New Zealand, New Life

• So, here I am in God’s Own Country. This is according to Nigel, an immigrant of 23 years. Norm, of course holds a more balanced view, but is still justifiably proud of this green and pleasant land, Aeroetoa (I think) which means ‘Land of the Long White Cloud’.
  
  From my flat/apartment/cottage/annex (a name is yet to be decided upon, but fear not, it’s on the agenda) I can see the sea, Kapiti Island (pronounced to rhyme with Tappity, or, if you are feeling particularly ethnically correct, Carpet-y), and the South Island. My view, up until yesterday, was somewhat obscured by some very tall leylandii. Nigel took it upon himself to move mountains (well, cut trees) to improve my view. After the hedge-trimmers had gone I told Nigel he’d have to shave about three feet off the top of his house to perfect the view but he baulked at that. A bridge too far, it seems.
  
  Nigel is very much the CEO of Ashworth Towers and whenever he feels the need for a family meeting he brings pads, pens and a brusque manner while he chairs the meeting, referring to a printed agenda detailing the need for buying more cat food or getting a haircut. His brain works at a different speed to everyone else in the world and he WILL NOT tolerate interruptions or efforts to speed up the (painful) process. Being a doctor, his minutes are illegible and, on the whole, entirely unrelated to the subjects discussed.
  
  He is much the same when driving. If Norma and I are having a conversation when he is trying to, for example (and no exaggeration) turn a corner, he yells out, ‘SHH, man concentrating here, I can’t do three things at once so while the driver is trying to complete a complicated and dangerous manoeuvre you will be quiet in the back! No back seat driving!’ Norma and I, often discussing how to improve Rufus’ coat (the cat) or what to have for dinner, obediently quiet down until the corner has been triumphantly conquered and Nigel gives us the all-clear to continue. Actually, Nigel reminds me of Toad of Toad Hall in lots of ways, bless him.
  
  I may have mentioned that Norma takes Rufus for a walk down to the gate twice day to lock and unlock it. The morning walk is at 7.30 and Nigel always pops his head out of the house while Norma is at the gate and parps his trumpet to let me know he’s awake and ready for company. I am permitted to bring my instant coffee down to the carport and enquire about Nigel’s sleep. Neither of them will have any truck with instant coffee and I am privileged to be allowed to drink it, let alone bring it within 20 feet of the Baronial Hall. If for some reason Nigel is not disposed to wake me up in this charming manner and Norma needs my assistance with something she will wait until a more decent hour and tinkle a delicate bell inviting me to join her inside the house.
  
  The new system (because nothing is perfect until it is gadgeted up to the max) is a walkie talkie. Nigel insists upon the correct radio terminology so the airwaves around Paraparaumu are filled with, ‘Come in Badger, this is Base Camp, do you read me? Over.’ Actually, I’m loving being The-boy-I-never-was and playing with all Nigel’s toys – he has gadgets for everything.
  
  I am now called an ‘Estate Manager’ and Nigel tells all and sundry that I am here to manage is one-and-a-half acres of land. Mostly the newsagent cashiers, plumbers, passers-by are politely disinterested, but once in a while (his cardiologist’s receptionist, for example) are politely disinterested and slow enough not to run away and so get trapped into a twenty minute discussion of the merits of the term ‘Cottage’ over the term ‘Apartment’ for my accommodation.
  
  HOWEVER! Nigel had an epiphany today. I’m sure you can imagine his attitude to Counselling, Therapy, Spiritualism etc, but Norma managed to persuade him to book in for massage at the local Holistic centre. He returned a changed man. The chap in charge of this enterprise is call Dumbkopf (err…I think) and is a Dutchman who has been here for 25 years. He turned Nigel into this Mooney-type brainwashee who can talk of nothing else but the genius of this man Dumbkopf. The massage (at a cost of 45 dollars) never happened. He was in there for well over two hours and ended up ‘just talking’. For no charge. He’s clearly been recruited by the Scientologists. He has no idea he has been psychoanalysed and merely thinks Dumbkopf is a genius and Norma must go to see him immediately (Norma being a weak-minded woman who would benefit from a good talking-to).
  
