just a mush of undefined memories that come up with thinking about these people. And as they are mainly teenage memories there is a whole heap fo angsty yuck that I haven't really felt in years.
There is a plus side, there are a few people who I'd lost touch with through no good reason that facebook has made a difference too. A couple of friends who really are friends again now and that is great. And a couple of people that I hadn't lost touch with but we hadn't found the best way to communicate over all these thousands of kilometres and facebook seems to have provided that method.
In other news, we had a lunar eclipse last night. Except it was very cloudy. Hey ho.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

As the more quick witted amongst you will recall, it isn't that long since we had a wedding anniversary so this is not a wedding related post.
Indeed, it is our New Zealand anniversary today. I feel this ought to be a time of remarkable insights, an illuminating post of all the things I've done or learnt or seen in the last year...
But my brain just isn't there. I had a reasonably quiet day at the prison today and quiet work days just make me so sleepy. I did however have a tour of the whole (well, sort of the whole) prison today. I've been in cells. And I've been shouted at and whistled at. There were points that were a little scary but on the whole once I got inside the prison it was much nicer than I expected - especially the youth unit.
So instead of writing you very deep and meaningful stories about the past year this evening, I'm watching The Rich List (an NZ quiz show) and faffing on Facebook (or whatever derrogatory term you'd like to use for that internet tool...) playing with a map and filling out all the cities I've been to. As yet, the one I live in has been impossible to add...

Not enough clothes

I'm surviving this whole work malarkey. Today was the first time I did a whole day of work in a long time...some time in June when I did the horrific call centre job...
The work is really interesting (for a temp job) and today I spent 4.5 hours in a meeting all about improvements in the prison service. It was very interesting to compare to other public sector organisations I've worked in.
But my big problem, as the title gives away, is that I simply don't have enough work clothes anymore. I have a couple of work skirts...but where tights fight on me I'm still a little sore from surgery (which is beginning to bother me...it has been eight weeks or so now and surely I shouldn't hurt anymore...) so I'm a little limited in how I can wear the skirts (my one pair of hold ups are just going round and round the wash...but I've also become vaguely allergic to the holding up bit...). And then I have a pair of trousers that indicate that yes, I really was a lot thinner when we arrived in NZ than I am now! And another pair of trousers that I just close my eyes and pretend really hard that they are smart...
And all my "smart" tops are falling to pieces, cos we only meant to spend a year here... Actually, that is a point in general, everything we bought when we got here to last us how long we were meant to be here is beginning to fall to pieces...can it all last to February?!

A bit of a shock to us all

I've done some work! Some actual leaving the house, being given money for it work!
I was reaching the point of being all done with the agency and saying no thank you, no more work, there are other things I want to do with my time. But then they came along yesterday morning and said "could you work at the prison for a few days?" and I said "yes please" (admittedly with several provisos on the timing and so on...) So I've spent the last two afternoons and will spend a large chunk of next week working in an office "behind the wire" and above "the yard". I was super keen because I thought it might help with the volunteering that I will soon be starting in one of the prisons around here and because the work is more interesting than a lot of what the agency gets - and it (reasonably) fitted with Husbink's shifts.
So yesterday, I drove up and saw a real life prison for the first time in my life. So many TV programmes and films show prisons that I hadn't contemplated that I'd never actually seen one before. I was shocked. I can't really tell you what shocked me. I think I'd just been rather naive. It is ugly. It is tatty. It is scary. I have to go through heaps of security to get to my desk. It includes a point where I go into a "cage". On my first trip through this point I got (very briefly) stuck. Less than a minute between the guard closing the first gate and opening and second but it was scary. I didn't think I was stuck, I didn't think anything bad would happen but I did get just the most fleeting sense of what it must be like to be "inside".
Even though I'm working there extremely briefly and just doing admin, I am really excited about some of the things I've heard about happening in the prison service - the opportunities given to prisoners to give them real life skills to help them avoid reoffending, efforts to improve the systems and decrease chances for "custodial mishaps". Clearly, it isn't all happy happy fluffy fluffy. Clearly. But although still quite nervous about it, I'm pretty excited about the volunteering.

The Sydney Post

It wasn't the kind of holiday to go into massive detail over so here are some pictures and the odd thought or too. It was a chilling, family time. Great to see my brother, his wife, her parents. Great to be in the sun and be warm.

Great to visit the Domain and the Botanical Gardens, to lie in the sun while Husbink photographed bats.

Great to see the crazy ibis, the multitude of cockatoos - even if Husbink got attacked!

Great to walk, see the sea, paddle in the sea (both with our feet and in kayaks).

Great to go to the new wildlife thing in Darling Harbour.

Great to walk through the butterfly enclosure and make friends with the inhabitants.

Great to spend a whole afternoon having lunch, drinking wine, getting sunburnt, being with my brother. Great to be very silly after too much wine.

Cake!

