Internet, you must advise me, because I know you’re out there being clever and knowledgable and you will know more about these things than I do.

I have an mp3 player - obviously, I mean, don’t we all have mp3 players? I would never, ever survive the daily bus ride if I didn’t have my ears plugged into music.  Anyway, my mp3 player is a couple of years old now, and it seems to be very unhappy.  On Friday I loaded a whole bunch of new songs on it and on the way home, all it did was play the same songs over and over again.  Sometimes randomising will do this, but I flicked and flicked and STILL the same songs played.  It was getting really frustrating, I mean..there were hours worth of music on the damn thing, why was I hearing the same thing over and over again?

It turns out, it was only reading 17 songs.  So, I thought I must have deleted them without realising - as you do *eye roll*, but when I got home and checked it, all the songs I had put on were there!  Monday I went to work and I’d loaded another song, just one, to see if that would make a difference.  Oh sure, I heard that song, along with the 17 others my player has decided are “teh bomb!”  I complained bitterly to Ollie at work, and he looked stumped and confused.  That night - actually, it was Tuesday morning because procrastination before work is a must…we tried re-adding all the songs again.

This time, my player decides that it will allow me a further 6 songs, but only six and no more!  And then, THEN, as if that isn’t bad enough, I get to the bus exchange and it STOPS PLAYING!  Oh.my.god.  So I pull it out of my pocket, my fingers all blue with the cold, because you cannot do anything with pretty angora pink gloves on, and it says “voice recording.”  What??  Whose voice does it think it’s recording?  Mine?  I’m not talking!  The funny lady on the escalator in front of me?  As far as I can tell, she’s not talking either, and if she is, I am selectively not hearing.  It refused…refused I tell you, to let me change that function at all, and it would.not.turn.off!

I pulled the battery out of it in the end and that fixed it.  But now, and I’m sure you’ll feel my pain…I am SICK to death of the mp3 player from hell and decide it is time to get a new one.  I have always wanted an Ipod.  Everyone has an Ipod except me.  Ipods are so slim and magically musical, and they come in different colours! But Ollie is dubious.  He gives me that squinty look from the corner of his eye that tells me I am being childish and petulant and tells me he will fix my player.  To which I reply that he can have my stupid player with it’s voice recording, it’s hiding of my hundred songs and playing of 17-23 of it’s own choosing and that I want an Ipod!

Do I know how much an Ipod is?  He wants to know - actually, I didn’t.  But I will not be dissuaded.  Well…I might be.  What do -you- know about Ipods internet?  Advise me with your marvellous wisdom.  Do you have to have ITunes, and must you..you know, purchase music from there before it will play them, or can I load mp3’s from my PC (no Mac users here) without any real difficulty at all? Are they only compatible with Mac’s and will I be lumped with a cute piece of musical machinery that I’ll never be able to use because purchasing music from a website after spending over half my weekly wage on that little machine will make me froth in the absurdity of all that money wastage?  Will it?  Are there other options? What’s the deal? I really have looked them up, but you know what sites are like with the skirting around what is acceptable behaviour regarding using your own music on your own players..cryptic much?

Oh, yes, I realise there are different kinds of Ipods, I’m looking at the Nano, because it is small and cute and cheaper than any of the others.

Make my husband a believer.  I will die, DIE without music on the bus.  I am not a silent meditative type. I appreciate silence, when I’m sleeping.  But otherwise, music gets the best of me.

I wanted to capture the grey so you could see it with me. Somehow, I’m not sure it looks as grey as it really is in real life, but here you go!  This is my walk to work every morning.

When you enter The Square from the main section of the city, this is what you see. The chalice thing is relatively new, as are all those grey cobblestones. There was a lot of debate about putting them down, the council won of course, despite the residents of this city complaining that the entire area - a very popular and the most central part of the city, would be too grey.

Looking away from the cathedral is the rest of the Square, the building on the far left? Nice brick and cream?  Yeah, that’s a Starbucks. It’s just wrong, but I admit, when we had the bomb scare, Ollie and I had a coffee in there, and it was so lovely to sit there looking out onto the rest of the Square.  You can just, hopefully…make out the people setting up their stalls.

