Holidays soon...and Mid Point

Yep, by now Beth, Jo, and Nicola should be just about in NZ. I will be joining them for three weeks of fun-filled travelling and all the amusement you can have on long car journies packed with people!

Before then, I have a week and a half of work left at Audit NZ, and frankly lots of work to do. However, I have to most laid-back 'boss' ever who truly demonstrates the meaning of 'work-life balance', and if I don't manage to get it done he will shrug and say 'who's that Russian?'. The Russian being 'Toughski Shitski'. Another inappropriate comment that keeps me sane, and will make me sad to finish working with him soon.

In a break for the normal routine I was sent up the Tauranga office last week, and then to the Auckland office, to do some resourcing stuff (as I do). Was good to see the places. The TRG office is slightly out of town, so I didn't get to explore much (plus, working pretty hard I didn't have much time spare anyway) so one of my colleagues gave me a little tour of the place and Mount Manganui before dropping me at the airport. I got the smallest plane I have ever been in to fly between TRG and AKL - probably 20 people, 1 row each side. No hostess, just the pilot and co pilot who say hi and play you a pre-recorded flight safety announcement. I took a sneaky shot of two with my camera (didn't want to appear too much like a tourist!), which will probably appear on FB at some point.

In a big surprise to me, I quite liked AKL! Had been psyching myself up for hating it (huge, overcrowded, dirty etc etc) but being as I was hotelled right smack downtown, with taxis paid for, it wasn't a problem for me.

Had an amazing day conference by New Wine NZ at my Church a couple of weeks ago. I accidentally (yer really, I can't read the signs) ended up in the workshop on prophesy. NOT where I wanted to be. Especially as the blurb said we would be trying some. Oh man. It was an extremely small group as well, most people probably being naturally rather reticent. All Christians of course. Was great though. Was very sound background into what the Bible says about prophesy, when it is appropriate or not, 'am I just making it up in my own head?' etc. Very interesting. Then we just prayed for each other and if we felt prompted to say anything (positive, should always be an encouragement/positive, not a judgement) then we did at the end. Really glad I ended up there!

Headed out to yet another cooler than school bar in Wellington in the wee hours of Saturday. Called 'Good Luck', it was a great place and just really cool but unpretentious. I already know how much I'm going to miss it here.

I'm starting to think about the future past NZ now, as next Monday will be half-way through my year away. Obviously, I'm having thoughts about staying longer, wondering if it is a sensible idea to come back to the UK if I'll just want to pack up and come back here again in 12 months time...and how much I miss my friends back in Hove and the UK (got to say UK, as Ieuan and Mary (and baby Erin) are in Wales...). Ho, and indeed, hum. I think I'm coming back. I mean, I've got a return ticket, a sister to see, and a wonderful wedding to go to (and hopefully help plan for...?!).

It's a strange time. I am leaving a job I have very much enjoyed, so to go on holiday with fantastic friends, and then who knows what? Slightly unsettling.

Doofers

Last Saturday evening I felt the pleasure that comes with discovery of something beautifully simple. Like all of these things that make one exclaim 'It's so obvious! It's great!, I couldn't believe I had lived without it. I shall set the scene:
Having had a couple of beverages out with Jojo in another lovely Wellington bar, we decided that we needed a snack in order to survive the winter chill and bus journey home. We went to BurgerFuel which it would seem has a reputation in NZ as a good burger bar. Just slipping in under the closing wire of midnight, we ordered and were happy when our meals appeared fairly speedily. Jo looked at my tray, frowned and said "They haven't given you a Doofer". "A what?" I replied, wondering what she herself was doing playing with some kind of presumably free cardboard game/toy/hat. "A doofer", she replied matter-of-factly, holding up a sort of semi-circular mini-basket that she had assembled by slotting the edges together. Holding it to the bottom of her burger, she concluded: "It stops all the bits falling out the bottom of your burger".

Could anything be more sensible?

Scrap that. I've left. I got offered a job at Audit New Zealand (equivalent of Audit Commission in UK), who audit government depts/orgs/bodies. Really enjoying it. Bit of a novelty working in a place that I would never think/be able to work in at home. My two temping experiences so far have been great. They have given me a lot of insight into my skills, interests and options, and are a great way to meet people and get access to an instant social life - this sort of access into normal people is what backpackers generally miss and is what I really wanted. I'm helping implement a new (better in various ways) method of resourcing the audits so that it is better planned and staff are happier with what they are doing. I'll be here for a couple of months.

I now start even earlier, and start work at 8am. This means I am getting up at 6ish and leaving at 7 for a walk through the bush and gardens and into town, watching the sun come up over the high-rise buildings. It's very beautiful. Probably won't be so when it rains, but hey! A much higher proportion than other cities in the country get to work either on public transport or walk. Nearly everyone walking into work wears trainers, so to begin with it is a strange sight of men an women in smart suits with trainers (though there are also a good number of people who jog past me, presumably with their smart clothes in their rucksack...). I need to work out how to retain the ability to get up early, and using a healthy way to get to work. I think a bike is going to be the answer.

