Around Derwent Water...Plus a bit!

(Ellie - I'm really sorry if this makes you home/holidaysick...I'll try to not do too many more Derwent Water posts!)

On Tuesday, Husbink had a day off (they'd made a rota boooooob and he was on many, many days in a row) so we decided to go adventuring.

After some qualms over the weather, we ended up driving to Keswick and making our final decision on which walk once we arrived. It turned out to be a gorgeous day in Keswick (though when we were driving home in the evening we heard that just a few miles up the road from where we live there had been severe snow and hail storms, lots of road chaos and accidents! Mad!) so we felt we could risk a bit of "up" on the walk rather than just walking round Derwent Water.

The walk ended up rather longer than we'd intended (around ten miles) as we did the "up" and the "round".

We went up on the east side of Derwent Water (i.e. not the Cat Bells side for those that know it) but we took a wrong turn and didn't quite make it to the heights we'd intended, we were aiming for High Seat but suddenly realised that we were descending again. The walk up was very steep on a section of path that was made of big higgledy-piggledy stone steps. We were overtaken at the top by a couple at least thirty years older than us and their little dog. They were not even "glowing", we could barely breathe.

The steps passed up the side of a stream with lots of beautiful bits of waterfall. To our right was good sturdy English wood.

At the top we were above the trees, on open fell land with scrubby grasses and the beginnings of streams. We had an amazing view of Derwent Water and Bassenthwaite Lake - all the way to the wind farm in the distance (which my MiL hates...I'm pondering doing a series of photos of how beautiful wind farms can be...). As we stood admiring all this, a HUGE plane appeared beneath us - they often do fighter pilot training round the lakes but this appeared to be a supply plane or similar, it was quite incredible as it appeared out of no where.

The next section of the walk took us a little out of our way and further from the lake than we'd really intended though it did have its rewards - the woods we were walking through were gorgeous - mossy tree trunks, rocky outcrops - and we stumbled upon our second set of falls for the day, all the better for being a little more removed from the beaten track. We also met a mountain lion...well, a fluffy white cat that seemed utterly out of place but extremely friendly!

We eventually made it back to the edge of Derwent Water and decided that seeing as we were already at the southern tip, we might as well make it all the way. The last section was a little bit of a slog as we were getting just a little tired but well worth the sense of achievement to finish the walk.

We caught the ferry back to Keswick from Nichol End (you can't quite get round the top end without going a long way from the lake) and arrived back to the car utterly wiped out but very happy.

I'm not sure if I've said in a previous post, but our aim is to visit every lake in the district this summer. We've been umming and ahhing over what the rules are and what counts as a visit but we are now decided: 1) We have to "do" something substantial there - a driveby or a ten minute stroll does not count 2) we must touch the water - little fingers acceptable!

So Derwent is done. We thought Ullswater was done but having added the "must touch" rule, a return trip is required!

These are a few of my favourite things...

(Because, frankly, I've been in quite a big sulk the last few days. I'm sick to the back teeth of all this stupid unknown crap and ridiculous NHS-controling-our-lives thing. So I thought I'd do some active "happy thoughts"...)

1. My shiny (well, actually, very mat) new walking shoes. They aren't proper boots, just posh trainers. They were reduced from £70 to £20. Best of all? While they are respectable and sensible and navy blue and grey on the outside...on the inside, they're bright red!

2. Elderflower cordial/elderflower presse. Just yum. Makes up for missing lemon, lime & bitters, except it isn't quite as easily available.

3. Knitting. All the time. Husbink's sis is a big knitter now too and is encouraging me to more adventurous things!

4. Home & Away. It makes me happy. I love a bit of melodrama.

5. Baking. As has been the case for quite some time. I do love baking.

6. My new tops. I got home to discover that, on the whole, the clothes I left behind 18 months previously had been left behind for good reason. I don't exactly have cash to throw about the place at the moment but have managed a few new tops of late. They all make me happy.

7. My random voluntary job in the fair trade shop in town. I walked in...and didn't walk out! It keeps me occupied and hopefully if I find some paid employment, I can then do some interesting work for them as they have a resource centre thingy too.

8. My FiL's Micra. I am now insured on this as well as mine & Husbink's car. It is a banger. Literally. There are weird noises... But somehow, I'm really rather taken with it

9. Swingball. Husbink and I played swingball for an hour or so last Sunday. Things went from REALLY BAD to quite ok actually.

10. That Dr Who is back on Saturday night. Admittedly, having just seen the Christmas episode for the first time, I'm a little concerned...it was very silly...but I have faith!

Lanty's Tarn & Keldas

I've had a busy, busy week seeing lots of lovely people. Husbink has had a busy, busy week being at work! (Which is going well, he has joined the cricket team :) )

Today, we decided to start on our plan for the next few months and visit every lake in the Lake District. We haven't made any particular rules about this except that driving past in the car doesn't count, we have to do something...

We had been planning a proper big(ish) walk to try out various new bits and pieces but the weather forecast didn't look too promising so we didn't leap out of bed at the crack of dawn to get underway. Instead, we ambled out around 10.30 (when it was still not raining) and drove to Glenridding on the edge of Ullswater (tick number one!).

The walk itself was a good 'un, not too long or too hard but interesting enough and we certainly are feeling the effects of the fresh air (even if we did away all the good effects of the walk with the HUGE hot choc we had when we got down again, it had been raining...)

There were beautiful views of Ullswater and Helvellyn - still with snow above about 500m. We saw a red squirrel just as we were approaching Keldas and on Lanty's tarn there were three goosander (brilliant for the name if nothing else!) and a comedy heron (perching in a pine tree). (Aside: I went with Mrs SD to the RSPB place at Leighton Moss on Thursday (great day, the place but of course more seeing Mrs SD) and saw a spoonbill, lots of shovellers and a crested grebe. You'll all be very relieved to know I didn't have the camera then!)

There were two beautiful becks on the walk, clear bubbling water bouncing its way down to the lake. The deep greens of the mosses along the walk was glorious too, especially against the dull mist of the day.

We did get a little soggy on the second half of the walk as the clouds finally gave way and the weatherman got what he'd predicted but it wasn't so unpleasant as to be a problem - and justified the aforementioned hot choc!

I can't think of many things worse...

The best thing about being on a plane? Especially a long haul flight? All that time in which you can just be - watch films, read a book, listen to music, comedy, do puzzles...whatever! The time is yours and yours alone (okay, alone with lots of other people...but they can't steal the time!)
And now? Mobile phone use has been approved by for use on planes in Europe. Yeah, it is a still a long way off and it will take airlines a wee while to get sorted and blah blah blah blah blah and of course I can (and will) continue to switch my phone off on the plane but that isn't going to stop all the other eejits is it?
Why couldn't they just lie (like large sections of hospitals) and say it was all too dangerous and don't do it?!

(Note: It *may* be the case that actually something else really pissed me off before I read the article on this. It *may* be the case that venting over mobile phones on planes is easier than on what has actually bothered me.)

We Wish You A Merry Easter

Once again I find myself having written plenty of blogs in my head but none actually on the compooper. Ah well, I fear such is life.

It has been a lovely snowy Easter up here in the wild northern reaches of the UK (and I gather probably a lot more snowy in many other areas). We've woken to a beautifully icing-sugared lawn two out of the last three mornings and the hills (for no longer do any of the peaks in the lake district count as mountains - cue Hugh Grant film...) are lovely and white - some are WHITE others are patchy white, lovely and mottled.

My parents visited over the weekend which was good but tiring.