How stunning is the cathedral? I mean really.  It is, of course, a protestant church, because we are an ‘English’ city and we must be true to our roots.  It’s stunning though, and well worth a visit.  Most of the stone masonry around Christchurch is made from Halswell stone - the Halswell Quarry is an amazing walk. I don’t think I’ve blogged that yet! Soon my pretties, soon.

This photo betrays my grey bleakness.  The buildings there are not grey! How dare they!  Where I am standing though, is where the man with the Australian hat stands with his collection of flutes. I forgot my phone on my way home, which I was sorely disappointed about, because he had the most luscious yellow jersey on that I have EVER seen. Maybe one day when I am feeling particularly bold, I will try to capture video footage of him.  He is worth the effort.

Now this is a little more grey right?  I took these last friday (15 August) the day turned out to be one of the more beautiful ones we’ve had, so of course, the blue sky tells you lies. I walk right up that street you can see in front of you, all the way up and over a bridge, where I follow the Avon river along Oxford Terrace to work.

I don’t know about you, but I really love this photo. This is my Christchurch, bleak, busy, always being revamped.  They cannot leave anything alone in this city, they tear down what little history we have and replace it with bigger, better, faster, warmer buildings all the time. The buses go around the Square every two minutes or so.  This is to the left of the Cathedral.  I really love this statue. It’s one that I never pass up looking at when I walk past.  Sometimes seagulls are perched on their heads, sometimes it is perfectly pristine. A deep dark jade green bronzed statue against a slate grey sky that speaks to me every time I see it. You can’t see it very well, but the central figure is an angel holding a sword over her head and she has three or four others at her feet. It’s really beautiful..and I cannot for the life of me remember what it’s called. You have no idea how gloriously bright he was standing here fluting in the yellowest jersey you’ve ever seen! Truly! Right there in the left hand corner. I wish he’d been there that morning.

Past the Square is Victoria Park.  There is a statue of Queen Victoria at its entrance, and it leads up to the Town Hall.  It’s one of the most stunning parks ever. The tram stops there every day and yes, that really is a red phone box.  Try as I might, I have never found either a Tardis hiding in one (okay, so they’re blue sue me!) or the way into the Ministry of Magic. *sigh*

You can’t see how beautiful it is sadly, the statue is Queen Victoria, and right there, where that tiny red roof is on the left?  That’s a tram stop. Fascinating, no?

And that my dears, is my daily walk to work, minus the delightful river and work itself, the Town Hall, the Band Rotunda and many other things that you just cannot capture on a cellphone camera.  I am quite pleased with how well they came out though.

Thank you for reading me, for the comments, the love and the support. You guys are making that step from creative hobbiest writer into working writer that much easier. <3

Christchurch in the winter is an amazingly depressing city.  It’s so bleak and grey and gloomy.  This year has been better than most, I begrudgingly admit, but still, the grey days are insane.  I walk through the square every morning and everything is grey.  The buildings, the cobblestoned expanse of the place..the Cathedral, the people..all grey, grey, grey. I really need to get you a photo of it so you can see that I’m not being dramatic. Part of me, that maudlin New Zealander in me loves it.  There is something really central to who we are as a nation, in the bleakness of our country.

Don’t get me wrong, New Zealand is beautiful, it really is. Lush and vibrantly green, our countryside is hostile and unforgiving.  The settlers came with high hopes and were depressed within a week.  The forests made fun of them, the land gave way under their feet and turned to slush when they tried to build their homes, the animals they brought with them slaughtered a good majority of our native birds and lizards - the only animals New Zealand had before the Europeans populated here.  Everything about New Zealand put up its shields and tried to shut them out.  But miles, and miles away from any truly civilised country meant that the Europeans were stuck here. Most of them convicts or lower classes hoping for the promised land.  They got a country that rebelled, that fought back, that broke their backs when they tried to tame it and left them broken and completely worn down.

This is my home.  And I love it.  I love the fact that the nature here is so wild and deep, that you can go anywhere in New Zealand and find untouched bush, or hot pools, or glaciers, or perfect snow fields, or beaches that rival those in the Islands.  We have it all here, and our forefathers worked hard to get it.  Even giving the Maori muskets so they’d go out and murder one another leaving the majority of the land for the whites to populate.  - Hear my sarcasm. Our history is a history that is seen the world over, every untouched country colonised by a ‘better, faster, stronger’ people.

