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!)

Missing things: A shallow post...

Recently I have had a bout of missing things that did not make the cut when it came to packing for our adventure.
I miss my reasonably-thin-well-fitting-cream-roll-neck-jumper.
I miss my handbags. The multi coloured greeny/bluey one that holds everything in the world (and reminds me of Mary Poppins in more ways than one) and was a major bargain from Asda. The see-throughy one with pinky stripes that screamed "it's summer" (thank you Welsherella). The blue denimy one that never held as much as it should, didn't stay on my shoulder very well yet maintained a special place in my heart.
I miss my boots. The two ridiculous pairs that I bought last winter from the very cheap place on Kirkstall road. The green ones with the fluffy bits that mostly resembled glorified wellies. But made me taller. And the cowboy-ish ones that were perhaps the weirdest colour possible in normal shoe tones.
I miss the jeans that are now stupidly large on me but very soft from having owned them too long.
I miss the coat that Husbink's parents got me for Christmas a few years ago. A nice proper blue with a giant hood and fluffy white bits.
I miss all our lovely wedding presents - like the ridiculously over sized wine glasses and our very satisfying denby mugs.
I miss my leather jacket. So much so that without realising it, I bought a cardigan exactly the same shape that has become entirely my favourite item of clothing.
I miss other things too. But that is not the point of this post.

Wanting to do everything

This morning, I didn't really fancy going to church, was not "in the zone" and as I am going tonight and service leading I thought it justifiable to not go. But Husbink reminded me that our new minister was doing the second of a three part series and last week was great so...
And indeed, our new minister is fantastic. Very gifted speaker. The trouble is that I now feel so inspired that I would like to go out and change the entire world this afternoon thank you very much! There are so many ideas buzzing through my head, very few of which I can do anything about at this point in time, that it is hard to sit still or actually do anything. Tricky. So instead I'm faffing about on facebook, not quite getting anything done. Silly me.
To make myself accountable to the big black hole that is the internet for the rest of this afternoon I shall...get sorted for leading this evening; try to finish writing a bible study that I've been mulling over for a while; do a bit of research into my latest not-really-a-job scheme; read my book (rather than continue to faff on facebook...)
Ask me how it has gone...

A mini adventure...

Today was a good day.


Yesterday and today have been Husbink's weekend this week. Yesterday was the getting-the-jobs-done kind of weekend day and today was the everyone-needs-a-sabbath kind of weekend day.













So after a very slow start, we packed a picnic and made our way round to Eastbourne (round the bays from here - further from Wellington by road, probably closer to Wellington as the crow (or rather cormorant/seagull/king shag) flies).

From where we parked we could see across to the Kaikoura mountains of the South Island (currently lightly snowy). (Ok, so it is reasonably only-just-see...)



We picnicked in the car due to the wind but once we'd eat got out for a stroll as the sun had heated the car so much. We pootled on the pebble beach for a while, the pebbles were so warm that it didn't matter that I didn't want to put proper shoes on (I'm turning into a proper Kiwi slowly). Husbink tried to bowl pebbles, I pottered up and down with the camera, playing.
Then we went to a cafe back round a few bays and had cake.
Highly contented me. :)

My day

I'm still trying to work out what I should and shouldn't attempt to do in any given day a) since surgery and b) while trying to do this whole having space/working out the rest of my life thing.
On Monday Husbink and I went for a big walk. By big, I mean a bit less than an hour though it was at least up hill. This was too much and I spent the rest of Monday with quite a lot of post-surgery-type pain again.
On Tuesday, I pootled all morning while Husbink tried to finish HP before going to work. When he went out, I went and did a few jobs like dropping off library books and then spent a few hours at a friend's house chatting/watching children's dvds with her daughter who has chicken pox. All was well but I wanted to go to bed at about 7.30pm. I held out until 9.30pm.
Today I got up after 12 hours in bed, pootled a bit, spent some time with Husbink (he has now finished HP), went to a friend's house to discuss the women's retreat our church is running in September at which I get to be the speaker (very excited, yes, I know I'm odd with my love of public speaking...), came home in time to do my two tutorials and well, I'm only still awake because I didn't get round to putting my electric blanket on earlier!
Today feels like it has been the most "successful" day of the week so far in terms of not doing too much/doing enough. But I just don't know how to get the balance. I want to start doing stuff - and specifically picking up my fitness levels again - but some stuff seems to the be wrong stuff and only has a detrimental effect.
Whinge, whinge, whinge...sorry!