Today we went out with the ever delightful Snoo and Hub, sampling the delights of Cockermouth, a marvellous tea room (cake, cake, CAKE) and a very bank holiday Keswick. I'd never been to Cockermouth before (though it had always appealed). It is a very pretty little town, in quite a rural, working sort of way. We wandered the main street for a while (enjoying a very good toy shop...I always want lego...and playmobil...stunted childhood?!) before heading out of town to a tea room at a working farm. Fantastic. I was very giddy to be seeing Snoo and Hub and then to see so much cake too...I was a little silly...

We headed to Keswick to achieve a few things but also to go down to the lake and enjoy the snow-topped hills and the sparkling water. Sadly it turns out I wasn't getting on so well with the camera so the pictures really don't do it justice.

Tomorrow, Husbink starts work. Maybe I will hear from the agency too. How much do I not want to!? But doing something would be good...

Supreme Silliness

My dad alerted me to the joys of this particular site and its silliness...enjoy!





There's plenty more where that came from if you click here

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Husbink has a job! No, not one of those big proper jobs with the training and everything that we came back to the UK for but a fourth month, see us through kind of job. A job that is perhaps rather further up the ladder than he'd expected (he applied for one job, got interviewed for a different one, all a bit crazy) so he's chuffed, scared and confused in probably equal measures.
It does not solve many of our current concerns in one sense but it is very good to feel like something is happening and we may not be trapped in the vortex forever.
I may also have a job. I've seen a recruitment agency, they were very positive, but because I don't want to start work until after Easter they currently don't have anything. They expect though that next week they will have something for me to start when I want. Which is all rather good. I think. Much as I may not want to work in an office ever, ever again, doing something will definitely be good for me. Oooh, and I had an hour and a half in an empty house today. It was so good!
So now we can enjoy our weekend in Leeds and our few days in Cambridge without needing to feel any great guilt at being so slack and all. Hurrah!
(Oh and the title? Well, a little unseasonal but so is my FIL's tendency to go around whistling Good King Wenceslas at the moment...)

It's all about me!

One of the things which was marvellous about our time in New Zealand (amongst a long list of things) was the amount of time I got to myself on a routine basis.

I am an introvert in the sense that my energy comes from time on my own. I like to be with people. I love meeting new people, sitting down with old friends for big chin wags, the occasional big party... I am very happy standing up in front of large numbers of people and speaking, leading, whatever... But if I don't get time on my own I break.

Husbink's work pattern in NZ meant that I had a lot of time to myself. I knitted. I baked. I read. I prayed. I cleaned. I thought. I wrote. I walked. I pottered. I cycled. I achieved.

I'm now at about the two month mark since we moved out of our house, started that last adventure and found ourselves back in the UK. In those two months, I've snatched an hour here, an hour there...but the cracks are more than beginning to show. Combine the lack of alone time with all the unknowns about the future and the like and I'm beginning to look like one hell of a crazy lady.

I don't like that this is the case. I don't mean I don't like that I'm going slightly mad, that should be obvious enough. What I mean is, I don't like that I have to be this "demanding". Husbink often makes jokes about me being high maintenance. The jokes relate to the whole preening aspect (my last hair cut was 9 months ago...I haven't bought shoes in about a year...my skincare routine is slapdash...) but in this respect, the alone time, the introversion, it is a very true statement. I really, really need it and if I don't get it, all kinds of hysterics ensue.

A few nights ago, we returned to Husbink's parent's after a few days in Scotland for Husbink's interview (we will not hear anything until March 26th at the earliest but it could be mid-end April). I thought the few days away would have boosted my coping ability a bit - I even had an hour and a half to myself while Husbink was at his interview. Instead it seems that that little taster of what I need was too much and I really shut down on return to a house with five people in it...the panic attack was barely below the surface and I really wasn't sure that my body could actually handle it. All I wanted to do, on a cold, wet, windy night, was sit in the garden by myself for hours and hours and hours. I've come out of it a little over the past few days and can hold conversations again. Just.

I feel desperately self-centred for being like this and it feels feeble to realise that one of the reasons I was so happy (and more to the point increasingly healthy (though clearly there were other things at play their too)) in NZ was all this time for me. How selfish can you get?!

I have managed to veer away from the impulse to run home to my mum (who I could then in no uncertain terms tell to leave me alone and only speak to me once a day) but it does feel like a very thin line I'm walking just now.

Keeping On With Whatever

I've tried to blog a few times in the last week. I have one half written post that I hope I'll finish one day but I know that now is really not the time so...here I am, attempting to fill you in, keep you amused, something like that.

Life is a big long waiting game at the moment and I am not good at doing nothing. However, once I start doing nothing the lethargy sets in very fast and I find it hard to do anything...

There have been some good times in the past week or so. Husbink's birthday was good (except that going out by ourselves did allow me to vent more than I can around here and so there was a half hour interlude of floods of tears in a pub...). We saw "Be Kind, Rewind" which was no where near as funny as all reviews had led us to believe but still a pleasant way to pass some time. We also ate a good meal in vaguely comedy circumstances - we moved table three times in the restaurant for one reason and another...

We have seen friends. Two friends from Leeds who are now in Carlisle allowed us to watch the rugby with them (despite them not liking rugby at all, bless them). They also took us to their church the next morning which was good - very interesting use of building (used to be a shop).

We have seen Husbink's best man (in the pub, where else would we see him?). It was very good to chatter with him and Husbink assures me I only cramped their style a little bit. Hopefully he is taking us climbing on Friday which will be very good. As long as we don't disappoint him with our badness. He does caving and the like all over Europe so is a bit good...

Yesterday we spent the day with le welsh and le tart in Manchester (we had to go to Manchester to visit the GMC...they wouldn't believe that Husbink was who he said he was without a visit...but at least it means he can work again). We had a very lovely day wandering and eating and mooching and drinking.

Today we are back to the waiting game. Husbink has an interview on Monday for all of Scotland. That is the only interview so all chance of a job rides on this. We swing from optimism to pessimism to who-gives-an-ism with regular abandon.

Ah well, what can you do?

Home is Where?

When I last returned from an overseas expedition in November 2003, I struggled for some months to establish where home was. Not that I pined for any of the countries specifically that I had spent time in as they had been such brief visits, but having no particular home (and Husbink at that time staying in hospital accom wherever he was based) left me feeling baseless. It was too long since I had lived at my parents for Cambridge to feel like home. Husbink was technically not yet Husbink (in that it was still 7 months until our wedding) so his parents home was definitely not yet a home. Leeds had friends in it but neither of us had an abode there.

After about two weeks, I had a brief time when I suddenly left at home - sitting on the sofa of Mr & Mrs Scouse Dangermouse drinking tea. The next few months were drifty but with an upcoming wedding and the like, it was pretty easy to put roots down and get settled back into the Leeds life.

Now...

My natural instinct is to refer to Hutt as home. Cambridge remains not home, Carlisle (where we currently are) remains not home. And there are no other homes. Again, a visit to the home of Mr & Mrs SD last week and a day with them on Saturday aided the feeling of homeliness, they're good like that. If home is where the heart is, then home is very fragmented indeed. If home is where the Husbink is then I'm doing ok. If home is having a roof over your head, then I know I am blessed to have this, provided by friends and family even if I cannot currently provide my own.

I think though that home is less tangible than any of these things (even being where the heart is, when the heart is so torn) and it will be some time before I find it a comfortable word to use.

Texting

It is strange what is hard when moving countries and the like...