And we love it, and we suffer with it, and we feel so disconnected from the rest of the world that we become nomads, travelling the world, looking for our true home - settling, mostly, for a country bleaker and greyer than the one we were born in - that’s right, England. Our motherland, our home a world away.  We spend our lives trying to find our history, our reality, our person.  We’re happy, for the most part.  We have good education systems, we have excellent health care, we have a government that looks after it’s poor better than many other countries do, and yet we still have one of the highest youth suicide rates in the colonised world.

I love New Zealand.  This is my home, and I am proud of it. I love every bleak grey winter sky even though it makes me want to curl up in my bed and never move again.  I love that when the sun comes out the entire country takes on a completely different light.  Becomes fresh, new..a land of milk and honey.  Aotearoa.  Land of the Long White Cloud.

I walk through the city every morning with my music so loud that I cannot hear a word anyone says, because life is better that way I find. I don’t want to hear other people’s conversations.  It’s never as interesting as I imagine it might be.  When all I see is them trudging through the city beside me, with their hands plunged into their coats, their breath fogging out before them and their faces animated with conversation, I can pretend that what they’re talking about is something infinitely more interesting that it really is.  The Square is full of people setting up their market stalls, and people busking.  One man in particular, rain or shine stands there with his collection of flutes and whistles, his Australian brimmed hat pulled over his eyes, tapping his foot, swinging his upper body back and forth while he plays waiting for people to drop money into the bucket waiting at his feet.  Sometimes he sings.  He’s very good.  He’s also, probably not quite all there.  He stands with his wispy grey hair, too long at the back, and he doesn’t mind the rain, or the sun, and he doesn’t look at anyone because if he can see under that hat, I’d be very surprised.

I stand at the lights and watch people milling around, most stone faced, intent on getting places, some in conversation..many tourists.  And I wait for the lights to change so I can cross.  I stop traffic sometimes.  I watched from the corner of my eye as a man on a motorscooter tried to catch my attention with his eyes.  He was so intent on flirting with me, that the lights turned green and the line of cars behind him began tooting.  Had he not been a little special, I might have given him a smile in return.  I wait at the bus stop with the rain pelting around me and freezing to death..playing my tongue in the gaps that are slowly closing due to my braces pulling my teeth back to where they always should have been had I not sucked my thumb for so long as a child, and I practice rib and chest dance moves to my music under the protection of my super large trenchcoat..I half dance on the spot in an effort to keep myself entertained and warm, and I watch the twee men, some older, some not, come and place themselves in my line of vision, because I am always looking down the road in order to see the bus, and try to catch my attention.  I am flattered sometimes.

And I think about how wonderful we are as a country, a people.  I block myself out from their interaction because the reality of it bores me. I’m happily married to a man who will never be a “good Kiwi bloke” he doesn’t walk around in a wife beater and watch Rugby religously. He doesn’t drink or spend his days in the garage “fixing” things, and that’s why I married him.  Because he is other, and I have a deep love for things that are other, but I really admire the New Zealand bloke, I do. I admire the academic in his brown tweed, waiting for me to look at him so he might encourage me out of my headphones - it’s not happening. They keep my ears warm, for a start.  And I am grateful that I was born here.  Even though, I really pine for my father’s accent.  Even though, I am never completely sure of my heritage, of my history..even though in this country, we are always just slightly displaced.  Ever so slightly tourists in our own homeland.  I love that too. There is something special about belonging to a place that never really feels like home, and yet at the same time, really -really- does.

Did anyone else notice just how fast this week flew by?  It’s crazy, why do people get full time jobs?  Honestly, getting home at 3.30pm every day is enough for me.  Too much even.  I only have two days off and Saturday has just gone already! What’s with that? I’m not impressed in the slightest actually. I miss being at home, my house misses me.  No, it really does. I walk in and it gives me the cold shoulder.  It says “you didn’t stoke my fire today..feel my coldness!”  Dinner needs to be cooked before I have the time to recover from the coldness of walking from the bus stop home.  People on the bus make me grimace and the drivers?  What do bus companies do?  Hire those who have failed their licences because they don’t know where the brakes are? I cannot tell you how many times I have almost slid right off the seat due to the rapid braking of bus drivers who are doing their best to plow into the cars in front while all the time making it look accidental!