  Update: Norma has been despatched to Dumbkopf. Nigel anxiously awaits her transformation. She’s been gone an hour…
  
  Nigel, having been told by Dumbkopf that he is ‘divine’ has taken this seriously and reminds us frequently of his divinity.
  
  Did I mention that he calls Norma by several nicknames? Buddy, Old Chap, Good Fellow, Chairman of the Board etc.
  
  The television in the cottage is an old 14 inch portable which has seen better times. The sound doesn’t emerge unless you stick a pair of headphones halfway into the headphone socket and wiggle it gently. It then needs to be propped into place using an old video case and a matchstick. It took me some time to get the hang of this and I mentioned it in passing to Toad of Toad Hall. In a state of some excitement at the thought of being able to play with a gadget and demonstrate his superior knowledge he very kindly wobbled up to the cottage and dismantled everything, bit by bit, telling me the purpose of every lead (‘Ah, now this bit goes from the telly to the video recording device, you see. Pass me that brown lead, there’s a good chap’). Having discarded one cable as both unnecessary and offensive (it connected the telly to the aerial), he then he said, ‘Oh, well, that’s no good, you’ll have to do without telly for the time being. Blasted thing’s a bit shonky (excellent Kiwi expression for bodged or crap) we’ll have to wait for the little man to come along and take a gander at it.’ ‘But, Nigel’, I said, ‘It was working this morning. Do you mind if I reconstruct my little system again so I can watch it until the cable man comes on Tuesday?’ ‘Oh, well, if you must, but I’m taking this cable – it’s no good.’ Trying to persuade him that the cable was essential (and functional) was a tactical minefield – and as you know, tact is not my strong point! Still, I can once again watch an odd selection of American sitcoms and British soaps (Norma is addicted to Corrie and Nigel won’t admit it, but his little face lights up when the first strains of the opening credits waft through the house).
  
  N&N took me up on my offer to cook the other night. I popped out to Woolworths (no idea if it’s related but it’s a supermarket here) and bought some mince and tinned toms etc. I took all the ingredients up to my apartment and commenced to cook the most putrid, bland, fatty, tough, chewy spaghetti Bolognese it has ever been my misfortune to eat. Nigel (who can normally barely clear his plate) had seconds, bless him, and kept reiterating how delicious it was, no truly lovely, honestly Alex, I’m not just saying that. What a loveable old codger. Norma politely declined my offer to cook again tonight, I don’t know why.
  
  It’s funny the things that are different here:
  · The water is so soft my hair has become overly manageable and is now a regimented boot camp of neatly lined up flatness. So much for ‘mussy’.
  · The mince was not puffed up with water as all meat tends to be in the UK and so was oddly dry to cook with.
  · Cream comes in over-sized Yakult type bottles and is just Cream. Not Whipping cream or Double cream, just Cream.
  · The nation is currently in mourning over a the demise of a favourite childhood sweetie called Sparkles or something. Looks vile.
  · Water main stopcocks are called Tobys. How can you take your plumber seriously when he asks after your Toby? Do you respond with a ‘Fine thanks, how’s your Muriel?’
  So culture shock is a slow, insidious process here.
  
  My heart sank yesterday when I asked N&N yesterday about the night life here and they looked blankly at me. Apparently there is no night life. This could be a real problem. I’m forty and I’m going to be living with two octagenrians, probably for ten years or more. Almost all of their friends are of a similar age.
  
  Sheila lives up the road from N&N. She’s 77 and very active, She’s run a riding school for years with her daughter, Mandy, and is dotty as a fruitcake. Unlike N&N her house smells of dog and horse all the time, her garden is a tangled (but still beautiful) mess and when I went there yesterday there was most of a mangled bird on her dining room floor which she hadn’t got around to clearing up (cat brought it in – feathers everywhere). So I felt much more at home there. She took me to the riding school and then to Mandy’s house (very similar) and then we went to the cinema along with a random lady called Brenda.
  