While we were in NZ we had a cell phone. We used it to text our friends and to call people. There is nothing very unusual in this I realise. However, we didn't use it anywhere near as much as I, at least, used to use my mobile in the UK. In NZ, we'd go for days without using the phone and sometimes I'd forget where it was or leave it on silent for days on end an fail to notice messages. In the UK, that would not have happened. And so, in a very strange way, texting people with my new number has been one of the hardest things I've had to do since returning to the UK. Somehow that act of sending out my new number has been the thing that has made this move feel most final.
As neither of us have jobs or any certainty about the future, it is very easy to pretend that we are currently on holiday, seeing our family, catching up with friends, enjoying the novelty of very frosty mornings in the beautiful Lake District. There are few things that ground us in reality. Even buying a car, being something rather alien to us as we have previously done quite well at inheriting, has been rather unreal and certainly ungrounding. Yet the act of texting, of having a number, makes it somehow much more solid, much more like this is really what is happening.
So I've found myself picking up my phone and putting it down again numerous times before managing to text anyone. I've still only made it perhaps a third of the way through my phone book. If that. Weird, huh?
So, yeah, still in denial about leaving New Zealand. Ho hum.

Photo Journalism

At long last, here is the holiday post. My brain is still somewhere else (mostly through having a cold rather than jetlag now but...hmm....yuck...) so this will be a LOT of photos and a few words. Hope you enjoy. :)

Our first campsite was not too many hours from home but just far enough to know we were on holiday. And it came with a swing and a lake view. Good-o.

The journey the next day took us past Mt Ruapehu. Always good to see.

We made our way to Waitomo where we saw caves, gloworms and giant angora bunnies. Good times.

Raglan is a chilled out surfing town with artsy fartsy bits on the side. And beautiful sunsets.

We made our way to Northland and set up camp in Paihia for five nights. We had beautiful weather for a few days in which we swanned about and didn't manage much. Then just as we felt like really exploring, the weather turned against us. We made it out to Urupukapuka island for a day trip and walked pretty much the coastline of the island. sandy beaches one side, big cliffs t'other. Oyster catchers too. We also managed to visit Treaty House at Waitangi, the site of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi - the starting point for modern New Zealand and Maori/Pakeha relations. The butterfly kept me entertained while Husbink spent double the time in the museum as I did. This is normal.

We moved on from Paihia and went further north staying in Kaitaia for a few days so that we could do a tour of the far north, taking in Cape Reinga with its lighthouse, the meeting of the Tasman Sea and Pacific Ocean, sand dune tobogganing, and Ninety Mile Beach (really it is more like 90km but who is complaining? It's a beach that is also a state highway, what more do you want?)

We made our way down the west coast of Northland. It was beautiful. Hokianga Harbour and around was gorgeous. We also saw the giant Kauri trees. Not as tall as Californian redwoods but they go straight up, no tapering so they are just this huge, huge mass. You can just see me at the bottom of the picture to give perspective.

Heading down the country again, we stopped at Parachute festival for a day to meet up with lots of friends and see our friend Kez perform. He was great.

We made our way further south and visited the site of Hobbiton from the Lord of the Rings. We didn't do the tours, just stopped for a coffee and a few photos. Driving round the whole area looked so much like The Shire. Which led to a lot of "ssssssshhhhhiiiiiiire" and "bagginsssssssssssss" mutterings from both of us.

And that was that. Our final jaunt done and dusted. It was a good one. More relaxed than sometimes. As beautiful as ever.

Back

That's about as far as my brain can get at the moment. I have many things I'd like to post about (not least the holiday photos that haven't made it up yet) but they will have to wait one more day at least...
Journeys were all as good as they could be really and I did get some sleep on the last flight but having brought home a cold from Singapore to add to the jetlag I feel rather rotten. But ok too. It was rather a shock to arrive. With all that was going on leaving a country and getting everything home and all the rest of it I had rather failed to understand that we were actually going to arrive. I realise this makes little sense, not many of the things I have thought or felt over the last week or so have really made sense but I have reached the point of just accepting all that I feel and not attempting to analyse or process - at least not yet. I suspect (being me) that analysis will flow very readily once the time comes...
(A quick aside for those who might be tempted to make contact now we are back - both our mobiles are deceased having not been topped up for over a year. I'm sure we'll come up with a solution but it won't be for a while.)

Just a quick 'un

There is a huge amount to say, not least all the holidaying and subsequent photo parade but also all the emotions and thoughts and...
However, that will all have to wait as I have neither the time nor the brain to really do any of it justice right now. Once back in England, cold and unemployed, I should get a few more posts out there!
For now, it will have to suffice to say that we had a marvellous holiday (only slightly blighted by cyclone Funa) and it is good to be back in the Hutt. We've managed to get most jobs sorted now and will hopefully be able to enjoy our last few days.
I'm utterly exhausted at the moment and probably need about three weeks sleep but that isn't going to happen quite yet!
This afternoon we are embarking on a final Wellington adventure - going to the Rugby 7s. Very excited, or I would be if I were a little more awake, though not sure our costumes (morris dancers) are quite up to scratch...
Hope all is well with all of you. More soon ;)

Relaxing?

So, here we are, 48 hours (and a bit) since leaving our house and the Hutt for our final NZ adventure.
We haven't quite worked out being relaxed yet. Husbink has (until about twenty minutes ago) been having to sort out the whole applications nightmare. This involved several hours at church (using their printer, scanner, internet...) before leaving home, more phone calls to Husbink's parents in the last week than in the previous six months, various times of being on the internet when we should be enjoying the country and a general sense of not having quite managed to chill out yet.
Anyway. It is done now. Five applications. Five deaneries. Five possible jobs. We shall see. And now, we can start thinking about this holiday of ours.
We spent a chilly night in Wanganui (we picked a picturesque but stooopid place to pitch our tent - lovely lake views...wind tunnel!) on Thursday which got us a few hours from home. Friday we made our way to Waitomo which is where we are now. You are meant to do all kinds of crazy activities in Waitomo, based around the various caves and the like. You are meant to abseil and climb and cave and black water raft and and and. We have not and are not going to. Which is kind of a shame - Husbink couldn't do it because of the injured foot (not sure if I've mentioned that at all) but even if he had been able to, I'm not sure I had the oooooooomph for it.
Instead, we are taking the easy route. This morning we went to a cave and looked at stalactites and stalagmites and say oooh a lot, as you are meant to. We also did a wee bush walk that was also very "ooh".
This afternoon, we go to discover the glowworms in their cave and then, after that, we shall try to see some in the bush tonight once it has gotten dark enough. All good stuff.
Hopefully, we shall also find some calm in the next few hours. And start to realise that we are on holiday. And that life is indeed good.

And so it happens

We have entered the time of farewells, of final things, of frantic activity.

Yesterday afternoon we went to Husbink's work as they had organised a farewell tea for him. It was lovely to hear some of the things his colleagues had to say about him and to see how highly they valued him and how much they will miss him. He would never, ever, ever blow his own trumpet so I thought I should do a little bit for him.

In the evening, various friends came over for some "legal looting" and took away lots of our food and little bits and pieces. Which was fun. :) Husbink was a great auctioneer - considering that everything was going away free!

This morning, the Salvation Army came and took most of our furniture away. We are now waiting on the washing machine man. Tonight, some friends are coming and taking the last of our possessions. Tomorrow, we will leave a few boxes with friends and head off on our last kiwi adventure.

There have been tears already and I know there are heaps more to come. I'm looking forward to the adventure (of course) and know that it will help prepare me for the final departure in just under a month's time.

It is difficult to comprehend going home when we have no concrete plans to return to. Husbink has so far managed four applications for those big nasty jobs that don't start until August anyway... Our internet connection gets switched off this time tomorrow. The applications have to be in at the weekend so this is his last chance pretty much. Hopefully he'll get to six applications and then we simply have to wait and see. Wait and see.

Feeling Helpless - Again

I've been wanting to post this for a few days but the website in question was down and I didn't want to post until the link would work...