I had things to post, but I was too tired.  Now I’m forgetting what they are.  I know, I know, I should update even if I am tired, I am neglecting you, internet!  In favour of playing and storytelling.  It’s awful!

Anyway, the week went fast, as I’ve already said, and on Thursday, Ollie got up for his karate class, which he goes to twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) at 5am!!!  I KNOW!!!  And I get to work and he comes up to me while I’m doing my filing, and he has a neck on him like Big Bird.  “What’ve you done.” I don’t quite question him, but more state, because it’s obvious he’s done himself an injury.  “My neck..” He says and I, dutiful wife that I am, roll my eyes and proceed to poke fun at him with his stiff neck and his obvious agony.  Well, I mean really, that’s what you do!  I tell him all the time, and does he listen?  NO!  He just goes off, and damages himself and refuses to go get himself seen to.  “Just crack my back, like your mum does!”  He says and I refuse, profusely.  What if I do him more damage?

He gives in this time and goes to a Chiropractor. When he returns, he’s a bit brighter, he has a wheat pack to heat up and heal himself with, and tells me that he’s munted.  “I told you!” I say gleefully, “you’re not 18 anymore!  You’re an old.man.  And if you don’t stop with the aging, I will be forced to find myself a younger model.”  He’s not impressed by this at all. “I’m not old!” He laments.  And I tell him about the harms of throwing an old decrepit body around with all this karate.  He’s a black belt you know.  He looks forlorn and I look triumphant, and truly, we’re only playing with each other, he really does like it when I call him a crippie and tell him that no one is going to give up their seats for him on the bus.  No really, he does.

Apparently, he has to go back lots.  He went twice and they cracked his back and neck and he’s almost right again now, but his ribs are out of alignment, which he knew, and there is something crazy about his leg.  He is a mess I tell you.  And all this rather pleases him.  Because, he is a man, after all.

At work, they insist on asking me how he’s doing.  “Are you beating him up?” they ask, and I say “of course I am! Someone must!”  And they’re not sure if I’m kidding or not.  I blame you for this my daddyboy.  People are never sure if I’m serious or joking, and do you know what?  I smile when I do it!  And still they give me that “is she serious?” look.

By the way, I bought “The Gathering” book you recommended and I am loving it.  She is wonderful!!  I’ve only just started but it is perfection already.

Okay, so it wasn’t quite Keanu Reeves in Speed, but there really was some sort of bomb thing in the parking building behind the office today.  I know right?

Here’s how the day went.

Aleeya is sick, the poor wee dear, so she had to stay home from school, as I can’t take anymore time off work, Elsie came over to stay with her. Morning conversation ensues, and I amazingly, manage to be late for work.  It’s raining and cold, and it’s 9am, and Siobhan and I are walking briskly down the road to school and the bus stop, and I stand there for awhile debating walking to the next one or not. You see, every time I walk to the next bus stop, the bus passes me while I’m half way between them, so now I have a quandary every time I think I might have missed one.

I decided to stay put, 20 minutes later….NO BUS!  Oh my god.  By now, it’s starting to rain harder, and I’m freezing and getting really annoyed and I’m late, and I think to myself “No damnit!  I’m going home.” So I text Ollie to tell him I’m late and that I’m bringing the car in and then I walk away from the bus stop and…yes, you guessed it, the bus drives past me!  By now I’m furious.  Furious I tell you!  I’m also late. I mean, late, late. So I get in the car, have a near miss accident on my way out involving a car coming down the road that I just did.not.see, and a boy on a bike who would have been fine if I didn’t have to slam on my brakes to avoid car of doom.  He was fine..by the way, we were all fine, there were metres between all three of us.  Just a little unsettling, that’s all.