Returning to the human race

It may surprise you from the title to find that this post has nothing to do with my continued recovery from surgery.
Instead, I am thinking of the final Harry Potter book that has absorbed my life for the last few days... (Before I go any further absolutely NO PLOT SPOILERS are contained in this post. I am going to say nothing of what I even thought of the book.)
So since Saturday morning, I have not been on the internet (excepting checking my emails - and even then some of them I decided not to open until I'd finished the book). I did not want to see a THING about the ending (or anything that happened along the way). BBC website - out. Facebook - out. Blogs - out. When HP6 came out, I didn't get to read it for a couple of weeks for one reason and another. Husbink read it before me and wasn't very good at hiding his distress at parts of it. I did however have a guardian at work who stopped anyone from talking about it in my presence which was very handy! But the impact of it was rather lost on me having seen others reactions even if they hadn't told me details.
This time I was determined to get through it as fast as possible so that I heard nothing at all about deaths or anything else from the media.
I was even afraid to go out on Saturday night in case someone in the group that we were saying thought it funny to "share" on the subject...
A trace obsessive?

Over Achieving

It's a little hard to come up with things to blog about at the moment. I'm having quite a good time - I've got a couple of people to tutor in maths, I'm managing to do various things I enjoy, I'm looking forward to going to Sydney, I'm looking forward to Saturday and the release of Harry Potter...
Today I did a load of washing; made muffins; went to church to do photocopying; bought a new ink cartridge and some wool...then had to sleep for an hour and a half to recover. I'm only awake now because the living room had become a little chilly and I had to get up to put the heating on and make a cup of tea.
It doesn't really make for much to write about. I suppose what there is to write about is that I'm having a good time. I'm (mostly) feeling really chilled and content with what I'm up to at the moment. But it is odd that I feel this need to justify my days - when Husbink gets home I feel compelled to tell him all the useful things I've managed to do, to show I'm not a waste of space. Which is such an odd thing.
I was discussing the other day with friends this whole "time that isn't being used is wasted" thing. And the guilt we can have for relaxing or not achieving or sleeping or whatever it might be that isn't up there in the "achieving" category. One of the guys was talking about a book he'd read that followed the idea of Socrates being transported to a 20th century university. The main theme being that he could not understand why people had no time any more, why people no longer met together just to discuss things, why life wasn't fluid enough to be able to have those discussions when they arose rather than pencilling in a date in three weeks time. There are plenty of bonuses about our modern lifestyles but yeah, I'd like a little more time and I'd like to be able to lose this need to justify myself to people other than God.

Hooooorah!

Today we went to the Immigration office.
When we arrived, we found that its hours had changed and we were not at the front of the queue as hoped/expected.
Then we found that the system was not the same as in the London office and that it seemed we could stand in a queue to talk to reception but we couldn't be "seen" and would just have to leave everything with them once reception had done a cursory check.
We got to the front of said queue, explained ourselves and found that the charge was going to be double what we expected. But they did say that the evidence of our relationship was sufficient (still no marriage certificate, now just quite sad that it might be lost forever...but it could still turn up) so that was reassuring.
After this quick checking through, I asked if it would be possible to pay then because of the method we wanted to pay by and the receptionist said "hold on a minute" and disappeared. Reappearing, she did not offer us an EFTPOS machine but instead said "seeing as you are desirable people, someone can see you now".
Expecting to just pay and have a more thorough check of our docs, we headed round the corner. A little under an hour later we left with everything done! We have visas through to February! All is good!
We then in elated moods went on to discuss what made us desirable people which all got quite silly...
Tomorrow, we can book our trip to Sydney :)

