The Tour Manager

'Car'rying on. Oh god that's terrible.

2011-01-27T19:37:00.008Z

So I failed 3 stations at the OSCEs. Ah well, no biggie, and I know where I went wrong so when the retakes come round (hopefully March) I will breeze through them. I say no biggie, but obviously I was devastated, having never failed an exam in my life. But I pulled myself up by my - erm...what is it I'm supposed to pull myself up by? Bootstraps? Jockstraps? - whatevers, and got on with the business of getting the work and home bits of my life sorted out.

The exciting news for me at the moment is that I'm attempting to buy a car. I say attempting, since the fact that I'm new to Canada means that I have no credit history, so I might as well be a newborn baby as far as the financiers of this country are concerned. But when Isaac arrived here from Ontario in the Kia it was showing signs of exhaustion and has subsequently decided to take a little *ahem* rest from driving. Two people in Canada with only one car - when one is working full time - just doesn't work. Poor Isaac has been literally stuck in the house for a week (particularly since I was gone for pretty much 3 days straight when dealing with the hardest labour I've ever had) because this country is just not set up for pedestrians. Public transport? What's that?! And on top of that this is the worst winter for snow that they've had in Edmonton for around 20+ years and the fact that I have to be able to get anywhere at any time of the day or night no matter what the weather or road conditions, means that I need to have a safe and reliable vehicle.

To that end, the one I've chosen is a VW Tiguan. The bottom line for me is that it is a) awesome b) classy c) very safe and reliable and d) a Volkswagen. I just love them. I always have. And having owned a Golf and, to a lesser extent, my Polo, I know that they just do the job. They do it well and they go on for EVER. I am well aware that I can get another car for a bit less money. But this one had my heart, my head and all my other organs, so [blows raspberry]. Oh and a SIX year comprehensive warranty, FOUR years roadside assistance and an incredible TWELVE year anti-rust guarantee. Oh and it goes like the proverbial shit off the proverbial shovel. Plus, since I am now earning good money, and couldn't buy a house right now anyway (no credit history thing plus no down payment) I really want to have SOMETHING that I love and am proud of, particularly since I will be using it all the time. So at present we have submitted an offer and paid a deposit on a 2009 fully loaded Tiguan at a dealership in Edmonton and Isaac's mum - gawd bless her heart - has agreed to be a co-signer in order for me to try to get the finance sorted. With my income, and her excellent credit score, we hope it will be enough to secure me the car. Hopefully I'll be able to take her name off once I have a year or so of prompt payments under my belt, and I'll be able to build up my own credit score so I don't need to go through this hassle in future. If it all works out, I promise to post pictures!

I just realised I never blogged about Christmas. Well I won't tell the whole story now, since it would take ages, but suffice to say that my sister Jenny and her boyfriend James flew out to Ontario to spend Christmas with us and it was AMAZING. We skied and snowboarded, we snowtubed, we hot tubbed, we snowshoed, bought lots of coats and warm clothing (including two FABULOUS old fur coats* for Jen and myself), we had nights in and and out, and amazing meals (Jenny & I cooked on Christmas day and, though I say it myself, it was a triumph) and I was very sad to see them go. Hopefully they can come out and visit again very soon over here in Alberta. Secretly, I hope they enjoy themselves so much they want to emigrate here! Photos from the trip can be found here.

*I know the arguments. I sort of agree. But living out here with the kind of temperatures you can experience does change your view somewhat. I'm still not sure how I feel about the whole thing or how often I'll wear it, but I bought it anyway. So there.

...and now back to work.

2010-12-12T17:03:00.003Z

Okay the OSCEs could have been worse. Most of them I felt I did well in and will have passed - one or two I was even told as much by the examiner. There are 3 or 4 that are in question - I made a silly minor error here, blanked on what they were trying to get at there, but I think it's all down to the individual examiner as to how harsh they are. I imagine I'll be back for retakes in the Spring, mainly because most people have to retake on or two sections. But I'll know where I went wrong and I'll damn well not make the same mistake again!

In the meantime, word has got out that there's a new midwife in town (we're a rare commodity!) and, following a flurry of activity, I now have a fairly decent caseload going on. Hurray!

Being practical

2010-12-11T02:36:00.003Z

Hello! As I write I am sat in the Super8 in Calgary (which I don't recommend one little bit incidentally) revising for my OSCEs - Objective Simulated Clinical Examinations - tomorrow. This is basically a whole day of being shoved into a room with a clinical scenario and having to deal with it, just to prove that you can. Some of them are emergency situations - I'm anticipating shoulder dystocia, post-partum haemorrhage, undiagnosed breech and neonatal resuscitation - and the others are likely to be normal clinical skills, such as an abdominal palpation, suturing or a neonatal examination, and yet others will be discussions on subjects such as vitamin K administration, metabolic screening and circumcision. They use real women where possible/appropriate (I assume shoulder dystocia would be on a model!) so that does help a bit I suppose, but I HATE doing these kind of exams. It's funny, the actual clinic skills I have no problem with and feel confident when I'm in a real situation, but having someone in a room watching, and critiquing, your every move is horrible. My tendency is to try to rush through things and in the process to forget something important, so I'm going to focus on breathing deeply and relaxing wherever possible. I did a practice session yesterday and was relieved to find that I did generally remember things - I was also relieved that everyone else was as nervous, and some were less experienced, than me. Anyway, we get 10 scenarios and have to pass at least 8 of them, 6 of which are mandatory. I can retake individual scenarios if I do fall to pieces ;-)

Wish me luck!

This explains a lot...

2010-11-29T06:22:00.004Z

I have an addendum to a previous post: when I had my leaving do from Treetops, my Aussie boss, Mike confessed to me that he had been telling every customer for months that I was also Australian and that I loved to be asked about my home country as I was homesick. Although there were still days he wasn't at work that I was asked about being an Aussie, so I know it wasn't all down to him, it certainly does explain why some people were so damned convinced about my heritage. What an Ausshole!

The great confessional

2010-11-29T00:40:00.007Z

Much has happened since my last post and I make no apologies for not prioritising writing about it, since I've been too busy living it.

I mentioned, almost in passing, a while back that I'd been accepted into the International Midwifery Preregistration Programme (IMPP) in Toronto. I went to the orientation day back in July and began work on a series of distance modules prior to the official start in September. However, I was chatting to my lovely friend Megan, who you may or may not remember had been my student back in London when she was training to be a midwife before coming home to Canada, and she told me that her midwifery partner Gaelyn and her had decided that I should come and work with them in Edmonton, Alberta. For those of you unfamiliar with Canadian geography, that's around 3,500kms away from where we live in Ontario. The idea of working with Megan certainly appealed to me (as did living only a 3 hour drive from Banff) I looked into what would happen if I completed the IMPP and then moved - long story short it was a bureaucratic nightmare. The Ontario system is set up so that you don't become a fully fledged midwife until at least 6-12 months after you finish your training and so you're effectively tied to the province until then. Since it was going to take 6-9 months to complete the course itself, this would delay any move for at least a year and quite possibly more. Hmmm.

I decided to look at what the requirements for registering directly in Alberta were instead. It turns out the only things that Alberta required was a midwifery qualification (a UK one would do) minimum of 60 births in the past 5 years and to take, and pass, a practical and written exam. As luck would have it, despite not having practised for 3 years, I still had over 60 births in the previous 2 under my belt. This wouldn't be the case for long so I had to get on it asap. I got all the required paperwork together - oh it sounds so easy but really it wasn't! - and applied: I was accepted to sit the exams. A quirk of the system meant that if you are judged eligible to sit the exams, you can actually begin practising on a restricted licence with a named Supervisor straight away. Crazy but true.

Having by now dropped out of the IMPP, I packed up all my stuff and Isaac and I drove across Canada - staying, by some miracle, ahead of the winter weather - we arrived in Edmonton two weeks ago. We actually had a brief stop off in Banff, which was a fabulous trip down memory lane and even included meeting up with friends, Andrew and JK, who were back for another ski season working at Lake Louise. We made a quick stop at Sunshine Village, which was not yet open, to pay homage to where it all began for us. It was a lovely interlude, but sadly I got ill on the second day there and spent a rather hellish couple of days shivering and puking while we headed north via Calgary.

We immediately launched into looking for a place to live and found a lovely 3 bed house very close to Megan and her husband Craig in Leduc, just south of Edmonton. Isaac flew back a week ago to Ontario where he'll remain, looking after our house and Tiger the cat, until after Christmas. I've remained in Edmonton, staying with Megan and Craig, preparing to move into our new house in a week's time. I've spent the last week calling and arranging to meet my new clients, and even attended my first birth in over 3 years as back up for Gaelyn. It was a home waterbirth, which will happily be the large majority of my work here. I'm flying back to Ontario to spend Christmas with Isaac's family and my sister Jenny and her boyfriend James, who are flying out from the UK to visit. I'm flying back here at the beginning of January and Isaac will drive back out with his friend Matt and his brother Reilly, so we have both our cars out here in Alberta, then Isaac will be joining me here permanently.

So that's pretty much where we are up to now. I'm loving living in Alberta again - I like living out in what amounts to suburbia but close enough to a city to have access to all a city has to offer: I'm 15 minutes from Ikea and the South Edmonton Common retail park, including the Gap Factory Store (where I indulged in a spending spree when I got my first paycheque the other day). I'm really enjoying being back in midwifery (bit nervous too) and I'm excited about our new house! I can't wait to see Jen & James at Christmas and I'm really looking forward to having real money to spend on people's presents for the first time since 2006. Such a relief.

So apologies for once again just having a 'I did this, then I did this, then I'm doing this' kinda post. I'd rather just be musing on ideas and throwing around the one liners, but I don't get to do this as often as I'd like and blah de blah de blah. Which brings me on to...

While I'm spilling my guts about things I would also like to admit a rather shameful secret: I've been Twittering for a few weeks. At first I told no one and happily tweeted just to myself. Then, the other day, my nephew Benj found me - not sure how - and began 'following' me. A few more people (strangers!) followed suit. So I thought I'd come clean and if you feel like following my random thoughts then look for @midwifemia. No obligation though, it is of course merely the whitterings of a madwife.

Fall and land

2010-10-12T22:53:00.004+01:00

Was that really my last post? Shameful. After all that gumph I wrote about promising to do less facebooking and more blogging. I really am full of shit, aren't I?

As a matter of fact I am halfway through a draft posting about our holiday in England so I'll get a shimmy on that one and finish it. And so much else has happened in the meantime! In the meantime, I just wanted to say that today I watched a float plane land on a Canadian lake, with a backdrop of the most fantabulous array of Autumn colours I've ever seen. That, I said emphatically to Isaac, is the Canada I expected, the Canada I came to see. Wonderful. On that note I'll disappear back into the information superhighway, as once we called this internet malarkey. Hopefully I'll be with you again in a jiffy.

Blighty

2010-09-28T01:13:00.012+01:00

As usual, it's taken me a while to get round to writing this one up. If only I was willing to précis everything it might be easier, but goddamnit I always want to tell you everything.

So. At the end of August, Isaac & I flew to England for a two week holiday, cleverly planned around a) my sister Toni's wedding and b) my having a crown done. The former had been planned for some time of course, whereas the latter was something I had recently been trying to fit in and around the wedding, necessitating, as it does, two visits to the dentist with a gap in between. The crown was something that had needed doing for a while - I won't bore you with the story but I had one tooth that was, by now, merely a shell full of composite, and I was expecting every mouthful of every meal to 'do for it', as it were. The crown had been recommended before I went to New Zealand, but since I had neither the time nor the funds at that point, I had been babysitting it ever since. Dentistry is notoriously expensive in Canada (along with mobile phones; groceries; car insurance and every other sodding thing I have to buy) and the same crown would have cost me somewhere in the region of $3000 to have done here, whereas I paid 'just' £400 n the UK (around $650 CAD currently) so the saving was considerable.

We flew in to Gatwick to be met by my dad and we made a stop off at his allotment on the way home to pick up some beans, courgettes and a few cornflowers. In the coming days we managed to catch up with Sophie and Dan (for the first time since they officially became Mr & Mrs), have the obligatory Pizza Express (oh Lordy how I've missed you), go to the Wings & Wheels show at Dunsfold Park, which was AMAZING - see pics here - have a great lunch with Raquel, Darren and Aaron, and take a walk along the tow path next to the Thames from Kingston to Hampton Court, all in the glorious warm sunshine. Ha - take THAT, those who think it rains all the time in England.

On 31st August I went to the dentist in the morning to have my temporary crown fitted. At one point I swear the dentist had both hands and at least one of his feet in my mouth. Back home for Jacqui's homemade courgette soup (Isaac: 'I don't think I'll like that, I'm not a big fan of zucchini.' Me: 'Well just try a spoonful of mine and see what you think'. Cut to Isaac eating THREE bowls of the stuff) and then the train up to London. I told Isaac we were going to go to Harrods, which of course he'd never heard of. He kept saying 'Why are we going to a department store? I'm don't even like shopping that much.' I told him to wait and see, and of course when we got there, he saw exactly why. We had fun visually devouring the food halls and looked at all the expensive stuff we'll never be able to afford, like a £10,000 toy car and a £45,000 gun. Then we hopped on a bus up Piccadilly and went to the studios of Absolute Radio, where Geoff Lloyd had just started his show. I've been a huge Geoff Show fan for years so I decided to take him up on his oft quoted offer to 'just drop in and visit us if you're passing'.

We were welcomed to the studio by the security guard while I explained that we were just visiting. The moment I heard his voice I realised it was none other than Martin the Security Guard, regular contributor to the Geoff Show. I behaved like a proper fan and asked if I could get my photo taken with him. He was lovely, though shy, and complied, then got Nelson the producer to come down and take us up to the studio. Isaac had never been in a radio studio before and was struck dumb, so it was left to me to do all the talking for once. Shame. Geoff, Annabel and Nelson - my constant driving companions via podcast in Canada - were consummate hosts and we spent 2 hours watching them put the show together, which was delightful and exciting for me at least. I even contributed one sentence to the show: 'Yeah, me too, I get very confused'. We left when the show was almost over and took the bus up to Leon's at Ludgate Circus, the traditional get-together location for Guy, Chris, Debbie and I - Jonathan and Janet were unable to make it sadly - and we had a fab meal and it was all over too quickly as usual. That's the most frustrating thing about living abroad: when you do meet up with friends back home you have to squish a year's worth of friendship into a few short hours, and you always leave unsatisfied. Sigh.

The following morning we headed up to London again to take the train from Kings Cross up to Hull, where we were met by my sister Jenny. She was putting us up again, and had planned all sorts of exciting activities around Toni's wedding, on the Saturday. We had a grand day out at Flamingoland, where we rode every roller coaster including Mumbo Jumbo, the 'World's Steepest Roller Coaster', 112 degrees dontcha know, which we rode twice, and Kumali, which was our favourite and we rode three times. We visited the self-styled 'Strangest Place in the World' - the Forbidden Corner - which was indeed very strange and well worth the beautiful drive through the North Yorkshire countryside. We also had numerous delicious meals. More than that, I spent the entire week in hysterics - Jenny and I have always been able to reduce each other to a heap on the floor with little more than a well-timed glance. It was great to spend some time with her, her boyfriend (and Isaac's official English Dad) James, and my niece Mini-Me, oh sorry, Liddi, before she heads off for a few months travelling, starting in New Zealand the lucky beggar.

The wedding was the main focus for the holiday of course, and on the day, Jenny and I picked up the flowers and balloons (plain red hearts), dropped off the bridal bouquet and buttonholes, drove to the golf club where the reception was taking place and decorated all the tables. Then we drove back home where Toni was meeting us, and we all got ready in between eating smoked salmon and bagels, as is traditional. The wedding was lovely and no one fell over or shouted anything rude, which is always a relief. The reception was beautifully decorated *ahem*, and the playlist had been designed by my sister's new husband Rob before he even asked her out, or so he told us during his speech. That sounded sweet and romantic of course because they DID end up getting married but he was lucky - if she had never agreed to go out with him that might just sound like a stalker! Various people got rather drunk, others got rather drunker. Some very funny things happened, but most of them are best retold elsewhere, where one can do the accompanying funny voices and/or walks. Anyway, suffice to say, everyone had fun.

Eventually it was time to head back down to Surrey; train again. The dentist replaced my temporary crown with a proper one (I had a tooth again!) and I even managed a curry at the Hussain, my favourite curry house in the world. Oh that bhindi bhaji! And my final walk around Waitrose almost had me in tears: so much food I wanted still to eat; so little time.

So caught up a little here, making no promises for the future since I always seem to break them, but have much more to tell...

"Unnecessary"

2010-08-16T01:47:00.001+01:00

Hurray, I'm famous! Oh hang on...

G'day cobbers!

2010-07-03T14:44:00.005+01:00

Pardon me for having to get something off my chest, but Canadians seem to be the only nation on earth who literally cannot hear the difference between an English person and an Australian one. A day does not go by when I don't get mistaken for an Australian - occasionally a Kiwi but that's usually as a tentative second guess - and I must admit I'm long past being all British and apologetic about it ["I'm so sorry but I'm not, I know we really do sound similar, it's probably because I spent a year in New Zealand blah blah"]. It actually just pisses me off a bit now, though obviously I do still try not to be overly rude to people when they ask (seeing as it's usually when I'm at work). But I mean really? Who do I sound more like: the Queen or Crocodile Dundee?! Every day someone says something like 'Oh I bet you're missing the beaches back home!' To which I'll reply 'Well the beaches in London aren't all that impressive, so no, not particularly.' The other day at work a cocky sort of chap asked me what part of Oz I was from and when I said actually I am English, he said 'Oh. Well, you're close to each other though, aren't you?' A short and somewhat terse geography lesson ensued, in which he seemed totally uninterested.

And I think that's the crux for me. They just don't really care. A large number of North Americans - and yes, I'm lumping the Canadians in with the Americans for a moment - stay in North America, listen to North American music, watch North American telly and films and don't really pay any attention to the outside world. England might as well be next to Australia for all they know or care. And this goes even for the ones who ought to have a bit of a clue - I've had conversations that have started with 'Oh my dad is from England!' and ended with 'I'm not sure where, somewhere near Edinburgh.' It always reminds me of the line in Anchorman where Brian Fantana, while talking about a woman he may or may not have been in love with, claims that she was 'Brazilian, or Chinese, or something weird.'

And something weird is kind of how I feel most days. At work for example, although we all get on very well indeed and have a lot of fun, I'm often the butt of a few gentle jibes about my 'Englishisms'. Usually it's when I use a word or a phrase quite innocently over the radios that causes much hilarity because it's completely unknown here. For example, the other day I described people coming over to the Red Course as coming 'in dribs and drabs' - turns out this is not common parlance over here. When I told another guide that a customer was wearing a 'purple jumper' she looked at me in horror and asked what on earth a 'jumper' was. But the thing is, we've grown up with American telly and films so we already know that they call rubbish 'garbage', a boot a 'trunk', and a bum a 'fanny' (snigger) and so on. We indulge them when they come to England and say 'elevator' or 'flash-light' because we know what they really mean. They, however, may have seen Four Weddings and a Funeral but that hasn't taught them that we call such things a 'lift' and a 'torch' and so it seems to come as a bit of a surprise that we don't use the same words they do. In fact when I told a friend that I was just going to get a torch so we could walk next door, she got all excited that I was going to come back with a huge flaming piece of wood. Bless.

I do not however intend to give up my Englishisms. It is part of my heritage, it's what makes me me, and there's a little piece of me that resents saying I'm going to fill my car up with 'gas', just to make myself understood, because to me it isn't gas (and actually, it isn't a gas at all of course, so they're obviously just being silly). No, I'd rather face the blank looks and find myself having to explain that a saucepan is what we call a pot, and at least I'll be educating people one word at a time.

Musings on blogging

2010-06-23T22:00:00.006+01:00

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. I did it again, didn't I? The thing is, even though every time I blog I have every intention of updating more frequently, I don't seem to get round to it anymore. And I blame Facebook.

You see, I meant to blog way back when I got a fantastic pair of winter boots at Wal-Mart. They were on sale at $29 down from $90 and were lovely and warm with a twist: there are figure of 8 sections on the soles that you can flip up and turn around, so that when you replace them you have metal studs on the bottom to grip onto the ice and snow. Not only do they work brilliantly, but soon after I bought them I saw they were reduced further to $19. A few days later they were down to $9 - I complained to customer service and they refunded me $20. So brilliant AND the bargain of a century. But this momentous event passed unblogged.

I meant to blog when a chap got attacked by a bear just a short distance from where I live. It's a new experience for me living somewhere where there are things that kill you. Of course, many people say that I shouldn't be worried about bears since they're terrified of humans and anyway, moose kill more people than bears over here since moose are a) absolutely huge and b) driven insane by hallucinogenic plants they eat. But then again, I heard a moose making moosey noises from my back garden the other day. We regularly have raccoons on our back porch - we've named them Roger and Doug - and I can smell a skunk from where I sit in my lounge, so they must have been around here too. But all this has gone unblogged.

I meant to blog when I started back at Treetop Trekking at the end of May, which is STILL the best job I've ever had. I was worried that I'd had such a good summer there in 2008 that going back could only be a bit of a disappointment, but my worries were unfounded. A great crew still - some people still there or back from before - and I still can't get enough of climbing and zip lining for a living. But it still went unblogged.

And I also meant to blog when I applied to, and have now been accepted, to Ryerson University in Toronto, to take the International Midwifery Pre-Registration Program, which is my gateway to registering as a midwife over here. It'll take 6-9 months, but it turns out I'm eligible for funding from immigration for the course fees and I only have to be in Toronto (or TO as it's often known here) 2 days a fortnight for classes. Applications for the course were already closed at the end of April, but after forwarding a copy of my CV (resume here of course) and my dissertation, they agreed to making an exception for me. The entrance exams had been done already, but they ran them again just for me and I got offered a place. So I start in September and hope to be finished, all being well, in March or thereabouts. But not a dicky bird was heard here on my blog.

And finally my dad has just been over for a last minute visit and it was lovely to see him. He was only here for a week but we managed to cram a fair bit in. We went fishing - he caught his first smallmouth bass which was the biggest fish any of us caught this week - visited various local points of interest including the Big Chute Marine Railway, which is, to use the vernacular, well cool. And in a most unexpected move, I took dad to visit where I work and he actually rode the Big Zip, the 1000ft zip line and, what's more, enjoyed it thoroughly. The pics will no doubt very shortly be up on dad's Flikr account.

But going back to my original point, all these and many many more interesting things that have happened to me have remained unblogged because - and it shames me to say it - they have instead been reduced to pithy one-liners masquerading as my Facebook status updates.

It's hard to deny the power of Facebook, and I'm well and truly in its grip I fully admit. It's just so easy, and so quick to knock off a quick pun or obscure quote which may, or may not, lead to more explanation depending on if anyone asks. I have yet to fall under the Twitter spell - which is of course basically just a series of status updates as far as I can determine - in fact I've completely and totally avoided reading any Twitter at all, primarily because I think I'd probably like it, and since Facebook already takes up more of my time than it should, I want to leave a little bit in my life for eating, sleeping and going to work. But where I used to find myself composing blog posts in my head as events were unfolding, I now find myself thinking up status updates instead. Worse, now I have an iPhone (another major, and unblogged, event) I can update my Facebook on the go as and when I think of an update (though I try very hard not to update it more than once a day, unless something big happens). It's pathetic, isn't it? As though anyone's really that interested! I suppose the same could be said for this blog of course, but I've always maintained that it's really for me, to practice my writing, and for my family now I live so far away, so they can catch up with what I'm up to. With that in mind, this time I am REALLY going to try to spend more time here, and less time there. I promise.

p.s. Hope you like the new look.

Welcome to the world

2010-05-10T21:29:00.003+01:00

Many congratulations to Megan - my former midwifery student and lovely Canadian friend - and her husband Craig on the birth of their first daughter, Esme Ruby Dusterhoft. A home waterbirth - of course!

Crossing the Rainbow Bridge

2010-05-10T20:06:00.004+01:00

This Rainbow Bridge, however, is not the one leading to Asgard, rather I refer to the bridge over which you must cross to reach the American border at Niagara Falls.

On 1st May Isaac & I drove down, through what can only be described as England-style traffic, to the nearest border crossing to us in order for me to complete my 'landing' as an immigrant. The plan was to get to the border, ask to be 'turned back' so I could go straight back to the Canadian border, complete the paperwork and then spend the night at Niagara Falls to celebrate being newly Canadian. As we queued for the US border I began to get sweaty palms and butterflies and, upon handing over our passports, I explained to the guard that I was there to land. "Park over there, follow the crosswalk to that building take the elevator to the 2nd floor" he told us in a rather perfunctory fashion, and, not wishing to be shot or whatever it is the Americans do to people who do not obey in a timely fashion, we hurried along to do just that. Upon entering the building I realised I had not collected our passports back from the guard and checked this with one of the many other border guards hanging around the building, seemingly without purpose, and he confirmed that was all above board and correct. We took the elevator - sorry lift - to the 2nd floor - which is of course actually the 1st floor - to find ourselves stuffed in a room with around 150 other people, all of whom appeared to be unsure of what they were supposed to be doing there. No one official was available to ask, but a small sign informed us to 'take a seat and wait for our names to be called'. Due to the number of people both sitting and standing we were unable to take a seat but began waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Every so often an official would come to the door and say a name and a country of origin, and another person, couple or family would disappear with them, but the order in which this happened seemed to have no rhyme nor reason. Some people had clearly been waiting for much longer than us, then others who came in behind us were called in almost immediately. After a couple of hours we managed to secure seats and I got chatting to the couple sat next to us. She was English, married to a Canadian, and had had Permanent Residency for a year. They had decided to go over the border to do a spot of shopping and had been sat for over 3 hours waiting for reasons they knew not why (later on, Isaac pointed out that the fact that they were black might have been a factor, something that hadn't even occurred to me.) After 2.5 hours of waiting our names were called and we went in. The officer was brusque but efficient, and asked if I wanted to do this the 'easy way or the fast way'. I said fast please! He said if we paid $6 he'd admit us to the US and we could turn left and left again out of the border station to return immediately to Canada. The alternative was to refuse us entry, but this meant that next time I try to enter the States I'd have to explain WHY I was refused entry, and my many dealings with American customs in the past meant I knew this could only mean trouble. So $6 was paid, we collected our passports and entered America for approximately 30 seconds.

I had expected that it was the Canadian side of the deal, with all the paperwork that needed to be completed, that would take the majority of the time, but not so. On approaching the Canadian border I was greeted by a lovely older officer, who gave me a big smile and, when I explained I was here to land, he exclaimed 'Oh how exciting!' He gave us directions to the office and we went inside. There was no queue so we went straight up to the desk, whereupon a surly faced woman told us we needed to take a seat until we were called up. We sat, and immediately got called up to the same desk by the gentleman next to her! He took my passport and Confirmation of Permanent Residency and said he'd do some paperwork while we sat. A few minutes later we were called back, I signed a couple of bits of paper and was told that everything was done! The only thing left to do was complete a 'Goods to Follow' form, on which I listed everything I could think of (following an agonising mental tour around my garage back home) that I might want to bring over to Canada, which meant that I would be able to import them duty free.

After checking into our hotel, a walk around town, and the procuring of a few pictures of me doing 'Canadian things', we went for dinner and promptly began falling asleep over our ribs, the whole excitement/boredom continuum of the day proving a little too much for us both. And so it happened that, five months to the day since I sent my paperwork, I became a Permanent Resident of Canada.

Drop the dead donkey...

2010-04-10T22:07:00.003+01:00

...this is far bigger news. I realise I'm way behind (as usual) on blogging and like to do things (roughly) in order, but I found out this week that my Permanent Residency here in Canada has been granted, which is fabulous news! I checked e-CAS the other day and instead of 'In Process' it said 'Decision Made', which sent my heart racing. In most cases this is good news but occasionally it isn't, so I didn't want to count my chickens...but the following morning I received an email asking for my passport to be sent to the London office so they can issue my visa...hurray!

I hurried down to UPS to courier my passport yesterday, which ended up costing an extortionate $140 to get to London and back! But I suppose it's worth it for the peace of mind and as soon as it's back I can go down to the border to 'land'. Then I'm all done and legal. Phew, what a relief.