So, as you may recall, Husbink and I watched Hotel Rwanda a little while ago and were overwhelmed by the sense of helplessness and shame that it brought on. Most significantly, we both said "surely if this happened, and we knew, we'd do something..."

And so this week we found ourselves sitting down and saying "this is awfully close to happening again, what are we going to do?"

The story that grabbed our attention and made us think this and discuss this was of course Kenya. As the number of stories increased and the nature of those stories worsened from the initial "a few killed in protests" kind of stories to the "church burnt down as people took refuge, over half those dead were children" kind of stories, we felt we had to try to do something.

Following my fling with Burma (I try to keep up with developments - or the lack there of - but as predicted at the time, it is hard), I am on the mailing list for www.avaaz.org and they tend to be pretty good at telling me what I should be doing about any given conflict. I couldn't find anything on their website but the next day they sent out this link and offered advice on how to help.

At this point, that advice is to write to your foreign minister (the link makes this very easy for you, only a very few clicks of buttons) urging them to avoid recognising the newly "elected" government in Kenya until an independent review has been carried out. Premature recognition of the government would make it much harder for a new election to be held and the situation defused.

It doesn't feel like much at all but perhaps it is what is needed at this point?!

Keeping Going

Ugh.
I'm packing. I'm packing four different ways - what we are leaving behind/giving away; what we are shipping home; what we are taking on holiday; what we are taking home but not taking on holiday (basically read BIG JUMPERS there)...
We have six days left in the house (if you count today and the day we leave).
As well as the packing, sorting and cleaning required for leaving the house, Husbink has to apply for those pesky proper jobs that don't start until August within the next week. Hoo-bloody-rah.
I didn't sleep last night. This was mainly due to not being able to get comfy because of my tetanus injection the other day. Once I couldn't sleep though, of course my brain did not shut down. Not a jot of it. I wasn't particularly worried about anything or stressing, I simply couldn't stop thinking. Some of it was only about Harry Potter... The lack of sleep wasn't aided by the bit when I did get some decent sleep (between about 4am and 6am) being woken up by our crazy neighbours who do their washing at 4am and hang it out sometime between 5.30am and 6.30am. It was about 5.45am this morning. They are (it seems) both deaf and shout a lot. But that is ok. What is not ok is their clothes line. It is a whirlygig as I'd call it and it squeaks. A lot. And this morning they seemed to be playing some kind of game that involved spinning it. Oh what fun.
So anyway, by the time I got up, I was not in a great frame of mind. Husbink managed to soothe me for a while but then had to go to work at 10.30. The soothing lasted quite well but I now seem to have lost it again.
In some ways, the problem is that I can't quite finish anything - we still need most of our kitchen stuff, there are clothes still hanging on the line, we are still using our bed (and thus bedding)...So I have many half full boxes that I can't do anything with.
I'm stuck at home waiting for someone who has bought a heater off me on trademe to get in touch. I feel guilty that I'm not at our friends house helping them build a fence but kind of figure that I have enough jobs of my own on today. But have convinced myself they don't see it that way.
BLEUGH.
Going to eat muffins.

What a difference a year makes?

This year, I have been closer to actual resolutions than for a long time. For all of about ten minutes, there were a few well formed, snappy sentences in my head that could have been set down as resolutions rather than long-winded thoughts expressing a basic idea. They went (the well formed sentences) and don't seem to be interested in returning so, as you can already see, I'm back to my more usual evaluation of the year and vague ideas of things to change in the future.



I thought I'd read the post from a year ago before starting and frankly, with a few small changes, I could just re-post it. Before looking at it, I was even considering using what turned out to be the title of last year's post...



2007 was great. Up there as one of the best years of my life and certainly the best year of our life. There were some lower points (the stress of visas and the mad landlady and trying to find to this house and all that should not be swept aside as if everything was peachy all the time). It was not a perfect year (had it been, the only thing to do would be some kind of Thelma & Louise driving off "into the sunset" because if you've had the perfect year, where do you go next?). It was, however a very good year.



A few significant things of 2007...

• Holidays with parents and with the Scouse Dangermice. Both times were excellent breaks, more enjoyment of this beautiful country and great time with special people.


• The decision to stay on in NZ for this extra was a pretty big one, you might say! We ummed and ahhed and here we are. I would not change that decision for anything. I miss people of course but staying on has allowed a number of things to happen, not least the next point.


• The surgery. For me, this has actually become a highlight of the year. Yes, it was not fun. The prep beforehand was horrid, the pain after was unpleasant (but not dreadful) and I have some slightly peculiar scars now. Overall though, the positive is by far the winner. I am still reaping the benefits of the surgery (I can eat all kinds of things again, my periods are heading towards "normal", I have a lot more energy). On top of that, the enforced time out was very, very good for me. I'm not keen to have that surgery again of course but it was a good thing.


• Being able to spend some quality time with my brother both here and in Sydney - and we even have one more trip lined up to see him and his wife on the way home. Very good.


• Speaking at the Women's Retreat for church. It was a new experience to do a couple of connected talks rather than just a stand alone talk. It was also a great time with people of that I knew or didn't know so well.


• Finally for this bullet pointy section, the consolidation of our friendships here. We have gone from being a novelty (and thus invited to lots of things) through a slightly dry patch to being normal and having proper friendships. Some of our friends have been planning their OE (Overseas Experience as they call years out/travelling here) for a while now and it means we know that they will come to see us (wherever we are) in August or September.

So where does it all leave me for 2008? My aim for 2007 (as it also was for 2006, but in a slightly different way) was to "have more fun". As I said at the time, this did not mean being self-centred and uncaring but instead living in the moment, appreciating all the blessing that I have, being available for people, making the most of opportunities and above all, not worrying and stressing my life away.

I've made progress on this front. I have taken many experiences by the scruff of the neck and done the best with them that I can. I have become a calmer, less worried person. But there is still a lot of work to do! I went into meltdown on Saturday over the whole jobs when we get home thing. I need to reach a point where I don't do that. Yes, I can justify it, it is a pretty big thing on the horizon and all that but it is not the way to live. If I believe God has a plan for my (and our) life (lives), worrying and fretting and stressing is not the right way to behave. I do believe that, but I have to remind myself day in day out that it is out of my control but that is ok. I know when I have gone too far from being organised and getting things done and making it possible for God's plan to come into action to trying to control that plan and allow the stress in - I get sick. Within 24 hours, my body gives up a bit (in reasonably spectacular fashion sometimes) and I know the stress was the cause. It's a pretty clear (and not very fun) indicator of where my stress levels are. The fact that I can say when it has happened over the past while is a sign that it is not as rife as it was a year or two ago when it would have been far more frequent and harder to count. By this time next year, I'd like to not be able to remember when the last meltdown was.

There are other hopes that I have for the next year, hopes that I will remember everything I've learnt and worked out while I've been here. That I will hold firm to my faith. That good intentions started now will continue in changed circumstances.

It's been a good year; it could be an even better year.

Social Interactions

Over the past few days, I've had a couple of slightly random moments of social interaction.

First up, the owners of our house have been back in NZ over Christmas for the first time in a good few years and wanted to look round and do a bit of work on the house. They are very pleasant (especially when compared to our mental previous landlady) and having them about was no problem. On Thursday they came and did lots of work in the garden but didn't quite finish and so they came back on Friday. By which point the chap had done his back in and couldn't help. Which led to him coming in to sit down and us talking about all manner of things (my future career, churches, NZ/UK cultural differences, what we miss most about home, how much you can (can't) trust the media, the NHS vs NZ medical system...). It was very pleasant. We talked for a good few hours while "she" finished off the gardening. A great use of an afternoon when I was getting not very much at all done.