Visas. They're not much fun.
I know I've been muttering about this off and on for a while, but today it has all become too much.
In April, we were told that to apply for an extension would be very simple, involve a two page form, possibly a medical for me but not Husbink (due to having had most of it done last time for working in a hospital. Not because they have strange sexist laws...) and all would be well.
So we put it on the back burner a little while we dealt with the house move and the surgery.
Whadda mistaka to make!
We discovered a few days before I went into hospital that the above information was false. We needed to complete the same huge form as last time (including the bit where Husbink writes a letter saying "yes, I do want my wife to stay with me") and we both need medicals. The medicals include a full check over by a nurse, then by a GP, then a chest x-ray (moderately expensive) and blood tests (if anything was going to induce me to swear on my blog, it would be the cost of the blood tests.) However, we managed to complete all that last Monday and the GP assured us it would take about 3 days from finishing the tests to our forms being completed.
So we gave them until Friday and rang to see how it was going. As I've previously mentioned, the receptionists aren't great so Husbink didn't get far over the phone. I fabricated an excuse to pop in (we had part of the form, perhaps they needed it back?). There was hope that it would all be finished today. But there was still questions over whether part of my form would be ok. There was a test that had already been repeated once and might need repeating again. And again. And again. The nurse would ring me back on Friday afternoon to tell me where we were up to with that.
She didn't.
But these things happen and I wasn't too worried about that. There was the agreement that either they would ring me or I would ring them on Monday to see where we were up to.
So about an hour ago, I did. The receptionists were, as ever, special and unhelpful. But I managed to leave a message for the nurse. Having spoken to her I have established that 1) she has no idea when the forms will be completed but will try to put pressure on the GP; 2) the bit of my test that might have needed repeating is sort of ok; 3) the blood test results that should have taken a matter of days to be returned are still not back. This is probably why the forms aren't complete - but they couldn't work that out on Friday!
The second thing is that we require our marriage certificate to show that we are indeed in a stable relationship. About 10 days ago, Husbink's mum posted it to us. A few days before that we had received something in the post that Mr & Mrs SD had posted three days previously so I felt quite confident of the postal abilities between home and here. Ha!
Still it has not arrived. And despite the fact that my m-i-l sent it registered, it can only be tracked to having left England. How useful!
We had been hoping to go the the immigration office tomorrow. We won't be. Our trip to Sydney in August is ebbing away from us and that makes me very sad. Very, very sad.
Thank you for bearing with me...rant over...

Recuperating

Today I had a major achievement: I left the house all on my own, drove the car, and "did things". Several of the things were not very exciting but were things that needed doing and it feels good to be a functioning part of the human race again! (Not that functional though, I've spent the rest of the day recovering (i.e. reading Harry Potter 5...))
The final thing I did on my trip out was buy tickets to see Crowded House in October. I'm not a huge Crowded House fan - in fact I don't own any of their music. But they are a local band (anyone who tries to tell you they are Aussies would receive much mocking here) so we thought it might be fun. And then it turned out that they are being supported by our (probably) favourite NZ band, Supergroove. Much excitement ensued! Tickets went on sale at 9am this morning and by the time I made it to buy them around 11.30, they were close to sold out.
Anyhoo, not very exciting reading, but the most excitement I've had in the last few weeks. Yay me! Back to Harry Potter... (or maybe Trinny & Susannah and my knitting...)

Hmm, I don't like that.

So, I started a post the other day. Saved it. Went back to it. Entirely re-wrote it. Entirely. And yet, it has published it under the previous date. Growl. This does not amuse me. So if you've got any interest in reading said mystery post it is UNDER "Rugby". I'm sure there must be a way round this (I don't need lectures on the subject though, ta) but I can't be bothered to look for it, I'd just like a nice big grump thank you very much. ;)

Rugby

So, I know that many nations enjoy rugby and get passionate about it and all that. And when we arrived in New Zealand and were told that the national religion was rugby, we chortled gently at the wit.
However, we are now faced with being here for the rugby world cup. A world cup that by rights, the All Blacks really should win (no offence to England, Wales, Australia, other nations that at times may have been worthy...lots of offence to France...). New Zealand teams are not known for falling at the final hurdle but the All Blacks and the world cup seems to be a slight nod in that direction.
Everyday, the television tells us how many days to go to the start of the world cup (70 - it's been counting since 100). We have adverts that are just about how much we love the All Blacks (admittedly the tri-nations (with the Springboks and the Wallabies) are going at the moment too making it a little more justifiable) with a tiny weeny nod to their sponsors at the end.
Generally, sport is huge here but half the teams are still nods to the All Blacks (the Tall Blacks are the basketball team, the Black Sticks are the hockey team and the Black Caps are the cricket team. The Silver Ferns (netball) break out a bit but you know their logo has to be the same...)
We're in the midst of the America's Cup at the moment and already there are mutterings about the lower productivity of the country as people are staying up until the early hours to watch the races as they come live from Valencia. And sailing, while big, just doesn't touch rugby. I suspect we will need to plan in the same way for the world cup as we do for earthquakes - enough food and so on in the house that when everything shuts down (which is no bad thing - it happens in January anyway and is pretty cool), we won't be stranded!
(Oh, and for anyone who was feeling that we might be getting more attached to NZ than England, notice how I apologised to Australia and not to France... You can get t-shirts here that say "I support two teams, New Zealand and anyone playing Australia"...)