  The cinema was someone’s living room with a collection of sofa’s and chairs and a projector screen, but the film (can’t remember what it was called) was relatively new – had Helen Hunt, Bette Middler and Colin Firth in it. They all hated it but I really enjoyed it – partly cos I spent nearly two hours not thinking about old folk!
  
  Sheila is great fun and I like her daughter Mandy too – she has offered me riding lessons whenever I want, so I’ll have to clear it with the CEO first, but it shouldn’t be a problem.
  
  Nigel is keen to buy a Smart car for me – I told him I’d rather buy a second hand old banger but that wouldn’t look right in the garage so he’s reluctant to let me. I’m starting to feel a bit cramped! Their generosity is lovely but it does feel a bit like they’ve bought me dinner and now they are expecting me to put out. You know what I mean? Like they have assumed control over all aspects of my life. Ah well, I shall have to grow a pair, I suppose. Or at least attempt to locate a vertebra or two.

Cult status

So I'm standing at the taxi rank at Bangkok International Airport 'avin' a fag. It's a new airport and very imposing with lots of levels, walkways, glass elevators etc. That dire antiseptic feeling that makes you think you could be anywhere in the world. I'm a little disoriented (NOT disorientated! The extra syllable is redundant. Luckily my soapbox is portable so I'll fold it away now) because I've never been to this airport despite having been to Bangkok many times before. It was built sometime in the last ten minutes and is holding up well, all things considered, with only a few areas closed for repair.

This taxi rank, then. It's around 7.30am local time, I've been flying for 12 hours jammed into a seat on an exit aisle which had a handy electronic gadget for controlling the lights, volume of crappy tinned music etc which stuck about two inches into the seating area (and therefore my thigh). The bruise is excruciatingly painful, my feet are the size of basketballs, I failed to brush my teeth before we landed, I'm wheeling a bright purple flowered monstrosity of a suitcase (for easy visibility on baggage carousels. It works.) and I'm very cold. Having expected tropical heat I had forgotten that at 7.30am in the depths of midwinter (yes, Thailand has midwinter, not to mention 7.30am, a fact of which I had been previously unaware) it's probably only 15 degrees. So I've crossed to the sunny side of the street to have a cigarette and I'm standing there admiring the glass and concrete monstrosity of an airport when I hear violent bibbing. The taxi queue, previously moving at a good speed under the direction of several whistle-bearing, uniformed parking atendants, had ground to a halt while one cabbie, geticulating wildly, with his eyes goggling, screams at me that I'm 'soooo biiig!'. In case I had missed the point, he repeats this in several languages whilst pointing at my midriff. He knocks his lucky charms, dangling charmingly from his rear-view mirror, into an accomanying melody as he sings his joy at seeing such a freak so early in the morning. He will no doubt dine out on the tale of this giant, fat 'farang' with a psychadelic suitacse for weeks. Meanwhile, all the other cabdrivers, initally angry with my admirer, have turned to check what he is so excited about and slowly I see an entire line of cabdriver's eyes pop out of their heads as they gawp. Many immediately pull out their mobile phones and take pictures or phone friends.

Before this turns into an paparazzi-fest I decide to exit left sharpish, dragging my floral nemesis with me. O the joy of arriving in a country whose inhabitants have neither tact nor inhibitions. Nor much of a life, I'm guessing, if I'm such a thrill.

Master of Aghast

I find myself aghast and agog at a lot of things these days. Not least, my flabber was thoroughly gasted by being offered a place on the course I’ve been wanting to do for three years. I received confirmation by email last night and very patiently (I think you can assume ‘patiently’ is a relative term) waited until this morning to tell my boss I was leaving in six weeks. She was, of course, thoroughly distraught and managed to restrain herself from sobbing uncontrollably only by immediately escaping the room. I heard her sobs (which sounded remarkably like giggles) through the door and my ego was suitably massaged (although I think the masseuse missed a bit round my id).

So I have six weeks of winding down before I commence coiling my brain into new and interesting configurations which it has heretofore been unable to accomplish. (I just wanted to use heretofore in a sentence). An MSc? Master?? Of Science??? Is that even possible for a badger? Perhaps the fact that it’s a Welsh MSc will make it less impossible? I can only hope. And work my paws off, of course. An unlikely combination for a work-shy pessimist. Will wonders never begin?