Then on Saturday morning I telephoned a gentleman who has kind of adopted one of my cousins and is a surrogate grandfather to him (the common grandparent we have left is Grannie and thus there is a grandfather shaped hole). This gentlemen splits his time between the UK and NZ and knows the bit of the country we are thinking of travelling on our three week camping extravaganza reasonably well. My dad spoke to my cousin, my cousin spoke to the gentleman and there I found myself ringing someone I don't know at all to chat about holidays... I don't like ringing people, I especially don't like ringing people I don't know or only know a little bit and don't know how to introduce myself (you know, that person that you know who they are but you've not really spoken but someone suggested you ring them cos they have this thing you need to borrow or whatever and how much detail do you need to put in? Is your first and last name enough? Do you need to give them a context? Or a so-and-so said to call?). In that respect, this was a relatively easy call to make because he wouldn't know who I was and there was obvious context to give. Anyway, point being, I was a little nervous about the call but ended up having a nice wee chin wag with the gentleman (definitely a gentleman) and agreeing that if we ended up in his neck of the woods, we'd pop by for a coffee. All good.

Last night, we had a very social evening though without any of the randomness of the first two! We went into Wellington for a gig by our friend's brother's band. We do know the brother too but he has been away down south at uni for the past year so we've not really seen him since we spent Christmas with the family last year. Anyway. His band were up for a few days for this gig and so on and a lot of our best friends here were at the gig. It was a fantastic evening of hanging out with people, chatting, dancing and really, really enjoying the band. I was very impressed. They are a crazy mix of country and alternative rock but it works very well. Their cowboy hats were ace. Here is their myspace page - check them out. :) A very fun evening. But highlighted how old we are...it was a long way past my bedtime when we got home at 1am...

A jolly holiday

Despite never quite managing to achieve that "Christmas feeling", we've had a very jolly few days.

On the 23rd, I sang in a choir at church in the morning. It had been quite traumatic in the run up as it really felt like everything wasn't going to be ready on time. It was, just. And now I've stopped humming the tunes relentlessly, it almost seems that it was enjoyable.

In the afternoon, Husbink woke up early from his mid-work-nights sleep and we walked up the firebreak in the hills behind our house. It was pretty hard work at points and my legs were shaking by the top but the sense of achievement and the views made it extremely worthwhile. Coming down was a little hair raising in places - I "chose" to sit down a few times!

Christmas Eve was hectic - Husbink sleeping off nights, sorting out chips in the car windscreen (turned out replacement was the best option so we have a shiny new windscreen now, doubt that will last long on NZ roads!), baking, having the owners of our house come round for a look (as they are back from the UK for a week for the first time in about three years...), doing various house jobs and trying to stay awake for a midnight service...

Christmas Day was lovely. Mostly very chilled out (a little unchilled initially as there were just soooo many people at our friends house and all trying to get to different places to see other parts of families and so on...). We ate, we went for a walk, we got very frustrated with various little puzzles, we ate more, we drank a little, we came home and watched my Christmas present from Husbink's sis (the BBC version of Wind in the Willows from last Christmas, it was good). And then we had a Very Big Sleep. Mmmm.

Boxing Day took us by surprise by starting off very sunny - which frankly was not what we wanted. We were really looking for a good excuse to spend the entire day lying on the sofa watching DVDs, munching goodies and so on. Fortunately, after we had forced ourselves out for a little bike ride, the weather turned and we had a miserable afternoon that totally justified watching Harry Potter and eating cake. It was the first Harry Potter which I haven't seen in quite a while and it was fun. Though a lot of the fun was both of us sitting there going "gosh, wasn't book 7 brilliant!" and other such things. It would have been extremely irritating for anyone else to watch with us.

And now, Husbink is back to work and with just two weeks left in the house, I'm full steam ahead sorting and packing and so on. Crazy days.

Downloading my brain

My brain is just a teensy weensy bit full at the moment with all the moving things and the Husbink job things (I haven't really mentioned this yet...but he will have to apply for the Big Next August jobs before we leave NZ rather than being home in time for applications as we had hoped. Also the jobs have changed. He'll only be applying to 2-3 years rather than 7. Which in some ways seems more manageable but means that life will continue to be precarious.) and so I needed to clear out various thoughts today. Thus quite a few posts. I hope that makes it more manageable than one Mahooooosive one.
Urgh, my brain hurts. And the day isn't over yet...

The Difference Between Me And Kiwis. No, not the birds. Or the fruit.

I came to realise today one of the big differences between me and your average Kiwi.
Mostly, in what I'm going to describe I'd rather be like them than me but I accept (to a large extent) that I am a product of my country and my upbringing and although, with awareness I may change a little, I do not think I will change drastically in this area. Of course, what follows is also gross generalisation.
Kiwis are blunt. They may appear rude in various circumstances. They do not wave to say thank you when you let them pass you on the road. They do not make many attempts at "the customer is always right" if they believe you to be entirely wrong.
Kiwis are also exceedingly friendly. They will not gush at you or bounce at you or bubble at you. But they will invite you into their home and expect you to understand that that invitation really is an open one. You will, if you wish it, find yourself with several surrogate families. And not just one layer of those families. We have two surrogate families here. Both are wonderful and we will miss both very much. Even outside our surrogate families, we have good, good friends who will help us out at a moments notice, even if they are lost in the midst of Christmas shopping with three small, not wonderfully happy children. Even if they are people that perhaps we would say we didn't know so well, we know they will help, always.
And I am the opposite of this. I will be very excited to meet you. I will bounce. I will chatter. I will want you to feel at home. But my home will not, much as I might wish otherwise, be one that you feel you can just drop in on. I hope when you do come round that you will feel very welcome but I know that you will have waited for an invitation rather than just appearing on the doorstep. When you ask me for help, I will have to swallow all the thoughts that bubble up first (what about this plan or that plan, I'm not sure I have time, I need to do this, I can't do that, urgh) before I can help you. I will still help you most of the time but I don't think I'll be as helpful as I would if I didn't have to push aside those thoughts first. The flip side is that most of the time, I won't ask you for help because I won't want to put you out either.
I've had to learn this over the past year and a half. First, that Kiwis aren't rude or even abrupt, they just aren't spending their energy where I do. Second, that actually, I should ask for help, it is always there and keen to be given. If I ask for more help then perhaps I will learn to give more help too. Third, being polite and friendly at first meeting is ok too. :)

Getting in the spirit of things...

I've struggled a little (but not as much as last year) to get into the Christmas spirit while "upside down". Instead of dark nights, woolly hats, the possibility of snow and twinkly lights to herald the Christmas season, down here it is strawberry picking, blossoming pohutukawa, end of year school exams and the approach of the longest day that indicate to those in the know that Christmas is just around the corner.
I've been waiting and waiting for the pohutukawa ever since last May when we moved to this house on a pohutukawa lined street. Sadly it is a bad year for them this year (having been the best year in a long, long time last year) and only one on the street is showing any signs of blossom. I had trained myself that pohutukawas meant Christmas. They have let me down.
We are not helped, of course, by the super early posting thing. It cost well close to $200 to send all our parcels and cards this year despite getting in before the "economy" deadline. Had we left it until a little closer to Christmas so that we were more "in the mood", I dread to think what that cost would have been.
It is hard to trigger that Christmas feeling, excitement (materialistic, spiritual or emotional), because we don't have any of the usual clues.
And so I have spent this afternoon wrapping up the few small presents I got for Husbink and baking for the church community Christmas lunch (apparently over 200 people from the community who would not have anyone else to spend Christmas with are going this year, awesome!), with a sound track of my two Christmas CDs - Songs of Praise carols and, umm, I don't remember the name of the other one but something like The Best Christmas Album in the World Ever Part 27...
I'm not sure I'm any more in the mood as would be normal back home but I'm certainly a little more giddy. And mainly it is down to one song. Ahem. Possibly one of the cheesiest songs in existance but with that manages to marry together the different strands of Christmas excitement. The cheesy, twinkly-lighted, shopping, shopping, shopping excitement. The emotional, family aspect (at least in part cos my mum and gran both like it too). The spiritual part as, of modern Christmas songs (i.e. not including carols), it has to have some of the words that best reflect Christianity, and how it now squeezes into an increasingly secular celebration of one of its most important events. Yes, that would be Saviour's Day by Cliff Richard. The only song in my Christmas collection that made me dance round the living room and kitchen while baking my ginger & almond biscotti (an experiment - need work, too sweet...). Having said that, The Spinners version of The Twelve Days of Christmas has just come on...if anything can make me giggle and fall into childhood reminiscence, it is The Spinners. Oh, and maybe Flanders & Swan but that isn't relevant to this now is it?