As many of you will know, I like cake. If I want/need a treat, it will be cake. Cake is not for everyday but for special days - birthday cakes, Christmas cakes, feeling-bleugh-cakes, holiday cakes, going away cakes, it's Thursday cakes...ok, so it doesn't have to be much of a special day but, on the whole, cake isn't what I have in my house all the time for general munching. That is reserved for biscuits. :)
So, anyway, as you will probably be aware (I think I've gone on about it?!), I'm quite into baking at the moment. And Husbink has been missing a cake that his mum makes so he got the recipe and I made it yesterday. I've made it once before and while I was mixing it, it didn't seem right. Fundamentally, I was still making a fruit cake, but I remembered the cake that Husbink wanted being remarkably easy to make. This cake was not easy. But I persevered, assuming it was the lack of gym time over the last few months that was making it quite so physically draining! Into the oven it went...
Three hours later, it turned out that I'd made a full on Christmas cake (I didn't recognise it as such due to the lack of alcohol in the recipe...). Oops. Still, the weather is feeling right today! So today I have had my first attempt at marzipanning and proper icing a cake. I'm quite chuffed. (Clearly, I should have taken a photo to put here but perhaps I can be more chuffed if I leave it to your imaginations and you can imagine the most beautiful cake you've seen...) And then I made apple cookies. Just so there was more bad stuff in the house. Or should that be good stuff? On Thursday, I'm going to make chocolate caramel muffins...

Back home

We are returned from a 5 night jaunt in Sydney. Which was almost all very good (there were a couple of really low points - mainly the journey there...).
We did come home however to find that our phone and broadband no longer worked. This is the second time we've come home from a holiday with my brother to find something "wrong"...This time was far less upsetting than the last return when it was the gas that had been switched off due to a complete balls up by the power co. That involved lots of crying and being very cold! This more involved lots of confusion when trying to use the phone, I was quite tired and a little slow on the uptake and it just took a really long time to actually understand that the phone wasn't worked. Husbink was in the shower at the time and I just assumed when he came out it would magically start working...
All it did take in the end was a man to come round today and fix the cable that was broken "at the top". And now we have connection with the world again. Isn't that nice?
(More about Sydney, and lots of photos, soon)

Feeling: Time for a ramble

This week, as you know already, I have had a tendency to grumpiness. While I think my hormones have gone mental due to the other hormonal type symptoms such as really sore boobs, I don't think they can take the full rap for my mood swings of late.
(By the way, it's that sort of time in the evening when I should probably already be in bed or at least be making my way there. However, having spent the evening with 30-odd hyper teenagers, I thought I'd spend some time here instead. I also have beer. You have been warned.)
The last six weeks have been almost entirely "time out" for me. No work (except the few hours of tutoring). No responsibilities (except the few service leading occasions). No need to be task oriented (I couldn't even do the food shopping on my own as I couldn't push the trolley).
I've been free to read or watch telly or do anything really as long as it didn't involve too much energy. In some ways I've loved it. But... As previously mentioned, I don't do well at not "achieving" and always feel a need to justify myself. And at times I've felt a huge lack of self worth through my inability to do anything at all. Which then leads to grumpiness which leads to being nasty to Husbink, defeating, as I see it, one of my primary purposes in life of loving him and caring for him. Which leads to grumpiness...
Swinging away from the day to day for a moment...I have reached a point recently of being less bothered by the "big picture". I no longer feel a need to know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. I'm sure I'll do something. It could be being a mother. It could be setting up my own business. It could be teaching. It could be any number of things. But I no longer feel like I have to know NOW. I'm happy taking the journey I'm on and seeing where God leads my steps. There are question marks over lots of areas but they don't concern me like they used to. And one of the big things is that I've accepted something that I always thought I believed and clearly didn't: the size of my salary has absolutely nothing to do with my worth.
However, accepting that does not mean that I have miraculously gained a wonderful sense of self worth and so on that has previously alluded me. And so we return to the original point: It is not entirely due to my hormones that I am grumpy. While I've settled myself about all these future questions, I still cannot entirely love myself right here, right now. Part of me is shrieking out "get busy! do more stuff! fill the time! that'll fix it!" While another part says "stay slow, keep giving yourself the time, answer the questions, don't hide them". Put like that, it makes the second voice sound the inifinitely wiser but I'm not 100% convinced that is the case. A mixture of the two perhaps, but achieving the balance?
I could carry on but I think it really is time to be sleeping now. And time to stop confusing you with my blathering.

Extreme Excitement

While hurriedly walking down the chocolate aisle to avoid temptation today I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks.
For there, on the shelf was a little display lacking in any pomp and circumstance but perhaps the most wonderful thing I've seen in the past wee while.
Our supermarket has started to stock Green & Blacks.
Despite the vow to not by any chocolate today, I had to buy some Maya Gold to be sure I wasn't hallucinating...

Hormones. Grrr.

Or at least, that is what I like to blame my currently abysmal mood on. I imagine I should not be surprised after being chopped open and having had various of my more tender innards prodded and scraped and set free that my dear little chemicals have gone slightly doolally. But that doesn't make me any more pleased about it. Mostly, Husbink is catching the majority of the flack. However adverts are having a tough run of it too. This afternoon it was the radio advert that told me "more people use the yellow pages" - more than what?!!
This evening I have mostly just grumped in private as Husbink has been out carousing with work people. I suspect this is a good thing. I shall try to keep my thoughts to myself for the next few days...
(and then blogger had a hissy fit and crashed...that didn't help matters!)