Worth the wait

2010-03-14T15:37:00.005Z

We finally bought a vehicle. The reason it has taken us so long is that, as I mentioned previously, we had fairly disparate lists of desirable vehicular features - I wanted something cheap and economical both to buy and to run, something that was certified and e-tested* for peace of mind and something that was within fairy easy distance for viewing. Isaac wanted a big truck. Or 4x4 at the very least. Everytime he'd look through the Super Shopper (like Loot or Exchange & Mart) and would say 'Hey, there's a Blahdy Blah truck for sale here', I'd immediately google it and shout '15 mpg ain't gonna cut it!' Then I'd find a small car of some sort and say 'Shall we go and look at this?' and Isaac was so uninspired he couldn't even be bothered to answer.

Every week Isaac bought the Super Shopper and every week I'd look through it and think what a waste of money it was. Half the ads didn't say what car they were actually selling, the number was wrong, the price was incorrect or if they were any good they'd gone by the time you bought it on the day it came out. The last time he bought it, I couldn't even be bothered to look at it. I waited a whole week till the new one came out and then had a flick through - a 2001 Kia Sportage listed certified and e-tested for $2750 OBO leapt out at me. I called the number with very low expectations but was amazed to find it still available and the chap sounded very nice indeed. I said I'd chat to Isaac and call him back. It was down in Keswick (here they pronounce the 'w') which is about an hour and a bit away south of us, but then our friend Sarah said she was going down south that weekend and did we want to come? We asked if we could make a detour to Keswick, called the guy and arrangements were made.

I still had low expectations - everything we'd looked at had turned out to be rubbish in one way or another - but as soon as we saw it we both knew we'd found a winner. We drove it - fast, slow, 2WD & 4WD - and found it was a lovely smooth and worrying-noise-free ride. There were a few rust spots around - Ontario salts its roads in winter and it eats cars alive - but nothing Reilly couldn't handle. It had only 187,000kms on the clock and even had all new tyres including the spare - All Terrain ones at that. We offered him $2500, he said yes, and we arranged to pick it up the following Wednesday after the paperwork for the safety and a wheel alignment had been done. Then we went to the mall to celebrate!

So we picked Mia's Kia** up on Wednesday and have driven around pretty much constantly since. The other day we went and drove muddy roads around cottage country - even getting stuck on a muddy trail and having to use our 4WD to get us out - just because we could. Then yesterday I went to visit my cousin Tine, who lives just over an hour away and I really ought to see more often, for a lovely lunch. In fact we've actually managed to put over 700km on it in 3 days. Ha ha ha.

The thing is, in Canada you can't get anywhere without a car. It would take me about an hour to walk to the local shops, so the sense of freedom you have when you have a car is amazing. I know we've been able to borrow Isaac's parents' cars most of the time, but when you ask to borrow someone's car you leave them without one, so you feel like you have to justify your trip. Now I can go anywhere and do anything, with no reason at all! Hurray! She was worth the wait.

*for Brits: the Canadians don't have an MOT equivalent as such but here you have a fairly stringent test that each car has to pass when changing owners called a safety or a certify. It can be done by the seller, in which case they will get more money for the car, or it can be sold 'as is' and done by the buyer, which can be risky. It also needs an emissions test or e-test to make sure it's only mildly damaging the environment.
**we're still working on a name so this will have to do in the meantime.

In Process

2010-02-16T16:19:00.004Z

One of the most frustrating things about the immigration process is that most of the time, you're totally in the dark as to how things are coming along. The only thing we have to go by is something called e-CAS - or electronic Client Application Status - where you log in using your client number and it gives you a one or two word idea about where your application is up to. It's not updated very often and the information is fairly vague, but when you log on for the hundredth time to find your status has changed, it can be very exciting. For a while now, Isaac's name has had 'Decision Made' next to it, which occurred when they approved him as a sponsor (though we had to wait till they sent us a letter before we discovered what the decision was) and mine has had 'Not Available', since they hadn't started processing my bit yet.

However, after sponsorship was approved the file got forwarded to the London office and today I finally got a status change: 'In Process'. It doesn't say much, but it's amazing how two words can put a smile on your face by confirming that someone, somewhere, has received the file and is doing something with it!

So fingers crossed everyone please, for a swift resolution to this interminable process. Even though I only sent the application in December I've had the paperwork in my hands since November the previous year and have been slowly putting it together and digesting it all since then. Because we ARE a genuine couple, it shouldn't - in theory at least - be that complicated a process but with medicals flying around the world one way and police checks flying the other, plus background checks on me* you just have to hope it all comes together quickly and positively.

*though as a long-confirmed 'good girl' if anything untoward came back I'd eat my hat! My new one that is, which I just finished last night and is probably my current favourite.

Surprises

2010-02-11T20:29:00.004Z

I'm constantly finding things surprising here in Canada, sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a bad one. For example, I had a poster made for Isaac for his birthday and I've been trying to find those hard plastic things you slide on the top and bottom to hang it up but still keep it in good condition, but such a thing does not seem to exist over here; what's more, they don't use Blu Tack* either, so I'm left wondering what the hell you're supposed to do with posters if you're Canadian! Sellotape - oh no sorry, it's just tape here - seems to be the most oft-suggested option but it's hardly ideal. The search for a viable alternative continues...

Anyway, yesterday I had an example of a good way. We parked in the centre of town to pop into the shops - it costs $1 for an hour so we put 4 quarters in the parking meter and headed off to buy Isaac some shoes. We ended up chatting in the shop for ages to one of Isaac's friends, so when we headed back to the car, we saw a parking attendant writing us out a ticket. Oh no! We legged it over and Isaac said 'So...what if we were just leaving?' Ha ha, yeah right I thought. You know what these f*ckers are like, once they've started with a ticket there's no stopping them. "Well..." he began, "you'd have to put another quarter in the meter." he said. "Okay" said Isaac, and proceeded to do just that while the parking attendant put his book away and walked off, leaving me opened-mouthed, reeling, and only 25c poorer than before.

*in fairness, you CAN get it in a few places, but it's not commonplace at all and most Canadians look at you blankly - or in horror! - when you suggest it.

Take a weird break

2010-02-04T22:00:00.004Z

I miss these kinds of mags, they always made me feel more normal. If you happen to have a pile you have been meaning to drop off at the doctor's surgery, pop them in the post to me instead and I'll show the Canadians how strange British people really are.

The Beginning

2010-01-19T21:20:00.009Z

So basically, I've moved to Canada. Temporarily for now, since I'm on a visitor's visa at the moment, but hopefully for good if all goes well with my PR. This is still taking me by surprise a little bit, though obviously I was aware of what I was doing, and it's not like I was drugged by Isaac and dragged back here under protest. But still, the thought that I'm no longer travelling and this is my life now still hits me every so often like it's a whole new idea.

Since we arrived back on Nov 30th it's been all go. I got my PR application in on 1st December, as intended - hurray me. Sadly, there was no snow when we arrived back so the start of the snowboarding season was delayed, but on the plus side it gave Isaac and Reilly to fill a hole at the side of the house and do some off-roading before we got our first big dump. As soon as the ski hills opened we hit the slopes, giving me my first taste of Ontario skiing. We don't have mountains out this way so memories of Sunshine - and even Cardrona - gave way to what can only be described as ski hills. Sorry, ski bumps. Ah well, a season pass, a decent amount of snow and my lovely snowboard and I'm definitely not complaining.

Christmas came round pretty damn fast and it was a bumper haul, that's for sure. On Christmas Eve we went to Isaac's Oma's (German for Grandma) house for the annual gift exchange. This involved everyone bringing one present, up to $50 value, which goes under the tree. Then everyone picks a number out of a Christmas Stocking and whoever gets number 1 goes first in picking any present they like and opening it. The person with number 2 goes next, as is traditionally the way with the numeric system, and they can either open a new present, or they can steal the present that number 1 has, which means number 1 has to take a new present. This goes on, with everyone either taking a new present or stealing anything they fancy from anyone who has gone before. Once all the presents have been opened and everyone has a gift, the numbers are picked again and a second round commences. This is where it gets tactical, with partners, siblings or parents & children ganging up to ensure they keep the best presents for each other. Higher numbers are preferable obviously, because you are less likely to have the present you steal stolen back from you. In the past couple of years, bereft of his sibling and ally Isaac, Reilly has come away from these present exchanges rather short changed, but this year with Imo, Isaac & I all on side, we managed to obtain what we considered the best four presents there - a saw set in a case and set of 12 drinking glasses (Imo); a lazy susan with dip trays and microfleece blanket (Reilly); a slow-cooker (Isaac); an iPod docking station (me). We were made up! It was a fun night and it was nice to finally meet Isaac's dad's side of the family.

Christmas day we had a lovely breakfast and then opened presents here at Imo & Mary Lynn's house - I got a great set of pjs, slippers and the softest greyest dressing gown you ever did see and Isaac & I also got an electric blanket, which is lovely when you live in a place that goes down to stupid-cold. I gave Isaac a t-shirt with some cougars on it, which was supposed to be funny, but he's worn it almost every day since. Then we traipsed over to Reilly's to do a third Christmas there and Isaac opened a gas-powered remote control truck from Reilly and BB guns from me. Boys will be boys...

New Year's Eve was Reilly's birthday but he had to work so Isaac and I went to a friend's house, followed by a party in a garage. I must admit to having a bad day that day, was feeling pretty down what with one thing and another, so I didn't feel thrilled to be going to stand in someone's garage with a ton of very drunk people I didn't know, but I'd offered to be designated driver so I went along anyway. The very first thing I saw was a big fat guy stood outside in the driveway, peeing whilst facing towards us walking up the road. Hmmmm, fat guy's cock, I thought to myself, that's a nice welcome. The same fat guy came bounding up to us not 2 minutes later and he grabbed my hand inbetween his until-very-recently-full hands and begun to shake it vigorously whilst introducing himself. Hmmmm. We headed into the garage whereupon Isaac was immediately targeted by a guy who hadn't seen him for over a year, who elbowed me out of the way to get to him, spilling my coke all down my front. Hmmmm. I started mopping myself up with a tissue when the fat guy from earlier appeared behind me and started dry humping me, shouting 'I don't even KNOW this girl!' in an exuberant fashion. Hmmmm. At this point I decided this party wasn't really for me so I took my leave and quietly waited in the car.* Not my best NYE, but not quite my worst either!

Isaac was offered some work at his cousin's appliance store doing some deliveries so he's been over doing that for the few couple of weeks and I've spent my days either snowboarding, catching up with friends or bits and pieces online, reading or playing Reilly's PS3. I can't work, as I'm currently here on a visitor's visa, so until my PR comes through I'm a bit stuck really, but I'm not complaining as it's been all go for the past couple of years so it's nice to take a bit of a break from constantly travelling and planning.

And talking of my PR application, after a month of waiting, my entire application was returned to me a few days ago. As it turns out, I had misread one small section which asked for 'copy 2 of Section A' and had sent a copy of, not the original 'copy 2 of'. Silly me. In addition to this, the letter they sent with my returned application claimed that I had not sent the passport photos I need with my application, though I knew I had. I was very cross and stomped around complaining that I had to go all the way into town to get more taken, before deciding to go through my application one last time and found the envelope with all my photos in it, hidden inside a different section, where it shouldn't have been. Clearly someone at the Canadian Immigration had popped it in there and then 'lost' them. Grrr. Anyway, I got it all in order again, swapped out the copy of Section A for the original and took it down to resend it at the post office. Which was closed for lunch. Bah. I drove on to the big town near us, Orillia, as I knew that their post office was more likely to be open at lunchtime and spent another $22 sending it Priority Post to make sure it arrived back with the Immigration office as soon as possible. In theory this means they will now make a decision within 7 days of receipt, which is great, but this is only stage 1 of many sadly. This is approving Isaac as a sponsor, which since he's a Canadian citizen, over 18 and not currently bankrupt or in jail, should be fairly straightforward. Once that's done they send it on to the London office where they look at all my stuff, get my NZ police check from Australia, my medical details from another office and do UK background checks on me. Given that I am both a good and a healthy girl, they shouldn't find anything untoward! I'm keeping everything crossed anyway and hoping for a swift resolution.

So we're up to date. We're currently looking for a car/truck**, so we can be more independent, and I'm learning all about what you do with snow, but I'm sure that will come out in future blogs. In the meantime, let's be careful out there....

*I feel compelled to point out that I insisted Isaac stayed and caught up with all his old friends, as best he could given the state most of them were in, and did not make any attempts to cut short the evening in any way. I may not have felt able to join in with the celebrations myself at that point, but I am not a party pooper. So there.
**I'm looking for a car, but Isaac is looking for a truck. I guess whoever finds the best deal first, wins.

The Middle

2009-12-24T22:04:00.005Z

The trip back to England was always going to be a bit of a hurried affair, trying to cram in visits to as many people as possible, but when my tenants handed in their notice at the end of October, I knew it meant that my 3 ½ weeks in England would be filled with running around trying to get new tenants and making sure the flat was up to scratch, as well as getting all my paperwork in order so I could apply for Permanent Residency as soon as I arrived back in Canada.

Sure enough the time we spent in England felt like a whirlwind and for every friend I managed to catch up with, there was at least one I sadly didn't have time to see. We stayed in Surrey for the first week, picking up a rather lovely Peugeot 308 hire car (1.6 turbo diesel, very nippy, highly recommended) a few days in, and managed to: show my flat to a couple of different people; go through some of the stuff in my garage; show Isaac the Weybridge & Walton locale; spend 8 hours walking around London; go to not one but TWO fireworks displays; meet up with my dad & step-mother, Ellie, Sophie & Dan, Zoe & Phillip, Claire, Rosie, Guy, Chris, Debbie and Jonathan.

London, whilst the dream destination of many a discerning traveller, was not really Isaac's cup of tea. He's not really a city person at all – his mother told me that when he was younger he'd get a headache just driving in their car towards Toronto – but I though he ought to see it, so we took the train into the city. We started off at Borough Market where I bought him a lovely free-range homemade burger, then walked up to St Paul's Cathedral, where we climbed right to the top of the dome, via the amazing Whispering Gallery. Then off to Covent Garden where we saw a string quartet play and looked in one of my favourite T-shirt shops, David & Goliath. Up Neal Street to Shaftesbury Avenue, along to Leicester Square, down to Piccadilly Circus before heading up Regent's Street. Throughout this whole trek, Isaac had maintained a perfect air of complete indifference, seemingly fairly unimpressed by London's environs. However, five little words changed all that: “This is Hamley's Toy Store”. A look of wonderment came over him and he immediately asked where he'd find the Lego – a quick check of the map revealed it was one floor down in the basement. With a hop, skip and a jump he found the escalator and, on arriving at the requisite floor he proceeded to run around like a five year-old on Christmas morning – awww. He found a Lego kit he wanted, one featuring a snowcat, and picked out a remote control truck he'd like too. Only the lack of £450 stopped us sending that one home for him...

All too soon it was time to get on a red London double-decker bus (another must-do for any self-respecting tourist) and head back down to Ludgate Circus, where we were due to meet up with the lovely Guy, Chris, Debbie & Jonathan for dinner. On the way however, we took a slight detour to visit Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese pub, rebuilt in 1667 after the Great Fire of London and still looks pretty much as it did then – flagstone and sawdust on the floor an' all.

One other incident springs to mind from our time in Surrey. On the way back from picking up the hire care in Kingston, we stopped in at my friends' Zoe & Phillip's house, with their children Elliot (5) and Eva (2). Since Zoe, Phillip & I were nattering away nineteen to the dozen, when Elliot asked Isaac the magic words: “Would you like to come and have a look at my Lego?” he leapt at the chance. He took Elliot and Eva into the lounge to play and watch telly while I caught up on the latest gossip. A little later on, it was time for the kids to have their dinner, so when they came back into the kitchen to eat, Elliot brought some Lego with him. At one point he wanted to tell me something about his Lego but had no luck trying to get my attention, since I was still talking excitedly to Zoe, so he lent over to Isaac and asked “What's your mum's name again?” Isaac of course was laughing so hard he could hardly reply. I wasn't in the least bit offended however, since from Elliot's perspective, it was obvious that I was an adult who was chatting to his mum and dad in the kitchen, while my 'son' had come over for a play-date!

The trip up to Yorkshire involved a 3 day stop-over at Suzie's house – Isaac had of course already met Suze and her son Joey, over in New Zealand when they'd come over for Debbie's wedding, along with her ex-husband Simon who had been travelling with them (they're oh so terribly modern). Now however, Isaac also needed to meet Suzie's boyfriend, erm, Simon. We all got on well and it was great to hang out with Joey, who is hilarious.* He's very keen on cars and trucks – much to Isaac's delight – and can already at the age of three identify most of the cars on the road. In fact I was shocked when we stepped outside and he spotted our hire car he immediately said “Oh you have a Peugeot!” Isaac taught him that when you see a car riding on flashy rims, you have to say that it's 'balling on dubs', which he took to with great enthusiasm, though his dad had already taught him to say a car was 'pimping' so I didn't feel too bad. During our stay with Suzie in the Midlands, we visited Warwick Castle, in order to introduce Isaac to the ancient history England has to offer, and followed it by a hellish 2.5 hour journey home in hard rain and horrendous traffic, in order to introduce Isaac to what the Friday rush hour is like in England.

Finally we made it to Yorkshire just in time for a big family dinner for Toni's birthday. Jenny had done slow-roasted pork (Jamie Oliver's recipe) and all the trimmings, which was phenomenally good. Over the next few days we took Isaac into Beverley, over to York - where we totally failed to find a decent cream tea** to have and ended up buying our own in M&S and heading back to Benj's place to eat it - over to Leeds where we visited the German Christmas market and the museum and of course lovely lovely Hull. In between these trips I was frantically trying to find a new tenant for my flat, since my current tenants gave notice just before I returned home, as well as trying to get my paperwork for Permanent Residency (a.k.a. PR***) in Canada completed and organised, all at considerable and increasing stress-levels. We had Jenny's birthday to celebrate too, which involved an ice-skating trip, a visit to the cinema and a large amount of Chinese food,naturally.

Come the last couple of days at Jen's I was sat for 12 hours at a time in the same chair printing off and organising my PR application. It was horrible, but worth it as I was able to get it into good order ready to send as soon as we arrived back to Canada. Then we drove back down to Surrey in time to see my tenants out of the flat and spent the next couple of days living at the flat and getting a few things up to scratch - new vacuum, new ironing board, sealant around windows, fitting a new light and repairing an old one, new loo seat and a damn good clean all round - you know the kind of deal. I thought I'd found some new tenants who were keen but long story short a credit check and closer examination of circumstances revealed a very bad risk and we had to let them go, which meant I was heading back with no tenants lined up - very worrying. Thank God for my sister and my dad who were on hand to take over the search - I really can't say thank you enough guys! Quick final catch up with Sophie, Dan & Ellie, then come November 30th Dad drove us to the airport to catch our flight back to Canada. We were flying Air India, which fo some reason was the cheapest flight from London to Toronto - go figure - and had the best inflight food (though worst inflight entertainment) I've ever had on an aeroplane. But then you know how I feel about curry....

*Recently he'd turned to Suzie, apropos nothing, and said “Want respect? Use a condom!”
**and by decent, I mean clotted cream, not whipped, and plain scones, none of this horrible fruit rubbish.
***which is quite funny if you're a midwife, nurse or doctor, since this means 'per rectum'.

The End

2009-12-17T23:12:00.003Z

I was reminded recently, by an avid reader of my blog (hello Oma!), that my New Zealand story lacked an ending – so here to correct that, before I go on to tell you all about England and Canada, is my round up of NZ:

I spent a year living like a hippy in a campervan with a gorgeous man; going where we pleased, settling down for a while when we liked a spot, moving on where we didn't. The van was cool as bro, and we worked nice casual jobs, none too taxing, taking advantage of everything New Zealand had to offer. We black water rafted, we Zorbed, we kayaked, we street luged, we tramped, we jet boated, we snowboarded indoors and out, we quad biked, we flying foxed, we hot pooled, we WWOOFed, we fished rivers and ocean and we sheared sheep. We saw hot boiling mud and sulphurous pools, we drove spectacular coastline, we saw beautiful mountains and amazing beaches. We saw old friends, and we met new ones. We had an incredibly hot summer when it should have been winter, and a fairly chilly winter when it should have been summer; we had a BBQ on Christmas Day and snowboarded on my birthday. We spent time lazing by rivers listening to Harry Potter audio books, watched power boat & off-roading competitions, tore down and cut up trees, blagged a whole campsite to ourselves and watched 4WD DVDs and movies a-plenty on my laptop. We saw kiwi birds, eels, wekas, wetas, penguins, albatross and glow-worms. We ate fish and chips on the beach. We were verbally abused by an old French man. We visited my first lap dancing club.

We learnt how to pick different varieties of apple, and learnt that we never ever wanted to do that again. We learnt how grapes were harvested for wine and what happens to them next. We learnt how to run a ski resort without computers, and how to do the banking for the whole mountain. We learnt that I hate sea-bound boats. We learnt that Isaac can't drink with the big boys. We learnt what an earthquake feels like. We learnt that mince & cheese is a surprisingly good pie filling. We learnt that the Kiwis don't know how to insulate or heat their houses. We learnt how to turn a campervan into a mobile disco.

We learnt what camping long-term entails and exactly what you need to survive comfortably. We hope we made things easier for the people we sold the van to, and we hope they're enjoying her as much as we did. We discovered that we were well-suited to living in a confined space together, and realised that other people might not make such good living companions. We found out what we missed when we were away from home and we planned what we were going to do in the future.

So all in all, our time in New Zealand was exactly what we hoped it would be. The country is spectacularly beautiful, as we hoped it would be, and the people are lovely. It is laid-back and remote; fun and exciting; friendly and relaxing. But would I live there?

The short answer has to be no. There were a whole heap of little things, insignificant on their own, which combine to tell me that I would be frustrated if I lived in New Zealand. It's very very far away, for one. I mean, Australia is big and brash enough that it can cope with being so far from everything else, but gentle little New Zealand feels very isolated, like no one else knows you're there, and if they do, they don't care about what happens to you. This is the very thing that makes it an appealing destination for many, but I don't think it's for me. Everything, especially food and electronics, seems very expensive over there – strange considering its proximity to Asia – and it wasn't easy to live on minimum wage and still pay for rent and groceries every week, let alone the odd treat. Television was largely rubbish and the internet is, as previously discussed many times, very expensive and v-e-r-y s-l-o-w which makes keeping in contact with home a frustrating experience. The houses, on the whole, are poorly insulated and very few have central heating, relying instead on plug-in oil radiators and the like which aren't always terribly effective and can bump up the electric bills to ridiculous proportions – I worked with a girl whose previous job was for the electric company, calling customers when their bills reached $1000 for the month to warn them, not an uncommon occurrence. Anyway, enough of the negatives.

That said, I wouldn't change anything about the last year – it was truly awesome. I couldn't have wished for a better travelling companion than Isaac, a better van than Jaffa, and for more amazing friends to visit and stay with; a huge thank you to Jude & Glynn, Big John Redcorn, Ben & Colanne, Sally, Ian & Debbie, all the Heaphys, Josie & Becky, Boz & Wendy, Justine & Barry, Jemma & Ron.

Down to the wire...

2009-10-30T10:09:00.010Z

We managed to pack everything up and say a very sad farewell to our lovely flat in Wanaka. We spent a couple of weeks travelling north towards Auckland. We stopped along the way at Christchurch - visiting my friend Boz who worked with me at Cardrona and his girlfriend Wendy - then up to Kaikoura, where we stayed once more with Justine & Barry on their sheep farm. It was lambing time recently and they had an unprecedented amount of triplets, so Justine had 11 lambs she was hand-rearing; they were adorable. They also had 3 calves, Trevor, Bolt, and BJ. BJ, incidentally, got her name because, as a premature calf, she had a habit of suckling on anything she could find - and the thing she could find most often was Trevor's...*ahem* appendage.

Then it was up to Picton to meet up with Josie once more, and we took the ferry over to Wellington. Campsites are few and far between in Wellington so we ended up staying in a cheap hostel which was a bit on the grotty side, and went out for a spectacular Thai meal in the evening. The following day, after a wander round Wellington and a visit to the Te Papa museum, we headed to Palmerston North, which was really just a convenient stopping point - there's nothing to speak of in Palmerston North, it's really just a student town and reminded me rather of Slough. The next day we arrived in Okahune and met up with our friend Andrew, who I lived with in Banff, who had been working at the local ski hill up there as a freestyle coach, and who'd had a chance to come and ride with us down at Cardrona on a couple of occasions and was now heading back to Banff again. From Okahune we drove to Rotarua - a.k.a. Rotavegas - to introduce Josie to street luge and Zorbing. Okay, just to do it again ourselves really, since it was such fun the first time, and that was AAAAGES ago. Everyso often I like to remind us that we're here to enjoy ourselves.

So now we're back here in Auckland. We've been staying here with the lovely Jude & Glynn, who are putting up with us littering their home with our belongings very well indeed I must say. We've had a couple of tasks to complete while we were here, the first and most important of which was selling Jaffa.

I've loved that van since the first moment I saw her. She's been our transport, our home and our most identifying feature for our whole trip and the thought of selling her was awful. Still, it had to be done (we'd considered shipping her back to Canada - but the cost was astronomical!) so we put the sales pitch in motion. We'd sent Jaffa 'for sale' promos ahead for Jude to put up in the hospital where she and Glynn work, and we'd had a few nibbles, even someone who came to see it when we first arrived in Auckland, though as an older couple I wasn't sure it was going to be their kinda thing. We decided to take it down to the Ellerslie Car Market on Sunday morning and in the meantime I put her details on every backpacker message boards I could think of. We got her stripped down and cleaned every little bit, inside and out. We washed the seats, brushed down the carpet and oiled her creaky joints. We reorganised the inside and made her look as lovely as possible. I got some new material and made two new curtains - front and back - since these were the only ones I hadn't replaced in when we were Nelson. She looked lovely. On Sunday morning we got up early, as entrance for sellers opened at 8am, and the market opened at 9am. We arrived around 8.25am and the very moment we parked up, before we'd had a chance to complete our seller's paperwork, we had a couple of people wander over. They were followed by 2 or 3 others, and an American couple who almost immediately asked if they could take it for a test drive. So, only minutes after we'd pulled in, we pulled out again while I took Charlie, a very excited guy from Oregon, through the finer points of the console gear shift. They clearly liked it enormously, and kept going on about how much nicer it was than the other van they'd looked at. We got back and they asked how much we'd take for it. We'd listed her at $4000 - we paid $3500 if you remember orginally - and the couple offered us $3500. I said we'd need to talk about it but yet another couple came up to look round. I gave them the spiele, but the American couple stood nearby looking nervous the whole time. Eventually Isaac took me aside to discuss their offer. Considering the amount of interest we were already generating - and a quick glance around at the competition seemed to explain why, since no one else had bothered to make their vans look nice and presentable so Jaffa stood out a shiny mile - we could have held out for $4000 for sure. However, I wanted to take a price that made us feel good, and also made the other couple as though they'd got a bargain. So I said if they'd give us $3750 now, we'd sell it to them, or they could wait until the end of the market and if it still wasn't sold, we'd sell it to them for $3500. Instantly they went for the $3750 - even foregoing having a mechanical check done because they trusted us! The fools...haha. SOLD...all by 8.45am, 15 mins before the market even opened! We took them into Auckland CBD to get the money out and ended up parking, quite by coincidence, outside the Base hostel where we'd been staying when we met Jaffa for the first time - in the exact same place. Weird. The money was handed over and we drove the couple to the posh suburb of Ponsonby in order to practice driving her. We took 'goodbye' pictures and walked away with tears in our eyes... End of an era.

We had a walk down to the Karangahape Road, whose name is so unpronounceable it's known colloquially as the K' Road, as I had a treat booked for the afternoon. For ages now I've wanted to do a photoshoot, something a little on the risque side, just so one day I can look back and say 'I had an alright body once!' I'd come across an advert for Miss T Pinups a while back and thought it looked just the ticket - particularly since they promise to photoshop you to buggery haha - so I'd booked it up. I arrived at the studio and had my hair and make up done. I won't say too much about it (just in case they're awful!), but I should get them in the next week or so, so I'll post them then for your perusal.

My final task in Auckland was to have a medical done. I need one for Canadian immigration, and it's much cheaper to do it here than to do it in the UK (around £110 over £350) and as long as it was with a Canadian Immigration Designated Medical Practitioner, it was all good. So I had that and it went very well indeed so that's another thing down towards my Permanent Residency application...phew.

So now we've packed out things, put together another box to send back to Canada and we're just knocking around with Jude & Glynn enjoying the start of summer, before we head back to 4 weeks of drizzle followed by several months of snow. Good news is, we've got season passes for our local ski hill, Mount St Louis Moonstone, so the plan for ski bumming is still going ahead!