I love it when a plan comes together...

This week has been a little hectic so far but has seen HUGE amounts completed off the ENORMOUS to do before moving countries list. And off the reasonably small to do before Christmas list. And off the isn't it nice to have fun sometimes list.
Which is all rather exciting. I was gaining a rather comfortable sense of achievement from all the list ticking which was hugely added to last night when we went climbing and I made it up The Chimney. The first time we climbed (this being our third time) I belayed a friend while she went up The Chimney and I thought "no way". Yesterday Husbink decided to go up it so I belayed him and still thought "no way". But he persuaded me and I Did It. You could not wipe the grin off my face for the next few hours, I was very chuffed with myself. The absolute agony that I'm expecting through all my muscles at some point today hasn't arrived yet... Typing is quite hard work though as my fingers are pretty knackered! I'm hoping we can find as nice a climbing wall in England as this one. It has character, rather than just being part of a leisure complex or the like. Though I do feel a little bit like I don't really need to acquire any more hobbies, perhaps just some useful skills for life or some career options or something like that would be handy... Ah well, I'll stick with the hobbies until then I guess...
Time for today's to do list. :)

You know you have to laugh at yourself...

I was just sent a quiz on facebook by a friend who is about 16...
It was a "how old are you?" quiz and she had come out at 22.
So I thought well, why not...
And I came out as...6! Which makes me quite happy. I may spend today being a 6 year old. Only, one that can drive a car...(actually, saying that the batmobile was my favourite car probably has a lot to do with the outcome...but the choices were really bad...)
It is only slightly alarming that they decided I was 6 after I'd said my favourite drink was wine...

Emotionally Hungover

Yesterday evening went pearshaped.
A number of things contributed. We can't deny the old hormones. Or the general emotional upheaval of the moment. Or the earwig. Crawling on my black & white chocolate muffin.
On the whole, the emotion was that silly uncontrolable grump that only hormones can cause. I wrote a blog last night. I had just enough sense left to delete it. I also had just enough sense left in the hour or so spent trawling the internet (cos I was too upset to go to bed) to not throw my computer against the wall when I read various things that upset, infuriated or belittled me. I'm sure if I read those things today there would be no problem.
I ended up deciding it was safest not to stray into too many unknown territories at this point and started reading various "old things". Old emails, old blog entries. Eventually this did help me calm down enough to go and sit on Husbink's knee for a while (still incapable of saying anything nice to him. He's an awfully good Husbink to have) and finally make my way to bed. I woke up this morning still in a reasonable tiz so we played a game that we both have a very strong love/hate relationship with. It eventually made me so upset and angry that I started crying and then could tell Husbink all the things that were bothering me from the "I know this only bothers me because of the hormones" to the "This is actually a serious problem and I don't think we can fix it but you should know" issues.
Then we went to the library and rented the 5th season of 24 and I bought lots of new wool (not from the library) for more squares for my multicoloured blanket. And had beans on toast for lunch. (Only, they were weird beans...morrocan stylee which meant they weren't really like baked beans at all and more like a morrocan tagine thing with chickpeas that I sometimes make. All well and good but not really what I was after on a comfort eating day. Which means it is definitely fish fingers and chips for tea. I digress. Which is frankly what I'm going to do all post. You may want to stop reading now...). I feel ok now. I don't feel amazing. I certainly don't feel positive enough to go out and deal with Christmas shopping for Husbink's presents when I don't have any idea what I'm going to get. That would definitely still fall into the dangerous category. I'm emotionally hungover. I'm drained from fighting through the undergrowth. I know I'm going to feel better from here and that a number of the feelings will disappear (the irrational jealousies, the silly moments of choosing to take offense...) however, I also know that the larger problems are no closer to being resolved. And they won't be because, quite simply, life has to play itself out. There are various knowns...we have flights to catch, we have weddings to attend, family reunions to enjoy or tolerate (depending on which of several events...). It is a pretty short list of knowns though when compared to the unknowns (job? house? where? what? kids?) and each unknown rests precariously against the others making each decision vital and impossible. I simply have to take a back seat for a while and watch what happens. I've come to a few conclusions on various of the unknowns and I've learnt a lot about myself over the past year and a bit. I won't make some of the mistakes I made before but I'm sure I'll find new ones.
(Heh. I've got my (almost) entire CD collection on random on the laptop at the moment. And it has chosen now to play The Happy Song (sadly the slightly more lacklustre Matt Redman version as opposed to either Deliriou5? or Why?) (oh and I couldn't find a decent YouTube version...and to be honest, if you don't know the song I'm talking about, you probably wouldn't want to be introduced to it!))
I've reached one decision that, well, it isn't quite a decision because I suspect there may be some cases of "needs must" over the next year or so...perhaps I have made a concrete realisation instead. Here it is...
I never wanted to work in an office. It was my single greatest dread when I was a child. I'd been fooling myself that because the various office jobs (not counting temping, which is just weird...and just doesn't quite count) I've done have not been typical - have not involved banks or having to wear suits and so on - that I hadn't really been working in offices. Obviously, I have been working in offices. It is precisely what I have been doing. And even when working in offices for good causes and so on, it is still working in an office. It is still administration. It is still paperwork. Which is all well and good but I've just woken up and realised it is not well and good for me. There is a dream not-office-job that I have now but I think it is a long way off, if ever. Other than the dream job though, there are plenty of things out there that don't involve an office and I have to start thinking about possibilities there. Which could be quite fun. Certainly better to view as fun than not...
(Oooh, and now You Stole the Sun has come on...which has put me in mind of a new top ten...)

So Much Fun

Today, Husbink and I took Child Number 1 (of the feeding lambs excitement a few months back) to a children's adventure playground. Her mum has a really nasty flu so we thought we'd give her a bit of time just with Child Number 2 to contend with.
The adventure playground believes in encouraging the adults to play with the kids. We did not need encouraging. I haven't been in a ball pool since I was...I don't know...6? 7? And I haven't been down a huge bouncy castle slide since...ever!
So we crawled through gaps, climbed up platforms, sat in the cockpit of the helicopter at the top of the "climbing frame" (really quite high...ok so not as high as the walls we climbed at the rock climbing place yesterday but for small children...) and had lots and lots of goes on the curly slide. It was great.
It was also very painful! Husbink bashed his thumb so that it started bleeding lots, I have a definite bruise on my right knee and a generally red left knee, we both have very scraped up elbows. Which, when compared to the rock climbing yesterday, is a pretty high injury rate!