Favourite Lines in Films

Normally for me a post with a title like this would involve various highly quoted lines from films such as The Princess Bride, The Holy Grail, Star Wars, The Sound of Music... but that is a different post for a different day.

At the moment, there are two lines from two films that I am enjoying very much.

First, "I know that such a legend exists because I made it up" from Miss Potter (for those who haven't seen it, it is a "lovely, gentle film" in my mum's words...).
I love the idea of just making up a legend. Making up any kind of story is something I love but the confidence and self-assurance of making up a legend is wonderful. I think I would like to make up a legend.

Second, "I realised that if I was going to save the world, it would be through cookies" from Stranger Than Fiction. When I was a child, I firmly believed that I was going to change/save the world one way or another. I mostly thought that this would involve being at least vaguely famous in some way and some sort of Nobel prize... The older I get, the more I see that if I were ever going to change the world, it would be through cookies. Or soup. Or hugs. Or chats. Or coffee. Or something like that.

Anniversary

Today is mine and Husbink's third anniversary. Crazy. Though not as crazy as having known each other for eight years. Surely we aren't old enough to have been in Leeds, at uni, eight years ago?!
I thought I should write something about how wonderful Husbink is (cos he is, I'd probably be in some sort of institution by now without him! (that could, of course, be as a nun!)) but well, I thought he probably speaks well enough for himself through his actions (see Beatrice) and gushing doesn't really do it for me...
Suffice to say that despite some of the hard times in the last three years (mainly my health, his shifts), they have been three fantastic years and each one better than the previous.
Here's to the next (one, three, thirty...)!

C'mon Tiiiiiiiim!

(There are other things I planned to blog about today but perhaps they shall come later)

So, living on the other side of the world we have spent the last few weeks saying "Is it Wimbledon yet?" "Have we missed it?" and feeling slightly adrift from all summery, homely roots... (yes, I gather it isn't all that summery at the moment, apologies)

I have just now turned on the BBC website to see the Henman vs Moya - LIVE - I couldn't not click on it, that isn't allowed, right? I would have been banned on return to the UK or something surely?

And in a few short seconds of scanning the score, ten years worth of Wimbledons came crashing back in...I feel so close to home now!

(But as I still have this really weird pain in my chest from the surgery (they inflate you with CO2 and then it works its way out...causing much pain at times and none at others) I don't think I can keep watching...let me know the score!)

Hospital

So I've been trying my hardest not to put more details than people might want to know on here about any of the surgery stuff... So I'll attempt to summarise the hospital stay without any of the ooook.
Sleeping is not easy. Despite the fact that it was a private hospital so I had a room all to myself, they curtained off the door but left it open. Meaning that Mr Not-quite-snoring-but-breathing-loud-enough-to-be-very-disturbing was still extremely audible. Later in the night he became Mr Shouting-in-my-sleep at which point I got my door closed...
I mostly did not sleep. I mostly listened to the strange NZ classical radio station. Which was very good until sometime around 2 in the morning (I think...) when it started to have bizarre stories-to-music things going on...There were two stories about dragons that I didn't quite manage to fathom (and added to the slightly hallucinatory (word?!) sensation I had going on... There was then a very swift adaptation of The Wind in the Willows. That was just rather alarming - especially the noises given to the stoats/weasels...
Probably, that is about as far as I can go without endangering the trying-not-to-gross-people-out thing. Other than to say I was very impressed with the nurses, they were great. And no, I'm not just sucking up to Welshy.
Time for more sleep