They think it's all over...

2009-10-07T22:21:00.008+01:00

...it is now.

Both Cardrona and Treble Cone closed on Sunday. A few days prior to that we had our friend Josie, one of the Canadian girls we met grape picking, come to stay and we did an epic 3 resorts in 2 days stint - Cardi on Tuesday, Snowpark Tuesday night and Treble Cone on Wednesday - and, after literally lying down on the run at the end of the day at TC vowing I couldn't continue, I thought my season was over. I didn't even bother to bring my board back up to work on Thursday but then Saturday brought a big dump*, as is often the way just before close, and I had to get out on something and make the most of it, so I borrowed some skis and went out with Mark, Roland and Stacey for a ride break. We managed three runs and they were probably the best three runs of my season. The snow was amazing, which - no offence NZ - is pretty unusual out here and we found some great drop-ins which were untouched, so we touched them. Oh how we touched them. Naturally we all fell over left right and centre, but that's what a powder day is all about. At one point Roland fell over, and I was laughing so much at him I went over myself, only to find I was now laughing so hard I couldn't get up again. I looked up to see Mark and Stacey laughing at us, causing both of them to wipe out too. Full house! I went out on skis again on closing day, which was not quite as epic, but I did find one totally fresh slope above the halfpipe, so I stood at the top and yelled "I CLAIM THIS HILL AS MINE!" before dropping in. Lovely. It was great to be back on skis again by the way, thus proving to myself that I enjoy both skiing and snowboarding as much as each other in different ways.

On closing day we also decided to have breakfast at the Mezz Cafe, the 'posh' restaurant at Cardi, and just before heading over there I popped my camera in my pocket saying to Lisa 'Just in case Shaun White's in there - you never know!' On arrival at the Mezz, I spotted Shaun White sitting at the next table. Okay, okay, I did know he was up that day, so it wasn't totally random, but still. In case you're not aware, Shaun White is basically the coolest pro snowboarder in the world, and won the Burton Open this year with back-to-back double corked 10s, the first ever in competition, and is probably the only pro snowboarder I'd spot a mile off. The mane of bright red hair helps! But this guy was on the front cover of Rolling Stone magazine for goodness' sake - he's a bona fide cross-over star. Well, seeing him sat there with his coach at the table next to us I just had to say something, particularly with it being our last day an' all, so I went over and apologised for interrupting him, and for being totally lame, to which he immediately replied 'No, no, not at all! Did you want a picture? I don't mind at all, really!' He leapt up and put his arm around me while Stacey took my camera. Afterwards I sat with him and had a nice chat about me learning to snowboard, and about how seeing snowboarding tricks on the telly is a totally different experience to seeing it happen right there in front of you. Eventually I thanked him again and went back to my table to eat my pancakes while he laced up his boots ready to go out and hit the pipe. What a very lovely chap indeed.

Lie in Monday morning, of course, and then off to Ron & Jemma's in the afternoon for a BBQ and a spot of fishing. Ron has a rod, and property that extends down to the river, but has only fished once or twice before, never actually catching anything. Isaac knew there was fish to be had, and had not yet caught anything over here in NZ, so they went out just before dusk with Ron & Jem's son Andrew, to see what they could find. They came back with two trout of pretty damn good sizes! One brown trout, one rainbow. They were duly gutted and arrangements were made for us to come back the following evening to eat the one Isaac had caught - needless to say it was delicious!

So now it's all about packing. It's all pretty overwhelming I'll be honest, we seem to have accumulated so much stuff, as tends to be the way of these things, and we've already got one box to post home to Canada alongside our bags. Whilst we are quite looking forward to being back in Jaffa, and certainly looking forward to heading home after so long away, we're really really going to miss our lovely flat here in Wanaka, not to mention having our own loo and standing headroom. But we leave here tomorrow, amble our way back up to Auckland to stay with Jude & Glynn before flying to the UK on 2nd November. We want to be down in Surrey/London for a week or so to catch up with friends & family before hiring a car and heading up north - although so far we've not been able to find anywhere to stay down south, as everyone is full! So no idea where we'll be - email me with any offers?!

*of snow, of course

Latest pics here

My Life is Average

2009-09-22T03:24:00.001+01:00

For those of you who are fans of FML, I bring you MLIA...

(thanks for this link Liddi, I love it)

More of the same

2009-09-20T07:02:00.005+01:00

Yes yes, once again I have been slack in my blogging. My main excuse is that it's all been more of the same, we got to work, come home, watch a film/tv show and go to bed, and get up again the next morning to go to work...blah blah blah. I will, however, fill you in on the latest with my snowboarding, which is coming along very nicely.

I am in general a helluva lot more confident on my board and yes, I can finally say that I absolutely LOVE snowboarding. It's taken me a while to get to this stage - far longer than I was expecting - but somewhere around my last post it all just clicked and since then it's only got better. Before, I found everything hard work on a board, from cat tracks to chair lifts, and longed to be back on two planks. Well the mileage I've put in has paid off, and now I no longer look at skiers with envy at all. That's not to say I don't want to ski anymore - in fact I'm determined to have one more day skiing before we close - it's just that I feel like every time I go out on my board I improve a little bit more, feel that little bit more comfortable, can ride slightly harder terrain, and it's rather addictive.

After spotting a poster at work and signing up immediately, last Wednesday I had a freestyle lesson. Freestyle, for those of you who don't ski or ride, is all the tricksy things you do on skis or a board; jumping, spinning, riding rails and so on. I had already ridden a couple of boxes in our 'baby' park, and felt I needed a hand getting my confidence up to try something more, so this was just the ticket. It was only $25 (organised for staff) and given that only my friend Stacey & I were in the beginner's lesson it was basically a 3 hour private, which is worth $355 to a punter! We had Pierre, a Belgian instructor, teaching us and it was amazing. I'll be honest, I ended up chickening out of the boxes in the Big Boy's park (aarrggh the pressure!) but by the end of the three hours I had ridden the baby boxes several times, got some good air off a small jump (previously one of my biggest fears), learnt to ride switch (this means riding the opposite way round to the way you normally ride, so since I'm left-foot forward, known as 'regular' or 'natural', I was riding 'goofy', which is right foot forward. It feels very weird), perfected my spins (not spinning while jumping, just pirouetting on the snow) and learnt to do 180s (where you jump from facing one way, to facing the other, hence 180 degrees). All in all a very productive and enjoyable three hours. Whilst I don't think I'll ever be a park rat, with their oversized clothing and fearless tricks, it's nice to know you can do something a bit more interesting than just sliding downhill, you know?

Following on from that, the following day we had Interdepartmental Games at Cardrona, and I was 'persuaded' to take part in the relay race. It involved running on slush from the courtyard to the bottom of McDougalls chairlift, getting on and then coming down a steep and icy front onto a gentler slope, racing back to the archway to send your next team member off to do the same. Not too bad then, if you forget to factor in that there are 6 other teams competing and they were all very VERY fast skiers and snowboarders, who were taking it all very seriously. I was lucky, by the time I ambled down we were so behind I was pretty much alone but it was honestly one of the more terrifying experiences of my entire life. We lost, hopelessly, but since I managed not to vomit on the chairlift through sheer nerves coupled with physical exertion, I considered that a win. I have vowed that in future, skiing and snowboarding is for fun and my fun alone.

The only other thing that is occupying nearly all of my time at the moment is my Permanent Residency application for Canada. It's so much more than just a form, it's a huge document where we've had to basically lay our lives bare for the Immigration Officers to judge us. The fact that we ARE a genuine couple means that it should all be fairly easy, but sadly it doesn't seem to work that way. Our main problem is that we spent the first 6 months here living in a Toyota Hiace, and though you (and I) might argue that this is a far tougher test of a relationship that sharing a flat together, whether it counts towards my immigration application is a moot point. Still, I've determined to press on, putting together a bundle of emails between Isaac & I, birthday cards to each other, our tenancy agreement, joint van ownership/insurance docs, joint bank account statements, a ton of photos, statements from family and friends saying they know about, and are supportive of, our relationship and much much more, including a comprehensive list of EVERY campsite, hostel or house we stayed in during our first 6 months here. That took a while I can tell you. That, along with every address I've lived at and every job or period of unemployment I've had since the age of 18 - leaving NO GAPS whatsoever - has been a challenge. That's not to mention the application costs! But little by little I'm chipping away at the work load (and using work while I can for photocopying and printing, naturally) so the plan is by the time I arrive in Canada, I can literally send it all off the next day. I hope that it'll be so comprehensive that they'll have no choice but to say yes! The whole process of course will take around 6 months to complete (maybe less but very possibly more), during which time I can't work legally in Canada, unless of course I get a temporary work visa separately, which I plan to try to do. It's all a bit of a nightmare, but it will be worth it in the end...

Crappy taxidermy

2009-09-07T05:22:00.000+01:00

In lieu of a proper post, I give you this. Aren't I nice?

All coming together

2009-08-20T06:32:00.017+01:00

For the past week or so I've had the cough/cold from hell; I've been very worried that it was going to develop into bronchitis like in Banff but I think - hope? - that today I'm over the worst. However, I did have today off work due to 3 nights in a row with hardly any sleep due to constant hacking. I did actually get up this morning and put my uniform on, but when Isaac came into the bedroom to find me sat on the bed crying due to sheer exhaustion, he wisely advised me that I probably wasn't going to be much use at work. I called in sick, which I hate doing because I'm always paranoid that they'll think I'm lying, and then tried to go back to sleep for a bit, which I managed to do, albeit on and off, till nearly 1pm. A day sat on the sofa watching Amelie and playing on the internet ensued and I definitely noticed that my cough has decreased in its ferocity a little, so I'm hoping tonight won't be so bad.

Tuesday and Wednesday are our days off, and this Tuesday, as I was feeling very rough, we spent the day at home doing much needed things like washing and cleaning. Whoop de doo. Come Wednesday, one more sleepless night down, I really wanted to just take it easy again but it was a bluebird day, I hadn't been on my board for 2 weeks, the NZ Freeski competition was on at Cardrona AND I didn't want to cheat Isaac out of a day on the snow, so come late morning I dosed myself up, and sucked it up Buttercup.

I had been flicking through a book a couple of days before in the bookshop called "Great Outdoor Adventures: An Extreme Guide to the Best Outdoor Pursuits" by the fabulous Bear Grylls. In it, whilst talking about skiing, he advises against being over-cautious, since this tends to over-ride the natural instincts and abilities that confidence affords you. Certainly in both skiing and snowboarding I've found that whenever I think 'Uh-oh, I don't think I'm going to make this!', invariably I don't. So with this in mind, and boyed by a dream I'd had the night before in which I was a really good snowboarder, I decided that today, I could do this. Sure enough, I found myself following Isaac onto terrain that previously I'd have avoided - too steep, too bumpy - and killing it. I threw yet more caution to the wind and upped my speed and realised it had all clicked! In sheer joy I followed Isaac off a small jump and landed it!* By the end of the day I found myself on our mini-bordercross course** riding the rollers and banked corners with ease. Hurray! Now I can't wait to get on my board again. My pesky coffee hand still waves around like crazy without my knowledge or permission, but at least I feel like I can now get to work on such small things. I may only have achieved mediocrity, but I embrace it like an old friend.

*it was a very small jump. And I got a very small amount of air. But still.
**okay okay it's called the Family Fun Park or something and I know 10 year olds are probably therefore supposed to be able to do it but I would still have avoided it on a board in the past...

It's never too late to start...

2009-08-20T02:47:00.000+01:00

...though you might not finish.

Two planks and Jaffa with no juice

2009-08-12T09:03:00.002+01:00

Isaac didn't win anything at the party - our friend Pat won a go at parasailing and Naomi won a heli skiing trip, which would be absolutely super if Naomi could ski well enough (she's a newbie) - and he came home complaining that he didn't like alcohol after all, but I think he had a good enough time.

I went skiing today with Isaac and Pat! Well they were snowboarding, but the visibility was virtually nil and I didn't want to spend the day falling over so I hired some nice skis - K2 Silencers - from our rentals department and had a brilliant day. It felt so good to get some speed up without panicking, so nice to be able to absorb whatever came up underfoot, even if I couldn't see it, and amazing to be able to rip down the blacks. It reminded me just how much I loved being on the snow, and how much fun it can be. I will carry on with my snowboarding, and I know I'll get better the more miles I do, but it's nice to know I can take time out of being a rookie and feel confident again.

We've had a bit of a run of bad luck with Jaffa though - the other night we went to start her up and she was dead as a dodo. Fortunately our friend Mark was over so he gave us a jump start and we drove around for half an hour or so before returning to our flat, switched it off and went to start it again - dead again. So yesterday morning I called the AA* - this being a small town, it was the same (English) guy who 'jumped me' a few weeks ago, as it were, when I had to replace one of the battery terminals. We got her started and we drove around for half an hour or so before going down to the AA garage to have the battery tested. It hadn't been doing its homework. We paid for a new battery to be fitted and went off, broke but happy.

Today she started first time and Isaac, Pat & I drove up to Cardrona. We parked at the bottom of the access road and hitched up with a crazy British lady who drove like The Stig. We had our stella afternoon and hitched back down the hill. I got a ride first, with a father & daughter from Brisbane, leaving Isaac & Pat to find another ride, and when I reached the bottom I went to get into Jaffa - there was a funny buzzing noise coming from the dashboard. I turned the key and there was nothing. Not a sausage, though the buzzing noise stopped. I turned the key back, the buzzing noise came back. Damn! I thought I'd call the AA again quickly, because the sooner I called the sooner they'd be there. I made the call but as I was talking to the woman who answered, I saw that by some bizarre coincidence, the AA van, with the same guy driving, was coming down the hill - I literally ran out in front of his car to get him to stop, and told the woman that the AA man was already there! He gave us another jump (I'm exhausted) and told us that the buzzing noise was one of the relays, which might need some attention, and might be what was draining the battery. I called up to work and told them I wouldn't be in early because I had to take Jaffa to the doctor's and got back in to drive off. I looked down and realised that the lights were on....yes I'd left the bloody lights on. What an idiot. Thank goodness for the AA! So hopefully she'll behave from now on.

*the Automobile Association, a breakdown service. Not Alcoholics Anonymous, who wouldn't necessarily know to bring jump leads.

Visitors, good times & good food.

2009-08-08T10:08:00.009+01:00

Well the evening is my own - Isaac has gone to the Treble Cone staff do and I feel rather at a loss to be honest, so I'm choosing to share it with you, gentle reader, in preference to the High School Musical 1 AND 2 extravaganza over on channel 2. I hope you appreciate it. It does feel very odd actually, since this is the first time one of us has gone out without the other in...well the whole time we've been in NZ in fact. To be fair, Isaac didn't actually want to go, but since he was awarded the 'Exceptional Employee of the Fortnight'* award at work recently, he has been entered in a draw to win some supposedly fabulous prizes (last year a brand new pair of skis and a heli-skiing trip were up for grabs) so he had to go along to be eligible. They had a Mexican theme, so Isaac, with a somewhat loose interpretation, went wearing a plaid shirt and a bandana tied at the front, but accidentally left his giant handmade cardboard moustache at home sadly. I'm wearing it as I type, just to add some rich imagery for you. I'm waiting for the call to say he's won something fantastic and can I come and pick him up please?

So the big news of course, is that Isaac's dad, Imo, and his brother Reilly came out to visit us. It's a long journey** for a short trip, but we managed to pack a lot in to the 9 days they were here and I think they were glad they came. We picked them up from the little-more-than-a-shed that is Wanaka airport (one small room, which rather amusingly has a tannoy system for flight announcements, even though the man who runs it could probably whisper and you'd still hear him), got their bags from baggage reclaim (a patch of dirt outside the shed which has a sign saying 'Baggage Claim Area' written importantly on it) and drove home in the Nissan Terrano we'd hired for the week to out tiny flat built for 2, which was somewhat overwhelmed with the amount of bags/snowboards/sour cherry blasters*** that it now contained. After torturing Imo & Reilly with a continued lack of sleep to get them to conquer the jetlag quickly, Isaac took them all up to Treble Cone the very next day to go snowboarding while I went to work (SOMEONE'S got to earn the rent goddamnit). Tired and sore, we went out for New Culinary Experience for the Weinerts #1 that evening: Thai. One red curry, one pad thai, one garlic chicken and one mixed noodle stirfry later, we were all full and happy.

The following day we were both off work, but the weather wasn't great, so we gave Imo & Reilly's aching legs a break and drove off to Queenstown to show the the shops and grab ourselves a taste of the legend that is Fergburger. I also picked up a little something along the way - a brand new snowboard. Not just any snowboard - oh no. The Gnu B-Nice, the board I'd been swooning after ever since I first saw it. I'd made attempts to buy it at trade price through our rentals department but the board was sold out throughout NZ. In fact the one I'd seen in Queenstown was pretty much the last one left in the country...and I wanted it badly. Of COURSE I couldn't afford it and of COURSE I wasn't good enough yet to justify a new board really, but it has banana technology (it's a bit bent like a banana so you don't catch edges so much) and magnetraction (has wavy edges which help your edges grip in the snow better) and, far more importantly, it has graphics that looked it was designed by Habitat. I wanted it. I ummed. I ahhhed. I sodded it. I bought it. I love it. Now I just have to learn to ride it properly.

And on that note, the following day we all headed up to Cardrona where I took advantage of having a snowboard instructor (Imo) all to myself. He did his best to help me keep my back straight, my knees bent, my shoulders back, my head up, my confidence brimming and my right hand down at my side, rather than swung out in front of me like I'm carrying an imaginary cup of coffee, setting me off balance, as it invariably does if I don't concentrate on keeping it down. I never got all of these things right at the same time, sadly, but I definitely got better, so that's a step in the right direction. The new board made it easier for sure, and the fact that I was so proud to be riding it helped too, of that I have no doubt.

New Culinary Experience for the Weinerts #2 - Indian. Mmmmmmmm. "These are good - what are they?" "Onion bhajies". Bless.****

The Wanaka cinema was a must-do, naturally, so we booked tickets for Transformers 2, which Isaac had been looking forward to seeing. I'd fallen asleep during the first one so wasn't really that bothered about it, but I do like a comfy sofa and a delicious pizza so I was happy to go along. We got our pizza ordered for the interval, but as soon as I'd eaten it I thought it would be nice to have a bit of a lie down on the sofa - one of the benefits of the Wanaka cinema - and promptly fell asleep, despite the ridiculously loud explosions. Really says something about my less-than-enthusiastic response to the Transformers franchise I suppose.

Friday was the only day that both Isaac & I were due to work, so Imo & Reilly would have to entertain themselves. However, a stroke of good luck meant that the snow came in and the wind came up, closing both our resorts, so instead we had a lazy day of recovering our muscles, catching up on our facebook picture uploading, and watching my newly purchased Top Gear dvds; a new experience for the Weinerts and one I'm happy - and hardly surprised - to report has gone down exceedingly well. Jezza, the Hamster and Captain Slow are now firm favourites. More snowboarding did follow however, with Imo, Reilly & I on the Saturday while Isaac went to work and Isaac, Imo & Reilly on Sunday while I did the honours. I have no doubt with whom they had more fun, but hope that I didn't hold them up too much. Reilly cooked a fabulous stirfry for our last night together - I love having a chef in the house.

Monday came around too soon and we were back in the shed saying goodbye. Still at least it won't be too long till we see them again this time.

Imo's parting gift for us was to offer us one more day's rental on the Nissan, so we took off for Queentown to visit the Onsen Hot Pools, which has six private pools, the front of which opens up to reveal a spectacular view over the Shotover river and surrounding valley. 1 hour of absolute bliss.

Got the call to go and pick Isaac up, so let's go see if he won anything...

*for 'services to the manager in the form of copious amounts of photocopying', if Isaac is indeed to be believed...
**Toronto-Vancouver-Auckland-Christchurch-Wanaka
***Isaac's favourite sweets from back home
****For the Canadians amongst you: for us English, not knowing what an onion bhaji is, is like not knowing what poutine is for you - which most English people don't by the way.

The earth moved for us

2009-07-16T02:43:00.006+01:00

Last night we were watching telly - nothing new there, we must be one of the most unsociable couples in Wanaka - and it suddenly occurred to me that everything was moving. It was subtle, but unmistakable. A strange thought began to occur to me...then it stepped up a notch - the curtains were swaying to and from the windows - and I realised it definitely was an earthquake. I've never experienced one before but remembered the advice we'd been given at our orientation here in NZ and grabbed Isaac - who was still oblivious - and dragged him to the doorway between our lounge and bedroom. We knelt down, giggling and in disbelief, and waited for the odd sensation to stop.

There are few reliable things in this world, but the solidity of the ground beneath our feet is - or rather should be - one of them. When the whole house and the earth beneath it begins to shake and sway, your brain finds it devilishly hard to register - I'd have wondered if I was drunk if I didn't know that I haven't had a drink since May 2008! As it turns out, this was a fairly big earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, and was the biggest one in NZ for 80 years. No one was hurt, thank goodness, and the resultant tsunami that hit the Haast coast was only a tiddler. Still, it was all very exciting, even if nothing even fell over in our house.

And in other news, the lovely Kat Von B: Queen of Beaver is in town. She's from Perth (Australia, not Scotland) and has flown over on holiday to see me and her friend Lucy, who lives not too far from us. Sadly her trip has coincided with me developing a rather nasty virus - no, not swine flu thank goodness - and I've had to bail out of our planned skiing trip today in favour of sitting on the sofa feeling sorry for myself and eating Tim Tams. We did however manage to get out snowboarding together on Monday before I fell ill, which was great, and I was terribly relieved that we seemed to be fairly well matched with our riding abilities, with Kate being rather rusty (not having been on snow since we left Sunshine last year) and with me still being fairly gimpy.

I must admit, I had hoped that I'd pick up this snowboarding business a bit quicker - I mean, how hard can it be? But as usual, my desire for perfection is found to be lacking in the riding department. I can now get down a run without falling over, pretty much, and I've even been on blue runs. In fact, I actually prefer blue runs because the steeper it is, the easier it is for me to turn. But it still all feels rather unnatural to me and I feel like everything is harder on a board than on skis. Cat tracks for example (relatively flat and narrow) are easy as pie on skis - point them in the right direction and pole it if you slow down - but a nightmare on a board because you have to be on one edge or the other all the time and I just can't get the bloody hang of it. Isaac, who has been riding for 12-odd years, just says 'oh you don't need to be fully on an edge, just put more pressure on one side or another, and you don't have to make turns, just go straight'. Well all that is fine if you are instinctive about it, but for me, having to think about everything I do because it's not muscle memory yet, this always ends up with me a) trying to put too much pressure on an edge, losing balance and falling over, b) ending up right at the side of the run, hitting something, like a wall of snow, and falling over, c) hitting someone who's trying to pass me because I'm so slow and falling over, d) getting some speed up, panicking, trying to slow down and falling over or e) getting just too tired holding my legs in that awkward position and falling over. So falling over is still a big thing for me. And most of all, the thing that has surprised and disappointed me in all of this is that I haven't fallen in love with it yet. Everyone I know who snowboards says that it just suddenly clicks and you just love it and to be honest, it hasn't happened with me yet. I still yearn for skis and how easy and familiar it all is. I know in my heart of hearts that I didn't always feel that way about skiing - it was hard to begin with and I fell over alot - but now I feel very comfortable on skis I just wish it wasn't all so much of an effort on a board.

That said, I'm determined to continue with it, because I hate giving up at things I've decided I'm going to do. To that end, I'm delighted that Isaac's brother Reilly and his dad Imo are coming out to visit us in a week and a half. Imo has been a ski and snowboard instructor for years and is apparently keen to help me get my riding up to scratch* so that would be fabulous. Watch this space - I'll be hucking and shredding that gnar before you know it.

*actually, I only have Mary Lynn's word on that, and he might actually be going around saying 'God I hope she doesn't expect me to teach her anything, what a busman's holiday THAT would be!'

Wanna bet?

2009-07-09T12:06:00.005+01:00

Son cuts off father's penis as a dare.

Best quote:

According to local media father and son were drinking together and at some point started to argue whether the son would dare to cut off his father’s penis. The son won the bet while the father was rushed to the surgery department of a local hospital.

"The son won the bet". Jeez.

Birthday blues

2009-07-05T23:18:00.007+01:00

You're quite right Jenny (see comment on previous post), I have no real excuse for not blogging now. I can't blame lack of internet anymore, certainly - I suppose I've just got out of the habit. It is true however, that the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of training, working and snowboarding, so even when I have had time I must admit that the most I can do in the evenings is sit and stare at the telly like a zombie before crashing. It's pathetic. You'd think I'd never worked before!

So basically Isaac & I have both started work at our respective resorts, me at Cardrona and him at Treble Cone. In many ways I think I've got the better end of the deal, because Cardi is very similar to Sunshine in many ways, so it was easier to pick up for me, whereas TC has some fairly archaic systems. The ticket windows don't have computers, they sell pre-printed tickets by hand, which turns cashing up into a nightmare. It can take up to 3 hours for them to balance! I, in related news, was promoted during my training, when myself and an Aussie girl called Lisa were asked if we could help handle the 'money room'. Basically we have a woman called Margaret - English*, ex-banker - who handles all the money coming in and out for the whole mountain 2 days a week. The other 5 is now covered by Lisa & myself. It's nice to be trusted, and it's a bit more money, but it's also longer hours and very like being in an all-day maths class, which is hardly my idea of a relaxing time. Anyway. Treble Cone has more extreme terrain, whereas Cardi is more beginner/intermediate, so we get the lion's share of the family market. Plus we're between Wanaka & Queenstown, so we get people from both towns, whereas TC is a bit of a hike if you're not in Wanaka. We both work with some great people who we've been out with a few times, so that's nice, and working at both resorts means we get to play on both mountains. It's a good thing that Isaac's at TC really, as I'm rubbish on a snowboard at the moment and probably wouldn't be able to handle its steeps! We both get the opportunity to go on ride breaks most days, though I've realised that going for an hour by myself when I'm this new at it can actually be counter-productive, because I lose my confidence very quickly, so I don't go very often.

It was my birthday last week and I was working. I only had one card to open (thanks Toni!) in the morning and I had told Isaac not to buy me anything, since we were totally broke. However, getting up at 6.15am to make porridge before work, I suddenly, and without warning, burst into tears. Isaac naturally asked me what was wrong and I genuinely had no idea, but managed to blurt out "I don't WANT to be 35!" This pretty much set the tone for the day. I cried walking to the bus. I cried on the bus. I went for a ride break - just to be able to say I'd snowboarded on my birthday - and cried at how awful I was and how terrified I was at turning ('I know I've got to turn, I've got to turn, I've GOT to turn.....NO!' Cue falling over) and when I was asked to stay late AGAIN when everyone else was going home I ran off and cried in the stationary cupboard. I got dropped off by a bus driver who was heading up near where I live but he set me down in a road I was unfamiliar with and I got lost walking home, crying the whole way. A dog I passed in a garden went completely mental when he saw this howling figure! I made it home ahead of Isaac (the one and only time I have) and turned on the computer, only to see a whole load of happy birthday messages on my facebook, which made me howl even harder. Poor Isaac came back to find me in a heap on the sofa, sobbing my heart out. He was brilliant (as ever) - he hugged me, made me tea, listened to me wail for an hour about how awful I was at snowboarding and how I couldn't turn without falling over, gave me a present of a new jar of marmite and both a bought AND a homemade card (showing stick figures of us snowboarding together) and then took me out for dinner. We went to Amigos, the local mexican restaurant, for which we had a birthday voucher for $30, and the food was nice (I had a very bloody steak) but the service was TERRIBLE. It's a family-run restaurant, and they're very friendly, but the waiter that night was the owner's 13 year-old son, who slouches up to you and says in a bored voice 'Is everything alright with your meal?', which of course means 'Mum told me to ask you if everything's alright with your meal'. It took an hour to get our food after ordering and then we sat with dirty plates for so long that I eventually had to go up to the desk and ask them to clear our table. By this time I was so tired I was looking at my coat next to me on the bench and genuinely debating putting my head down and falling asleep. We ordered churros for dessert and ate them at breakneck speed before heading home - I'd barely made it through the door before I was undressing and falling into bed. So not a good day all round, and many apologies go out to the ever-lovely Isaac who had to put up with me being such awful company. The next day I woke up feeling fine! Go figure, as the Americans would say.

