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

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.

"Unnecessary"

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

Crossing the Rainbow Bridge

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...

...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

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

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.

They think it's all over...

...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

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

(thanks for this link Liddi, I love it)

Hot Christmas and ker-razy New Year

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

Central North Island

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

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...

Cakes and doughnuts

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?

Take on me

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

"Dave Gorman"

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

We're having big fun

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.

Giving birth to yourself

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...

More cowbell

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.

Road tripping part 2: cottaging in Tamagami

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

Road tripping part 1: climbing French-styley

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

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.