Test One Completed

So I've made it through the "prep" for surgery and while it wasn't a walk in the park, it could have been so much worse than it was... I could share details with you but I doubt even nurse Welshy would be too keen on that!
In an odd way, it feels like the worst is over (which is silly of my, I'm aware) because tomorrow morning it is all up to other people what happens.
Husbink doesn't quite feel the same!
I've got my knitting, an mp3 player full of (mostly) soothing music, a new magazine and a few cards...I think I'll survive hospital!
I'll be back at the weekend. :)

Beatrice

Tonight, I have to start taking some stuff to clear out my bowel in advance of my surgery on Thursday. It isn't going to be the most fun I've ever had but neither do I expect it to be the least fun so I'm not too traumatised.
So, anyway, yesterday we had to pop into the local shopping centre (2nd largest in the country or something like that - for those from Leeds think maybe two Merrion centres, for those from Camb, think a lot smaller than the Grafton Centre...for those from neither, think as you see fit!) to do a few jobs. Husbink suggested we divide and conquer. I assumed this was due to our 3rd anniversary being next week and this being our last chance to do anything about it. So I wandered and found nothing of great interest (3rd anniversary - leather?!) and went to meet Husbink at the allotted time.
When we got back to the car he pulled out the carrier bag he'd been hiding and plucked from inside a very fluffy, mostly purple sheep. "Happy Diarrhoea Day!" he declared with glee. He thought I might need a friend in the middle of the night...and she (as he's named her Beatrice) has a squeaky left foot so I can summon Husbink with her assistance...

Because I've had some time pootling round facebook today, I found this...

I am...

Which Princess Bride Character are You?
this quiz was made by mysti

Issues

So this week has been a week of minor traumas and dilemmas that have served a useful role in distracting me from next week's surgery. Which is something I do quite well. Transferring panic from a big thing to lots of little things.
Thus far I have been traumatised over

• Our rented washing machine and the bizarre way in which they handle payments
• Trying to get hold of icky gross preparatory medicine for surgery
• Continually failing to renew my library book
• Feeling guilty for not doing any temping
• Rearranging flights to Sydney to see my bro
• Driving licences (now that we are staying more than a year we need NZ ones. Or something.)
• Visas (ok, so these last few do merit some concern of their own)
• Trying not to get a cold

And the last one has probably been the one I've stressed about least but in some ways would have been the most valid one to worry over... And this morning Husbink woke up with a horrid cold. So I'm now working on pretending I have it and trying to treat it in advance. Which is nice as it involves lots of watching DVDs (proven cure, y'know) and drinking mucho tea and so on.

I'm suspecting I may have gone mad.

Too tired!

So we did some adventuring at the weekend for the first time in quite a while. It was good. It involved a mountain, walks, sitting by the fire, chilling and good times.

Sadly for me it also involved failing to sleep very well at all. And having had another day in the call centre today I'm just too sleepy to tell you all about it properly. So here's one photo and maybe some more details will follow...

Tis Mt Taranaki from our hotel, which was about a third of the way up the mountain at 845m. Nice.

Testing...

Blogger won't publish my post...despite claiming that it has published...it just isn't there...so I'm seeing if I can wake it up...
Editted to add: well, it seems to be working but I am not trusting it...this may have more to do with my current state of mind than blogger's abilities...

Work

For the past two days, I have worked in a call centre (dun, dun duuuuuuuh!!). I have spoken to somewhere in the region of 300 people from all over the country about whether or not they might be owed money. The company I was working for was pretty naff - really rude, didn't give any information (like where the toilet was...) etc etc. Not what you expect as a temp, normally there are quite clear rules about the information you must give a temp blah blah so you actually know the place quite well. Anyway, it was inbound calls (there is no chance I would do the outbound calling thing unless it was for a really good cause) so not horrific and actually I quite enjoyed talking to so many people. And I hope I brightened some of their days by being friendly rather than officious.
Now I have a slightly sore throat from almost non-stop talking and a generally uncomfortable left ear from the headset. Some people worked at this place permanently. I've no idea how they survived!