The following Tuesday we both had the day off so we decided to have birthday #2. After a leisurely morning, we headed up to Cardi and spent the afternoon working on getting me over my turning phobia. I even took a demo board out, the Rossignol Diva, which has some fancy serrated edge they called Magnetraction, which I was assured was like 'cheating' at turning. Fine with me! I loved the board and want one badly. We had a very good afternoon and, though I'm still by no means elegant on a board, I finally got the hang of turning (most of the time) without being terrified. Hurray! We had a great day, with my favourite, corned beef hash, for dinner, so that is how I'll choose to remember my 35th birthday.

So all in all, work is going fine - if a bit frustrating/anti-social/exhausting for me - and we still love our little flat. We keep hearing awful stories from other people about how freezing cold their houses are, so we feel very lucky to be in one of the only warm places in Wanaka! Still, we haven't had a heating bill yet, so we might yet have a terrible shock awaiting us...

*as if I even have to say it. EVERYONE we meet is bloody English. Sometimes I feel like I'm in England, but an England where everything is a bit wrong and you can't get Pizza Express**
**my worst nightmare of an England then

The big catch up

2009-06-12T01:05:00.011+01:00

Okay okay okay. Now we're officially installed into our lovely flat with free internet I have no excuse not to get this thing up to date and start blogging properly, by which I mean not having to cover a month's worth of stuff everytime I sit down to type. So, in order to play catch up I shall give you a run down of everything that's happened since I last blogged and start afresh. Is that okay with everyone?*

So we picked up Mary Lynn from Nelson airport and stayed in Nelson for a couple of days before heading down the west coast. Highlights (and lowlights) included:

Getting pastries from the Swedish bakery and eating them as we walked around the block...and then returning to get a second round as soon as we'd finished them
Going through our newly-brought-out snowboard bag and getting excited about getting back on snow
Taking Mary Lynn on a mini-tour of the vineyards we'd picked at, campsites we'd stayed at regularly, our WWOOFing farm and, of course, eating fish & chips from the unsurpassed Smokehouse Cafe in Mapua
Going to Kris Fisher's 21st birthday party and watching him drink a yard of ale, with only the gentlest of vomits. Ah to be young again...
Doing the 'Supaman' over the Buller Gorge
Spending ages playing with a very friendly weka at Cape Foulwind
The Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki, which we saw in perfect, 'golden hour' sun
Monteith's Brewery tour at Greymouth, where Isaac had to drink his own samples of beer along with mine and Mary Lynn's (once we'd had a small taste). All at 11.30am. With no breakfast.
Seeing kiwis and giant eels at Hokatika Kiwi House, including the eel that was so old it was bent over like a crochet hook which freaked Isaac out
Walking over the incredible Hokatika Gorge, with its ice blue glacial waters
Doing somersaults on the bed at the highly recommended Franz Joseph Top 10 Motor Park - which was the nicest self-contained unit we stayed in. The beds were like clouds, everything was clean and well-equipped and, once we got all the heaters running, it was warm as bro.
Blowing a major fuse while cooking dinner at the Franz Joseph Top 10 cabin by having every single appliance running at once. Haha.
Having not one but FOUR attempts to fly to the glaciers by helicopter cancelled due to bad weather. At least we got to see the IMAX film...
Having a decent curry in Franz Joseph. Can't beat a good saag chicken.
Going to the Franz Joseph Glacier Hot Pools - for my money a hundred times better than the ones at Hanmer Springs - in the evening and in the pouring rain, lending it the air of a fabulous luxurious rainforest. And getting chatting to an English couple who happen to live in Weybridge, right opposite the Queens Head.
Getting lost in the maze at Puzzling World in Wanaka and feeling funny for ages after coming out of the Illusion Rooms
Discovering the wonderful Aspiring Campervan Park in Wanaka, which is the nicest, cleanest, friendliest campsite in the whole country
Going for interviews for jobs at Treble Cone (Isaac) and Cardrona (both of us) which went well
Seeing the monster trucks at the Cardrona Adventure Park (including the one that was used on the 'V' energy drink advert out here in NZ)
Having a lovely lunch at the historic Cardrona Hotel, but having to turn back to Wanaka and take the other, longer, route to Queenstown, because it started snowing and the Crown Pass was, well, impassable. By Jaffa at least.
Eating Fergburgers that were as big as our heads. Amazingly, both Isaac and Mary Lynn finished theirs!
Mary Lynn having a full roast lamb dinner, complete with peas, carrots and roast potatoes, on a pizza
Isaac buying himself a new Burton Love snowboard, after some gentle persuasion from his mum and I. He got the 155, 'Hammock Girl'
Trying to take Mary Lynn to Guilty restaurant in Queenstown for her birthday, only to find it was closed. Apparently this is a common occurance when trying to take Mary Lynn out for a meal. As it happens we then found an amazing steak restaurant that did the most enormous ribs you ever did see so we were happy...
Finding out that Isaac got the job at Treble Cone

Phew. Okay. So we dropped Mary Lynn off at Queenstown airport and spent another couple of days in Q'town, catching up with me ol' mucker Nate, who worked in the rental tech shop at Sunshine Village, whose birthday it was. We even played a drinking game with him and his flatmates**, which Isaac lost and had to drink a mug full of everyone else's slops. We headed back to Wanaka on Sunday afternoon, to catch up with Pat, one of our supervisors from Sunshine Guest Services, who will be working with Isaac at Treble Cone. On the Monday I popped into the Cardrona office to see if there was any news about a job and the woman who'd interviewed us was a bit worryingly vague about it all and I began to brick it. Jobs are not just hard to come by in Wanaka, they're impossible to come by. The local paper even had the front page headline: 'NO JOBS'. The woman told me she'd let me know by Wednesday, so I decided to try to be positive and on Tuesday we went to see a couple of flats, the second of which Mary Lynn had found out about while asking everyone she met whether they knew of anywhere nice to rent. The first flat was a small self-contained shed at the back of someone's house. It was cold, dirty, everything was dated and/or broken and I just knew I'd be depressed as hell if we had to live there for the season. An hour later we went to see the other flat and felt like we'd walked into heaven. It was warm, modern, well-equipped with a HUGE bed and a dishwasher (oh the luxury!) and we'd barely set foot in the door before we said we'd love to take it. It turns out the landlady, Helen, knows my friends Ron & Jemma who live nearby in Lake Hawea too, so all worked out perfectly. We arranged to move in at the end of the following week, since we'd planned to go to Dunedin for a few days to meet up with our friends Josie & Becky, the Canadian girls we were grape picking with. Wednesday I still hadn't heard from Cardrona, and by 4pm I was like a pea on a drum so decided to 'pop in' to the office again. However, just as we got into town I received an email offering me the job - huzzah! I burst into tears, I was so relieved. On Saturday we went to visit Ron & Jemma, with their boys Andrew & Jack***, and had a fabulous roast dinner. Being the terrible moochers that we are, when they offered for us to stay the night - complete with power from their garage into Jaffa - we agreed and had a great day the next day too, complete with Isaac teaching Ron how to fish in the river at the bottom of their property. We had another great meal - pasta this time - before heading off to meet up with Isaac's new work colleagues from Treble Cone at the rather nice Uno bar in town.

Monday brought us down to Dunedin to meet with Becky & Josie for a spectacular Thai meal, and Tuesday saw us going to the Cadbury Factory tour (mmmm free chocolate), lunch at Velvet Burger (delicious), over to the Speights Brewery tour (Isaac having to drink more beer, though at least it was with a full stomach this time), a quick trip up and down the world's steepest street (ouch my burning thighs), quick stop at McDonalds (bleugh. But quick) before heading over to see 'I Love You, Man' at the cinema (not a classic, but worth a viewing). Spent the next day shopping and yet trying not to spend money. Hmmm.

Thursday we headed back to Wanaka and stopped into to see Jemma & Ron again, where once again they offered to let us stay (thanks guys) and even fed us a gorgeous Thai green curry into the bargain, in return for Isaac helping the boys make a helicopter and cement truck out of lego.

Friday. The day we'd been waiting for. We moved into our flat.

Much as I don't have a bad word to say about Jaffa, having the room to get changed standing up, to put our clothes somewhere where we can see them all at once, not having to get the gas burners out to cook outside in the dark, having a bathroom that you don't have to get dressed and walk across a campsite to go to and most of all, being WARM, is incredible. It's amazing how a few months roughing it can make you appreciate the little things in life you took for granted before, like a freezer, or a washing machine. We spent a fortune on groceries and have now effectively holed ourselves up in the flat, for fear of going out and spending anymore money ahead of our starting work (17th June for Isaac, 21st for me).

Except...we had to remind ourselves why we're here. So when Coronet Peak, a ski resort near Queenstown, opened last Saturday, we gave it a few days to calm down and then arranged to meet Nate up there. I'm a skier, as you know, but this season I am determined to get this snowboarding thing cracked, so when Mary Lynn brought out our gear, I asked only for my snowboard, a Salomon Driver that I got from some friends in Banff at the end of the season for $40 (£20). It's a good beginner board and, despite the multiple temptations, there's no point in me getting anything decent until I can actually snowboard. I must admit, on my first run on the nursery slope, I thought I'd made a huge mistake. Although I've snowboaded a couple of times before, it was over 18 months ago and I could barely stand up on the thing for sliding around. A couple more runs in however, I was able to do 'falling leaf' (going side to side down the hill, just using one edge of the board) and pretty soon I felt up for going on a chair lift to a bigger slope.

I was amazed that I was enjoying it so much, given how much I hated it last time I'd been on a board, and I wasn't falling over nearly as much. It helped that I had Isaac there giving me lots of encouragement. Last time I'd pushed myself to start turning from heel to toe edge pretty quickly, but had no control and was just scaring myself, so this time I decided to try to master my edges using falling leaf first so I knew that at least I was able to stop when I wanted to! By the end of the day I was exhausted but had got a few good turns in and had really enjoyed myself, which is, after all, the whole point of the exercise. I'm now really really looking forward to our hills opening, so I can get more practice in and start getting good at it.

Okay, so now I'm up to date. No excuses now! Photos can be seen at the following places:
general travel, Mary Lynn's trip, Wanaka and our flat, and snowboarding.

*well obviously not with the anonymous person who commented on my last post, but to be honest I was merely relieved they didn't think it was the dullest thing they'd ever read
**though I always feel the amusement factor for this kind of shenanigan is diminished somewhat by the fact that I'm just drinking straight Coke
***with whom Isaac turned out to be a big hit, due to his ability to build train sets and play with lego almost ceaselessly

Penguins, jerseys and jail-time

2009-05-18T10:36:00.009+01:00

Been a busy couple of weeks so apologies for what is basically just an overview of events.

Christchurch was okay, we had a couple of days decent shopping out of it and a trip to the multiplex to see Fast & Furious 4 (yawn), but I must admit I rather enjoyed the feeling of being back in a city. I do relish the endless possibilities...okay, not exactly endless in a city the size of Christchurch, but still wider than we've had in months, and Christchurch does have a very English feel - underlined by the large number of English place names they've adopted in their suburbs (St Albans, Scarborough, Richmond etc.) Indeed we found a great English import store, run by a rather eccentric old man, and managed to relieve my homesickness a little by picking up a couple of packets of Angel Delight and a can of Tizer.

On our third night in Christchurch, we ended up in jail. Always a sign of a good night, I'm sure you'll agree. This particular jail, however, was decommissioned in 1999 and is now Christchurch's coolest hostel and, though the rooms are a bit on the small side (well, it WAS a jail), it has a well-equipped kitchen, free pool table and a cinema-style DVD room. Highly recommended if you're passing through, if only for the photo op in the lobby, which Isaac made look frighteningly realistic... The following day we drove to Sumner beach where we partook of a cream tea (whipped, rather than clotted, cream of course but the scones were delicious) before going on one of the most beautiful drives we've done the whole trip, over to the Banks Peninsula. The whole thing is basically one massive - now thankfully dormant - volcano, and every turn on every corner (and there are a LOT of corners) has a stunning view. We decided to take Jude's advice and take the long drive out to the very remote and beautiful Le Bons Bay, hoping to have a lovely private spot, so imagine our surprise when not two minutes after our arrival a big motorhome pulled in behind us and decided to park right next to us. I mean, really?!

Next on the agenda was the small town of Geraldine - another tip from Jude - home of the world's most Giant Jersey and a half-scale reproduction of the Bayeaux Tapestry made out of knitting machine off-cuts. Yes, really. It took the man who made it 20 years to complete and boy, does he like to tell you about it! And show you the one and only paintbrush he used. And point out all the bits he had to invent because the orginal tapestry was incomplete. But no time to dawdle there, no matter how tempting it may have been, because we were off to Oamaru to see penguins goddamnit. The yellow-eyed penguins were free to see from a vantage point way above their nesting ground on the beach, so we perched ourselves up there around 4pm to watch a few waddle in before racing back to town to see the little blue penguins, who arrive a little later. This one we had to pay to see, but it was worth it to see a 'raft' of penguins swim in to shore right in front of us, run the gauntlet past a fur seal, and take up residence in a purpose built hobbit-style village. A highly amusing period where the penguins ran around making barking noises* ensued.

The next day we began our journey back up north - popping back in to Hanmer Springs to see Ben & Coleanne again - to Nelson, since Isaac's mum Mary Lynn was due to arrive in a couple of days time. We needed to get a WOF** done on Jaffa and decided to do it in Nelson in case we ended up off the road for a day or two. Sure enough the poor old girl failed her test, needing two new front tyres, an repair on our exhaust mounting, a handbrake adjustment, an a small rusted section cut out of the driver's floor and a new panel welded in. A mere $450*** and one day later she was fully legal, just in time to pick up Mary Lynn the following morning.

More on that later...
*Who knew?
**Like an MOT for the English among you, or a certification for all you Canadians
***This is sarcasm

Roadtrippin' again

2009-04-29T23:31:00.008+01:00

A couple of weeks or so ago, we finished our grape harvest work and headed off around the South Island to do a bit more travelling. We hadn't saved up as much money as we'd hoped...actually that's an understatement, we hadn't saved up anything like as much money as we'd expected, but hey ho, we are not going to let it stop us. We left Nelson, with some trepidation; we felt like we'd become slightly institutionalised - Nelsonised if you like - by staying in one spot for so long. We headed east towards Blenheim and visited the excellent Aviation Heritage Centre, which has been revamped by the Weta Workshop, who did the special effects for Lord of the Rings. Basically it's just a bunch of old war planes which, in any other setting, I probably wouldn't find that interesting, however the Weta Workshop have put so much attention in the detail that they have really brought the planes to life. I found the stories of friends and family loved and lost very moving and particularly liked tableau, based on actual photos and film footage, of the Australian regiment's discovery of the legendary Red Baron's plane after he was finally shot down.

We spent one night in Blenheim and visted Montana's winery the next day for a tour. You'd think we might be a bit over the whole grape thing but in fact it was really interesting to see what happens when the grapes we pick leave the vineyard. We did some wine tasting - yes, even me. No, I didn't like it, still tastes like pretty horrible stuff to me, but I could smell the blackcurrant in the Pinot Noir and the peach in the Sauvignon Blanc so that's a start, eh? Isaac rather liked it and decided he should start drinking more wine but since we can't afford alcohol he'll have to wait until we get back to Canada.

Downwards to Kaikoura - stopping only to watch the seal pups playing on the rocks - and a visit to my friend Justine, who was my first mentor during my midwifery training. She moved to NZ in 2001 and got married in January to a sheep farmer called Barry. Barry's family has been sheep farming in Kaikoura since the 1850s, so he tells me he's almost a local now. They have 600+ acres at the foothills of Mount Fyffe, with some damn spectacular views down to the town and coastline; on a very clear day up at the top you can see the North Island apparently. Justine had clearly settled into sheep farmer's wife mode very comfortably indeed. She gets up ridiculously early (when I told her I normally woke around 8.30/9am, which I think is pretty good, she just laughed) and helps Barry with sheepy things until it's time for her to go to work, then when she's not working she bakes cakes and biscuits and produces perfect, stodgy, farm-type food. We got the chance to help (read: watch) Barry with the dagging, which is when you cut the wool off from around the sheep's bottoms to prevent it getting all clogged with poo - nice - and troughing, which is where you get them to walk through some stuff to remove infection from their feet. We also got to ride his quad bike up and over the hills, through the paddocks and fields, and check out those views.

The first night we were there, we went to reverse Jaffa back towards the garage so we could hook up to power. As I did so, there was a horrible, crunching, grinding noise - I kept checking the handbrake to see if I'd left it on but no. I pulled into place and turned her off, whereby Isaac & I looked at each other with concern. We decided that if we didn't talk about it too much then it probably didn't happen - a strategy that usually works for a bit at least - and then headed back inside. A couple of days later we decided to visit the town and got back into Jaffa for the journey. She started off just fine but as soon as we got down to the main road the grinding, crunching noise started again. I stopped immediately and we took a moment to consider our options.We lifted the front seats to look at the engine, which is located underneath and both stared at it. For quite some time. Suddenly, I spotted something! I reached down gingerly into the engine and pulled out...a travel adaptor. Wedged in amongst the abundance of pipes and metalwork. Not one we'd brought, I hasten to add, so presumably wedged there for some time. I reached in and pulled it out, but to be honest, even I didn't expect it to help. "So what do you think we should do?" I asked Isaac. "Well, if I was back home I'd call Hale* to come and see what was wrong" he replied, hopefully. "Ah, the thing is, Hale is in Canada, so we might have to try to deal with it ourselves" I reminded him. Thank goodness we had decided to take out an AA** policy way back at the beginning of our trip for just such an eventuality. I did hope that he might find our handbrake was sticking and he could fix it by the side of the road, but in my heart of hearts I knew that this was just a pipe dream. Sure enough, a tow truck came along and, after listening to our story, he said immediately "Yeah, your gearbox is buggered. I'll tow you into a garage to get a new one". Damn.

The garage we got towed too seemed nice. Murray the mechanic started draining the oil out of the sump and showed us that it had that tell-tale sheen caused by metal filiments from a disintegrating gearbox, along with some lumps of metal that - and remember here that I'm NOT a mechanic - didn't seem good news to me. He seemed eager to help us as quickly and inexpensively as possible but a new gearbox doesn't come cheap. He managed to source a second-hand one from Christchurch, which he had sent up immediately, and told us he could fit it first thing in the morning. Justine was kind enough to come and collect us later from town and took us back to stay at her house - thank goodness for friends! Next morning at around 11.30am I called Murray to see what the latest was and he told me it was all fixed and ready to be picked up. Not only had they put a new gearbox in, but they'd also replaced our sump plug, which was the cause of our (still slowly dripping) oil leak and he'd even repaired the heating for us, which in perfectly typical fashion had broken down just as the weather turned cool. All in it cost $750, which I guess wasn't bad, but when you're on as tight a budget as we are, it was one hell of a blow. Still, we are now warm, have a gearbox that works AND a new travel adaptor!

We felt we'd taken advantage of Justine and Barry's hospitality long enough so we said our goodbyes and drove down the coast towards Hanmer Springs, where our friends Ben & Coleanne are staying for the winter. We stopped one night in a town called Waiau (no idea how to pronounce that without sounding like an idiot) which had a very OVER enthusiastic campsite owner who insisted we call him 'Hutch'. I'm sure he felt it lent him kudos. The campsite was great though, with a well equipped kitchen and not one but TWO television rooms, neither of which we frequented of course, preferring to stay in the van and watch films on my laptop. We're SO anti-social. We didn't even use the kitchen because we walked down to the shop (one of two in town, but the only one open after 5pm) and got fish and chips. The following morning we headed off again towards Hanmer Springs and met up with Ben & Coleanne at the lovely house they're renting. Hanmer is a tiny town in the middle of some mountains, so we could see why these two Banff residents had stopped a-while there. It's famous for its hot springs and Coleanne, as a massage therapist, was working at the springs Spa, while Ben had a job in a local bar. This meant of course that they didn't see each other for most of the week, as Ben went to work before Coleanne came home, so I think they were happy to have some company for a few days!

We spent a very pleasant few days hanging out there, playing monopoly, visiting the hot springs (where we got ourselves a private thermal pool for half an hour), going through an Indiana Jones-inspired maze (which was very lame), playing mini-golf/crazy golf and cooking food that we never get to make in the van (because we don't have an oven!) like my famously good corned beef hash, which went down very well with Ben & Coleanne (Ben just before he went to work, Coleanne just after she came back).

Eventually, a couple of days ago, we moved on once again, driving down to Christchurch, which I've long been told is very like England. Well yesterday we spent most of the day walking around the town in the pouring rain, so I guess that reminded me somewhat of home, but I don't think we've quite 'got' Christchurch yet. We'll stay a few more days and see what we think.

*Matt Hale, Isaac's best friend, who is an apprentice mechanic
**Automobile Association, for the non-UK, non-Kiwis amongst you. It's a breakdown service.

Having some fun again

2009-04-03T23:17:00.009+01:00

Other than spending our days picking grapes - we're onto the proper harvesting now - we have also spent the last couple of weekends trying to remind ourselves that we're here to travel and have fun.

The weekend before last we went to the Havelock Mussel Festival with Debbie, her mum and Nicola, her brother's girlfriend. Now, I think mussels are okay, but I was a bit shocked that it cost us $20 EACH to get in to what was, frankly, less exciting than the Oatlands County Fair back home. There were plenty of food stands and few stalls selling crafty-type stuff, but nowhere near enough free stuff to justify such an extortionate entrance fee. There was a mussel opening competition going on and a big stage where the highlight was the Topp Twins, who appear to be New Zealand's lesbian equivilent of a cross between French and Saunders and the Beverley Sisters. They yodel. And do comedy. But not at the same time. Fairly soon Isaac & I got bored and went to the nearby marina to look at big boats, which was way more fun and much cheaper. Then we headed off - throwing away the religious pamphletry that had been put under Jaffa's windscreen wiper - and went via Blenheim to St Arnaud and Lake Rotoiti, where the Power Boat Nationals were being held that weekend. We arrived in time to see the last race of the first day and Isaac warned me that I might be shocked as to how loud it would be. Yeah yeah. Then the boats started up and I nearly fell over! Never heard anything so loud in my life. After the race we left to look for a campsite for the night. As we went round the lake we spotted a Department of Conservation (DOC) campsite that appeared to be totally empty. It even had power, which is very unusual for the DOC campsites, which are usually pretty basic. We parked up and tested the power, which was still on! The loo block had showers, but they were cold, and we couldn't work out where to pay, so we decided to drive up a bit further to see if we could find anything more. Sure enough, a bit further up the road was a second half of the campsite, which was packed. The showers here were hot, so we each had a quick shower* and got back in the van. I'd spotted a sign saying that there was a fish and chip shop** open only on Fridays & Saturdays till 8pm so we went down to the town (one shop) and for $8.50 bought a feast for us to eat, then headed back to the uninhabited campsite, reasoning that if they wanted us to pay they'd come round and find us.

Sure enough around 7.30pm a woman arrived to tell us that this campsite was supposed to be closed, and that we could go up to the other one if we liked. I said we'd been up there but that it was very busy and could we not stay here? She looked around and then said "Yes alright, you weren't to know it was closed, we obviously forgot to chain it off, so you can stay here." So that is how, for $16 for a powered site, we got a whole campsite to ourselves. The next day we spent the day watching ridiculously fast and noisy boats race around the lake. We were sat right by one team's headquarters - Annhilator team - who did exactly what it says on the tin and annhilated the competition. They had money behind them alright, they even had their own crane to lift the boats in and out of the water, which was very cool to watch.

Then last weekend I decided to say to hell with the cost (that's what credit cards are for!) and took Isaac to Happy Valley to go quad bike trekking. We bluffed our way onto the 'Blue Hills Special' which is for experienced riders only, and had three hours racing up and down logging trails and in and out of mud holes. We got covered in mud, which is always the sign of a good day out. I'd paid extra to do the Skywire, a zipline or flying fox as they call them here, which is 1.6 kilometres long and reaches speeds of up to 100kph. It runs over a valley, the views are stunning and you normally get to ride it once forwards and once backwards, only we were trekking with someone who was friendly with the guide so we got to do it all twice! Well worth the money.

And this weekend? Well as I write, I am alone for the first time this in months. Isaac has left me. For a pig. Literally.

Ever since we got to Nelson and he found out that Debbie's dad and brothers are into pig hunting, he's been wanting to go along. Since it's been summer it's been too hot but as the mornings have cooled down, Debbie's brother Daniel has been true to his word and taken Isaac out, picking him up at 6am this morning. I have no idea how the day is going or if they've managed to catch anything, but he's been sent out with my camera so if there's anything to report, gentle reader, I shall of course do so.

Oh and I made new curtains for the van! A bargain at $2 a metre...

*When you're travelling you never know where your next shower is coming from, so you grab them while you can!
**Isaac's new addiction is fish and chips. They are oh-so-good and very abundant over here

French revolution

2009-04-03T22:31:00.001+01:00

The annoying thing about not being able to blog very often is that by the time you do, the big news you have to tell is usually a bit stale and you've forgotten half the details. Still, I'll give it my best shot.

A couple of weeks ago, shortly after I wrote my last proper blog post in fact, we found ourselves staying at the vineyard we'd been picking at, the one with the manager called Atilla. We'd seen that they had a loo and a shower, as well as the kitchen we'd all been using for lunch, so we asked if it were possible to park our van there, just for the night and the German girls we were working with asked the same thing. Atilla said it was fine with him, but that we should check with the owner, Andy, who was also picking with us. I asked Andy, and he said he didn't have a problem with it as long as Atilla thought it would be fine. We went back to Atilla to double check and he said we were welcome to. He said that there was a French couple who worked on the vineyard and lived there, but that they were away on holiday with their parents. They were due back to work the next day however, so he assumed they'd be back at some point, but thought it would be fine. The German girls, Simone and Marie, went to the supermarket and bought us a feast - schnizel, potatoes and veggies - since we had a proper kitchen to use for once! So come 8.30pm, we were all in the kitchen preparing the food with plans to sit and watch a dvd on my laptop afterwards, when the French couple arrived back.

They walked into the kitchen and looked at us with shock. We all smiled and said hello - they did not return the smiles or the greetings - and I immediately explained that we'd been working there that day and were only staying for the one night. They asked us who had said we could stay and we said that Atilla and Andy had both agreed to it. They muttered a few words together in French (which I couldn't hear) and walked out, only to come back in looking confused and sour-faced a few minutes later. They asked, in very broken English, how long we'd be preparing food. We said we'd be done in around 20 minutes. They left again. We all sat around looking at each other, saying 'ooh, they don't seem to like us much do they?!' and decided that since the owner and manager had agreed to us being there, we had done nothing wrong and refused to feel bad about it. We finished making our food and sat at the table to eat. As we were just finishing, we were suddenly startled by the appearance of an older gentlemen - who I took to be the father of one of the French couple - at the window ,who immediately began screaming "SCHNELL SCHNELL! WE ARE WAITING FOR YOU!" And when I say screaming, I mean SCREAMING. We were all so shocked we had no idea what to do. At first, I'll admit, I thought it was a joke, but it quickly became apparent that it was not. He burst into the kitchen and carried on his tirade, in extremely broken English and German, shouting that this was their HOME and that we must LEAVE and so on, before he ran out again. A minute or so later, he returned with his wife and the French couple.

Now, I'm no longer a youngster, like the people I was with, and I will not tolerate that kind of behaviour towards me, particularly when it is completely unwarranted. I stood up and began to explain, calmly, that we were entitled to be there and that we had assumed that they were waiting for us to finish using the hob, so they could begin cooking their food, not that they were waiting for us to vacate the kitchen entirely. The older man began screaming again and...well I'll save you the verbal tennis* but it descended somewhat into a shouting match. From our side, however, the German girls remained silent and Isaac and I only raised our voices to be heard over the increasingly hysterical French contingent. The couple appeared to be trying to be fairly reasonable, the woman did say that it was not our fault and I agreed, saying that I thought that the behaviour of her father was completely unacceptable seeing as how we had done nothing wrong. When the father began screaming again - boy he liked to scream! - I turned to him with as fierce a look as I could muster and said 'YOU must stop speaking now as you are being very rude indeed!' He blustered for a moment and said "Why should I?" to which Isaac countered "Because you are ESCALATING this situation". He paused and turned to me, saying "You will not afraid me!" I fixed him with a furious glare and said "You will not afraid me either". For the rest of the conversation, when he tried to butt in, Isaac gave him the 'YOU. SHUT IT' signals with his hands, and the man did what he was told. Ha ha.

