(no subject)
Ugh. I seem to have forgotten to use this thing in the month of December. I blame Christmas. In fact, I blame the whole Christmas slow-down.
New Zealand's Xmas is a little different than what people might be used to in the northern hemisphere. The "Christmas slow-down" is a notable feature. Work and school go up until a few days before Xmas, and then after Xmas they have these big sales.
NZ then basically stops functioning as a country for about a fortnight. Everyone jumps in their car and goes camping or heads away to a bach (Kiwi-speak for holiday home). The NZ summer holiday is famously, about doing nothing at all. There might be beach cricket, and touch rugby, but that's about it. When we were kids, there were rules about our family holidays, including:
1. No one is allowed to wear a watch, or ask what the time is.
2. Meals happen when people are hungry.
3. People go to sleep when they're tired, but not before at least two games of cards (here in NZ we play 500, which is a little like bridge).
4. People get up whenever the hell they want.
5. Beach, swimming, sun-bathing (not so much now with the last one as we lost our ozone layer), bush walks compulsory.
You can't really do anything in NZ in this time. The whole government goes on holiday, they have what's called the 'duty minister' - one MP out of the 120 that we have, stays behind and deals with everything and anything. And no one cares, because almost everyone is on holiday anyway. The shops are open, but just about everything else is running on skeleton staff, if any at all. My work has a compulsory twelve day shutdown.
It's of course the middle of summer down here, so Christmas is typically BBQs, salads, fresh bread, fruit salad and ice cream for desert. Very few people do turkeys or more traditional dinners. Normally there's lounging around in the sun with a beer between meals, and backyard cricket if anyone is feeling very motivated. It's also summer holidays, so lots of people go camping for Xmas, and don't come back for another three weeks or so.
My Christmas wasn't too hot, as the night before I started to feel unwell, and I was up twice before dawn on Christmas morning throwing up. And then felt sick for another 48 hours. So I missed out on all the nice Christmas food, though in presents I did fairly well (t-shirts, ice hockey shin pads, book, mixing bowls, carving set, etc). Alex scored much better (being eight I guess that's fair), with ice hockey skates, ice hockey shorts, a new mountain bike, various toys, expensive tickets to see the Crusty Demons motorcross-x show, books, more toys, etc. Amelia got much clothes, this great noisy train set from her uncle who's in Washington DC, toys and baby books.
Our big adventure this year was on the 27th (thankfully I no longer felt sick by then). Alex and I drove the length of the island (about 11 hours almost straight driving) to get to Marlborough, a sunny, warm location, with beautiful sounds (is 'sounds' an international word? Think fijords, but no ice). My parents brought their yacht over from the northern island, and Alex and I, plus my brother and his wife and their 17 month old, camped out on the shore, and went back and forth to the boat and did fishing and sailing and played cricket and passed a rugby ball around and read books and swam and whatnot. In general it was good - the weather was really good for the first couple of days, and I got sunburned motoring the little dinghy back and forth out to the moored boat to empty it of all the camping gear. After that it was cloudy, but we only got one bit of rain during the day, and that only lasted for about 15 minutes.
New Years Eve was interesting. I've never spent a new years anywhere apart from NZ, so this might be fairly common internationally. The camp site got invaded by a bunch of teenagers who set up tents, and then proceeded to get plastered and yell and play loud music. Luckily they got so drunk that they all fell asleep by 1am, but I heard some interesting conversations. Sharn, Ayesha, and Georgia, all think Karl is a 'fucking fag'. As far as I could tell, Karl was actually the boyfriend of one of those three women, but whatever. I myself am a 'softcock' (at least, that's what one of them called the people in my tent when they walked past) for not being out partying, despite the fact that I was watching over my sleeping eight year old. Most interesting was watching half a dozen women line up at the toilets to use the one powerpoint in the campsite to blowdry their hair, and then put on piles of makeup. It was like they were actually going somewhere posh, rather than sitting around a campsite in the dark getting totalled and then most likely puking up somewhere. Truly trash, luckily they all packed up and left the next day.
Alex was meant to stay up there with his mother and her father for another week, but due to a domestic fallout that got cancelled so we drove back down - another 11 hour trip, which he coped with really well. My wee baby was all good while I was away, she's really smiley and working hard on standing up and being in her jolly jumper (again probably not international, a thing you sit your baby in which hangs from a spring and they bounce around with their feet just touching the ground. Good for leg development).
I've come back to work since then, which has been a drag, but there's literally no one around (again, the complete slow down) so it hasn't exactly been hard. Yesterday a package arrived from starfishchick with a programme from Spamalot, and an article from a Canadian magazine about this guy that is seeking Moose in a part of New Zealand called Fiordland. They haven't been seen for decades, but it's a massive national park, and a couple of years ago they found recently pulled off moose hair. The whole thing was very "World Famous in NZ" (which is a phrase that makes sense to no one, so here's an explanation, but it's a bit complete. It's a very famous phrase from an advertising campaign for a drink we have here called L & P (which is world famous in NZ, as it doesn't exist anywhere else). Now people use it for anything that indicates NZ's famous, but mockingly, as in, it's famous here, but unknown in the rest of the world. Here are some other things that are world famous in NZ). All very cool, go the international package!
My computer at home is steadily turning into a paperweight - I can still check email and surf the web, but anything involving DVDs, games, etc, causes it to crash repeatedly. Alex is very annoyed. I have no money at all for anything newer, and the first thing I'll want to buy when I do get some money is a new pair of ice skates, as mine died in December and are apparently unfixable. But other than that, things are all good, and if I get myself organised enough, I'll put some more baby photos up.