Ant & Dec

So, as some of you with good memories might recall, I burbled way back here about the whole famous faces issue of moving to a different country - not having Terry or Natasha Kaplinsky or Ant & Dec...you know, just people you know on t'telly. I've just not watched an entire series of Dancing with the Stars (as they call Strictly Come Dancing here) because I didn't know any of the celebrities involved.
Anyway, this afternoon we got back from a friends birthday and I flicked the telly on a few minutes early for my daily dose of Neighbours. And there were Princes Charles, William and Harry being interviewed. Not very interesting until I realised they were being interviewed by Ant & Dec! Husbink was in a different room and was called with much squeaking of "It's Ant & Dec on t'telly! Ant & Dec on t'telly!" Sadly by the time he made it through, Neighbours had started. He was quite disappointed.
In the UK, Ant & Dec would cause us no excitement at all and as often as not (if not more so) we'd change the channel away from them. But here, where they are a rarity and no one has heard of them, it was VERY exciting! Crazy, aye?

My Top Ten Top Tens

So, Husbink and I have a tendency, particularly on long car journeys, to waste a good chunk of time on our "Top Ten..." so here is a Top Ten of our Top Tens....

1. Top Ten Songs of All Time
2. Top Ten Songs for Car Journeys
3. Top Ten Films for watching when you have a cold/hangover/sad day...
4. Top Ten Books
5. Top Ten Bands to See Live (mostly that we have not already seen)
6. Top Ten Holidays
7. Top Ten Meals
8. Top Ten things we've done in the last year/month/since getting married...
9. Top Ten Walks
10. Top Ten Albums

The books and albums probably cause the most disagreement...

Whips

So the latest craze amongst the youf round here is to get a bed sheet, tie knots in it and whip it so that is makes a cracking noise like a gun. Round where we used to live there would be the constant sound of this all afternoon from about 3.30 until it got dark. Once you know what it is, it is ok but the first few days we thought our street had gone downhill a bit! Round here, it is a little more subdued but this afternoon we went for a stroll and ended up coming back through the park and saw two groups of kids practicing with their whips. One group were a little older and more practised and made some very impressive cracks, bouncing off the hills for an echo effect. The other group were quite young and still trying to work out how to make the noise.
So, yeah, I guess I can see why it has caught on and all that, but is it anywhere else in the world? Did it start here? Or elsewhere? Has it spread? Or do just have our own little bed of insanity?!

Things I Wanted to Be When I Grew Up...

It seems I'm not over my listy mood yet!
In no particular order:

1. Journalist
2. Geologist
3. Vicar
4. "Something to do with horses"
5. Novelist
6. Actor
7. Athlete
8. Educational Psychologist
9. Astronaut
10. Singer
11. Someone with a PhD - cos my dad has one
12. Bookshop owner
13. Women's refuge worker

So most of these are out due to a lack of natural talent. Some of them are out due to the fact that I'm really not that interested any more (like the whole realisation of being scared of horses).

Strangely, writing this list has not suddenly made it clear what I want to do with the rest of my life. (Spot the person who is about to have to go back to a lot more temping and really, really doesn't want to!)

Best Things About Our House

• There are fantails in the garden.

• We have an open fireplace in the living room. (We are yet to discover whether we can use it...)

• Our garden is lovely and rambly, nice but not "immaculate"

• A family of pukeko live at the stream at the end of the street.

• Our landlady is not crazy. Well, she is, but in a good way. Not in a making it an awful place to live way.

• It is small enough that we actually mostly fill it. Which is so much nicer than rattling.

• The hills are at the end of the street. We can go for a bush walk from our doostep.

List of Books

So Pomgirl did this a few weeks ago and as I'm feeling highly listy today, I thought I'd give it a whirl. And then I might go on to lots more lists or I might have gotten over the list writing need...

Instructions: Look at the list of books below.
• Bold the ones you’ve read.
• Italicise the ones you want to
• Don’t do anything to the ones that you aren’t interested in.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To kill a Mockingbirg (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I know this much is true (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview with a Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch 22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne Du Maurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

I wouldn't advise all the ones I've read, nor am I snubbing all the ones I've not italicised...
And I resisted putting comments next to a lot of them...

High Speed Update...

So today is the day of cleaning the old house...I have dusted, hoovered, kitchened (ahem) and ought to be bathrooming...but the super power cleaner needs time to work...
New house is lovely (though no broadband yet) - it is all cute and cottagey and we actually fill it so it feels much more like a home than the strange rattling about we've had for the last nine months. And the move? It went amazingly well! We were all shifted and half unpacked in four hours! We had mucho good helpers. :)
Much as it is tempting not to, I suspect it is time to attack the shower now...