Other fun things of late have included watching Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang yesterday. Very silly. It was the second time Husbink had seen it in as many days and the first time I had seen it. I get the impression it gets sillier with time. Anyway, I'd recommend it for a bit of fun mixed with action.
I have also watched two other films in the last few days. (Blockbuster has a crazy Mondays & Thursdays thing where you can hire up to seven catalogue DVDs for seven days for $1 each. Works really well when Husbink is on lates so I have something to watch during the evening and then he has something to unwind with when he gets in around 1am.) The first film was March of the Penguins which was pretty disappointing but perhaps I just wasn't in the right space...
The second film was As it is in Heaven which was beautiful. For anyone who doesn't know it, it is a Norwegian film about a famous conductor/composer/violinist who has a heartattack and needs to take time out. He returns to the village he left when he was 7 after being bullied for his music. No one knows he used to live there (his manager changed his name) and he ends up coaching the church choir. It is not outrageously cheesy as it could be. It is not entirely feel good. The music is gorgeous (especially the song he writes for an abused wife). I'd entirely recommend it.

I'm scratching around my brain (feeling like a chicken in a dusty barnyard...) trying to think of something else suitably lighthearted from the last few days but sadly failing. Which I think has more to do with just how tiring it is to playing an adventure playground all morning than a lack of enjoyment from the last wee while. It's time for my afternoon nap...

I know it is stupid but...

So I've been trying to get ahead of myself with all the things that leaving a house, a town and a country require.
Flights, end of tenancy notice, shipping companies, cancelling this, cancelling that, arranging to get rid of various items, sell others, have a good holiday on the way...
Last week I completed several of these tasks and was at the point where basically only the holiday bit (and the actual packing) still remained to be done.
Then today, I find that one of the bits that I had thought sorted several weeks ago (cancelling gym membership) wasn't. I found this out because they took more money off us. But only my money. They have managed to cancel Husbink's membership, just not mine.
It is not a big deal. At worst it means I get to use the gym for another two weeks. At best it means that when I get to talk to the right person tomorrow, they realise their mistake, give me my money back and on we trot.
But it has really wound me up. One of those silly, silly moments when you feel "if this has gone wrong, what other bogey men are waiting round the corner to stuff up my plans!?" Rational, I know.
I'm utterly capable of this feeling in reverse too. If something that I expect to be difficult goes well then suddenly it feels like everything will run smoothly, there will be no glitches, all will, indeed, be well.
It appears I am not capable of taking each event on its own and simply dealing with it. This caused me endless problems in probability classes at school and uni as I refused to accept that the next outcome was not influenced by the former (I'm not talking about just rolling a die here - though I can put forward a good argument for that not being a series of independent events too).
Husbink and I were playing cribbage earlier and he had won each round and was very close to winning the game. Very close. I said I thought it pointless to continue as there was no way I was going to win. Of course, it was possible for me to win still but based on the previous rounds, unlikely. My mood, the shuffling of the cards, etc, etc, all combine at this point, in my mind to make it far more likely that Husbink will continue to win. He views the events as distinct.
So just because I lost at cribbage and the gym have briefly been useless, does not mean that we are going to get booted out of our house a week too early, arrive at the airport to discover ALL FLIGHTS EVER have been cancelled or that our shipping will end up at the bottom of the sea somewhere but just now it sure as anything feels like it.

It was the best of weekends...it was the worst of weekends...

(Actually, that isn't fair. But it was a very contrasting weekend.)

Laaaaaaate on Thursday night (so much so that it was already an hour plus into Friday) my brother arrived from Sydney. Husbink was working nights at the time and so Friday morning was taken up with much needed sleep (and much creeping about on behalf while the men slept on...we really don't have enough rooms for guests!).

Anyhoo, after the brother woke up, we left Husbink sleeping a little longer while we went out in search of a marvellous kiwi brunch. We found it, we were happy. :)

Finally, Husbink was up-and-at-'em (actually I must say, Husbink managed to get up without all the prodding/shouting/bacon wafting that it usually takes to get him out of bed when he's just finished nights. I was extremely grateful and it was one of the things that really helped my weekend get off to a good start) and we could head away to Martinborough for three nights of relaxation, wine tasting, good meals at restaurants, wineries and the place we were staying (courtesy of us - my bro's bbq skills, my salad skills and Husbink's holding-it-all-together skills all came to the fore).

We cycled hither and thither - Saturday afternoon from winery to winery (we fitted in six); Sunday we cycled out of town and along a gravel road called "River End"...we thought we'd try to find the end of the river...it turned out to be a stagnant pool...rather disappointing but the cycle was still fun! Of course, the ride ended at a couple more wineries... This exercise *almost* justified a third of what we consumed over the weekend!

We found some spectacular wines and wineries - for anyone interested in experimenting with new wines, I'd advise some of the following (possible to track down in places in Australia, limited availability in the UK...so really, you should just come here and see for yourself...)

Alana Estate - has to be one of my favourite places in the world. Staff are welcoming, friendly, knowledgable (in a want to share their enthusiasm with you way rather than a hoity toity snooty way). Restaurant is also fantastic and the food and wine matches are done superbly. We are more than a little gutted to have left NZ before their summer concert series really kicks off.

Stonecutter - a new experience from this weekend, Stonecutter give the impression of making wine by accident, but it turns out rather superbly, especially their Syren Pinot Gris and regular Pinot Gris. I suspect rather more thought goes into it than they let on!

Tirohana - all round good stuff. Again, another winery that we had failed to visit on our previous excursions. Friendly staff, good wine and of course, with an ice wine on the books, I'm never going to be sad.

Haythornthwaite Wines - Possibly the most fun of the weekend, run by Susan (who was busy wrapping up wine for Christmas presents) and Mark (who was a lot of fun and very informative), Haythornthwaites produces some fantastic wines with a lot less pretention than they could justify considering the quality of the wine. I had been sent there by Alana on our first visit to Martinborough as Haythornthwaites is one of the few Martinborough wineries to produce a gewurtztraminer however they had always been closed until this time... Sadly, they had no gewurtz left...until I mentioned it for the sixth time, at which point Mark admitted he had three bottles out the back and could we twist his arm a little more? I haven't tasted it yet but I was rather chuffed to have acquired it! The rest of their wines were very pleasant and Mark made us taste their two pinot noirs alongside each other (young vines in the left hand glass, old vines in the right hand glass) which was very interesting.

Vynfields - Their wines don't amaze me, all fine but nothing wow. However, should you ever be in the area, it is a wonderful place to lose an afternoon. And they make very tasty platters to soak up a little of the alcohol. (They also don't seem to have a website of their own.)

Benfield & Delamare - a bizarre little place. The wines were fine, the staff eccentric!

Margrain - you aren't going to go wrong with a Margrain wine. Sadly, it seems they know that and their cellar door staff were worse than lacklustre. While other staff would have persuaded us to part with a lot of cash and lose an afternoon there (beautiful setting, pretty good food), they effectively shooed us away. Buy the wines, don't bother with a visit.

Martinborough Vineyard - probably Husbink's favourite in terms of the wines. Certainly the Te Tera Pinot Noir is something very special. Staff took a bit of thawing but we were quite late by that stage and I think they were getting bored of the tipsy Sunday avo hoards. We even went back on Monday morning to buy more. Definitely a label to look out for.

And finally, Ata Rangi - we didn't visit these guys this time, but their superb value rose still hits all the right spots!

So what could possibly have been the downside of this weekend? Horrific (yes, I'm aware I'm over using this word at the moment!) hayfever. In some respects, not the worst hayfever I've ever had, its persistent, red-eyed (no, I promise it wasn't just from the wine), tight-chested, blocked-nose, itchy-mouthed present put a certain dampener on the weekend. Not least because by this morning I was feeling so sleep deprived and cranky (add the "monthlies" and a bit of a hangover into the mix too) that all I wanted to do was kick my brother onto that plane, Husbink out the door to work and get some sleep. ON. MY. OWN.