And I’m driving to work, and Ollie is texting, and I’m dutifully only looking when I’m at the red lights, and I have the music up, because I like my music loud, and he’s telling me to take Colombo Street instead of Manchester because there are police everywhere and they’ve sectioned off parts of the road.  Normally this would have interested me, but today I am late for work and nothing is going right, so now I’m just miffed that the police think it’s okay to block my access to work.  This is fine, I take Colombo Street, I turn down it and get a park right outside work.  Of course, I have no money for the meter, but that’s okay.  So I park and see I have two missed calls, and it’s Ollie.  And I debate just going up to ask him what he was calling about, there are police milling all around each end of the road I’ve just driven into, and I think…”mmm…I’ll call him..” He says “where are you?  We’ve been evacuated!  There’s a bomb in the parking building next door.”  And I am sitting in front of the office in my car, which I skillfully parallel parked thinking “Are you insane?  This is CHRISTCHURCH!  NEW ZEALAND!! There are no bombs in the parking buildings here you crazy fool.”

Apparently, there was.  We had two hours off so, I wasn’t late after all.  He says “can you see me?”  And I see him across the river waving madly at me…”come over here and we’ll uhh..I dunno, go into the city for awhile?” Come over here.  Do people have no idea how hard it is to get into a parallel park?  The street is too narrow for me to turn around in..and there is no way I’m getting myself out of this little park.  So I make him come over, and I see him gesticulating to someone about how he’s just coming over to fetch his wife..and they let him come get me.

We go off into the city, we have coffee, I buy a jersey and a new book!  I so did!  And then we went to the library LoriBlue!  I got me some Erma!  I’m starting her tonight, if it makes me cry that you’re likening her style to mine, you are in big trouble!  And then we get Japanese food for lunch.  We found the most awesome Japanese/Sushi bar.  It’s right next to a stripper club - of course, I mean, where else would you put a Sushi bar, right?  And you have to walk down towards the stip club entrance, which makes you go “oh dear lord, people think we’re some sort of perverted dirty couple of office lovers in our trench coats going to watch nudie ladies all over the floor!”  when in reality, you’re just digging the two precious Japanese ladies who are super friendly and make the best sushi in the whole world.  Seriously, their Miso soup is to die for.  And their hot chickeny meals?  It’s totally worth the shifty eyed glances you get for going to a strip club in your lunch hour.

Work was eventful after that.  We all sat and ate and discussed the bomb, which turned out to be a coffee can with liquid in it, rigged up to an electrical socket, and I cannot tell you the story our boss had for who might have put it there, for the simple reason that, sometimes the internet does not understand sarcastic humour. But it was good, and involved sickness beneficiaries and institutional bed needs, and sleeping under bridges with their last bottles of wine.  Okay so I told you!  Damnit!

And then I worked late, because I still felt bad I came late, and the filing is out of hand I tell you. Out.of.hand. I have my own little minion who I have been making do it all, because I am that mean.  While I drink tea and sit at my computer and print accounts and do fun stuff that doesn’t involve going up and down ladders all day.  I think today was her last day.  I worked her like a racehorse.  You can be sure of that.

Okay, I truly think I’m getting over this being sick business now.  It has been really awful. Really awfully awful, but I am feeling human again now.  I’ve had to take off more time from work than I care to admit, and they are being wonderful.  Apparently, they’re hiring a temp, to play temp, while I (the temp) am sick.  I got over the last sick and ended up with the most intense fever and stomach/back pains I’ve ever felt in my life.  Today I am off the medicine again, and I feel okay.  Cross your fingers for me. I need to get back into the world of the living. This sick stuff doesn’t do me any favours at all.

On another note, I think I may have found the girl Aleeya was named after.  I’m waiting to hear back from her, I am almost 100% certain it’s her!  I don’t even know if she’ll remember who I am anymore, but I’m really excited about the prospect of it being her.  Facebook has merits.  I didn’t even consider looking for her until I was in bed last night, and then I thought, why wouldn’t she be on it?  I seriously doubt there are many Aleeya’s in the world.  I hope we can get back in touch again, it would be so much fun to catch up with her and find out what she’s been doing after 24 odd years. God. Can you believe that?

My weekend turned out to be a little more tiring than I thought, so to keep you interested, here is the next installment of “Write The Next Word” which I have been stalling on for ages too, and has just now been plonked in front of me so that I type it out for your perusal.  Just so you know, every time Elsie comes over, she also adds a word.  It has become the new hit in our household.  Behold!