Eventually it was agreed that the French couple would take it up with Atilla and Andy in the morning - they were under the obviously erroneous impression that the facilities were theirs and theirs alone to use and were horrified that all the workers had been using 'their' kitchen at lunchtime. They said that they'd been there for three months- I said "So, in the last three months, no one else has stayed here?" No, they said, to which I replied "Well lucky you then, you only get us for one night!" They failed to see the funny side. Simone, Marie, Isaac and I decided we wanted no more to do with it, so (having already had our showers and eaten our food) we left, slightly afraid for what the crazy older man might do to us in the middle of the night if we did not...

*okay, it being a couple of weeks ago, I can't remember it word for word

gnikrow t'nsi sihT

2009-03-29T08:44:00.002+01:00

Okay, firstly my computer is doing some thing REALLY weird just now. I've been trying to write this and it keeps putting everything I'm typing - get this - BACKWARDS. No idea why. I'm having to write this on another programme and cut and paste it over in order for the letters to be in the right order. Whisky Tango Foxtrot?!

Secondly, I have lots to tell you, I really do, mostly good and one little thing bad. But as, once again, we're rushing our internet time, it'll have to wait a little bit longer (The other day I uploaded pictures to Isaac's facebook and it took over 2 hours because it kept failing and cost us SIXTEEN DOLLARS in internet time. This bloody backwards country!) In the meantime I thought I'd just post a link to this, written by the ever-brilliant Clive James, because it amused me so greatly.

Apples vs. Grapes: The Showdown

2009-03-19T08:50:00.001Z

As soon as we quit the apple picking, I texted my friend Debbie to let her know and to tell her we weren't sure what our plan B was. We talked about just starting our South Island tour a month or two ahead of schedule, putting it on the credit cards and arriving early in Wanaka and getting jobs ahead of the ski season to pay it back. Wasn't ideal but we had to think fast. However, the following day Debbie texted me to say that her mother had been talking to a friend of hers, Margaret, who wondered if she knew of anyone who wanted a few weeks work on a vineyard? We got in touch with Margaret and arranged to start work on the Monday, in two days time. Sorted!

We had no idea what we'd be doing on the vineyard, but we knew we'd be getting $13 per hour, so we'd be earning a heck of a lot more than we were getting at the orchard. We hoped the work wouldn't be as back breaking, or as depressing, as the apples but thought we'd give it a go anyway and if we could stick it out for 4 weeks, we'd at least have some money to travel with. When we arrived bright and early at 7.30am on the Monday we were set to work: leaf plucking. This involves pulling leaves off the vine around the grapes so the thinning and harvesting is easier. You have to work quickly, so no time for thoroughness, just grab handfuls of leaves, pull down, drop them and carry on moving. We literally laughed - we couldn't believe we were being paid more to do this than the nightmare that is apple picking! It was literally the easiest work I've ever done - boring, yes, but we chatted or listened to our iPods which made the day pass quickly. Come 10am it was down tools (well, not that we had tools,, save our hands) for morning tea and 12.30pm signalled lunch. No afternoon break so we finished at 3.45pm. On Thursday we turned up only to see Debbie arriving - she was doing a couple of weeks work with us while she waited for the hospital to get their act together and get her job sorted! It was nice to work with her and have a good natter. Finally on Friday we finished the leaf plucking (across two vineyards) and were handed our big boys toys: our snippers. We had been upgraded to thinning and we actually really enjoyed the going through and finding rotten or unripe grapes which we dropped on the floor. It involved your brain a bit (a BIT), so it was more fun than the leaf plucking and we chatted to all of the older ladies who did this year in year out while we went along. In order to remember the things we were looking for to chop off I kept chanting them to myself: bot; second set; pinky wings. Yeah, that's what I thought when I first heard of them too. Bot is a mould that grows on the grape due to dampness. Second set is the second growth of grapes that will never ripen in time. Pinky wings are little wings of second set grapes that spring off the main grape stem. Aha! Now you know, in case you ever decide to go into winemaking.

Come Monday, after a very relaxing weekend at our favourite freecamping spot at the Aniseed Valley (where we had the place almost completely to ourselves the whole weekend so we lay in to our hearts content - lovely) we went to yet another vineyard* to do some harvesting of Chardonnay grapes, plus some Pinot Noir to combine with the Chardonnay to make a rose. Our tractor driver (and, I think, manager) was called Atilla, which is quite the coolest name ever, and was a thorougly lovely guy. Originally from Austria but has lived here for 52 years now - still has an Austrian accent! Anyway, the work has been reasonably enjoyable, the people lovely, the money far better and the thought that we never have to pick apples again has made us very happy campers indeed. The early morning starts are a bit of a bugger it's true, and we don't have accommodation so we're doing a combination of freecamping and paying for campsites as our need for showers and laundry facilities dictate.

*the people we're working for are contractors so we move around a bit

Can you hear the sound of apples being shoved up arses?

2009-03-06T03:10:00.002Z

Quick news flash: we quit the apple picking yesterday. We got our paychecks in the morning and, despite having worked really really hard the past week, we made a measly $282 each. That's £108 in case you're interested. And that's for 40 hours work. So that's £2.70 per hour. For the hardest work I've ever done. Bugger that. They even had the cheek to take $45 off us for 'picker damage', despite having told us every single day our bins were perfect. I got very cross. Then very upset. I talked to the bosses and decided we could do without that kind of crap in our lives so told them - as nicely as I could - to shove it.

We'll let you know what we decide to do next!

People of the World: Stop Eating Apples

2009-03-02T04:48:00.004Z

After the relative luxury of the WWOOFing, where we did work hard but for only 4 hours a day, had dinner cooked for us and lived in our own cabin with bathroom, we always knew that the apple picking would be an adjustment. We're back to living in the van, which is lovely actually, but sharing cooking and bathroom facilities again which is a bit of pain (2 loos, 2 showers, 1 sink, 22 people). No internet of course. And then there's the actual picking.

Picking apples is hard. HARD. You have a bag strapped to your front into which you have to place each apple you pick - place, not drop, because otherwise they bruise. When they are full they weigh between 15 and 20kg, which means that your back and shoulders ache like hell by the end of the day. A full bag contains around 100 apples, which takes around 5-15 mins to fill, depending on how fast you go and how easy the apples are to reach and pick. It takes around 20 bags to fill a bin, and we get paid $30 per bin we fill. Every bin you pick has 25 apples taken from it at random, which are examined for 'picker damage', bruising, stem breaks, stem punctures, fingernail marks. A dollar is taken off your bin for every apple found to be damaged. Many of the apples you pick have insects living in and around them - spiders, earwigs, wasps - so you often find an unwelcome passenger as you put the apples in your bag. I find it's best not to look too hard. Each new variety* requires a different technique - e.g. twisting to remove or looping up and over the branch - and takes some getting used to before you're back up to speed. The trees are tall, so you need a ladder to reach the top half and you often find yourself teetering on tippy toes up at the very top of the ladder, holding on to a branch (hoping it doesn't break) and straining to reach all the apples you can. If you don't reach them all, you get bollocked - I got told 'You pick them ALL' by the tractor driver the other day, who threw my ladder against the tree and dismissed my protests that I couldn't reach them. 'Well I can reach them' he said, 'Oh great,' I replied 'well can you get them down for me then? It's just I'm not 6ft 3...' He then threw the apples at Isaac and myself stroppily. My arms are covered in scratches from reaching into the trees. The first bag I was given had a had plastic case which was a little too big for me, so it pressed on my thighs and made walking and climbing ladders both difficult and painful. I have a colourful array of bruises** to show for it, not including those I get whenever I accidentally kick or slip down the ladder. Fortunately, the bosses heard my complaints about how bruised I was and they bought me a new bag, brand new, which has a soft surround and is smaller, and therefore shorter, so it no longer hurts my legs. Now it just puts more strain on my shoulders instead. Hurray! Isaac and I did the maths on our first week's picking. If it takes 100 apples to fill a bag, and 20 bags to fill a bin, that's 2000 apples per bin. We picked 4 bins the first day, 5 bins the next two days and 6 bins per day for the last two. This means we picked 52,000 apples in our first week. It bloody feels like it too. My only hope now is to try to persuade the people of the world to stop eating apples, so demand will go down and we can get laid off with severance pay. Please tell all your friends.

But I guess it's not all bad. We get to be outside in the open air, now the fierce heat of summer has dissipated into a more pleasant warmth, and because we're working a fairly physical job it's even quite nice when it rains (lightly at least). We finish at 4.30pm, which gives us the rest of the afternoon and evening to relax, something we sorely need by then. We've made friends with some of the other pickers, most particularly with a Kiwi couple called Stu and Holly, who have done a fair bit of fruit picking in their time and know all the tips and tricks. They come over to our aisle at break time in the morning with a flask of coffee, and we sit on the grass and drink it feeling, for all of 10 minutes, like kings, and in the evening we often hang out with them in their cabin and chat. The bugs aren't too bad here. We get weekends off to lie in and explore the area - this weekend we went to a car show in Nelson where we watched people drive round in circles until their tyres blew up (I'm told by Isaac that this is what they're supposed to do, and that it's very cool, though I think it's a bit of a waste myself). And anytime in the rest of my life if someone tells me "You've never done a hard day's work in your whole life, have you?" I'll sure as hell have my answer ready for them...

*we've done Cox's Orange Pippins and Royal Gala so far - moving onto pears next week which is totally different and much harder, or so I'm led to believe by the people who know these things
** par for the course for me of course. Poor Isaac. He's never even SEEN me without being covered in bruises from skiing, climbing trees, carrying logs etc. He must think purple is the normal skin colour for English people.

Getting up to date

2009-02-19T08:20:00.026Z

Right. I promised, here it is. I'll try to be a better blogger from now on.

So after the wedding*, Suzie, Simon & Joey were planning to take their big motorhome (that they'd borrowed from our mutual friends Jemma & Ron, who emigrated to NZ last year and now live in Wanaka) up to Golden Bay and the Abel Tasman, which is a big National Park just a little north of here. We decided, having really nothing better to do, we decided to tag along and spend a few days exploring the area. We went to Totaranui to do the walk to Anapai Beach, which is said to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. It's a 45 minute walk (not 20 mins, as we were led to believe), but it's definitely worth it, we pretty much had the whole beach to ourselves and it was incredible. Should you choose to visit however, be aware that the sandflies are abundant, the sand is very rough on the feet and the resident Oystercatchers, when nesting, can be liable to attack!

The following day was January 20th, Isaac's 20th birthday - hurray! - and we had booked to go on a Farewell Spit Eco Tour, which meant an early start. Farewell Spit is the longest sandspit in New Zealand - well I'd been to Spurn Point so I thought I'd better check out its Antipodean and somewhat longer rival - and the plan was to drive along the beach in a big 4x4 bus to visit the lighthouse at the end of the spit. We saw lots of fur seals lounging around in the beach and, during one of our stops, Isaac got a little bit close for my comfort to one of them. They are pretty big but can move fast if they want to! We passed by some huge sand dunes and stopped so we could play - apologies once more to Suzie for accidentally kicking sand in her face - and we ran up and down in the sand for ages. Eventually we headed back, but not before we'd stopped at the most northern tip of the South Island and watched more fur seals swimming lazily about in the beautifully clear water.

On the way back into Nelson we stopped at Pupu Springs**, said to be the clearest water in the world with a horizontal visibility of 63 metres and then, while Suzie, Simon & Joey headed back into town, Isaac & I drove to Mapua Leisure Park - a 'clothes optional' campsite*** - to set up camp for the night. We walked along the beach to the Smokehouse Cafe, which had been recommended to us by the Heaphys, and had a fantastic meal (I had the soup of the day and the smoked salmon, Isaac had seafood chowder and the peppered fillet steak). I told Isaac I was going to the loo but sneaked off to speak to the waitress, so shortly after she brought us ice cream with a candle in to celebrate Isaac's birthday. It wasn't the most exciting birthday ever, I have to admit, but at least we had a damn good feed (many thanks to Isaac's mum, Mary Lynn for that) and a very pleasant day.

We went back to the Heaphy's the next day but resolved to find work. We had decided that we fancied having a go at fruit picking, which is a typical Kiwi summer job, and as luck would have it, apple picking in Nelson begins in February. I did some research and found a few orchards advertising for pickers and did a ring around. The first couple I called were full but finally I spoke to someone from Dobbie's farm****who was happy to take us on, though it turns out the season wasn't due to begin until 25th Feb, so we needed to find something to do - and somewhere to stay, since we couldn't impose much longer on the Heaphy's - till then. A chance meeting with the girlfriend of the assistant manager of Kathmandu, an outdoor clothing and camping chain, led to us spending one day helping them with their stock take. It was easy work and a good bunch of people, and we (eventually) got $150 for our trouble, so that was nice. We didn't want to travel around too much because we were running pretty low on funds - the whole point of us stopping here to earn money was to make enough to afford to travel the South Island properly - so our next plan was to try WWOOFing. Willing Workers On Organic Farms is a scheme where you pay $40 per person or couple to join and receive a booklet, which details hundreds - nay thousands - of farms, smallholdings and households who hold an organic philosophy and take in travellers who are willing to give around 4 hrs work per day in return for a bed and food. The kind of work varies, it can be anything from weeding, building, working in a shop to babysitting, and it is usually detailed in the book the kind of thing you can expect. It seemed a good way to save money and try something a bit different so we paid our subs and went through the book to find our preferred places, based on their description. Isaac wanted to do some sort of bush work if possible, so we started with places with lots of land, and not anyone who said they were vegetarian, because as carnivores we thought we might prefer to be with our 'own kind'. We started calling a few places, but all of our first choices were full, so eventually I decided it would be easier (and cheaper) for me to fire off a few emails. This I did, giving our mobile number and within an hour I received a call back from a chap called Michael Keylock, who sounded English, who asked if Isaac was strong and if he knew how to use a chainsaw. "He's Canadian - of course he does!" was my reply and we arranged for us to come and stay from the following week until we started apple picking, as long as we all got on of course.

We had to leave the Heaphys by the weekend, since they had their other son, his wife and their two kids coming to stay and things were going to get crowded, so we a little north of Nelson to the Aniseed Valley to spend a few days free camping. We'd found the place a few days before while exploring with Debbie and it seemed a perfect spot to stay - it was right next to a beautiful river, had flushing toilets and running water on site, free BBQs, picnic tables and, though technically it said no camping on the entrance, we figured we weren't really camping since we didn't have a tent and anyway we had found a little hidden away part to park where we probably wouldn't be spotted if anyone came to look. Can you spot Jaffa? We spent four happy days here and every morning we went into the river to wash. Certainly the most picturesque bathroom I've ever had.

Finally it was time to go the the Keylock's house to begin our WWOOFing. We were both nervous about staying with strangers and doing as yet unknown work, but we had to give it a go. Fortunately Michael & Judy seemed nice enough - Mike was English and Judy grew up in Zambia but her mother, Katherine, who lives in her own house next door to Mike & Judy, was originally a Kiwi before moving to South Africa as a child. They had a daughter called Chloe who was moving to Wellington a couple of days after we arrived, which would mean we could move into the sleepout/cabin/bunky next to Mike's workshop. They had all emigrated to NZ four years ago from Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire. They live in an adobe mud brick house with grass on the roof, a nice big vegetable garden and three acres of land, including bush going up a steep hill behind the house, three sheep (which still have their long tails, which freaked Isaac out a bit as he'd never seen sheep with tails before and had no idea they were usually docked), a chicken that actually lives next door but has adopted them, and tried to live, grow and buy as organically as possible. They were also vegetarians. Damn!

The next day we were set to work. Unusually for Nelson it was raining hard and we set to work weeding the vegetable garden, which was, I have to admit, a bit miserable. It's back-breaking work and, given that we are not gardeners ourselves, I was a bit paranoid that I might pull up something vital. As my mind wandered during the mindless task, I began to come up with rules for rookie weeders: if it sits with its peers, it's probably supposed to be there. If you pull up something that looks like a vegetable, don't pull up any others. If it looks a bit like a vegetable you are familiar with, it probably is one. It seemed to get us through without too much damage and we ate our (admittedly delicious) vegetarian dinner with much gusto that evening.

As we were eating dinner we heard via a phone call that there was a bush fire going on in Nelson. Some friends of Mike & Judy's were having to evacuate their home so were coming out to stay at the house. We chatted to them about where the fire was and were horrified to discover that it was right where Ian & Debbie were staying with Debbie's brother Daniel. We had no mobile phone reception at the Keylocks so we decided to hop in the car, drive down to see what we could see of the fire and call them to check they were okay. This we did, and while we watched the fire raging on the hill, we spoke to Debbie who said they were fine, that the helicopters dumping water on the fire seemed to have it under control, and they were preparing to evacuate if necessary but thought they'd be okay. We hung up and watched for a while as the helicopters flew back and forth. Then, suddenly, they all disappeared and the fire started raging bigger than ever. Debbie called me back and sounded panicked as she said the firemen were leaving for the night, but that the fire was closer than ever and could we come and help them? Of course we rushed round and discovered that the fire department were indeed leaving, with a promise that the rural/volunteer fire department would take over. They told Daniel to hose down their garden and to call them again if the fire reached their house! We frantically hosed down the garden, house, deck and flooded the gutters while they prepared the house for evacuation and gave their dogs to family to look after. All the while we could see the fire raging just over the hill from the house, sometimes dying down a bit, sometimes flaring up again. Finally, we took a walk up the hill to see how far it had come. It was pretty close, and still raging, but it seemed the rural fire department had arrived and were tackling the fire at the source, and having more luck than the 'paid' fire department. Within the next hour or so they had put the upper part of the fire out, so the danger for Ian & Debbie had passed. We went home to bed, glad to know they were all safe and sound.

We've now been here at the Keylocks for nearly 3 weeks. During this time we have had a variety of tasks to do - we've built a new raised veg bed for their paddock; composted, mulched and dug over a whole heap of raised beds; planted out leeks and onions grown from seed in four of the beds; transplanted a heap of salvia, roses & irises; tied garlic into bunches; named the chicken Mrs Warburton and Isaac built her a makeshift coop; helped move stones and gravel from around the back of the house in readiness for their new deck being laid; helped build the frame for the deck; baked bread and prepared some meals. But the task we've enjoyed the most, and spent most time on, is one that Mike didn't initially think we'd get done. The bushland going up the hill was thick with bramble and gorse, so it was impenetrable. Mike said he eventually wanted to make a wide path going up the centre, drop a bunch of the eucalyptus trees, and get back to native bush. We managed to create a big clearing in only a few short days, hacking away at the bramble and gorse and bringing it back to dirt. Mike dropped 6 trees and we limbed them, cut them up, stacked them and Isaac split a pile into firewood. We also went up to the very top of the hill, which involved following the sheep's path, and crawling on hands and knees under gorse bushes, to clear it and make it accessible for future WWOOFers to continue our work. I have learnt to use a machete, an axe and a chainsaw, and found to my immense surprise that I loved using them; I have found the work on the bush enormously satisfying. I'll be sorry to leave here, not least of all because we have had our own little space (and bathroom!), but also because I feel like we've become part of the family. I've learnt so much being here and shall miss rolling out of bed to check my emails (thank god for internet access while we've been here!), having a shower in our own bathroom and then going over to the main house to make a cup of tea and toast, then heading out to put in some hard manual labour. Mike is always laughing and Judy has made a point of finding out things we liked and going out and buying them for us (Hokey Pokey and Boysenberry Ripple ice cream, Lurpack butter, blue cheese, chocolate, cookies). Katherine makes the best meringues in the world and today she taught me how to make them, and we feasted on them for dessert, with ice cream naturally after the home made pizza we had in the outdoor adobe mud brick pizza oven. I'm even going to miss Judy's strange, random stories which have no beginning, middle or end, and her habit of always asking "What's your favourite...[insert, well, anything you can think of - meal your mother used to make, thing to do outdoors, type of movie]?" I crocheted a hat each for Judy & Mike as a thank you present, which they seemed to like very much!

So tomorrow we leave for the orchard which will, all being well, become our home for the next couple of months. I'm nervous about changing again, going back to sharing facilities and living in the van, and whether or not we'll take to the work. Everyone we talk to has an opinion - because it's a big industry here everyone has done it, or knows someone who has, and either loved it or hated it. I reckon that after the kind of manual labour we've been doing here, we'll find it perfectly manageable physically, if a bit dull. Personally, I don't mind mindless repetitive manual tasks but we'll see whether that still stands after 10 weeks! My main concern is trying to get Isaac out of bed in the morning; we've been starting later and later here...not sure what time we'll have to start apple picking in the mornings but if we have to get up early, then I'm sure we will. Hear that Isaac?!

I doubt we'll have internet access there but I'll try to keep on top of the blogging this time, mainly so Jude won't have cause to nag me... ;-)

*which is the title of one of my favourite films incidentally.
**okay, YOU try to say that without laughing. It's beyond me.
***during the months of Feb & March only of course, and this was still January remember
****which, given we've spent much of the past month or two listening to the audio books of Harry Potter (read by the unsurpassed Stephen Fry), seemed like fate to me

A journey south and a wedding

2009-02-14T02:09:00.029Z

So finally I have a chance to catch up a bit. Sorry about that.

We took the ferry from Wellington to Picton on 11th Jan (which, I've just realised, is over a month ago, so that makes me feel very ashamed I've not blogged about it yet) at the crack of dawn. A slight lack of preparation on my part (which is unlike me) meant that we got a bit lost finding the ferry terminal and ended up driving about 5km past where we needed to be, but arrived at the ferry with whole minutes to spare. I knew from good ol' facebook that my friend Denise, quite by coincidence, was booked on the same ferry as us so I kept my eyes peeled for her as soon as we arrived on board and parked Jaffa up among the much larger and flasher motorhomes, amid the smell of diesel. The journey takes around 3 hrs and the boat was very similar, if a little smaller, than the one we used to take over to Denmark on holiday. It has a bar, a cafe, a 'posh' restaurant, even a cinema! But we didn't want to waste our time sat in the dark when we knew we were arriving on the South Island past the Marlborough Sounds, famous for their beauty. After indulging in a huge breakfast, we headed to the stern of the boat to find Denise sitting in the bar with some people she knew from the coach tour she'd been on. It was great to catch up, though Isaac took some time out to see the sights while we nattered on.

Eventually we arrived in Picton, where Ian & Debbie had come to pick Denise up. After a nice lunch and a lovely catch up with them, they headed straight back to Nelson while we took the scenic route - and in NZ this tends to be very scenic - on the Queen Charlotte's Track around the Marlborough Sounds. We drove up as far as Okiwi Bay, where we stopped at a campsite for the night, before winding our way leisurely into Nelson the following day.

We liked Nelson immediately, which was just as well, seeing as we'd planned to make it our home for the next few months! It's not a huge town but big enough, and seems to have everything you might need. We went to the home of some of Debbie & Ian's friends, Debbie & Brian Heaphy, who had offered to let us park our van in the driveway of their parents' farm for a while. They are a lovely family who have around 50 sheep, 20 chickens, a handful of ducks and ducklings, a pig (they had had two pigs till Christmas ahem) and a gorgeous dog. I'm not usually fond of dogs at all, but she was a real sweetie, very well trained, which was probably due to the fact that she was there to help with the sheep, though Brian & Debbie's kids, Connor & Luke seemed to be very well trained too, so maybe it was just the way of things in that family...

A few days later - during which time I'd been ill with some sort of viral infection - we went on a fishing trip with Ian as a pre-cursor to his stag do. As is so often the case, I was rather outnumbered by men (including Brian Heaphy and Simon, my friend Suzie's ex-husband, who was out there for the wedding with Suzie and their son Joey*) but I had been really looking forward to doing some sea fishing and hoped that we'd have more luck than when we went on The Rock cruise. A huge quantity of beer had been brought aboard and Isaac got stuck in along with all the other blokes. Once we got out to the Marlborough Sounds, up around French Pass, we found each grabbed a rod and tried out luck using squid as bait. Almost immediately the first fish was caught, to huge acclaim, and one by one each of the gang raised their rods to find one or two blue cod sitting on there....all except Isaac and I that is. We were fishing in the same spot as the others, using the same rods, the same bait and the same technique, but for some reason the buggers just avoided our rods like the plague! A couple of hours went by, the boat moving on to 3 different spots, and we still hadn't caught a thing, despite Simon next to us having caught around 17 fish by now. Isaac wasn't speaking to anyone and I threatened to disembowel the next person who asked me if I had definitely let out enough line, or if I knew how to strike when I felt a bite. Then, finally, around 3 hours in to the trip, joy! Finally Isaac raised his line to find a blue cod and shortly thereafter, so did I. Our dry spell was broken and during the rest of the day we each caught, if not anything like as many as old 'crack bait' Simon, a respectable haul nonetheless. Phew!

Of course by now, Isaac had had plenty of beers to make up for the ridiculously hot weather. I did try to tell him to pace himself a bit, given that he'd started at 8am, that the sun was beating down and he still had the stag do to attend that night, but boys know best, don't they? The other lads on the trip had a few years, and thus a few drinking years, on Isaac, who is rather slight of frame and light of weight, but he seemed determined to try to keep up. Nevertheless, as I predicted, when we began our journey back to shore, Isaac decided to take a little, ahem, nap.

We arrived back at the Heaphy's, which was where the stag party was starting proceedings. I was getting ready for the hen do but not feeling too good by this point, on which I blamed a combination of mild sunstroke and the left over of my virus. I left Isaac telling me he was going to have a bit of a nap before the stag do started and drove with Debbie Heaphy to the hen do around 10 mins up the road. After an hour or two I decided that I was not really feeling up to the high jinks involved so I decided a refreshing walk home and early to bed would be in order.

When I got back to the Heaphy's, I suddenly panicked. Brian had told Debbie that under no circumstances should the hen party crash the stag do and I worried that if he saw me, he'd think that I was there to spy on them, or that I'd brought all the girls with me, and get angry. However, I was also worried that if I just sneaked into the van, that if Debbie Heaphy spoke to Brian or came home saying I'd left early, that Isaac would worry that I'd not made it back, so I did the only thing I could do and hid in a bush in the garden, trying to spot Isaac and call him over. Eventually, after around 10 mins and feeling not a little bit silly, I spotted Isaac wondering on the periphery. "Isaac!" I tried to both shout and whisper at the same time. He saw me and came over, looking puzzled. I explained the situation and that I was planning to go to bed in the van, and he looked relieved. As it turns out he'd drunk nothing but water since returning home from fishing, and had been throwing up at regular intervals behind the van. I blamed the sunstroke ;-) We both sneaked away from the stag do, who were all preparing to go into town to visit a few bars and a rather dodgy-looking strip club, and cuddled up together in bed with a ton of drugs instead.

Two days later we found ourselves getting dolled up (traveller stylee, which basically means fairly casual but not jeans) and waiting with Brian, Debbie & their two boys for a big red (ex-London) double decker bus to pick us up for the wedding. Suzie, Simon, Joey & Denise were already on board. Isaac, of course, had never been on a double decker before, so was as excited as the kids, but I was more excited to see all the old Travelcard and Vodaphone advertising billboards inside! The weather was overcast but dry, but all the talk was of the rain predicted. Nelson, famous for having the most sun hours in NZ, had had no rain for over 2 months by now, so we were sure it would be fine for the wedding. We arrived at The Gardens of the World along with everyone and waited for Debbie to arrive, looking gorgeous in her hourglass dress. As she and her parents walked down the, for want of a better word, aisle, her mother, clearly relieved, made a remark about the lack of rain - BIG mistake. Naturally, as soon as the ceremony started it begin bucketing down and, though Isaac & I stood, silently getting drenched and pretending not to have noticed, we eventually turned round to find that everyone else had legged it under the trees, seeking some sort of shelter. Though the ceremony continued under the cover of a couple of huge umbrellas, eventually the celebrant and the bride & groom retreated to a small gazebo, where the promised readings were abandoned with promises to read them at the reception, and the required parts of the ceremony were completed out of earshot of us. Ian & Debbie had been together for 18 years and planning the wedding for the past six, but Sod's Law says she had to choose the one day in 'Sunny' Nelson it pissed down! Such a shame, but made a good story at least. The bus took us back early to the reception where a much anticipated feast awaited us; everything on the table, wild boar, venison, ham, paua, whitebait patties, crayfish and steamed hoki fish, had been caught or harvested by Debbie's family. We were on a table with Debbie & Brian, their friends Dan & Sarah who we'd met and liked enormously, and Emma (one of my former midwifery colleagues from Queen Charlotte's) and her husband Mick. We had a good night - I got one of Ian's aunts to approach Isaac and offer him work as a male stripper, which he almost bought - and headed home, now dried off, shortly after midnight.

Hope that makes up somewhat for my blogging slovenliness, and I shall try to bring us completely up to date as soon as possible, I promise.

