Christmas on the beach

It seems that all anyone in the UK can talk about is all the snow and here we are in the middle of a glorious Summer. We're really enjoying it with weekends away exploring and feel incredibly lucky to be in such an amazing country and to have the sunshine to enjoy it. We've taken the opportunity to road-test our new tent. Yep, Marge has gone off on new adventures and we have a boring car (although Ben thinks it's a "sports car"!) and a fantastic huge tent! Check it out with this little video (fortunately the first take didn't work which I was pretty pleased about because all that bouncing around on the airbed made my boobs fall out! )....



Ben's folks flew out to join us for a Christmas barbecue on the beach. It was all a bit surreal, especially when one family arrived with a Christmas tree, put on Santa outfits and built a sandman! It didn't really feel like Christmas in lots of ways but I'm pretty happy with the trade off for a long, hot, sunny Summer. New Year's outdoor Black Seeds gig was pretty cool too :0)



Peter and Pauline seem to love the place as much as we do too, which is always good to hear and are already making plans for their next visit. It's been lovely having them here and without them we may never have visited a volcanic island in hard-hats and gas-masks! Mind you, Ben's Dad's obsession with bird watching has had us all bored to tears at times and I'm pretty sure that as much as we'll miss them I'll probably survive without his regular rant about the evil sparrow!!



There are more photos here!

Parties and other fun stuff!

The social lives have certainly stepped up a notch. It's been party central over these last few weeks. It seems that the Kiwis have come out of hibernation and are living it large, just as I've become accustomed to going to bed at 9.30 every night too! We had a 'P Party' which saw us scooting about town dressed as pirates, a huge 'do' at Julie's farm where Ben spent most of the evening in the hot tub (and most of the next day being sick) and a 50th birthday bash. When did I get old enough to have 50 year old friends?!! The hospital ball was a big success but was pretty embarrassing for me as my face appeared far more frequently than most in the official photographs (it's who you know!).



Talking of photography, Ben and Phil have launched their postcards, so have a look at their website and click on 'products' for a preview, they're amazing...

http://www.pikitia.co.nz/



Next come the posters. It's fab to see them finally on sale after all their hard work. They tell me that for each card sold they make 5 cents though, so I won't give up my job quite yet!! Ben has been charging about the place taking photos for a competition he's entering too. He came up with the theme "Dream Land New Zealand" and has as a result been taking photos of Phil pretending to be asleep in a bed, in various iconic Kiwi settings. I think he owes Phil a fair few pints after he lay shivering semi-naked in the rain surrounded by sheep in a field and caused more than a few weird looks doing the same by the main road!!

More big news is that I've been granted residency. I'm allowed to stay - whoop, whoop! But it'll be a few more months until we know if Ben can too. There's a very good chance he'll get it, so we're pretty optimistic that we'll be able to stay for good. When we first planned to visit New Zealand we said we'd give it a couple of years before we made a decision about living here permanently, but we already know we love it and want to stay if we can :0)

So... If Ben gets his residency too and we've decided we're going to stay, do you know what that means? It means we can get a dog! I am very excited. I've become totally preoccupied with the idea and started "torturing myself" (as Ben calls it!) by looking at the dogs on the local animal rescue web sites. We can't get one until after the Summer as we're going away and have a full house with all our visitors, but come March then maybe we can. But, and it's a pretty big BUT, we need to get our landlady to agree first and that may be a major spanner in the works. I made the mistake of sharing my dog excitement with my Dad who is now even more obsessed with the idea than me and didn't take the wait-and-see-what-the-landlady-says news well at all. Sorry Dad, I'll work on it I promise!