Happy New Year everyone.
New Zealand's Xmas is a little different than what people might be used to in the northern hemisphere. The "Christmas slow-down" is a notable feature. Work and school go up until a few days before Xmas, and then after Xmas they have these big sales.
NZ then basically stops functioning as a country for about a fortnight. Everyone jumps in their car and goes camping or heads away to a bach (Kiwi-speak for holiday home). The NZ summer holiday is famously, about doing nothing at all. There might be beach cricket, and touch rugby, but that's about it. When we were kids, there were rules about our family holidays, including:
1. No one is allowed to wear a watch, or ask what the time is.
2. Meals happen when people are hungry.
3. People go to sleep when they're tired, but not before at least two games of cards (here in NZ we play 500, which is a little like bridge).
4. People get up whenever the hell they want.
5. Beach, swimming, sun-bathing (not so much now with the last one as we lost our ozone layer), bush walks compulsory.
You can't really do anything in NZ in this time. The whole government goes on holiday, they have what's called the 'duty minister' - one MP out of the 120 that we have, stays behind and deals with everything and anything. And no one cares, because almost everyone is on holiday anyway. The shops are open, but just about everything else is running on skeleton staff, if any at all. My work has a compulsory twelve day shutdown.
It's of course the middle of summer down here, so Christmas is typically BBQs, salads, fresh bread, fruit salad and ice cream for desert. Very few people do turkeys or more traditional dinners. Normally there's lounging around in the sun with a beer between meals, and backyard cricket if anyone is feeling very motivated. It's also summer holidays, so lots of people go camping for Xmas, and don't come back for another three weeks or so.
My Christmas wasn't too hot, as the night before I started to feel unwell, and I was up twice before dawn on Christmas morning throwing up. And then felt sick for another 48 hours. So I missed out on all the nice Christmas food, though in presents I did fairly well (t-shirts, ice hockey shin pads, book, mixing bowls, carving set, etc). Alex scored much better (being eight I guess that's fair), with ice hockey skates, ice hockey shorts, a new mountain bike, various toys, expensive tickets to see the Crusty Demons motorcross-x show, books, more toys, etc. Amelia got much clothes, this great noisy train set from her uncle who's in Washington DC, toys and baby books.
Our big adventure this year was on the 27th (thankfully I no longer felt sick by then). Alex and I drove the length of the island (about 11 hours almost straight driving) to get to Marlborough, a sunny, warm location, with beautiful sounds (is 'sounds' an international word? Think fijords, but no ice). My parents brought their yacht over from the northern island, and Alex and I, plus my brother and his wife and their 17 month old, camped out on the shore, and went back and forth to the boat and did fishing and sailing and played cricket and passed a rugby ball around and read books and swam and whatnot. In general it was good - the weather was really good for the first couple of days, and I got sunburned motoring the little dinghy back and forth out to the moored boat to empty it of all the camping gear. After that it was cloudy, but we only got one bit of rain during the day, and that only lasted for about 15 minutes.
New Years Eve was interesting. I've never spent a new years anywhere apart from NZ, so this might be fairly common internationally. The camp site got invaded by a bunch of teenagers who set up tents, and then proceeded to get plastered and yell and play loud music. Luckily they got so drunk that they all fell asleep by 1am, but I heard some interesting conversations. Sharn, Ayesha, and Georgia, all think Karl is a 'fucking fag'. As far as I could tell, Karl was actually the boyfriend of one of those three women, but whatever. I myself am a 'softcock' (at least, that's what one of them called the people in my tent when they walked past) for not being out partying, despite the fact that I was watching over my sleeping eight year old. Most interesting was watching half a dozen women line up at the toilets to use the one powerpoint in the campsite to blowdry their hair, and then put on piles of makeup. It was like they were actually going somewhere posh, rather than sitting around a campsite in the dark getting totalled and then most likely puking up somewhere. Truly trash, luckily they all packed up and left the next day.
Alex was meant to stay up there with his mother and her father for another week, but due to a domestic fallout that got cancelled so we drove back down - another 11 hour trip, which he coped with really well. My wee baby was all good while I was away, she's really smiley and working hard on standing up and being in her jolly jumper (again probably not international, a thing you sit your baby in which hangs from a spring and they bounce around with their feet just touching the ground. Good for leg development).
I've come back to work since then, which has been a drag, but there's literally no one around (again, the complete slow down) so it hasn't exactly been hard. Yesterday a package arrived from starfishchick with a programme from Spamalot, and an article from a Canadian magazine about this guy that is seeking Moose in a part of New Zealand called Fiordland. They haven't been seen for decades, but it's a massive national park, and a couple of years ago they found recently pulled off moose hair. The whole thing was very "World Famous in NZ" (which is a phrase that makes sense to no one, so here's an explanation, but it's a bit complete. It's a very famous phrase from an advertising campaign for a drink we have here called L & P (which is world famous in NZ, as it doesn't exist anywhere else). Now people use it for anything that indicates NZ's famous, but mockingly, as in, it's famous here, but unknown in the rest of the world. Here are some other things that are world famous in NZ). All very cool, go the international package!
My computer at home is steadily turning into a paperweight - I can still check email and surf the web, but anything involving DVDs, games, etc, causes it to crash repeatedly. Alex is very annoyed. I have no money at all for anything newer, and the first thing I'll want to buy when I do get some money is a new pair of ice skates, as mine died in December and are apparently unfixable. But other than that, things are all good, and if I get myself organised enough, I'll put some more baby photos up.
Happy New Year everyone.