Formal Dinner

So, I was invited to a formal dinner at Green College, Oxford. An old mate of mine, Joe, whom I hadn’t seen for years, is doing a PhD there. A Thursday night in December – in fact, the Thursday night in December following the tornado that pulled down a house in London.

I’m in my Focus, trying to focus on the pitch black road through the driving rain and howling wind. Dazzled by headlights and the glow of dead badger stripes, I’m wearing a skirt, a low cut top, tights and heels (not my usual attire, by any stretch). The wind is buffeting my cigarette and ash is flying round the inside of the car, fanned to a fine consistency by my whirlwind hair which I’ve spent hours straightening and is now sticking to my lipgloss in straw-like clumps, when it isn’t trying to escape through the window.

Having never driven to Oxford before I’m surprised by how close it actually is and have to stop at a petrol station just to kill some time. I find the right road by some small miracle and sit in the car composing myself before I knock on the door of my friend’s student accommodation. I totter across the gravel, trying to hold my hair away from my eyes (it’s trying to escape the confines of my head entirely - the pelting rain has dampened it enough to turn it to ringlets but the wind is causing it to re-straighten as it stands on end) and knock loudly on the imposing door.

The door is opened by a very well spoken youngish man who is framed by the most psychedelic wallpaper I have ever seen. Great swirls of green and gold cover the walls and ceiling of the cavernous hallway and he looks at me enquiringly. ‘Um. Is Joe here, please?’ I ask. Clearly, Joe is not here. The youngish man is very apologetic but says that he and his wife and children have lived here for many years. He suggests I try next door where a bunch of Balliol undergraduates live. He looks me up and down and remarks that I look like I’m up for a good time. (Well, he actually said that I looked like I was looking forward to a nice evening, but the effect is the same.) Slightly huffy, I thank him for his time and cross the gravel in my now scuffed and squelchy shoes and phone Joe.

Joe, it transpires, lives at number 39, not number 36. An easy mistake to make, and one that I blame entirely on him.

Joe’s room is fairly large but very sparsely furnished. A single bed, a wardrobe, a desk, a chair and a sink in the corner. Joe and I catch up while he irons his ‘best’ shirt on the desk (figuring out after a minute that he needs to put a towel under the shirt to properly simulate an ironing board). He has two suits, but one went mouldy while he was collecting dung beetles in Honduras and the other hasn’t been cleaned since he wore it as best man at a wedding.

Joe breaks it to me gently that we have to walk for fifteen minutes through the driving rain, in heels (well, his were much lower than mine) to the formal dinner. Despite being dressed to the nines, I don’t have a smart coat, so I’m wearing my denim which isn’t particularly weather-proof either. So, blinded and whipped by lip-glossy hair, tripping over every crack in the pavement and shivering uncontrollably we make our way to the hallowed halls of Green College.

When we arrive, one of the dry and warm deans looks at us dripping onto the carpet and pointedly wipes his feet on the mat whilst glaring at us. His glare disappears moments later to be replaced by a leer as I remove my jacket and reveal my not unimpressive cleavage.

After a few rapid glasses of (sour) wine we troop up the curved staircase to the dining hall. This is a large, oval room with a horseshoe arrangement of tables. We wait for the dean to say Latin grace and seat ourselves. All cues are taken from the dean – when to put napkins on laps, when to start eating, when to stop eating and when to leave the room. In fact, if you were mid-soup when the dean finished his, you lost the chance of finishing it, so fast would the staff whip your bowl away. All courses are served on crockery with the Oxford herald at the top of the plate and staff ensure the herald is in the correct serving position for every plate. The food is remarkably edible, if a little swift. A fleeting glimpse of broccoli and stilton soup, a snippet of red mullet on Thai vegetables, a speedy pork loin with veg and a hasty lime meringue pie.