On a warm summer’s evening, would foxes dance while pixies sing lamentingly until midnight chipmunks swoon. Bellydancers chortle alluringly, gently shimmying in unison until vampires tried sucking blood. In theory, this leads most bellydancers to shriek, but some giggle menacingly in a mischevious sort of musical fashion. Tigers twirled wearily, nearly falling ever anticipatingly groaning under the weight of each other in horribly agonising heaviness. It seems likely that foxes and bears indulge food too often in secretive manners. While all pixies chanted “poos!” The bellydancers triumphed over biscuits that much that pandas decided flying off biscuits would making tidying more simple. The other animals cheered pandas on “Fly!” they yelled.  Suddenly, panda’s flopped instead of flew and exploded.

So, no one ever said the story was going to make sense!

doesn’t it?  You know, you cannot take a break from blogging, because when you do, things do not slow down, they do not realise that you haven’t had the health to write anything interesting for awhile, they just keep on turning and you just keep on missing opportunities to write about them!  This is bad.  Bad bad bad.

The weekend is upon me, and depending on whether I can secure myself a refund for a workshop of dance that I think my body will hate me for if I go on it, I have two days in which to catch up on my blogging.  Are any of you still reading? OMG. I so know this is how you start to loose readers.  Don’t post regularly, and whinge.  Yeah, because everyone wants to keep checking on THAT, right?

So tomorrow is a day mostly off, and I’m looking forward to it.  Sunday, I may kill myself doing a dance workshop, and Monday it’s back to the grind…including the grind of tutoring.  Dear god. I have to come up with four weeks worth of lessons to keep Mr 14 interested.  Of course, he’s had three weeks off, so he probably has not done a thing, which means that we will get to start from scratch again, and that means less work for me.  Sucker.

The girls came back on Wednesday night, looking delicious and grown up, it’s nice to have them home again, the house just doesn’t quite feel right without them.  You know?  Empty..too quiet…something just isn’t quite right.  Did I tell you how wonderful they are?  I don’t think I did!  That post is coming too, I swear.  Tomorrow is my dad’s day.  I promised a birthday post, and I realise it’s..what…two weeks after your birthday now?  It’ll be a good one.

Anyway, what I really want to say is, it is so good to feel human again. So, very, very good.  Now I’m off to eat gingerbread shapes that Siobhan and Ollie spent all afternoon baking together while I was at work.  Good god they’re good!  Where is Aleeya you might ask?  One day home was enough for her, she’s staying the night with her BFF Lauren - best friend forever.

Tonight, Siobhan and I are going to eat Burger Rings and curl up in the lounge with lots of heat and television, in particular? A bunch of reality tv shows and Rove Live. Best.talkshow.ever! Even if it is Australian, haha!  Sounds good right?  Ollie is cooking steak.  I am a spoiled, spoiled princess and I know you’re all jealous.  Come on over!  I won’t breathe on you, I promise.
xxx

I have turned into the blogger of whinge haven’t I?

I’ll be back soon, I promise! As soon as I can sleep without coughing and coughing and coughing.  Oh look, you can’t have an entry without a bit of a whinge.

My girls are home! This is good, I missed them, but we didn’t get to do anything at all, or enjoy any of their time away because I had to be “teh sick”.  All right, last whinge for the evening.  I really do have good things to say!  When the consumption cough clears with these massive antibiotics help, I’ll be back!  Yes I will!!

p.s. Fellow blogging types.  I still have all your links, they’re just hidden. You know, in case you were wondering.  <3

I am still sick, I swear, the posts are right here inside me, but so - unfortunately - is a whole load of phlegm and coughing…and the phlegm and the coughing?  Well, it wins.

Wish me better.  It is Sunday, I thought I’d be better by now, and I’m just not.  I couldn’t get up until 12.30pm, and you know I have to work tomorrow right?  It’s not good…I am terrified of the return of pneumonia…my house is a shambles, I should be doing loads of stuff and having a grand old time with Ollie while the girls are still away, and instead I’m concentrating on not dying. It’s not nice even slightly.

Next weekend, I’m supposed to be doing a full day of dance workshops, there seriously is no rest for the wicked.  The one good thing is, I still have another week off before I have to go back to the tutoring jobs..so I have my days after work to rest, at least.

Sick makes me miserable.  I am such a baby..but if you could feel how raw and awful my throat is, and the phelgm..good god the phelgm in my chest…