*yes, ex-husband. She has a boyfriend back home, also conveniently called Simon, but was travelling with (old) Simon so he could spend time with Joey. They are definitely contenders for the title of most odd, new-age family unit, but it works for them, which is all that matters...

Lumps and bumps

2009-02-10T04:40:00.007Z

Before I catch up with everything we've been up to - which is extensive by the way* - I have a small rant I wish to slot in.

I didn't think I'd ever find any living creature I hated as much as mosquitoes. Sadly, I was mistaken. In fact I have even begun to think of mosquitoes fondly. What could possibly have prompted this startling turn around? Sandflies.

They are small - small enough to be difficult to spot and easy to overlook. They bite you by burying their whole head into your skin and you don't even really feel the bite happening at the time, giving you little opportunity to swat them away, and what's more, the bite itself is impossible to spot initially. Only after a good few hours can you see a small pink spot where they got you, but it does not itch at this stage, nor is there any discernible bump. Oh no, it lulls you into a false sense of security; you think you've got away with it and relax, but you would be foolish to do so.

Around 12-24 hours after the bite, the itching begins. It is virtually impossible to ignore and once you start scratching you can find it drives you insane; it's easy to scratch until you bleed...and then keep on going, agony & ecstasy going hand in hand. Scratching of course causes the hive to swell and in some cases, the whole of the bite area too. My friend Simon scratched the ones on his ankles and ended up with ankles the size of elephants. The hive - and the concomitant itch - lasts for ages. And I mean ages. I find with mozzie bites that if I am able to ignore them for a day or two, they will disappear. I have had one or two mozzie bites recently that lay testament to this. However, I still have sandfly bites that are on-going which I got FOUR SODDING WEEKS AGO. Not so itchy, it's true, but still very much visible and irritating. My friend Debbie has scars from sandfly bites received several years ago.

I have now begun to wage a serious war on the little buggers. I had bought some 'natural' insect repellent, which worked okay I suppose, but was a pain to put on. It was an oily spray and, what with the slathering of suntan lotion I need to put on every day to combat the vicious UV rays, I tended to feel like a basted turkey. So now I have bought a special suntan lotion with insect repellent built in for days in the sun, plus a 'tropical strength' spray for evenings or rainy days (when they are out in force).

There are only a couple of good things that could be said about sandflies. They are immensely stupid. They don't seem to target human beings in the way that mozzies do, they seem to just fly around bumping into things and occasionally get lucky by finding something that they can bury their head into. This does make them fairly easy to kill, because they wander about slowly while they work out whether they've struck it lucky, giving you plenty of time to squish them if you happen to spot them. They are attracted by light, so in the evening if you put a lamp on pointing at a wall, you'll find them gathering in the glow and you can kill them in bulk. And they are generally only around during the day, so night time is fairly safe. Still, they're horrible horrible things and I hate them. HATE THEM.

*and therefore the reason I've got so behind in blogging, in addition to the issue of erratic internet access, is that once you've got behind you feel like you can't do anything until you've caught up, but the idea is so overwhelming you don't get round to it. That and the fact that when I DO sit down to blog, Isaac starts jumping around and desperately vying for attention like a small puppy, and I get nothing done. He erroneously claims this is untrue. I think it's sweet.

Still oop north

2009-01-24T03:59:00.011Z

After New Year's we went back down to Rotorua to meet up with Ben & Coleanne once more. We had planned to do the Tongariro Crossing together, one of the most famous one day hikes (or 'tramps' as they call them here) in NZ. It is an estimated 7-8 hours of walking and crosses a series of volcanoes, incidentally used as the location for Mordor in the Lord of the Rings. We parked one of our cars at the end point, drove the other to the start and, armed with the one ring to rule them all, oh, sorry, I meant our lunch and plenty of water, we set out to hike our socks off.

I'll be honest, I thought I was fairly fit, but it seems age has certainly taken its toll on me. The first half of the walk is all uphill, and I wasn't doing too badly here at all. The weather was perfect, sun with a smattering of cloud giving excellent visibility across the whole region, nice cool breeze blowing, and although we all had to take the occasional breather, we were alright. When we had almost completed the ascent, we were given the option to climb up to the mouth of a volcano, which would have added a couple of hours on to the walk and looked practically vertical so we thought sod that and carried on. Just as we got past the summit and saw down the other side I literally gasped as i glimpsed the incredible colour of the Emerald Lakes. Our descent began and I thought it was all going to be a piece of cake from here - how wrong I was. I've had a dodgy left knee for a while now, maybe a couple of years, and whilst I've noticed that if I kneel or squat it stiffens up when I get back up again, I hadn't really paid it too much attention. Trying to walk down the pretty steep side of a mountain however took its toll and while Ben & Coleanne raced ahead, Isaac - gawd bless 'im - remained with me getting ever slower. There were big steps down on the path, a couple of feet deep each, placed every hundred feet or so, which after a while I just couldn't get down. Isaac had to either hold my hand as I stepped or literally pick me up and lift me down. I was getting exhausted and at one point I thought I saw the car park which was our end goal. When I realised that I was imagining it I thought 'Oh blimey, I'm not in a good way if I'm seeing mirages'. In fact when eventually Isaac called from up ahead to say 'We're here!' and I could barely bring myself to believe him. We collapsed into the car where Ben & Coleanne were waiting for us and realised that we'd done the walk in 6hrs 15m, despite my stupid knee, which was pretty good we reckoned. Although we had brought stuff to make dinner we just couldn't be bothered to cook so we went to the campsite restaurant. Ben barely made it through dinner before he crashed at 8.30pm; we blamed sunstroke as he was red as a tomato.

The next morning Ben & Coleanne headed back to Rotorua while we went on to Napier, which was destroyed in the 30s by an earthquake and was therefore rebuilt all in the Art Deco style. We pinpointed a campsite that said it was brand new and had free internet - virtually unheard of over here - so we headed there even though it was a bit out of the way. It took a while to find it, but we kept going past another campsite on the same road, so we called them and they said that that WAS the campsite, that there'd been a misprint in the book. We pulled in to find a tiny and wholey univiting place that looked more like a cramped car park than a campsite. The 'office' was a caravan on site with some unsavoury looking people sat on deckchairs out front. We paid our $20 and asked about the internet - oh no, it wasn't free, another misprint, it was $1 per 15 mins. If you could get it that is. It actually belonged to the backpackers next door. I checked and it was actually $2 per 15 mins and when I tried to get it from the van there was no chance. "I'm not staying here" I told Isaac, and went to get our money back. "Well, that's not really how it's done," she told me "I'll get in to trouble if I give you your money back". "I've only been here for 5 mins" I said firmly "and I'll have that $20 back please." She relented and we raced off with relief.

After a night spent at a decent enough campsite in town we headed into Napier but given that we had to get down to Wellington that evening we didn't spend much time there. We were back on the road in no time and taking the winding Highway 2 down to Windy Welly.

One of the girls I trained with, Sally, lives in Wellington and she very kindly offered to lend us her flat for the few days we were there, going off to stay with her boyfriend. She even lent us her car! We felt like proper people again *sigh*. We went out for dinner with Sally & Tom the first evening - Isaac was turned away from the bar we went to for not presenting valid ID haha* - and the following evening Isaac took me to my first strip club, Mermaids. They have a big tank the girls dive into! I thought it was great.

We visited Wellington Zoo, which was excellent. They had a sun bear, which I'd never seen or heard of before, which was a funny looking thing. We wandered around eating ice creams (of course) and we while we were looking at the chimps, a keeper came over to stand next to us with a dingo on a harness. They were still young, only around 5 months old, and were being acclimatised to the zoo**. The chimps went mad and started screaming at the sight of the dingo; one of them ran to the front, pulled up a big clump of earth and hurled it at us! We thoroughly enjoyed our visit and Isaac says he knows what he wants his next pet to be now: a red panda. I've pointed out it's probably illegal but he's determined.

The next evening Sally came round with a friend and asked if we wanted to come with them to visit some other friends of theirs. Only when we got there did it click that everyone there was either gay or a lesbian - I took Isaac aside to mention it to him, just in case he hadn't realised, as it's not really the kind of crowd he's used to back home! Still, he soon settled into it and within a few beers he was nattering away - it was a bit of an education I think. The following evening we went with Sally & Tom to a BBQ at another friend's and found ourselves surrounded by semi-famous musicians and the director of the fabulous Kiwi film Eagle Vs. Shark. I told him I loved the film and he seemed genuinely touched.

All too soon we had to leave Wellington at the crack of dawn to take the ferry over to Picton on the South Island...

*it was perfectly valid, just Canadian. They seem to think that you should bring your passport with you everywhere over here unless you have a NZ driving licence. Even though Isaac had two pieces of photo ID with his date of birth showing he was 19 and several other pieces of ID, including his birth certificate, to prove it was him, the manageress threw a Parkie on us and ordered him out.
**Hello Lorenzo! Hello Lorenzo! (I don't expect anyone but my sisters to get this comment)

Just a few reasons why Isaac is the perfect travelling companion (and boyfriend)

2009-01-03T21:16:00.000Z

He’s always eager to help. If he hasn’t done something before or doesn’t know how to do it, he’ll watch me do it and help in any way he can, following instructions to the letter. Next time round he’ll offer to do it, remember exactly what I said and do it perfectly.
If I cook, he’ll insist on washing up. In fact, he won’t even insist, he’ll just get on and do it without any fuss.
He washes up to a high standard. If I’ve used a knife to cut bacon for example, you know that the serrated edge of the knife will be clean because he’ll have scrubbed it properly, then checked to make sure it is completely clean. The other day we used a pot to cook with on the gas burner and the bottom was black. He scrubbed and scrubbed it before asking me “How clean do you want it?”
In company he is always polite when he should be, friendly when that’s required and quiet when someone else likes to talk. He always gets it spot on.
He never assumes there’s anything I should do, like cooking or anything, or anything I can’t do, like fixing stuff. He is equal in all things.
He appreciates everything I do, even when I think it’s no big deal.
He actually listens to what I say and remembers it, even weeks after.
He gets excited about the same things I do, like our power cable and our new fridge.
If I ask him to make me a cup of tea while I do something else, he’ll do it without question…and gets the chocolate biscuits out too because he knows that I’ll want them to go with it.
He has common sense in abundance and uses it: I asked him recently while we were at Jude & Glynn’s if he would pop out to the van to get my toiletry bag so I could take my make up off. He did so and came back with the hairband that I use to keep my hair off my face while I take my make up off as well, even though I hadn’t asked him for it and it wasn’t even kept next to my bag. He just thought about what I’d need and made sure he brought it.
He compliments my driving often.
He knows how to say sorry.

Hot Christmas and ker-razy New Year

2009-01-03T03:16:00.002Z

Jude & Glynn had invited us for Christmas and we decided that we would like to spend it with nice people rather than on our own, so we took them up on their offer. We headed back to South Auckland on a very un-Christmassy Christmas Eve (too hot!) and spent the evening with them and their Japanese friend Mayuko having Thai curry and watching The Muppets Christmas Carol, which did help us get in the mood a bit. The next morning the sky was purest blue and it was hot as a bastard, so we had a leisurely start and a big breakfast with bacon, scrambled eggs and hash browns. Eventually we opened presents – we had two presents that my sister Jenny had put in my suitcase before I left and it turns out they were two brilliant t-shirts (mine says ‘Vote Clarkson’ and Isaac’s ‘DCI Hunt: I’m ‘aving hoops’) and from Jude & Glynn we got a camp shower (trying to make up for the one that they had snatched from beneath my metaphorical fingers at a garage sale we’d been to together) and a set of badminton racquets. We spent the day playing badminton in the back garden and lounging in their hammock before heading off to a BBQ at Jude’s friend Liz’s. It was a family affair but they were so welcoming to us and we ate some fabulous food. There was a dip made from refried beans, guacamole, salsa, sour cream which was heavenly. We met a guy called Mike who offered to come the next day and, for the price of a few beers, he would help us try to fix the oil leak that we’d developed on the van. It was a lovely Christmas and we were so glad we decided to spend it with Jude & Glynn.

On Boxing Day we went to the sales but only picked up some icepacks and some new boxers* for Isaac, since he came to NZ with only 5 pairs that he’s been juggling ever since. A lazy day ensued. The next day however, we got up (relatively) early and headed north to Snowplanet, the indoor ski hill, to catch some fresh pow. Well, some hard packed man-made snow at least. I rented some dodgy skis, Isaac rented a dodgy snowboard, and we hit the slopes. Sorry, slope. After so long away from snow we were grateful to have anything to ride on and we spent the next 7 hours hitting the park (that is to say, Isaac was hitting the park, and I was just trying to do one jump and one box without falling over). We got so used to wearing big coats and feeling the cold air on our faces, every time we went outside for a break we were amazed to remember it was in fact swelteringly hot.

Next day we said our sad goodbyes to Jude & Glynn, because we knew we wouldn’t be seeing them again for a long while, and drove to the Coromandel Peninsula. The drive up to Colville, just north of Coromandel Town, was the nicest we’ve had the whole time we’ve been in NZ – it was right on the coast with the bluest water you’ve ever seen, and the pohutekawa trees, which I’ve finally learnt how to pronounce, were in full bloom. We treated ourselves to a fantastic posh meal in Coromandel (still only worked out to £27 so didn’t feel too guilty!) As we approached Colville the sun began to set and the most spectacular reds, golds and pinks streaked across the sky. We stopped in a beautiful bay to watch the sun go down before we reached our campsite.

The campsite owner had said he didn’t mind when we checked out so we took advantage of the leisurely morning (most campsites have a 10am checkout) and headed over to Whitianga on the east coast, where the weather turned rainy again and Isaac complained constantly about getting drenched when I dragged him out into town. The following day however it was back to boiling hot sun, so we drove to Hahei and took the 45 min coastal path to Cathedral Cove, which was well worth the walk. There’s a huge hollowed out arch in the rock from one beach to another and two freestanding rocks in the sea. There’s even a toilet on the beach, up on a platform, which has a huge window overlooking the sea – a proper loo with a view! We found a spot on a campsite at Hot Water Beach which, like the beach we went to in Kawhia, has a hot spring running under the sand so you can dig yourself a spa bath to sit in. We took a spade and wandered down to the beach but found this one was very very different to our experience in Kawhia, where we were one of only about 8 people on the whole beach. This time it was PACKED to the gills, and because the area where you could dig was relatively small, they were all crammed together. After a short time trying to find a place to dig, we gave up on the hoards and took ourselves off up the beach to sit and watch surfers instead. Isaac dug a hole with his spade, which I stood in, and he then buried me up to my ribs, so I looked like one of those knitted dolls you put over loo rolls. I managed to escape but was covered in sand, so went down to the water to try to rinse it off. The water was a bit chilly but Isaac & I managed to get in up to our waists before we spotted a couple of jellyfish nearby and got scared and ran out. Shortly afterwards I realised my left thigh was stinging and burning, and Isaac found the same on his feet. At first we thought we were imagining it, but red marks showed that we weren’t – we’d been stung by jellyfish! Not particularly dangerous ones at least but enough to hurt. We hobbled back to the campsite and went into the showers – as luck would have it, the only place we’ve been to where they had communal as well as single gender ones – and…well, it was all in the name of stopping the jellyfish sting hurting you understand, not for sexual kicks…Isaac passed urine on me and then on his own feet. I couldn’t stop giggling. Not sure it worked but kept us amused.

Following day we had a stop in Whangamata, which was a really nice town and a fantastic beach, though we got approached by young Christians who asked if we wanted to take part in a ‘survey’. Not realising there was a religious agenda we said yes and spent the best part of the next half an hour looking at a stack of pictures they had and talking to them about our non-belief in God. I think they quickly got the idea that we were lost causes, and happy to be so. Fortunately they had no debating skills whatsoever so it was easy to blast their arguments out of the water haha. We had a very delicious Soul Burger (bit like Gourmet Burger Kitchen) before carrying on to a place we’d pretty much picked out of a hat, Mount Maunganui…or at least that was the plan. It was New Year’s Eve and on our approach into town we discovered the traffic was solid. We phoned a couple of campsites and they were all fully booked, so we looked a bit further out of town and found one in Papamoa, just down the road, that had a spot, though the campsite owner warned us there was a group of 500 young people camping out the back and that we might not want to use the facilities if we didn’t need to. We didn’t want to be stuck without accommodation on New Years so we took our chances. The campsite owner also told us there was a bus going into Mount Maunganui at 9pm that night which cost $10, did we want tickets? Isaac & I discussed it – he’s never really celebrated New Years so wasn’t bothered either way, but I thought that we shouldn’t spend another night in the van watching DVDs while everyone else was out partying, so we bought 2 tickets.

At 9pm we got on the bus, along with a hoard of teenagers. Now, I’ve nothing against teenagers – I mean, I’m going out with one so how can I? – but a large number of very drunk teenagers crammed into a confined space for half an hour was, I have to admit, a horrific experience. Isaac moved me to the inside seat in order to protect me** but I’ve never heard so much screaming – not just the occasional yelp or a bit of loud excitable talking but total, solid SCREAMING in my life. In order to give us something else to concentrate on we put bets on the first person to be sick – I won my bet when the guy a few seats away vomited on himself. Cue more screaming. Someone at the back was sick too, and passed out. Someone threw something at the bus and smashed one of the windows at the back. The passed out guy had managed to cut himself on something, no idea how, and by the time we arrived at Mt Maunganui the floor of the bus was running with sick and blood. Tons of blood. The passed out guy was carried out of the bus by his friends and met by an ambulance and 5 policemen. We got off as soon as we can and as soon as we were clear of the bus I burst into tears with sheer relief. Isaac took me over to the beach and held me while I sobbed. Once I’d calmed down we walked up the road, passed several road blocks which ensured that the beach front was an alcohol-free zone, and discovered that pretty much the entire population of New Zealand was here celebrating New Year. There was a fairground, two stages and an outdoor club. We walked up and down the strip a couple of times before settling down on a hill overlooking the club and the beach, where we knew there was going to be fireworks at midnight. We people watched for a while – and boy! was there good fodder – and come midnight we watched the fireworks go off. Then we booked it down the road, me in bare feet*** because I’d made the mistake of putting on my heels, not realising we’d do so much walking and had blisters on both my little toes, in order to catch the first bus home because we couldn’t bear the thought of being caught in that furore again. The journey home was still packed but much calmer and I got talking to a young English lad who was next to us, who emigrated here a few months ago. “So how did you find out this was the place that everyone in New Zealand comes to party at New Year?” he asked us. “Erm…we didn’t, it was pure chance we came here” I replied. To be honest, if we’d known it was that big a party town, we probably wouldn’t have gone there but hey ho, it was an interesting night nonetheless.

We drove to Whakatane**** the next day, which was pretty much all closed for New Year’s Day and paid for 2 nights in a campsite there, so we could have a lie-in the next morning. This never actually materialised however, as we had some idiots camping next to us who decided to play death metal at a ridiculous volume early the next day as they dismantled their tents. We debated going on over and just switching it off, but fortunately another camper went ballistic at them and they soon drove off in a huff. We wandered into town and saw a camping shop. We went in, as we always do, as we’ve been looking for a plug in coolbox for the whole time we’ve been here, so we can keep our beer, sorry, food cold. We’ve found a couple but they’ve usually been tiny and cigarette lighter powered only (not suitable for us when we’re parked for a few days obviously), or ridiculously big and expensive. We had begun to lose hope that such a thing as we were looking for existed, but as soon as we walked into this store there it was, right there near the door. We fell instantly in love with all 28 litre capacity, AC plug or DC cigarette lighter, not too bigness of it. We bought it and ran – literally ran – back to the campervan to get it going, then went to the supermarket to stock up on things that we couldn’t have bought before unless we knew we were going to eat them straight away. Bacon, milk, chicken: all ours for the taking. Isaac even has somewhere to keep his beer cold. We’re very excited. The new fridge and Percy the power cable are getting married and providing us with edible grandchildren. And the icing on the cake? Isaac’s parent’s have offered to give us the money for it as our Christmas present/Isaac’s birthday present. Thank you lovely Weinerts!

*well what else do you buy on Boxing Day?
**Awwwwwwww he’s sooooo adorable
*** which is very Kiwi – you wouldn’t believe how many people don’t wear shoes here
****pronounced Fuck-a-tanee, which we try to say with as much emphasis on the fuck as possible, naturally

Next installment

2009-01-03T03:13:00.003Z

After a one night stay in Auckland with Jude & Glynn – always a pleasure, never a chore – we headed up to the Bay of Islands for a mini-cruise on The Rock. The night before the cruise we found a campsite that overlooked a waterfall, Haruru Falls, and picked a prime spot on the waterfront. We sat outside the van and made a delicious stir fry for dinner; we thought we were in heaven. Around 9pm I went back inside the van to get things ready for the night and I noticed one or two mosquitoes. I told Isaac to shut the van door, and it was only once he’d done so that I realised that the problem was far worse than I thought. I shone the torch around and discovered to my horror that the van was filled with mosquitoes. Hundreds of them. I called Isaac in panic and asked him what he thought we should do. “Well, our first option would be to light a mosquito coil” he said. “Which we don’t have” I pointed out. “So” continued Isaac, “our only other option is to kill them all.” We looked at each other for a moment while we contemplated the task ahead of us.

The carnage which ensued is not suitable for those a delicate constitution, but suffice to say roughly one hour later, we had managed to squash, mangle and flatten almost all of the little buggers. The van was littered with corpses and when we went to bed we counted 55 dead mozzies just in the one panel above our heads.

The following day at 5pm we waited on the jetty in Paihia to be collected by Climax, the tender to The Rock. There were around 35 other people waiting and I looked around to see who might be potential friends. Over the next 22 hours we met a few people we didn’t particularly click with, like a couple of English nurses – Charlie (male) & Charlie (female) – who were disappointingly dull, and a few people with whom we became firm friends: a Scottish couple called Toni & Kenny who were on their honeymoon and were hilarious, an English girl called Jo who was travelling by herself and one of the crew, Chris. We had a shooting competition (which Kenny won) off the back of the boat, aiming at a floating duck which bobbed about as we motored along to our destination, got our rods out and fished (but no one caught anything but a few small bait fish), ate a feast of lamb, sausage, steak & salad, went night kayaking after dark with Chris, looked up at the infinite stars and watched as our paddles made the incredible phosphorescence (glowing algae) in the water twinkle before diving in to the water and swimming around in it too, stayed up late around the fire chewing the fat with Alice (an 18yr old English girl over here travelling by herself), Chris & Jose, another crew member who was from Chile. Eventually it was time to go to bed and I was very proud to be the last one on the whole boat to make it to my (top bunk) bed. Next day we had breakfast and went to Motorua island to hike, snorkel, kayak & sunbathe before eventually heading back to the mainland. All in all it was an amazing trip and we had a ball.

We had two more stops on the way back down to Auckland to spend Christmas with Jude & Glynn. First of these was Whananaki, a proper one-horse town. When we arrived at the campsite, we asked the owner where she recommended we go for lunch – she looked at us blankly and said “Well the shop is right next door…” turns out ‘the shop’ was the town, being a grocers, takeaway food, post office and petrol station rolled into one. We had a (slightly rubbish) lunch and went to see the only attraction in the area, the Southern Hemisphere’s longest footbridge. It was very long and lead absolutely nowhere.

Next we went to Waipu Cove, where the weather took a turn for the worse and we drove to the famous Waipu Caves. The Rough Guide said ‘wear old clothes and good footwear, take a couple of good torches each and explore’. We arrived in the pouring rain so we sat and waited for a bit until it slowed, during which time we fell asleep. Waking up after an hour or so we found several other cars had arrived. Everyone else seemed to be kitting up big time - backpacks, rain jackets and hiking shoes - and we felt horribly unprepared in our normal clothes. Then we read on in the Rough Guide: ‘The cave…is impenetrable after heavy rain’ and decided to give it a miss. Still, nice place for a nap we decided, and there’s even a loo for when you wake up bursting for a wee.

On our way back to Auckland for Christmas, we went past Sheep World - we liked the logo so much we decided to stop. It was brilliant, we got to feed lambs, watch sheep dog trials, have a go at sheep shearing, feed eels (nope, no idea what that has to do with sheep) and ended up staying there for hours.

Central North Island

2008-12-18T09:58:00.010Z

Rotorua was good to us - we found a lovely campsite where we had a spot right next to the river and we stayed for nearly a week. Everyday we woke up, looked at the gorgeous view from Jaffa (our van, now so named) and decided to stay for another night. During our week there we went Zorbing (which was hilarious, you get tossed and bounced all over each other) visited Wai-O-Tapu (which was hot, steamy and smelly but amazing to see) went for a long walk in the redwood forest (I chose the 3.5hr trail and I think Isaac had almost forgiven me by the end), fed numerous ducks (but didn't feed many more, as our campsite was rife with them), went kayaking (there were free ones at the campsite) and got splashed by Maori kids jumping in from a bridge, and went out on the town with Ben & Coleanne. An English couple came to stay at the campsite, Nick & Lynn, and we got chatting to them, mainly about fishing because that was Nick's over-riding passion. On Monday we were all leaving, but he was going out on a guided trout fishing tour that morning at 5am and said that if he caught two fish, he'd give one to us. He came back at 9am having caught only the one - but he gave that to us anyway, gawd bless 'im (clearly recognised poor hungry travellers when he saw them). We took it over to the smoker that was round the back on the campsite but couldn't work out what we were supposed to do with it, so we asked the handyman who was always around doing a spot of this or that if he could explain to us how to use it. Well. He took to the job with gusto, chopping wood, filleting our fish for us and showing me how to cover it in salt & sugar, revealing that he had in fact built the smoker himself out of an old fridge; we vowed to do the same when we get back to Canada. Only an hour after the fish had been caught we had some beautiful smoked trout, which we took over to Ben & Coleanne's to share for lunch, along with some of her homemade soup. Quite the most delicious meal we've had out here. Thanks Nick!

We headed to Taupo, where we wanted to go jet boating. We arrived early evening and went to the nearest campsite so we had somewhere to stay; the one we found was alright but uninspiring. We checked out the Rough Guide and it suggested a free campsite which was 3km out of town which we thought we'd have a look at the following day, to see if it was an option. It was amazing, right on the banks of the most incredibly blue - and fast moving - river and, although there were a couple of other vans and tents around, we felt like we had the place pretty much to ourselves - we even had long drop toilets (mmmm) available to us. We ended up staying 2 nights, moving to a more secluded spot the second night, and on the second day we went jet boating with Rapids Jet. The ride was amazing - at first I found the combination of the wind in my face from the ridiculous speeds, the exhilaration and (I'll be honest) the fear, meant I had tears streaming down my face but you quickly got used to the feeling and then it was just fun fun fun!

So now we've decided to head up to the Bay of Islands - via a quick stop at Jude & Glynn's in Auckland, hence the decent internet access for a change* - and tomorrow we're doing an overnight cruise which includes fishing, night kayaking, snorkelling etc., so I suspect we'll be incommunicado for a little while again but will hopefully have lots to tell at next blog. Still not sure what we're doing for Christmas, but Jude & Glynn have offered us a spot on their driveway campsite so we might well take them up on that!

*just to give you an example, the internet costs somewhere in the region of $8 per hour here, and that's when you CAN find somewhere to get online, and when it doesn't kick you off every 2 minutes. Hostels & campsites do not provide free internet as they would do in most other countries these days. Most frustrating, as I'd prefer to blog much more frequently and get a bit more detail in - I always feel like I'm cramming it in when I do get online - but sadly you're just going to have to bear with me on this one...

Activity central

2008-12-10T06:25:00.005Z

We made it to Waitomo Caves the other day and did the Blackwater Rafting I'd booked as a surprise for Isaac, which was just as good as I hoped. The abseil down was amazing. Floating down a stream on a big rubber tube in pitch darkness save for a million glow-worms was incredible. We even went to the very cave where they filmed the bits on glow-worms on Planet Earth - every Canadian teenage boys' favourite ever programme - Isaac was stoked. We squeezed through small holes in the rocks and tickled an eel. We even had hot ribena and chocolate sitting down there on the rocks. More photos are on Isaac's facebook here.

The next day we headed to Rotorua and met up with Ben, who was our friend and the IT guy at Sunshine, and his girlfriend Coleanne. We went out for Nando's (so happy they have them here - Isaac had never had Nando's before and is now a convert, of course) and the following day they took us Street Luging, which was huge fun even though, as Ben told us, safety is about seventh on their list of priorities. To ably demonstrate the point, on our fourth run of five, Ben managed to burn out his brakes, take a corner way too fast, go wide and bank off-track, then flip himself over, ripping open both elbows and his right knee, as well as his jacket. We'd have felt sorry for the guy but we just couldn't stop laughing...