Luckily, we are seated opposite a young professor of Environmental Law who is polite, welcoming and friendly. Due to the proximity of Yuletide and the end of term there are no empty seats and a resultant shortage of the rather grim wine. In order to numb my blisters and ignore the leers of the dean, I’m desperately trying to catch the eye of the sommelier (Jason – a good buddy of Joe’s) by winking and grinning. It is not seemly behaviour for a young lady at the best of times, and this is far from that, although the dean appears to enjoy the spectacle. During the four courses we are served a measly three (small) glasses, albeit a different wine for each non-soup course, so when the dean abruptly rises, mumbles a few words of thanks (possibly in Latin) and departs for coffee in the ‘common’ room, Joe and I scrabble for our jackets and sprint (teeter) to the nearest pub. Ah. That’s better. A pint of lager goes very well with lipgloss.

Perhaps Oxford abides by its own licensing laws, but when Joe goes to the bar to collect our doubles for last orders there is no indication that it is last orders. In fact we stagger out several drinks later (once we had started on doubles, it seemed foolish to stop). My feet are by this time both numb and sore so I remove my impractical shoes and walk through the puddles and pebbles in my impractical tighted feet. This does not aid the soreness, merely moves the location from heels to soles. Still, a change is as good as a rest.

Jungle Joe is perfectly happy to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor and politely offers me the bed, which I impolitely slump onto immediately. After a brief Radio 4 interlude we snuffle and grunt our way through the night under the dreaming spires.

The morning looms menacingly over our sore heads at 7.30 as Joe has to work and I have to shop. A bacon buttie later we split up and agree to meet for lunch. My sore feet, now shod in walking boots, grumble quietly as I marvel at the gargoyles and architraves whilst purchasing 3 Christmas presents for friends and family and twelve for myself.

We return to the college for lunch in order to take full advantage of the perks of studying at Oxford. Another speedy but delicious meal – less formal this time and not softened by alcohol. Fish ‘N’ Chips. Yes, with all the punctuation – it is Oxford. Joe’s pea soup is served at the same time as his main course in a quirky ‘aren’t students rebellious’ way. A swift coffee and Joe departs to work again and I shuffle off to find my car and drive home accompanied by a pleasant all-over ache and a little light Meatloaf.

An altogether surreal but successful trip.

Genius

No really. Have a look: http://www.weareallbadgers.com

Hot gossip

Wow! Did you know that Uri Geller and Michael Jackson are an item?? They are getting married! Well, in the dream I had this morning they are anyway. I find it slightly alarming that I'm dreaming of (alleged) paedophiles and con-artists - surely this is indicative of a sick state of mind. Possibly brought about by the copious amounts of alcohol and rich food which I consumed over a three week period loosley covered by the term 'christmas holiday'.
In an effort to save money I will be spending more time in front of my trusty keyboard. Despite having had an offer (which I've accepted) for my flat in London I will be brassick, skint, impoverished, destitute and basically miserable until I get my hands on that lovely hard cash. Which could be as long as three months or as short as 6 weeks. Keep your fingers crossed for me. All of which means that I can no longer while away the hours at the pub with my friends. Instead I will be writing to imaginary friends on the net, reading, playing board games with my bored friends and sleeping a lot. Could be worse, eh? If you fancy a quick game of scrabble, you know where I am...

Technicus interruptus

We apologise for the interruption in service. This was due to a technical fault with the brain of the author. The fault has not been rectified since the brain could not be found, but it has since been discovered that the brain is not crucial to the writing of a blog. Hence service resumes:

Since my riding skills are improving in leaps and bounds (well, lumps and falls, although not all my own) I have decided to open a dressage school for shire horses and middle aged couch-potatoes. (Why not sofa-potatoes - I've never called a sofa a couch in my life!). It will be a slow and graceful show whose audience will be composed mainly of small blonde giggling girls and bored sheepdogs. The advantage of using shire horses is that they are difficult to fall off. You could lie sideways on one and your feet wouldn't even hang over the edge. This makes acrobatics much easier. In fact I'm thinking of including a section of elastics. Two (small) couch potatoes, standing on the specially tailored saddle will stretch a large rubber band around their knees while a third jumps over it reciting 'Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, All dressed in
black, black, black... etc'. That should show those snootily-blonde pony-mad chits (see how carefully I formed that word?).