I'm clearly never leaving The Firm

Yep. My previous boss sidled up to me and asked if I would be interested in some more work after the end of next week when my current job ends. Obviously I said yes. But that I wanted a few days off to lie in bed first. She said she'd negotiate it. I'm never going...

Right. So went to Napier. The best bit was the travelling in my car and discovering an incredible waterfall with noone else there or anywhere around for miles and miles and miles. It was amazing and when I can get some pictures here I will.

Napier was pretty and reminded me a bit of Hove because it was by the sea and relaxed. I found a brilliant ice-cream place and had manuka honey and passion-fruit scoops :)

Dangerously I have discovered a nice cafe that I walk past on my way to work every day. I am limiting myself to two per week. Aren't I good?

I am looking forward to this weekend to relax, cook, and read a book.

Feet

My notes on what to blog about go like this, with meanings:

• hidden bar - because I have found out that dancing places do exist in Wellington (as I suspected...) but that they hide them away around corners and through other rooms so that you presuem it is just another bar. Now I shall know what to look for.
• Kimi present - Jo gave me a picture of lovely Kimi in a little frame. Well done Jo. All I need now is one of me gazing at him for the other side of the frame.
• black feet - I was dancing barefoot in the club where we went for some dancing as part of my birthday. I had some VERY dirty feet when I looked in the morning.
• rain - it finally rained. It hasn't rained a lot since I arrived, but it chucked it down on Saturday and it was nice.
• extention of work - ACC have asked me to stay until the end of the month, such is my knowledge of templates, styles, and formatting in Word. That's one to brag about.
• Shortland Street - Neighbours is on too early for me to get back and watch. SS is on at 7pm and I am now a big fan. Hurrah for headline-grabbing storylines about serial killers.
  
• 'my words' - I discovered recently the list of words on my phone that I have added, ie that weren't not in the dictionary that comes with the phone. It tells a certain story of parts of my life. If you have such a phone, I recommend a look at the words which you felt it necessary to text to someone. I shall share just a part of my alphabetical list: Sainsburys, seafront, rhubarb. plonker, podcast, snog, pootle, prix.
• lack of fair trade - says it all really. Am very surprised and disappointed at how niche the market still is here. I am used to a lot of choice from Supermarkets, even in small dairy's, but not here. There is a shop called TradeAid where you can get all the stuff, but the cross-over to it being a normal item to be found in any shop, is still a long way off. Not even tea, coffee, chocolate and sugar. It's really sad.
  

Vastness

I had one of those moments lying in bed last night, when you are dizzied by the vastness of possibilities. Luckily I was lying down already. I was thinking about what on earth I am doing here and what I want to get out of this year. People (myself included) have expectations about what I should be doing, and I could easily find myself just going along with that. Not that I wouldn't be disappointed in myself either way, I don't get like that...the journey is more important and all that (actually true for me, witness being happy to people watch in a cafe rather than hyper actively sight-see). However, I want to consciously do what I want to do this year. There are limits of money, time, safety etc, but they are not great.

The weather has also been unsparingly wonderful. I am sitting here in shorts and a vest. I fall asleep in the park at lunchtimes. No doubt i have now cursed the weather!

The F1 rocked.

Pub Quiz!

I've been invited to a pub quiz team this evening. I hope they have a round of 90s pop or Kylie. Or possibly pictures of people to identify. Or a round in Frenhc. Otherwise I may not add a lot..should be interesting to see how it is carried out. It'll have to be pretty good to beat the quiz man and his wife and the Lion and Lobster.

General mooching, and job stuff

This week I have been:

• cleaning the house I moved into, and generally bringing it up to 'girl standards'. It's kinda old, but cool. It's pretty big, and like all the houses in Wellington, built on the side of a big hill so that half of it is supported underneath. Particularly I like seeing the garages that are built on platforms sticking out over the edge of hillsides. I'm sure they are safe and all, but they look odd.
• looking for jobs and sending my CV to agencies and calling them to hassle. I now have two meetings with agencies for Monday, so Smart Ruth will have to resurrected from the depths of the cupboard
• reading Harry Potter :) I know, not exactly a break from the norm, but I was very pleased to discover that Jamie has all seven volumes. I am r-reading no 7 at the moment as it's just SO good
• sorting out car-related things - you have to have the MOT equivalent done every six months here, and pleasingly it is called a WOF (Warrant of Fitness)
• enjoying pottering in my local 'hood called Northland. I poked my nose into the Church (open every day, how ashamed I was that even in this teeny tiny place they manage to keep it open all the time, whereas so many of our Churches are just shut and figuratively say 'go away'), noted that we have public toilets (no Councils making trouble for villages keeping facilities open here...), and bought a few items (yes, it included ice-cream!) from the rather well-stocked dairy
• looking forward to the world cinema festival happening starting in March - 'Tell no one' is a French film I've wanted to see for a bit, and it's on on my birthday (yay!).