Gooooood days

2008-12-05T21:17:00.007Z

The other day we arrived in Raglan, the ultimate NZ surfer town, went to the campsite which is situated on a sandy spit and is reached by footbridge from the town. After a ker-razy night on the town (the Yot Club bar, along with about 4 other people), which did at least result in our finding a rugby ball floating in the harbour, we dragged our sorry arses out of bed the next day and wondered over to the Tongue & Groove cafe for brunch. Isaac had scrambled eggs on toast, I had the most fabulous Caesar salad I've ever had (with little crispy bacon bits and a poached egg on top). Isaac bought me a cushion - a squishy one with an Orla Kiely type design which I love - and we wondered down to the shore to meet with our sea kayaking guide, Steve.

Steve is awesome - he has one of those looks that says he knows something you don't know...and it's goooooood - and we took off in a tandem sea kayak to explore the shoreline and the famous pancake rocks. They're ancient sea bed, made of limestone,
which has weathered and had the softer layers eroded, giving them an amazing, almost unreal effect. We happily pottered in and out of the caves and narrow paths in our kayak - Steve was impressed we did it without arguing once, which apparently most couples do in a tandem - and got ourselves wedged a couple of times. Then we stopped on a beach for freshly-made stove top lattes, danishes, biscuits and fresh pineapple. Yum. I went for a wander in the water and watched as a stingray floated gracefully past me. Great trip and Steve couldn't have been more hospitable or responsive to all our various needs, gawd bless 'im.

Next we popped into the grocery shop in town and found the most amazing bargain - a 10ft telescopic fishing rod AND reel for only $56 - most of the ones we'd looked at started at around $115 - so Isaac was made up. We left town happy and headed south towards our next stop of Kawhia, which took us past the Bridal Veil Falls, so that warranted a stop. Amazing, well worth the effort. Further up the road Isaac achieved a lifelong dream when we rounded a corner to find our way blocked with sheep. Around
600 of them, being herded by 2 dogs and a friendly sort of chap on a quad bike, who was obviously a bit lonely and wanted to chat. Onwards to Kawhia where our hosts at the new campsite, Snow & Bronwyn, were hilarious. He called me honey and they were at each other's throats constantly. Ha ha. The bathroom block at the site was brand new and we were practically the only ones there again, so that was nice. As soon as we arrived, we headed down to Ocean Beach, known for it's thermal springs so around 2 hours either side of low tide you can dig yourself a small pool on the beach and sit in the boiling hot water. We were dubious. When we arrived it was rather windy and cold, and the sea water was damn chilly too - what the hell? We got chatting to an English couple nearby who gave us some tips about how to find the hot stuff and soon we had ourselves a lovely hot pool. Fabulous. We even stopped to chew the fat with some great local Maori boys on our way back, but I'm sure it was Isaac's presence, not mine, that made them so friendly towards us - they recognised a fellow gansta, clearly.

It was nippy and getting late when we were heading back to the campsite so we stopped in town at the only bar/restaurant we could see to see if there was any food available. A small dog, sitting in the middle of the road, took a liking to us and followed us there. They'd closed the kitchen but the two lovely ladies there opened it up again to cook us a bowl of huge green-lipped mussels and delicious chips. We went to bed feeling we'd had a very very good day, all in all.

However, we've saved the best till last. We drove from Kawhia to Otorahanga the next day on the way towards Waitomo Caves, where we are currently (and where we will be blackwater rafting in a few hours - can't wait!) Now, one thing our van lacks is a power cable - when most new flashy campervans pull up to a campsite, they can plug their van into a special box, with a special plug, which gives them mains power. We had bought a heavy duty extension cord and 4 way splitter for this but didn't realised it needed a special, round pinned plug. We've looked and asked everywhere to see if we could buy one but it seems it's a no go, as it has to be specially fitted by experts. So in Otorahanga we were asking around, as usual, without much
hope. A tractor repair shop (it was that kind of town) said if we walked through their workshop and turned right we could find an electrical shop which might be able to help us. We found it and asked and not only did they not look at us blankly like everyone else, they said they had one! Cut a long story short, they took our heavy duty extension cord and replaced the male plug with the kind we need - fully certified and everything. They were so lovely and one of the women in the office even wanted to buy the van from us when we'd finished our trip! Isaac & I can't stop looking at our lovely lovely cable and we feel like proud new parents.

Latest pics here.

On the road at last

2008-12-02T08:57:00.003Z

So having finally got our van up and running we, well, got up and ran. Mission Bay first, a favourite Aucklander's haunt not far from the city, where we ate ice creams (Hokey Pokey, a NZ special which consists of vanilla ice cream with bits of crunchie in it - very very tasty) and paddled along the very picturesque beach - Isaac had apparently never heard of paddling before. Next we found ourselves heading to the North Shore of Auckland to see John Bedford, a kiwi guy we met at Sunshine Village. John took us to Piha beach on the west coast, a famous surfing haunt. We did the kiwi thing and went into the sea for a swim despite the less-than-inviting temperature of the water - I'm glad I hung back a bit because when John asked Isaac if he'd heard of rugby, Isaac really should have known this was a pre-cursor to being heavily tackled and
taken under. We thought the waves were huge and pretty strong, though John later dismissed them as pussy waves, and when I saw Isaac disappear under them I had a sudden panic that I hadn't told him I loved him before he'd gone in! We had fush and chups on the beach, along with a few beers - yes, even me* - that John had brought. Home to John's where we headed into the hot tub, a bowl of our new favourite Hokey Pokey ice cream, and an early night sleeping in the van parked up in his driveway.

Early the next morning we got up to go and watch the rugby. Now, neither Isaac nor I are interested in team sports, but the chance to watch England vs. All Blacks in a Kiwi house was too good to pass up (the offer of free breakfast helped) and much to our surprise we both really enjoyed the game. Shame England were trounced, but it seemed to keep our hosts happy and I wasn't that bothered so no complaints. Afterwards, armed with plenty of maps and leaflets courtesy of our hosts, we headed to Takapuna, a small town on the east coast north of Auckland. Here we found a lovely campsite, a decent set of shops to explore, a cinema, where we saw Quantum of Solace**, and a very nice Belgian restaurant, where we had Jamaican curry of all things, which was absolutely delicious.

We took our van in the next day to South Auckland to a mechanic who put 2 new tyres on her, changed her oil and filters and adjusted her brakes, pronouncing them 'mint'. Thereafter we began our trip south, properly out of Auckland for the first time, stopping at our current location in Port Waikato, at a campsite which we appear to have to ourselves pretty much. After our walk on the immense sand dune formation nearby this afternoon we arrived back to see one other campervan - another Toyota Hiace - had arrived, which made us a bit cross, but otherwise we have the tv room, the very clean and well equipped kitchen, and the very clean bathrooms to ourselves.

So, to recap, so far sleeping in the van has been going very well indeed. I've slept like a baby every night, Isaac less so but who cares about that? Oops, sorry Pixie. The campsites are nice, friendly and, so far, very clean. And it's lovely to think that we can up sticks and leave for the next place anytime we want. So pretty happy all round with the whole buying a van business.

I'll upload some pics to this post when I have a moment (they're still on my camera which is in the van, I'm in an 'internet room' at the campsite, my laptop is nearly out of battery and I'm paying through the nose for the use of the internet, which is pretty much de rigeur over here it seems). In the meantime did I mention that I saw Christopher Ecclestone in a bookshop in LA while we were there? Thought not, thought I would.

*well I managed half a bottle, which I thought was pretty good for me
**disappointing, mainly because I still have absolutely NO idea what the bleeding hell was happening at any point

Made it here...

2008-11-28T00:30:00.011Z

Firstly, many apologies for the gap in blogging. As you could probably imagine, the last few days before I left were a little on the manic side but the things you need to know are a) to my immense relief I let my flat to a lovely couple who move in on December 1st (or at least I bloody hope they do!) b) I had a leaving do in Richmond and it was lovely to see Ellie, Zoe, Adam, Jenny & Neilon there, so thanks guys and c) Isaac & I successfully met up in LAX airport, had one crazy night/day in LA (and believe me, LA does crazy very very well indeed) and flew on to NZ a week ago. Now having recovered from the jetlag I feel up to giving you a quick update.

So far, to be honest, we've seen very little of NZ. Auckland has been lovely - even Isaac liked it and he hates cities - and we have bought our campervan, a bright orange Toyota Hiace that has yet to be properly christened, in every sense of the word. Any suggestions for names? Isaac suggested Bull because of the old Toyota logo, so I thought Taurus (tour-us) was a good play on words but he just looked at me like I was mad so it seems that's been vetoed. Rusty Griswald has been bandied about but nothing settled yet. The guys before us called it The Phoenix, but we don't want to call it anything they did, because they were, as it turns out, arseholes. They upped the price by $500 hours before we picked it up (I managed to knock $60 off that but boy was I furious) and they took the cigarette lighter plug adaptor that was going to be so useful out of the van before they sold it to us and INSISTED that it was still there and we hadn't looked hard enough when we asked about it. All that and he still said 'So when you're back this way next year and looking to sell, give me a call and I'd be happy to buy it back from you'. Isaac swears he'd rather drive it through his front door. The poor idiot must have forgotten the van came with a set of nunchucks, which Isaac is planning to be proficient with by the time we come back this way...

A few days ago, the day we picked up the van, we drove down to South Auckland - the NZ equivilent of LA's South Central haha - to visit my friend Jude, who I went to Heathside with for a year back when we were 12 and haven't seen since then. Good ol' facebook. She emigrated to NZ a year or so ago with her husband Glynn and we stopped in for dinner - we're still here 3 days later! We've been getting on like a house on fire, they've given us heaps of tips on travelling around the country and free things to see and do, taken us to see Hanua Falls which was beautiful, and it's been a great place to get the van up to scratch. We've been able to sort through every box, drawer, nook and cranny (and that sodding plug adaptor is definitely not there), wash blankets, buy new sheets (because using someone else's, especially blokes' = bleugh), buy power cables (grumble grumble), get our mosquito nets properly set up, fix the heating and generally make it feel like home. Which it now definitely does! Tonight we're planning to do a dry run: we're going to sleep in the van but in Jude & Glynn's driveway, just so we can come in if we have any problems, then tomorrow it's all on for real. We're heading back up north of Auckland to visit our friend John, who worked in rentals at Sunshine Village, for a catch up with him. Then down towards Rotarua, to catch up with another old Sunshine work colleague - IT Benny! Can't wait. In the meantime, being Jude & Glynn has been a real pleasure and we were lucky enough to be here when they became grandparents - their preying mantis, Harold*, gave birth** to baby Charlie. It was a very emotional moment.

*who is technically a girl
**okay, hatched from an egg sack

Hello, is it my flat you're looking for...?

2008-11-09T18:51:00.003Z

Eight days eight days eight days. I would be so much more excited if I wasn't seriously concerned that my flat is not yet rented, but hey ho. I've got till the end of Nov to find tenants I suppose. Still, if you or anyone you know might be interested in renting it then please let me know asap, because it would sure help me sleep at night...

Other than that, am I the only one who finds this rather amusing?

Yes we can!

2008-11-05T04:02:00.003Z

It's 4am and I'm very tired but also hugely elated to have seen the election of Barack Obama as President live. Hurray!

Change gear, change gear, check mirror...

2008-11-04T13:24:00.002Z

Oh for fuck's sake. After Brand/Rossgate, comes Clarksongate. Interesting that both these incidents feature two of my favourite TV personalities of all time* - must say something about my rather sick sense of humour - but I think Jeremy's comments were HILARIOUS and will be seriously pissed off if we get anything like the kind of nonsense we saw a couple weeks ago.

*My fantasy dinner party: Jonathan Ross, Jeremy Clarkson, Stephen Fry and Derren Brown. We'd have curry.

2008-11-02T18:53:00.003Z

CONGRATULATIONS LEWIS!

Unbelievable finish. Unbelievable.

I am not in the office at the moment...

2008-10-31T20:15:00.001Z

Oh this is priceless.

Burn them!

2008-10-31T11:12:00.005Z

I thought that it was time that I finally commented on the huge news story of the week. No, not that one about Ben Fogle contracting a flesh-eating bug, though naturally we all wish him a speedy recovery. No, the ol' Brand & Ross scandal. I must say that I was SHOCKED and HORRIFIED that two COMEDIANS known for their NEAR THE KNUCKLE humour made a PRANK call to a fellow CELEBRITY and said something that might be considered in POOR TASTE and felt COMPELLED to write the BBC immediately.

This I did in fact, so I'd like to think that the fact that Jonathan Ross was not sacked was a direct result of my email asking them not to.

Who'd have thought it, eh? Erm...have you ever actually listened to their shows? Well, to be honest, I've never listened to Russell Brand's, because I'm not really a big fan of his, but I know what kind of humour I might be liable to find should I choose to tune in. I am a long-time listener of JR however and have often marvelled at his ability to say some fairly outrageous things and get away with it. But get away with it he does, because there's absolutely no malice behind what he's saying and he's just so cheeky and likeable (well, to those of us who like him I suppose) that you just can't be cross with him. I remember him interviewing Richard Briers a few years back and practically the whole interview consisted of him making lewd comments about Felicity Kendal and telling Richard that he was so old he was probably going to die any moment. You've never heard anyone giggle so much as Richard Briers did that day.

I'll be honest, I've seen the transcript of the calls they made to Andrew Sachs and they were pretty bad - I'm not surprised Andrew Sachs was rather offended - but whoever decides about these things (the producer of the show I presume), thought it was alright to go out on air anyway. Two listeners of the show even complained about it. Both Brand & Ross wrote letters of apology and sent flowers, as they should have, which Andrew accepted graciously, as he should have. But the ridiculous furore that has resulted from the publicity about it all, and the thousands of complaints received from people who almost certainly did not listen to the show and have probably never listened to the show, made my blood boil. The fact that Gordon Brown (you might have heard of him, he's our Prime Minister apparently) waded in was ludicrous. I'm not that bothered about Brand resigning, as I say I'm not a huge fan, but if JR had been sacked I might well have had to go and throw eggs at something.

Someone I used to know just posted a comment on my facebook page in response to my joining a 'Support Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross' group (well, I felt I had to do something) saying 'I rather think those obnoxious, overpaid, opinionated self-publicists can do without my support, ta very much'. Well, firstly, I never asked him to support them. I never expect anyone to support anything I personally believe in - I may feel the need to vote with my feet (with my Nestle boycott and refusal to buy from Esso for example) but I do not judge others for making different choices to me. Secondly, being obnoxious and opinionated self-publicists is what makes these people interesting and entertaining - it's the reason why we want to watch them (would you prefer it if all presenters were more like, say, Michael Parkinsozzzzzzzzzz oops sorry fell asleep just thinking about him there) and that they're paid so much. Over paid? Possibly, if you compare what they earn to a nurse or a teacher or a fireman, but I don't think it's a fair comparison. Compared to a Premiership footballer? Got yourself a bargain. Compared to the CEO of a large company? Probably about the same, but I'd rather watch 'Friday Night with Jonathan Ross' than 'Friday Night with the CEO of Glaxo Smithkline*', and I'm fairly sure I'm not alone. In fact, the viewer figures suggest I'm not.

So let's not have any of this pitchfork brandishing, burning torch waving, angry mob stupidity over two people doing what is, essentially, their job: entertaining the public by being rude about people.

*This might be unfair, he might be hilarious for all I know.

Cakes and doughnuts

2008-10-29T11:39:00.004Z

My sweet tooth is getting out of hand. Yesterday Liddi & I spent the afternoon making cupcakes, which were nice but I got the recipe from my friends Jack & Christi (Christi's from New Orleans dontcha know) and the measurements were all in 'cups', as those crazy Yanks tend to do. I tried to convert them online to grams, but have found that you get a different measurement for each website you use - often with wild variation between them! So I've no idea if the quantities I used were right; they didn't rise as much as I was hoping but they tasted nice enough so that's all that matters really. We had fun decorating them and writing all our names on them, although for Isaac I chose instead to do a portrait of him from the time he dyed his hair blond when he was around 13. The resemblance is uncanny and the shade of yellow identical.

Then the other day Liddi revealed to me that she'd never had a Krispy Kreme doughnut*, which is, frankly, criminal. To my horror, a bit of research revealed that the North of England has an extreme dearth of Krispy Kremes, as it turns out Manchester is the only place you can get them up here! We wondered whether we should throw caution to the wind and go there anyway - despite the 2 hour driving time - before realising that I had to go to Manchester anyway today to pick up my sister Toni from the airport! Kismet, surely? So off we trot today.

*why dough-nut do you think? I mean, dough, obviously, but in what sense is it a nut?

2008-10-22T19:31:00.002+01:00

Another 'kids say the funniest things' story for you: I was just reading some bedtime stories to my friend Lisa's daughter Maggie, who started school recently. Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes, so just as much of a pleasure for me as for her I think! Then she picked up a book with some pictures and simple words in it (head, hand, knee, ball, duck, that sort of thing) and I asked her to read it to me, as she'd just started learning to read. We got to 'cot' followed by 'clock' and, while turning the page, she absent-mindedly said 'cot and clock alliterate don't they?'

Yes, yes they do.

Run Bambi run!

2008-10-19T10:30:00.004+01:00

A classic example of children seeing things slightly differently to adults for you: I was watching Bambi with my friend Linda's daughter Chiara, who has just turned 3. You know that bit when Bambi and his mother were running through the forest away from the hunter and you hear that shot ring out, suddenly the mother is no longer behind him and eventually Bambi is told by a stag that appears that his mother can't be with him anymore; it is of course a very sad moment. Chiara turns to me, sadly, and says 'Bambi's mother can't be with him anymore because she's gone to have lunch.'

Take on me

2008-10-18T15:01:00.002+01:00

Those of us who were there in the 80s will surely appreciate this.

"Dave Gorman"

2008-10-10T10:34:00.003+01:00

I have uncovered two new blogs - or should that be "new" blogs?* - today which have been delighting me. The unexpected adding of a former school friend on good old facebook last night (Hello Jude!) led me to discover you can now become a fan of Dave Gorman's on facebook. Seemed like kismet to me, given that I'd just spend the past three days downloading and watching The Dave Gorman Collection, Dave Gorman's Important Astrological Experiment (DGIAE), Dave Gorman's America Unchained and Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure in order to introduce Isaac to them when we get to NZ. A fan of Dave Gorman I undoubtedly am and I was ready and willing to proclaim this to the world. Or, at least, to the population of facebook.

Incidentally, Dave Gorman has an unusual effect on me. I have now met him twice and both times he literally sucked the personality right out of me. He probably had no idea he was doing it, I'm not blaming him. But both times I met him I instantly became the most boring person who ever existed, because, I'm guessing, I think he's bloody brilliant, I wanted to try to impress him somehow, and so I got total brain freeze. I couldn't think of anything to say. At all. NOTHING. So I tried to tell him I'd seen one of his other shows and got the name wrong. I told him I was Tudor's wife** but he just looked at me as though he felt very sorry for Tudor. Eventually I slunk off, to both our relief.

*sigh*

Anyhoo, back to the story. Dave Gorman's facebook page told me he had a blog. So that was blog number 1 and it's well worth a visit if you, like me, are a fan. The other blog I mentioned is this one***, to which I found a link via Dave Gorman's facebook page. I love it: it appeals to my inner grammar nazi.

*you'll see
**which I was at the time, and Tudor had been the sound supervisor on DGIAE, so it wasn't just a totally random statement
***told you

Me: Doctor doctor, I feel like a wigwam and a teepee...

2008-10-01T19:20:00.007+01:00

Doctor: You're too tense [two tents]*

I don't think I've ever felt more stressed than I am just now. It seems strange to me, given that I have, over the past few years, arranged a wedding, got divorced, bought 3 properties, done a midwifery degree, ran a team of teenage pregnancy midwives which was severely depleted, packed up and moved to Canada and dealt with my mother's developing Alzheimer's. And yet at the moment I find myself in a constant state of flux; my jaw aches from clenching my teeth, I have regular headaches, my shoulders are up by my ears, my hands are constantly in fists and I am twitchy and distracted. I have to take a deep breath and force my body to relax every few minutes. I'm not even sure exactly why, I know it's because I'm trying to plan lots of things to do with my up-coming trip (though nearly all my own preparations are complete, I've just got a few things to finish sorting out for Isaac, who is working full-time and has no computer) and I know I'm worried about the money side of things, particularly because I still have no temping work, but why it's affecting me so much physically I don't really know. For the first time in my life, I feel like I really need a massage, rather than just fancy one. Of course I can't bloody afford one!

I'm sure when I actually get on the plane and go, I'll begin to relax and enjoy myself. In fact I can't wait. Being back together with Isaac will help! But for now, I'm trying to find other distractions where possible...

The picture is, in case you're wondering, part of a famous stress test. Stressed individuals might notice some differences between the two dolphins. Personally, I can't see any.

*yes yes, I know

We're having big fun

2008-09-29T10:42:00.005+01:00

You know when you go to one of those kid's soft play areas with your own, or a friend's, children and think to yourself: 'That looks like fun. I wish I could have a go'? Well as it turns out, you can.

Last night, for Liddi's birthday treat, a huge hoard of 17/18 year olds turned up at Big Fun in Hull, where we rolled, jumped, climbed, slid and bumped our way through a huge warehouse of soft stuff. Jenny and I joined in the fun, racing round and giggling, and it was only as we ran, gasping, to get a drink at the end that we passed a sign saying 'Children remain the responsiblity of their supervising adults' that we suddenly remembered that that was supposed to be us! Oops. The 'death' slide, which begins with a 7 metre sheer drop, was a particularly terrifying prospect at first. I sat at the top for several minutes saying to the supervising member of staff 'This is ridiculous; I'm not even afraid of heights! I used to climb for a living! Why can't I do this?' but eventually my pride got the better of me and I pushed off. After that, nothing could stop me of course, and I did it around 15 times in all.

Big fun was had by all.

Waiting

2008-09-28T11:49:00.003+01:00

I can't pretend it's not slightly torturous waiting to go to New Zealand. I've got seven weeks to go (as from tomorrow) and it seems to be going terribly slowly. When I was waiting to go off to Canada time went so much more quickly because I was working up until 4 weeks before I left, which always helps, and had other things* going on which kept me fully occupied. Now, I'm knocking around Yorkshire, which is lovely in many ways, but given that all my friends live daaarrrn saarf, my social life is limited to my immediate family. Not that they're not lovely, of course. I've applied to do some temping work but as yet, nothing has arisen. There's nothing more irritating than not working, because all you seem to do is spend the money you don't have.

I still have things I need to do with regards to my flat, things I can't do while I'm ooop north, like re-painting my bathroom ceiling (don't have a long enough pole for the roller to do it from here), so all the extra spare time is merely frustrating. I spend my time obsessively going over what I still need to do (but can't just now) and what I need to buy (but can't afford to) and playing around on the internet (obviously). Add to that the fact that I'm missing Isaac like crazy and thought I talk to him every day, it just makes me miss him more and mope around a bit because I can't snuggle up with him to watch a film.

Any suggestions of (free) distractions will be very welcome. For example, I have been downloading English comedy series that I think Isaac will like, such as Green Wing, Black Books and Nathan Barley. Any other essentials you can think of?

*things I do not discuss in such a public forum, sorry about that. Jeez I'm annoying

2008-09-26T10:18:00.000+01:00

What. On. Earth. Are these women thinking?

Giving birth to yourself

2008-09-26T08:34:00.001+01:00

I can't help but agree that this is the best fancy dress costume of all time.

And oh. Oh. This is utterly excrutiating:

May I just say well done to Hardeep Singh Kohli for maintaining his dignity and only walking out, not decking the guy first...

No getting out of it now...

2008-09-21T21:47:00.006+01:00

I'm booked! In eight weeks and one day's time I will be flying from Heathrow to LA to meet up with the lovely lovely Isaac - just can't wait to see him - and after one night there we will be flying on together to Auckland to spend a year travelling and working around New Zealand. We plan to buy a campervan and potter around doing...well, whatever the hell we fancy doing to be honest!

It will be the first time Isaac's been out of Canada (apart from a brief sojourn to Florida when he was a kid*) and I suspect he's going to be getting pretty nervous; he's not the only one. Even though I've essentially done this before in Canada, I'm nervous about how I'm going to cope money-wise (I don't have the same savings as I had before), about how my flat is going to run itself (am renting it out through an agent this time, so no friends in there to make sure it stays nice), how we'll survive living out of a campervan and whether the campervan will break down beyond repair, and about how we're going to find work. But hell, I'm sure we'll be fine, it'll all work out. If I have even half as much fun as I did in Canada, it'll be amazing. And the nice thing is this time I'll be doing it with someone else by my side, someone I love very much, which is fabulous.

Rest assured, gentle reader, I shall keep you informed every step of the way...

*what do you mean, he still is one? Cheeky.

Blank looks

2008-09-12T13:15:00.003+01:00

In my many attempts to answer the inevitable question "So, how was Canada?"*, I have found myself describing it as a Year of Blank Looks. Some from me, some from the Canadians, some from other assorted foreigners I have been un/fortunate enough to meet.

The thing is, most of the people I've spent time with have been both a) bleeding foreigners and b) mere fetuses. This makes common points of reference rather tricky. Just yesterday my lovely Canadian friend Janna wrote on Facebook "Oh Mia how I miss you and your outrageous Englishisms...". 'Outrageous Englishisms' in this context meaning saying "I'll pop that downstairs" or "I like your hair in bunches" or "I'll bring my swimming costume".

I'll give you a couple of other examples.

At work, a woman asked me where she should put her harness now she'd finished climbing. I replied "Just bung it over on the red rack" and pointed at said rack. She looked at me, blankly, and said "I have no idea what you just said. But I think I know what you meant by your pointing."

I introduced Isaac & Reilly to the wonderful series Life on Mars, which I'd downloaded on iTunes, and I was very amused to see two teenage Canadian rednecks become obsessed with 1970s Mancunian policing, but found myself having to pause it on a regular basis to try to explain what was being said. "It's 1973, nearly lunchtime, I'm 'aving 'oops" being a classic example.

I was up a tree (working hard, obviously) and saw Josh, a colleague, walking beneath me carrying a black bin bag, collecting rubbish. "Hey Bin Man!" I shouted. Cue blank look. "Bin Man!" I ventured again, in case he hadn't heard me. More blankness. "What?" "Bin Man! You're the bin man. You've got a bin bag. It's a bin bag. A black bin ba...no? No? Erm..." "I've been where?" You see the problem.

*which in reality is as hard to answer as "So, what do you think of oxygen then?" in that you just don't know where to begin

More cowbell

2008-09-12T12:45:00.006+01:00

Courtesy of this website, and more time on my hands than I ought be allowed, please let me present you with Flo Rida ft T-Pain singing 'Low' with a subtle 56% More Cowbell and 25% More Christopher Walken:


	Make your own at MoreCowbell.dj

And here is Put Your Hands Up (For Detroit) by Fedde Le Grand with a more daring 93% More Cowbell and 80% Walken (a.k.a. the Hoodoo's theme tune, for those of you who have lived in Banff):


	Make your own at MoreCowbell.dj

A distinct improvement, I'm sure you'll agree.

Back to Blighty

2008-09-11T23:56:00.004+01:00

Being back in 'sunny old' England has been a strange affair. In many ways I feel like I never went away, and then again the same breath I feel like I've been away forever. Coming back to no fixed abode and no money has been frustrating and though it's been lovely to catch up with friends, and I'm terribly grateful for the use of their spare beds/floors, I can't help but long for the stability of living in my lovely little cabin in the woods with my lovely Isaac.

There have been certain things that have been fabulous to come back to. Food, for example. Now, that's not to say I starved in Canada - far from it - but the first time I went to Sainsbury's I nearly lost control entirely. Poor Debbie had to put up with me running around going 'Oh my God, they've got these! And I'd forgotten about that! Oh wow - I have missed this sooooo much' and the like. I had genuinely forgotten about certain things that you can't find in Canada, like Parma ham, and became overwhelmed when I remembered that such loveliness existed.

Sadly, the fact that I have no money - and no income at present of course - has meant that I really haven't been able to indulge myself in the things I've missed. Never has my resolve been more tested than in Waterstones, where I caressed the piles of paperbacks like a much longed-for but totally unavailable lover, knowing that even the 3-for-2 deals weren't enough to justify spending money on things that I Don't Really Need.