The other thing that has been playing on my mind (in a way that it has been suggested may be less than healthy) is planning for a natural disaster. OK I know that sounds ridiculous, and Ben and Erin have both been a little concerned for my sanity, but let me explain before you imagine me digging a bunker in the garden or something! So what happened was, I went to the New Zealand Occupational Therapy Conference (which was very dull but that's another story) and one of the workshops was about natural disaster response and talked about the role of health professionals following some sort of disaster, like a tsunami, earthquake, storm or whatever. Everyone was discussing their "Emergency Response Plans" and I was like "Erm... Sorry... What?!" and that's when I found out! In this part of the world, you're supposed to have everything that you need to survive for three days if services are cut off in the event of a disaster. And the really scary thing is that Kiwis all know this and my very unscientific research suggests that most of them have planned for it! In schools they even have earthquake drills where they all hide under their desks whilst the teachers shake them!! The Civil Defence have this whole promotion called "Be Prepared - Get Through"

http://www.getthru.govt.nz/web/GetThru.nsf/web/BOWN-7GY2MF?opendocument

and there are adverts on the TV and everything! So you see I'm not totally mental. I'm not like those crazy Americans who have safe-houses filled with supplies and guns ready for the end of the world, it's actually normal here. They do have disasters in New Zealand, there are earthquakes all the time and we are over-due for a volcanic eruption. Only a couple of weeks ago they evacuated the coastal areas for fear of a tsunami! So you see, despite Ben's ridicule of me putting together our "DOOM BOX" (as he calls it) it's not that weird to have some drinking water, tinned food, candles and batteries in a safe place just in case now is it? Is it?!



OK, so apart from obsessing about disasters and dogs, what else have we been up to?! Well Marge is still with us and we've been away on a couple more adventures. We went around the beautifully desolate East Cape. We even travelled 20km each way along unsealed roads to the most easterly point of New Zealand and climbed the 750+ steps to reach the lighthouse there. There was a worrying moment when we got back in Marge and she didn't want to start. I don't think the AA would have been too impressed! But, as always, she came good in the end :0) It's real Maori country round those parts and you can drive for hours without even being able to buy petrol. It's truly like stepping back in time and you see people (when you see them at all) getting around on horseback. It's amazing.

There's been loads of other fun stuff too; the sailing season started this week and we got to sail around the harbour at sunset with dolphins jumping around the boat - amazing! We also had our first unexpectently energetic hula dancing class and played with animals at a little wildlife park. I've been to the theatre, done lots more baking, signed up for a silver jewellery making workshop and walked with 5000 women dressed in pink for breast cancer awareness. Molly's coming to stay again before heading off to Canada with her sexy fireman boyfriend (who can blame her?!). Ben's been photographing the local salsa festival, there's been much hanging out on the beach in the sun, and at our first BBQ we made use of the free gas BBQs by the sea and fortunately had a Kiwi man with us to show us how they work! Next weekend we might learn how to do dragon boat racing - whatever the hell that is! Never a dull moment these days and it's not even Summer yet! It won't be long 'til our visitors arrive too. Can't wait :0)

View the photos on facebook here.

A year on...

In a couple of weeks time it'll be a year since we left the UK, which feels kind of weird. It's been such an action packed year. I've just had a little read over some of the old blog entries and we've done so much. It's a great way to reminisce and I hope one day we'll be able to show it to our kids. In some ways the time seems to have flown by but then in other ways thinking back to living in Cardiff seems like another life, which of course it was.

It seems a bit different keeping the blog updated now that we've been settled in Tauranga for a while. I don't suppose it's all that interesting to hear that it's Monday night, which is squash night for Ben, that my bum aches after my circuits class or that I've only got a week left of my veggie cookery course. Knowing that we've spent a few evenings at the recent film festival, bought my first piece of art and hung out in the local hot-pools (a favourite Kiwi past time) a few times doesn't make for the most exciting read. You may be amused to know however that I went to "Heather Fest" an event attended by fifty-one Heathers. Freaky! But it is still a good way to let you all know what's going on with us and I like to think that you can picture us pottering on in our new lives so you don't forget about us :0)



Spring has officially sprung here now and for the first week it was absolutely gorgeous. I was wearing flip-flops to work and it seemed like Summer was well on it's way. However not liking to be taken for granted the New Zealand weather had other plans and then chucked a load of rain at us. Having said that, on the whole, it's pretty sunny now and the clocks change soon so it'll be lighter in the evenings which will make a big difference. The sunshine has inspired us to get some more weekends away in Marge, whilst we still can, because we think we're going to sell her :0( It just doesn't make much sense to have a camper-van as our only means of transport and we just don't use her enough to make it worth while. I think she needs some new owners who will take her off adventuring again. It's like Puff the Magic Dragon (that was a toy in a song who was really sad because he didn't get played with any more - for those of you that have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about) I think sitting on our driveway instead of being out there doing what she was made for may be making her sad. So it looks as if we'll be back to good old fashioned camping again soon.