Tonight I'm hanging out with my housemate (the only one until the other one moves in next week) as he's off to Oz (the emerald city) for a week from Sunday.

Thought it was high time

The longer it takes you to write your first blog, the more you want to put it off. That's how I feel anyway. I have no idea where to start or what to say.

I am curently in an internet cafe in Courtenay Place, Wellington. I am growing to like Wellington a lot, and to understand it's layout a little better. I still get supidly lost, though less lost in the car where I can go much further in a lost direction!

I am looking for a job and a flat/house share. Not in that order. I have seen a possibility today, which I really liked,m but I'm not sure it is in my best interests to take it. I'll say more if I end up taking it!

I've been doing a variety of pottering/getting to know the city, trips in my new Honda Accord (thanks Jen and Andy, it is doing really well), proactive searching for places to live/jobs, and random walks. The thing about Wellington is, apart from the very centre of town, it is basically a series of heart-attack inducing hills. I mean it. They are madly madly steep, and people just walk up them, even cycle up them. Ihave surprised myself already with how I've coped (dare I say even enjoyed?) a few of the hills and the views they afford.

I had a wonderful mini-break with Annabel over the weekend, in and around the Queen Charlotte Sound and Endeavor Inlet. Memorably, we stayed in a home-stay with a redoubtable old lady - to get to her house you left your car in a car park, walked down a road/hill, across a beach, through some bush and up the other side. The views were good by the time you made it though! We even walked a bit of the track one day...

hmm, ha, ha, um

This time tommorow I'll be, well, somewhere. Horribly confusing going back (or forwards? - feel free to think about this for hours too) in time and changing zones, and then missing an entire day, so forgive me if I just close my eyes and set my phone for the final destination time!

Air NZ have assured me that in the two hours of landing and processing in LA I will not have to pick up my bags or do much else than shuffle in a queue, try not to say the word 'bomb' or be sarcastic to immigration people, and sit in the transit lounge, so I'm hoping it will be much less stressful than last time :)

Most things are done. I seem to be taking hardly anything at all: one mostly full rucksack and some hand luggage. Karen is mildly disapproving at such a lack of stuff but can't seem to pinpoint exactly what I'm missing! I'll be buying a few things out there initially of course, and luckily it is summer so I didn't need loads of bulky jumpers.

I've applied for a job with Waitakere City Council (Auckland area) which sounds amazing. It is community development in a part of the city area and seems perfect for me. Fingers crossed for an interview please!

I feel I should be writing some sort of reflective peice about my ambitions and hopes for the year ahead, but I've never been great at that. I just want to have a good time, meet people, and be of use. I want to have a real life.

I'll miss everyone a lot, but we are very lucky to have so much communication available - please use it!

Much ado about one thing

That one thing being packing up my life and moving to NZ. Such a simple thing as I write it in a sentence. Not such a simple thing in real life.

A quick update:

• two more days of work
  
• then one week of packing
• then moving in for a yet unspecified number of days with the parents. Still flying 7th
• party this Saturday evening in local pub...photos will certainly be shared
• no idea about what work I will do 'out there'
• still having to sit on hands to stop myself battering people about the head who suggest I am going to meet, marry, and sprog up with a sheep farmer within 2 mins of arriving. Give me at least 5! (wah HA).
• no idea where I am going to live after initial week of being hosted by kind family friends
• yes, I am excited
• no I haven't got anyone for the flat yet...yes I am confident I will have
• yes, I vaguely know one or two people 'out there'
• I have reserved space in a storage facility about 10 mins drive from here for my stuff (thanks Karen!)

Having people round to see your flat with a view to renting it is quite a pain as I have to be ultra tidy all the time, especially at that inconvenient time of just before leaving for work. Whilst this is doable for me, it is not enjoyable. But never mind, I should get used to living in a bit of a mess.

I can't quite get on with the good stuff of actually getting all my clothes out and planning what to take, as this is something that needs to be done prior to then packing it all in loads of boxes and storing it.

I am very much looking forward to my party on Saturday as there should be quite a few people and a totally strange mix of al my friends, many of whom don't know each other. What did Bridget Jones teach me? Oh yes, 'Ieaun, meet Hannah. Hannah is into amateur dramatics and was last seen on stage sporting a ridiculous wig and bright pink period dress. Ieaun is Welsh and I used to beat him at spinning tops'. Should be a good night :)

'Would you like some ID?'

...I enquired upon approching the bouncers outside a pub in Brighton centre last night, and seeing they were already checking someone else's ID. One of them looked at me and said 'nah, that's fine'.

Ha ha haa! Since he could barely see my face, I can only imagine that he wisely thought that even on a very wet evening only someone past the age of caring about fashion (and therefore clearly legal) would encase themselves in a big white waterproof coat and pull the hood drawstrings so tightly around my face that I looked like the Ghost of Christmas Future. Probably a wise assumption.