Hallelujah!

We have a house! We signed this morning and we move on Saturday!
I should really be packing now...
It is a lot smaller than where we are but feels really nice and cosy...and for winter, I don't think I'll complain about the smaller rooms. It also has an open fire but we are waiting to find out when it was last used...
And the best thing? (Besides being $100 a week cheaper...) is that the hills are right there at the end of the road. Ah...

Being Volatile

So, I've mostly got my head round the impending surgery. Or at least, I'm not entirely distracted by it.
However, I am mostly distracted by our housing situation. Which is that in ten days, we don't have one. We've currently rejected about four houses following drive bys (one of them was a shed). We've been rejected by three houses we were interested in. Twice for not wanting to stay long enough (a fair reason but really, what are we meant to do for nine months?) and once for being a couple (he wanted to let it out to a young, single, guy. surely as a landlord that should be bottom of the list of what you want?!).
So there has been a lot of crying...a little bit of throwing things...a lot of thinking of mean things about people (mostly about the various landlords)...a lot of hiding in a book to pretend that it is all going away...and a lot of being unable to string sentences together...
I also have a silly cold so I can't breathe either.
Grump. Grump. Grump.

Being Grown Up

Today, I feel like being grown up has been forced upon me. As many of you will know, I've had surgery twice in my life on my jaw. Although the second time I was 18 so technically I gave my consent, it had been rumbling on since I was 5 so there wasn't really a decision to be made at that point.
Today, I went to see a specialist and came away less than an hour later with a date for surgery (just over a month away) all booked in and ready to go. I also came away with lots of not very jolly information about said surgery and about my preparation for it.
Anyhoo, the point of all this is that I had to make the decision. And I didn't really get any time to ponder that decision. Husbink is at work so he couldn't help me. My mum was asleep on the other side of the world so she couldn't help me. I had to sign myself, as the patient, that yes, I'd have this, yes, they had my consent to talk to all relevant parties about me, yes, I'd have a blood transfusion if needs be, yes, they could do whatever necessary on opening me up, fundamentally yes, I would not sue them.
As my previous two surgeries were fairly hefty (5-6.5 hours each), I have never really considered a lot of routine surgery as that major, it would be something that I could take in my stride. And this particular instance definitely doesn't count as that huge. It will be all over in two hours tops. It could be over in twenty minutes. (Or there abouts...) And yet now that it is happening to me, it does feel rather more major...

Gym

Today, we joined a gym. As we don't have anywhere to live in 2.5 weeks time, I'm unemployed in 3.5 weeks time, our visas semi-expire in a month...this might have seemed like a slightly strange priority. But oooh, it did feel good. When we joined a gym in Leeds I thought it would be the one and only time I joined a gym. I didn't think I'd like it at all. But having somewhere safe and warm and nice to exercise seems to agree with me. It even made me do strange things today, like saying "of course, 8am on Friday morning is a perfect time to have my fitness assessment". Hey ho.
Of course, really the good thing about going to the gym is coming home...and feeling justified in eating chips, chocolate and drinking wine...

Fashion

For my birthday (which hasn't happened yet), my mum has given me some money for some new winter clothes. As we are staying in NZ until Febuary (I realise I may not have said this before), I now need a whole winter wardrobe which wasn't really in the plan. So I brought only a few big jumpers with me. And having not brought so much clothing, a few items have been worn to death now...so the new clothes are really needed.
So yesterday, I did a very brief perusal of a few of the nicer shops in the area so see what I might want to spend birthday money on (and will then go to the cheaper shops and spend my own money too!!). The only problem is that the fashion here seems to be mostly really quite weird at the moment. But I don't know whether that is NZ fashion or whether UK fashion has also gone weird. So should I go with the weirdness or resist it?! So confusing...
All I wanted was a lovely cuddly jumper or two and a few new layerage options...
Ah, the trials and tribulations.