Today, however, has been a productive day. I have walked miles - literally miles, because I have no transport and no money for buses - spoken to letting agents about my flat, called to renegotiate my mortgage (something I have been dreading and procrastinating about terribly, but, in the way of such things, was in the event simple, straightforward and well worth doing), bought a few things I needed to tart up the flat, done a little bit of maintenance and had 3 cups of tea to boot. Things are looking up. I've applied for my visa for New Zealand - did I mention I'm going for a working holiday there? And that lovely Isaac is joining me? If not, I am and he is - and as soon as I've got word it's being processed I'm booking my flight for some time around the 18th of November. That will give me something solid to look forward to and to plan for, which is just what I need right now to get me over the post-travelling blues.

Road tripping part 2: cottaging in Tamagami

2008-09-08T00:37:00.012+01:00

A quick bit of catching up must be done before I get to the main story (i.e. I'm back in England):

The very next night after returning from Quebec, Isaac & I headed over to Porter's to enjoy a sociable evening with friends, bunk down for the night and get up at 5am, with the intention of leaving for his family cottage at stupid o'clock in the morning. The only one of us not staying the night was Mike, who said he preferred to sleep in his own bed (a sentiment I can relate to) and he would be round at 5.30am to pick us up. At 5am I dragged my sorry arse out of bed and knocked everyone up* and we sat around waiting for Mike. 5.30am came and went. So did 6am. Porter called, no answer. By 6.15, Steph suggested Porter call again, which he did. No answer again, but Mike called straight back to say, somewhat defensively, that his father was just putting air in his car tyres for the journey and he'd be round as soon as he'd finished. Three minutes later, Mike called back to say that what he'd just said was a complete lie and that he'd only just woken up.

At 7.30am we finally left, after an interesting game of Car Boot Tetris. We were travelling north in two cars, with Porter, Steph, Isaac & I in Porter's truck, and Mike & Smokie (a.k.a. Dumb & Dumber) in Mike's Oldsmobile. Porter soon got a little way ahead on the highway but as Mike kept calling to say he was desperate for McDonalds, we finally pulled off the highway at the nearest one and waited for them to join us. And waited. And waited. Cue frantic phone calls which went something like "well where are you now?" "no idea" "what have you just gone past?" "erm...something business park?" "well have you gone past the Super8 yet?" "not sure". Eventually we gave up waiting, got back on the highway and discovered they'd gone straight past us and were now miles ahead. Long story short, we finally found them at the McDonald's further up the highway where Porter had once been arrested for chasing two strippers with an axe - don't ask.

We dropped off Porter's truck to his sister's in North Bay, where it was due to be resprayed, and all piled into the Oldsmobile Cutlass, a.k.a. the Cutty. An appropriate name for a car that bounced, swayed and banged around like a ship on the high seas, I thought. Though I'll admit it took me a long time to work out that they weren't calling it the Cuddy, because those darn Canadians tend to pronounce their Ts as Ds.** A further hour or so north to Tamagami and we met up with Porter's cousin Merry, who I assumed was called Mary for most of the trip, once again due to the quirkiness of the Canadian accent*** , and their grandmother's dog, Benjy, who purported to be a cute little Cairn Terrier, but was actually Satan's bitch herself. Merry took us to the private island where the cottage was located in her lovely fast boat, though it still took around half an hour.

The area north of where we live in Ontario is known as 'Cottage Country', because that's where everyone has their holiday homes (though the Canadian version of a 'cottage' rarely tallies with the English image of a small, possibly thatched rendered house with roses round the front door) and going to visit your cottage in Canada is known as 'cottaging' (cue much sniggering from my English readers****) This cottage is fairly small and cosy: two bedrooms, couple of pullout couches/sofabeds in the lounge, no real washing facilities bar the lake, a jetty into a natural bay, and a boathouse with a third bedroom up top, which Isaac & I bagged immediately. Nothing like a bit of privacy and a balcony overlooking the lake to make you feel relaxed, I always say. The weather was amazing and hot, so we spent the weekend messing around in the lake, sunbathing, reading, cooking fabulous meals for each other (I made everyone eat my famous sticky coq) and drinking. Oh yes, drinking. Well, I didn't drink, obviously. Porter & Isaac drink very little and Steph never managed to get quite as drunk as she hoped on the rum she'd brought, so that left Mike & Smokie to do the majority of the drinking, a task they took on with as much determination as they could muster. I can't remember what the final tally was in the three days we were there, but I believe it was something in the region of 40 beers each. Quite possibly more. Thus they became a highly amusing double act, and the addition of Benjy the dog, who took a fancy to Smokie and would go from docile and affectionate to snapping and biting without fair warning, produced pure comedy genius.

The main purpose of the trip was fishing and everyone had brought their reel, rods and tackle boxes. The fish, however, were in hiding it seemed and no one caught a damn thing until finally, on day three, Porter, Steph, Isaac & I were out in the fishing boat, casting out and chatting, as you do. Porter cast and reeled his spinner in and as it came close, he looked confused. "I didn't put any bait on the hook..." he said slowly, before he realised that he'd somehow hooked a tiny smallmouth bass right through the middle. Still, it was the biggest catch of the weekend and still warranted recording for posterity.

The weather held up beautifully until the day we left, when it began to piss down. Hard. 6 people in the Cutty with rain pouring in via the straps holding the top box on and hailstones the size of maltesers did not make for a comfortable journey home, though all agreed regardless that it had been a fabulous trip.

*for my Canadian readers, a little clarification: this does not mean I got everyone pregnant.
**see also the 'Yoda' (Isaac's Toyota truck)
***see also the Indian restaurant I'd had recommended to me in Barrie called Tara, when I was looking out for Terra.
****for my Canadian readers, 'cottaging' is in fact when men have sex with other men in public washrooms

'Goodbye' is actually the hardest word

2008-09-01T23:07:00.003+01:00

I wanted to post 'Road Tripping Part 2 - Cottaging in Tamagami', but haven't had a chance, so sorry about that, I'll try to catch up when I have a decent internet connection. Anyway, to the business of the day.

Today is Monday. Labour Day out here, in case your interested, so I'll no longer be able to wear white shoes. Thursday evening I fly home.

I'm going to miss Canada like crazy. I'm going to miss Isaac like crazy too, as well as his family, whom I have adopted as my own. I'm going to miss Ontario, with its green rolling hills, redneck towns and fabulous outdoorsy lifestyle. I'm going to miss having a bear in my back garden (I've actually not seen it, but one tipped over our big wooden rubbish bin holder the other day). I'm going to miss my leopard geckos and the way they sit on my shoulder while I potter around the house.

I'm going to miss our little cabin, with its dodgy floor, ripped 70's style wallpaper in the kitchen and a liberal dusting of spiders in every corner. I'm going to miss having a bunch of friends (yes, teenagers) over to get freaked out by my collection of Derren Brown videos. I'm going to miss riding the zipline over the pond. I'm going to miss the incredible stars, and lying on the roof at night with Isaac just watching them and spotting satellites.

I'm going to miss climbing trees for a living. I'm going to miss strapping on my harness every day and it taking me 20 minutes to pop to the loo in the thing. I'm going to miss going fishing - today I caught a trout in the pond at home, watched Isaac gut it, put it straight on the BBQ and we ate it for lunch with beef tomato and basil from the garden. I'm going to miss visiting friends' cottages.

I'm going to miss Reilly waiting excitedly for whichever new part he's ordered for his car and riding up and down the roads with the sub pounding out those gangsta beats. I'm going to miss waiting excitedly for Isaac to come home from work and seeing him get out of Smokie's car with his sleeveless work shirts, filthy jeans, baseball cap and lunch pail in hand, shouting out "Hey goodlookin'!" as soon as he gets through the door.

I'm going to miss hanging out with Mary Lynn and eating whatever snacks she has offer. I'm going to miss seeing Imo's latest creation, whether it be an arbour, or a wooden table and bench for the garden. I'm going to miss being able to head up to Georgian Bay and go for a quick jaunt on their beautiful sailboat. I'm going to miss all this and much much more.

My plans involve going to New Zealand as soon as I've sorted out stuff back home - Isaac will be joining me - and having a working holiday there. In the meantime, I'm going to miss so much about Canada and hope I can come back soon.

Road tripping part 1: climbing French-styley

2008-08-20T00:37:00.003+01:00

It all started a couple of weeks ago when Nate at work asked if I was interested in going to Québec. Well, I thought, I’ve not got long to go in this country so if I can get another Province under my belt, I probably really ought to. ‘Hell yeah!’ was therefore my response.

Arbraska, the treetop trekking company I work for, own four more parks in Québec (we’re the only one in Ontario) and we decided to try to climb all – or at least some – of them. Throwing our gear (including our own harnesses, carabineers and pulleys) into the boot of the car, Nate, Janna, Steph, Kerri and I set off on Sunday night and drove to Ottawa (Capital City of Canada – but you knew that already, didn’t you?) to stay the night at Janna’s place out there. Kerri proved that she was indeed great in bed, as the rumours would have it, by not once encroaching on my space or stealing the blankets. Early next morning we awoke and set off for Rigaud, just west of Montréal, to begin our climbing. We threw ourselves into the deep end by starting with their extreeeeme course, called La Rafale, which was ridiculously high up in the trees and included some bizarre and very challenging games. For example, one was called The Flyswatter, and involved tying yourself to a rope then jumping off a platform about 60ft off the ground, falling and swinging simultaneously before being flung hard into a large net about 50ft away from where you started. I’ll freely admit that as I stood there preparing to jump, I began to feel a long-forgotten sensation. Fear it is called, I believe. I’m so used to running around in the trees, and find our courses at work so easy these days, that it was lovely to feel shit-scared again.

Once we’d finished La Rafale, we got back into the car and went into Montréal itself to find our boss’s apartment, which he’d kindly offered to lend to us for our trip while he was on holiday. Bags offloaded, we continued north towards Rawdon, where the second park was to be found. They had a particular climb we wanted to do, called a Via Ferrata, which is basically a rock climb, but you follow a set course via a cable, to which you attach your carabineers. We were told we weren’t able to do the Via till the next day, so instead we climbed a couple of their harder courses before heading back to make dinner, play a few rounds of ‘Cruise Marry Shag’ and crash rather earlier than planned.

The next morning we got to Rawdon for 10.30am and made our way to the Via Ferrata with our Guide, Gizmo*. We had replaced our equipment for some with longer lanyards and had also brought along a slower pulley, because the ones we’d brought from home were too fast for the ziplines that we would be doing here. We began climbing in excellent weather but soon enough it began raining and then we heard the occasional roll of thunder off in the distance. We carried on climbing, ready to abandon if necessary, and got through the three courses with relative ease, but much fun. We ended up at the zipline back down the cliff face and Gizmo went down first, followed by all my fellow climbers. I went last, put my special pulley on and jumped…only to find my pulley jerking and slowing. Then, halfway down, it just stopped and I was left dangling. Damn! I turned myself around and went to pull myself in but then heard my friends yelling at me to try my own pulley which was still on my tool belt – of course! Swinging my legs up and over the cable, I began the process of clipping on my pulley, removing the dodgy one and clipping it back onto my harness. Trying to do this with one hand, dangling some considerable distance above the ground and making sure I didn’t drop anything - all the while hearing the thunderstorm approaching - took a fair bit of effort, but eventually was able to release my legs and zip back down to the ground. Hurray!

Via completed, and the thunderstorm well and truly putting an end to further climbs, we decided to head back into Montréal and do some sightseeing. Vieux Montréal was beautiful and we ate Beaver Tails (big flat doughnutty things with cinnamon sugar, yum) as we strolled down the streets. We ate delicious Greek food and happened across a Salsa bar, where we sat and watched a live Salsa band play and people dance. I realised how much I missed Salsa dancing and texted Ali, my neighbour and Salsa partner, who now lives out here in Calgary, to tell him so.

Next day we had a leisurely start, brunch in a café, popped by the Arbraska office to pick up t-shirts. We had intended to try to get to one of other parks, but the two hour drive to the east, before a further 8 hours drive back home, didn’t appeal by that stage. Instead we decided to go back to Rigaud, which was basically on our way home, and try one or two of their other courses they had to offer, and this we duly did, not getting home till 1am.

‘The Weekend’ as it was known, was an awesome success, filled with hysterical laughter from start to finish. Much junk food was consumed, musical tastes shared, random comments made, intoxication occurred, new catch phrases coined; all the classic elements of a good weekend away. I relished being able to use my (somewhat rusty) French. I’d love to have been able to tell you some of the other carryings on, in all their sordid details, but what happens in Québec stays in Québec, on this point we were very clear…

Up for work the following morning – calls of ‘Scampy Pamphlets!’ and ‘Scroggage!’ echoing through the trees between guides** – then home to pack and leave for road trip no. 2…

*All the French guides have special trekking names, which we decided was very cool indeed, and we will try to instigate back home. I'm Cougar, naturally, Kerri (who is 6'1") is now Big Bird and Nate is Little Boy Blue, due to his baby blue eyes...
** You had to be there...

Offical petition response

2008-08-19T21:04:00.004+01:00

I've much to tell you all, given that I've just come back from two back-to-back roadtrips. However, I haven't got it all together just yet so instead (how annoying am I at the moment with my lack of posting?!) I'll leave you with this, which I received this morning. A while back I signed an official government petition, the full details of which were as follows:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to make Jeremy Clarkson Prime Minister. Jezza is legend and deserves a chance to run the country.

Today we all received an official response from 10 Downing Street which said:

We thought long and hard about the request to make Jeremy Clarkson the Prime Minister and in the end we put our thoughts down in a short film on YouTube.

Flat for rent

2008-08-05T02:21:00.003+01:00

I want to post properly again soon but in the meantime I just wanted to ask if anyone reading this is interested in renting my beautiful flat in Weybridge, Surrey? Ian & Debbie, my friends and current tenants, are moving out in October so I'm very keen to find someone to move in as soon as they go. If you - or anyone you know - might be interested then either email me or leave me a comment as I'd rather it went to someone I know... Cheers!

Incidentally, exactly one month today till I fly home. Booooo.

Cregan's wedding

2008-07-25T07:27:00.011+01:00

Well they've only been and gone and done it. Megan & Craig were married on the beach at Tofino this afternoon: the weather was perfect, everyone turned up who should have (i.e. bride, groom) and there were tears at both the ceremony and the reception (mainly from me). Location was amazing, speeches were emotional, food was fabulous. More importantly, I was able to be there when two of the loveliest (and funniest) people I know got
married, so that was perfect. The sea and wind meant that it was hard to hear what was being said at times, so when Megan said her own specially-written vows to Craig, no one could but Craig could hear what she said to him - though we could see it made them both cry! - which seemed apt somehow. It felt a bit like the end of Lost in Translation.

More photos here.

And in a tremendous stroke of luck for myself, I am now in Megan & Craig's recently-vacated bed in one of the Cottages at the Long Beach Lodge which they were sharing with Joelle & Tyler (having now moved to a room of their own to get a little more, ahem, privacy). The bed itself is about the same size as the entire room at the hostel - I'm considering sleeping on it sideways just because I can. Can't say I'm sorry to leave the hostel; I find sleeping in a room with three strangers a little like the aftermath of a particularly uncomfortable four-way...with no actual sex as a benefit.

Whale of a time

2008-07-24T05:41:00.010+01:00

I know you probably won't believe me, but the picture on the right is actually of a grey whale. Honestly. I mean, how close did you think we were going to get?!? Actually, we got a lot closer than my pictures seem to suggest. I even got a picture of a whale upping tail and taking a dive, but I swear to god you'd have to max out your furtive imagination to work out that the tiny black dot on that photo was a whale's tail, so I thought I'd go with this one, even though it is hardly much better. Ah well, we saw 2 grey whales, a bunch of sea lions and a few sea otters to boot, so I'm certainly not complaining. We also managed not to look remotely ridiculous in our red floater suits* and had a cool time bookin' it across the waves catching tons of sweet air**, so a damn good day all round. I did, however, neglect to wear waterproof mascara (a good tip for any of you who plan to do this in future***) and so ended up looking like I was off to an Alice Cooper tribute evening, but hey ho.

*no, really, we didn't. You're wrong.
**can you tell I hang out with teenagers alot?
***yes Silas, I do mean you

Jet setting once again

2008-07-23T05:59:00.006+01:00

A quick jolly over to Vancouver Island (which from Ontario, time-wise, is roughly equivalent to flying back to the UK, so hardly a short hop!) for the wedding of Megan & Craig, a.k.a. Cregan, is this week's news. The wedding is this Thursday, but I flew in today to go whale watching with the wedding party tomorrow. The Vancouver to Vancouver Island leg of the journey was taken on the diddiest plane I've ever been on, where having a window seat was your only option, since there was only one row of seats either side of the plane with a very narrow gap in the middle. There was nowhere to put the small suitcase I had as hand luggage - no overhead storage - so I asked the man standing at the bottom of the stairs, who I assumed was cabin crew, what I should do with it. "Do you have a laptop or anything valuable in it?" he asked "Not really" I replied. "I'll just pop it in the back then" he responded and promptly disappeared under the wing to put it in the 'boot' for me. Then he climbed into the plane and made his pre-flight announcements, sans tannoy, while wandering up and down the aisle. Given that there were only 9 rows, this hardly strained his voice. He then settled down in the front of the plane and proceeded to fly the damn thing too. Now THAT'S multi-tasking.

I am the only member of the wedding party not staying at the gorgeous resort where the wedding is taking place. The $260 per night price tag was a little prohibitive for me, so I opted instead for the Clayoquot Field Station hostel, which is just round the corner and somewhat lighter on the wallet. It's clean and new, very nice indeed for a hostel, but still has 3 strangers in my room which I always find a bit, well, odd. And slightly unpleasant. Oh well. I have free internet so all is good really. And this evening I drove into town in my hire car, bought fish & chips and drove down to eat it while watching the sun set over the pacific. Vancouver Island, I should point out, is exceedingly beautiful.

Fingers crossed that the whales behave themselves and make an appearance tomorrow please.

Musings on mosquitoes

2008-07-18T17:57:00.004+01:00

Back home in the UK, we do have mosquitoes. Particularly where I live, right next to a lake, we can sometimes feel like they're invading. They come out in as dusk hits, and occasionally we even have one or two that get into the house, and every few days you might get a bite. I thought this was annoying. Ha.

Here in Canada, mosquitoes are a way of life. All windows in all houses have screens on them so you can open them without letting in the bugs. No matter what time of the day or night, they're there. The moment I step outside of my front door, I'm attacked. Hundreds of the buggers descend on me like they've never seen an English person before (and indeed, they probably haven't). You can almost hear them buzzing 'fresh meat, fresh meat, fresh meat'. Working in the trees doesn't help. 'Off', or equivalent bug repellent spray is not an option but a necessity. Despite this, a day does not go by when I don't get one or two new mosquito bites, usually on my legs or arms but sometimes in awkward places like the middle of my forehead. They are ridiculously itchy. I put antihistamine stuff on them and it makes no difference. When we go back into the bush behind our cabin, I swear to God I look like Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoon with hundreds and hundreds of the buggers buzzing round my head. Even with long trousers, long sleeves, my hood up and throwing my arms around like a windmill I still get bitten several times. As many of you may know, I have an across the board 'no-kill' policy when it comes to animals and insects - I won't even kill a fruit fly - but the mosquito is a notable exception. I will squish them on sight whenever possible.

It has left me pondering as to the biological advantage that leaving itchy poison in their victims has given to the mosquito. I mean, if they didn't itch me, I wouldn't be that bothered if they bit me. Surely, then, they'd get more to feed on? And if we weren't always trying to kill them, they'd live longer? Is it to do with population control do you think? Suggestions in my comments box please...

Creepy crawlies

2008-07-15T17:51:00.005+01:00

Finally had a chance to bring my laptop into town and am sitting in a cafe, using their free wi-fi. Thought I'd give you an update while I'm here:

Isaac & I now have leopard geckos. Their names are Zoe - though we call her Zozza in tribute to my friend Zoe/Zozza back home (hi Zozza!) - and Mungo. That one was my idea. They're really cool, they sit on your shoulder quite happily while we potter around the house, though Zozza does have a habit of climbing up your hair and sitting on the top of your head. We fed them yesterday and watching them demolish a bag full of live crickets is far better entertainment than telly, I can tell you. Everyone loves them, except Isaac's mum who isn't too keen. Her thoughts on the matter were: 'I thought you two would have better looking children'.

I've now qualified as an aerial guide for the Treetop Trekking park and love my work.
Well, you can hardly call it work, I climb trees for a living! The guys I work with are fabulous and we have plenty of get-togethers planned over the next couple of weeks. Every day I get into my harness, put my helmet on, strap on my walkie-talkie and bugger about in trees all day. The insects can be brutal, but it's worth it. And hey, life is never dull when you have a veritable assortment of mosquito bites to scratch.

On the subject of insects, we have an ant infestation at the cabin at the moment and I have been advised by my friend Lisa that if I want to get rid of them, I have to ask them to leave. Hmmm. Well, the RAID doesn't seem to be working, and I'm getting desperate, so when I get home I'm planning to sit down for a little pow-wow with my anty friends and ask them if they wouldn't mind visiting someone else for a bit. The other night, just before I went to bed, I had a glass of iced tea (my new favourite drink). I didn't quite finish it so I put the remaining drink next to my bed in case I was thirsty in the morning. I got up at 6.15am, when Isaac gets up for work, to go to the loo and before I got back into bed, took a big swig of iced tea. A couple of hours later when I got up for work and it was now light, I glanced at the glass only to see about 30 ants swimming in it. Now, much as I'd love to imagine that they'd only just crawled in there, I think it's unrealistic to assume so; I could have freaked out at drinking ant-juice, but instead decided to think of it as a small protein shot. Still, I was sure I could feel wriggling in my stomach all morning.

T'interweb withdrawal

2008-07-01T17:15:00.005+01:00

Firstly, let me apologise. I feel as though I'm letting you guys down a bit recently, with my very intermittent blogging, but the problem is without wireless for my laptop, I'm having to use Isaac's parent's computer, still on dial up (yes! it still exists!) and will only connect when it jolly well feels like it thank you very much. I have so much to tell you, and yet it's so difficult for me to do so goddamnit.

So rest assured, I'm more than fine and dandy. I now live in a cabin in the woods, with no television and water that comes straight from a stream. I love it. Isaac & I are having a ball, getting on like a house on fire; we've been bush driving, preparing our fishing tackle, socialising and generally making our own entertainment.

In yet another preconceived notion-shattering event, we had our first dinner party in the house the other day. Me, and three teenage boys. And what, do you suppose, did we have for this dinner? Pizza? Burger and chips? No no no my friend. Reilly prepared a
hot oil fondue AND a hot stone, with steak, giant prawns and calamari, potatoes & mushrooms. It was incredible. Then he insisted on washing up too. What a superstar. Then yesterday, we had our first barbecue. Me, and 10 teenage boys. We had moose, naturally. Isaac & busied ourselves being consummate hosts and cleaning up around people, so by the time everyone left (which was before midnight, despite today being Canada Day and therefore a public holiday) you'd never have known we had had a party.

I'm so proud of my boys. Life is good.

You know you're turning into a Canadian when...

2008-06-23T06:03:00.007+01:00

You no longer see ridiculously huge trucks as ridiculous. Or that huge.
You look out for a Tim Horton's everywhere you go and get very excited at the thought of an iced cap.
You call an iced cappuccino an iced cap.
And you can order an mocha-chocca-frappa-cappuccino (made with 2% please) without blushing.
You no longer get quite so irritated with the plethora of adverts on the telly. Still pretty irritated, to be fair, but not so much that you want to kill something everytime you try to watch Friends.
You start thinking 'Oh it's only a 5 hour drive - we should pop over for the day.'
Muffins start to seem like a legitimate breakfast food.
You no longer get shocked at the smell of marijuana in public places.
You automatically take your shoes off whenever you enter someone's house without having to be asked
You take the piss out of people from Saskatchewan and whenever you meet someone from Newfoundland you automatically think of sodomy.
You start saying 'regular' coke instead of 'normal' coke.
You stop laughing everytime someone says 'eh?' at the end of a sentence.
You no longer turn back when you see a dead skunk at the side of the road just to get a better look/smell.
You accept that plug sockets spark alarmingly when you plug something in without panicking that there's something wrong with the electrics.

HOWEVER:

I shall never stop finding the word 'fanny' funny
I shall never refer to visiting your holiday home as going 'cottaging'.

(Shortly after typing this post, I popped into the bookshop at Edmonton Airport - whose free wi-fi I'm currently using, thanks guys - and saw a book called 'How to be a Canadian' by Will & Ian Ferguson. I took it as a sign. I bought it. I'm reading it. It's very funny indeed.)

Regression and the story of Ontario Part 2

2008-06-21T20:13:00.012+01:00

So on the Friday evening, Isaac, Jordan & Matt arrived to pick me up. Isaac, with big hair, bandanna and shorts pulled down so far they were practically round his knees, turned up looking just as gangsta as I hoped and I took a running leap into his arms to catch up with a month's worth of missed hugs.

We drove north towards Orillia, where the boys live. By the time we arrived at Isaac's parents' house - after a stop off to Jordan's to meet a heap of other friends - it was dark. I approached the house with no expectations and was quickly blown away. We crossed the bridge to the house with Isaac turning on fairy lights left right and centre. There was pond, a treehouse, a zipline, a trampoline, a hot tub, a waterwheel, and that was just on the outside. At every stop I kept saying how it was the coolest house I'd ever seen but with every turn it just got cooler. Eventually, when we got to Isaac & Reilly's floor, Isaac opened the door to the bathroom and showed me a cage above the bath. He said 'Do you want to see Reilly's hedgehog?'. 'STOP!' I shouted 'I'm having a cool-overload here!'

The next 10 days passed by as if in a lovely dream. Imo & Mary Lyn, Isaac's parents, are fabulous and couldn't be more hospitable. Reilly, Isaac's younger brother is great and almost forgave me for stealing his brother from him. Isaac's friends - Hale, Mike, Tyler, Smokie, Porter, Dylan, Philly Cheese Steak and the ever-brilliant Jordan - are a good bunch and I enjoyed hanging out with them.

But here's the thing. Most people, when they go on holiday, go to a place. Maybe France, maybe Italy, maybe Butlins. But slowly, as time went on, it dawned on me that I'd gone on holiday to my teens.

Let's look at the evidence. I was hanging out with teenage boys. While out driving with Reilly, the gangsta rap was cranked up to the max and the sub-woofer in the boot was pounding out the bass*. We admired sweet trucks we saw. I never had to cook (except when I made my banoffee pie for the family). My washing was done for me. I didn't clean. I rode the zipline. I bounced on the trampoline. I went to bed late. I got up late. I was, on at least one occasion, trying to hide my (slight) intoxication from Isaac's mum. We drove through the 25 acres of bushland at the back of the house in the middle of the night in a 4x4 and got stuck in mud; we left the truck there and walked back. We hung out in car parks. We drove down to the port and wandered along looking at huge boats.

It was great. It was just what I needed. And I fell in love with the house and the lifestyle the terrain afforded. Isaac & Reilly grew up with no telly, running amok in the bush and building stuff. On one bush walk Isaac suddenly said 'Would you like to see our Door Fort?' 'Your what?!' I laughed. 'Our Door Fort. A fort Reilly & I made from doors. Why is that funny? he asked. 'Oh, no reason,' I replied 'we all have one of those in London.' We also walked past a random shed-type thing somewhere out back and inside was a beautiful handmade wooden boat complete with engine. 'Oh Reilly built that when he was 10' I was told.

After a week or so, I mooted the idea of staying with Isaac. 'What if, I didn't go back to Banff?' 'Really? Would you stay? Would you?' He seemed pretty keen. The next day I had lunch with his mum and mentioned my idea to her and she immediately offered for me to stay with them for the summer. Instead I asked if it would be possible to rent the cabin next door to their house and she said yes straight away. The following day she called me when I was out with Isaac and asked me if I would be interested in a job she'd just come across at the place where she worked, working as a Treetop Trekking Guide, and if so, she'd be happy to drop my CV in for me. My decision was complete.

The last couple of days I was there Isaac & made a road trip down to go to a birthday party for a friend of ours from Sunshine (Jess) down near Toronto (Mississauga in case you're interested). We then went on to Niagara Falls to spend the weekend - doing the Journey Behind the Falls and the Maid of the Mist tours. It was fabulous and it made me realise I had so much new to discover in Ontario.

So here's to it!

Pictures of the coolest house in the world here. Niagara photos here.

*At one point I suddenly became hysterical with laughter and when asked why, I said 'I've just realised I'm IN one of those cars that, when it passes me back home, I think to myself 'what a bunch of twats!'