I knew I'd regret it if I didn't make the most of absolutely every minute with my brother so tried my hardest to push on through. An apologetic text is still called for though!

I am now home alone and within the next few hours I intend/hope/pray I'll be sleeping like a baby.

(Confession: The picture is actually from our first trip to Martinborough, last January. We took a weekend off taking snaps, my bro doing a good line in finding comedy places to put his tiny-weeny-smaller-than-a-phone camera to take pics of all three of us. Once he's sent them through, I will enlighten you further...perhaps! The reason I felt a need to confess was because the weather wasn't quite so picture-perfect this weekend, but that actually worked quite well for all the cycling and boozing, at least we didn't add heat stroke to the reasons for dehydration!)

Entertainment?

A couple of years ago, in the months leading up to our departure from the UK, Husbink and I watched "The Constant Gardener". The effect of this film upon us was to cling onto each other at the end and promise to never, ever let go.
Last night, we watched Hotel Rwanda. The effect of this film? Well, besides that fact that I was so involved in and so overcome by the film that I felt like throwing up for a good few hours after, the ultimate effect was realising just how rubbish we humans can be. More specifically, how rubbish I can be.
I sat watching it thinking "if I had known, if I had been able to do anything at the age of 14, if anything like this was happening now and I knew about it, nothing, NOTHING, would stop me trying to fix it". Hello? Brain? Have you not been watching the news these past few years, have you not realised how much you have forgotten about areas of the world where this and similar "problems" still occur?
Which brings us back to the point of several months ago and the "what can I do about Burma?" question. I have less answers - and more sadly less questions - now than I did when I last posted about this.

Last week in our home group, we invited two older members of the church to come and help us establish our spiritual gifts and what they might mean for our lives (Husbink is the oldest member of our group and the youngest is, I think, 19 so it was new to some members of the group to think about this stuff).
My gifts? Teaching and exhorting.
My lowest gifts? All those practical things that tell you that someone needs practical help, that this practical thing needs doing, that this is how you do this practical thing...
Exhorting is all about helping people in their personal life - overcome problems (not in an emotional way, that comes under mercy - which apparently I'm not very good at at all), encouraging people to do the best they can, be the best they can etc etc. (Teaching is all about feeding their brains. No kidding.)
So based on that, I'm never going to be the person who sees a need and knows how to fix it, who knows how to get food parcels to orphans or medicine to disaster victims. I'm only too happy to help, but someone is going to have to tell me to help and tell me how to help. I'm very good at buying food for the food bank and putting it in the food bank box - but not until someone told me to do it and told me what kinds of foods were actually useful.
In many ways, it is comforting to be able to think "I'm not made like that" because I do spend a lot of time beating myself up about why I'm not like that. However, in many ways, it is frustrating to realise that this question may well keep coming back to me - what can I do and why can't I answer "what can I do"?
I guess I just have to find ways of making my far more airy-fairy personality useful. While I work that out, if those practical friends out there could tel me what to do and how to do it when it comes to being useful, I'd be very grateful.

December!

I can't believe I have managed to post twice in December and not celebrate with you the end of Movember!
I've thought about it while writing but then forgotten...
Husbink got home around 10pm on "Movember" 30th from youth group and the like. He went straight to the bathroom and within minutes, the mo was gone! (There was a brief period of "how do you think I look with a Hitler mo?" as the shaving was done but my looks of disgust meant this was a very shortlived moment!)
It was wonderful to have Husbink back again.
When I was three, my dad had to shave his beard off. It was a trial run (to find out if any of us could tolerate it - my dad being at that point 33 and having had a beard since about the age of 22) before moving to America where, with my dad's line of work, he would not be allowed a beard for health and safety reasons (despite the fact that his beard was then and remains now a very neat, tidy, little beard).
There are pictures of me sitting in the corner of the room with one of my dolls (called Kitty) staring, confused, scared, horrified...who was this man?!
I had the absolute reverse of this when Husbink's mo went. Suddenly, my husband walked back into the room instead of the stranger I'd lived with for the past three weeks (seeing as he isn't always clean shaven, the first week of Movember is normally pretty tolerable). I was amazed by how familiar he looked - in that it highlighted that he had looked so unfamiliar for the past few weeks. I didn't think the small slug across his upper lip had such a huge affect on his entire appearance. But it did. And now it is gone. I am happy.

One of the Strangest Things...

I was reading the BBC website today in a procrastinaty sort of way and ended up reading an article about Thriller's 25th birthday.
In said article (musing on the importance of Thriller the album, single, video...), it mentioned that if you went onto YouTube you could find tributes to the video from a wide range of sources - including a Bollywood version and one from 1500 inmates of a Philippines prison. What?!
Clearly, I had to go and see.
So the clip itself didn't excite me that much. They were indeed prison inmates, complete in orange uniforms, doing, as close as they could, the video for Thiller. Not the full 14 minutes version I noted but still a 4min 25sec effort.
What really grabbed my attention though was what came up in the "Related Videos" panel.
Blacked Eyed Peas by the prisoners. Numerous Sister Act songs by the prisoners. Radio GaGa by the prisoners. The Algorithm March by the prisoners (I didn't know what this was, turned out to be a record breaking attempt at it, whatever it was).
So it seems that this prison spends quite a lot of time teaching its inmates dance routines, BIG dance routines, using lots of the prisoners. Which is really quite an interesting thing. I wonder what success rates they have in terms of successful sentences (minimal violence, blackmarket etcetc) and in terms of reoffenders.
When I was working (albeit very briefly) in a prison, there was much debate between punishment and rehabilitation. One officer said to me that whichever way you veered, it made little difference: the light had to go on in the prisoners head. Until that happened (and she suggested it usually happened around the age of forty though when she started as an officer 14 years ago, it happened more around the age of thirty), there was very little difference to be seen between a rehabiliatation approach and a punishment approach in terms of the success options above - particularly reoffending.
I would expect something like the dance routine option adopted in the Philippines to assist reasonably well on the violence etc while in prison option but you aren't exactly equipping them with skills they can use on the outside to help prevent reoffending.
Perhaps they just do it for the record breaking attempts. Still, it seems to have been on CNN in the US from some of the comments and there are a lot of posts for it...perhaps it will help with the not-reoffending element when they are all offered film contracts on release.

It's The Weekend

For the first time in a long, long time, this weekend is a weekend. I have worked during the week. Husbink has worked during the week. We are both free this weekend with only a minimal amount of responsibilities at church on Sunday (or perhaps a better way of putting that would be that our responsibilities are at the evening service and the way things work, that takes up a lot less of our weekend than morning responsibilities do).

We went to the gym this morning (I made Husbink come to a thai fit class...he's now mowing the lawn with our push-along mower...I don't think he's going to be able to move in the morning...) and then to the fruit & veg market. We did a few other bits of shopping. We had a nice lunch with fresh sultana, rye and caraway bread from the market (so yes, it sells some things that are vegetables). Husbink is now mowing the lawn while I wait for the washing to finish.

Later, I'll cut his hair (I can't remember if I blogged about the first time I did this about a month ago, it was very scary! But he hasn't been mocked for the past month and it means I can cut it the length I like and not have to go through the hideously short phase that the barbers tend to enforce so I'm giving it another whirl. There were some "errors" last time, hopefully I'll do better...)

This evening we are going to see some friends for a BBQ.

Tomorrow, sandwiched among the church trips, we are having other friends over for lunch. As it turns out, they've just gotten engaged. I am SO excited and happy for them! (And also amused because I guessed this morning from an email that didn't say they were engaged but the phrasing tipped me off.)

The weather is glorious. All the big jobs of moving and blah blah blah are sorted to an extent that they can be ignored. Very much a weekend.