Temping

Today and last Friday, I had two one-off days of temping, doing reception duties for two very different companies. Both of them lacked in actual work to do and so I've done rather a lot of sudoku...
On Friday, it was super organised and all laid out very well and generally friendly and easy to deal with and so on. But due to the nature of the company I was working for, I will never return there. (I had accepted the job before registering the name of the company...let's just say it had "tobacco" in it...). I spent the entire day having to bite my tongue and not ask the staff how they slept at night...
Today was a shambles. They weren't at all prepared for someone coming in. They didn't have a phone list in anything resembling a sane order, the only information they had was written by a previous temp... Fortunately, all the visitors who came seemed to know what they were doing which was a great relief!
I think though, like waitressing, I was not built to be a receptionist. This is not something that surprises me.

Hip hip hooray!

Congratulations to Welsherella and the Tart on their engagement!
It was very exciting to wake up to a rather cryptic but instantly understandable text on Saturday morning. Hip Hip Hooray indeed!

If I don't write a title straight away, I forget...

So anyway.
Husbink and I have just (mostly) wasted the last week of our lives. Not as in the last week ever. As in the week just gone. The way in which we have wasted it may explain why I felt compelled to clarify that...
Last Monday we both felt pretty lousy. Wiped out. Bleugh. So we went to the library to rent some DVDs and accept that we were in need of a couple of "sick days".
Thing is, one of the DVDs we rented was the entire third season of 24. Those you who knew me at the time of the first season (particularly those of you who lived with me during that time) will know the effect it had on me. Those of you who didn't know me then...nice one!
I started watching season two but managed to stay detached enough that a few weeks of holiday broke my resolve. I had successfully avoided any further seasons until now.
So now we both think everyone is watching us, that we are about to uncover a plot of some hideous nature and that either one of us could die any moment. Nice.
I returned all the DVDs to the library today. I didn't want to get any more DVDs out but having had to go round the carpark three times to get a space, I felt compelled to do something more than just drop off the returns. So I just thought I'd check to be sure. And it is ok. They do have season 4...

That there five things...

So, in my continuing not so chatty mood (but getting a little more so), I thought I'd do the tag that delightful Welsherella left me a wee while ago.
Which is five things that you don't know about me. You all know different things about me...a challenge methinks!

1. When I was eight, I really, really, really wanted to be a geologist when I grew up.
2. Having wanted a horse/horse riding lessons etc etc since a young age, I discovered, aged 18 that I was really rather terrified of them. Well, just roaming ones really.
3. I'm currently wondering how many pairs of socks one person can wear at a time. (Currently on two and not really feeling my toes.)
4. As a young child, I used to believe all of the following: I would one day win an olympic gold medal; I would climb to the top of Mt Everest; I would go to the moon. I think this was mostly to do with a lack of concept of size of world population. I also believed I would become an incredibly calm and serene person one day. There, I was just plain deluded.
5. To my best reckoning, I have been on 87 flights in my life. I am prepared to stand corrected on that one, but probably only by my mum. As she doesn't read this, I feel pretty safe!

So, some of you might know some of them...I did my best!
I tag MM, d/w and Ruth.

Holidays, houses, home?

Well, I've not been in a right chatty mood of late and so blogging has fallen by the wayside a little, even since the Scouses went home. I suspect it might continue to for a while so apologies if you keep feeling compelled to check and nothing is there... So I've put in a whole heap of photos to compensate. ;)






Our holiday was fabulous but the first week was exceedingly tiring. We went over to the South Island and indulged in much beautiful scenery along with some good walks, good cake, good wine, amazing drives, animal spotting (birds & seals mostly), lie ins, early starts, beaches, glaciers and fun.




















We were then home for the weekend so Husbink could work and I could lead the Easter morning service which was very much a privilege.








We then had a few more chilled nights in Martinborough, just over the hill (we went there before, see here). We pootled on bicycles, went to wineries, ate lots, slept lots, and the Scouses taught us cribbage. We are now addicted. Though we prefer to call it "cabbage".

The Scouses left last Thursday which was very sad. We had a fantabulous time with them and miss them lots.

So a few short hours before the Scouses left, we got a letter telling us we would be kicked out of our house on May 25th. This is not a big problem, barely even a problem, as if we intend to stay, we wanted to move somewhere a bit cheaper anyway and if we are not staying it is two short weeks before Husbink finishes work and we already have several offers of beds for that time. The problem comes that we really must now galvanise our thoughts and decide which it is to be. Should we stay or should we go now? I can argue really convincingly either way at the moment and no one is brave enough to argue back.