In a huge step towards becoming a fully fledged Kiwi woman - no I haven't been given residency - apparently they need nine months to make that decision. Nine months! What the hell do they do for nine months?! Sorry I digress... so my significant step towards becoming a Kiwi woman is... I baked! They're all at it here. Not just the posh middle-aged ones like at home (?!) ALL of them. I've been fighting it for a while but then I just thought "why not?". So I tried to do something relatively healthy and made some flapjack cereal bar type things and some cranberry scones. Now there was a point in the middle where disaster seemed inevitable. The cereal bars didn't look like they were going to stick so I thought I was just going to end up with cereal! And the scone mix was just a gigantic pile of glue, which was all over me!! But some how I sort of pulled it all together at the end. Well I did need to cut the burnt bits off the bottom of the scones, but they still tasted good. Ben was particularly delighted even though he got left with all the burnt bits to eat whilst the best ones went to work with me! It's only a matter of time until I'm making jams and chutneys :0)



The other significant change to have occurred recently is the entry of Erin into our lives. She's an American social worker that I work with and she too likes to get drunk and go to music gigs. Hallelujah!! We're so happy that we've found someone to play with :0) We do love the Kiwis but every now and again you don't want to go to bed at 9pm (have I told you they all go to be ridiculously early?!). The three of us have had a couple of good old fashioned nights out, with all the usual terrible dancing and late night revelry, followed by hideous hangovers. She's great, we love her lots even having her turn up on our doorstep unexpectantly one evening and demand a load of cash as she'd just filled up her car with petrol only to realise she'd lost her wallet wasn't enough to put us off. Fortunately having me mercilessly rip the piss out of her and her nation of origin hasn't totally scared her away either. So it's all good.

We had a weekend away to Taupo recently. We weren't in Marge, the hospital (that I work for) owns batches (holiday homes) around New Zealand which we can rent really cheaply. So we headed off with Phil and Michelle (previously featured Brummies) to one of the houses. Phil, another photographer, is now officially Ben's business partner (I'll get to that in a minute) so Michelle and I were pretty happy they had each other to play with as they got up stupidly early to take sunrise photos and stuff whilst we got to stay in bed :0) Taupo is on a huge lake with the mountains, where the skiing antics of a few weeks ago occurred, as a dramatic backdrop. Lovely.



So yeah... Ben has a business partner. I was hoping that he would write something about what he's been up to but he hasn't, so here goes!... He and Phil are in the process of setting up a business selling posters and postcards to tourists. We've got some of his posters framed on our walls and they look fantastic. You can take a look at them if you like at

www.gloopics.com - Benjamin Albert Smith Photography

Both Ben and Phil have also been doing some tutoring at the local photography school. Ben is hopefully going to have an exhibition in the centre of town during the peak holiday season, which also coincides with when his folks are visiting, so that's amazing news. He's doing some web design work for other photographers too. So it's all starting to come together and hopefully all his hard work will pay off. He's not making much money yet, which he finds a bit frustrating, but we can manage for a while so it's OK.



My work is still going well. I'm moving teams again, I won't bore you with the details but the important thing to know is that the Mount (aka the beach) will be my patch again, just in time for Summer :0) I really like the people that I work with and am still enjoying what I'm doing. I'm hoping that my residency will be sorted out by the end of the year because there is a years postgraduate course (in CBT for those in the know) that I'd love to do next year. If my residency is finalised my employers will fund the whole thing and give me the study leave etc I need, so fingers crossed. By the time that's over hopefully Ben will have residency too and be making a decent living so maybe, I said MAYBE, then we can think about having babies!!!!! (I just hope our old bodies will be up to the job!)

We're very, very excited about the Summer now. It looks as if it's going to be one in on out at our place as we've got a continuous stream of friends and family visiting from November through to May! Can't wait. We're officially licensed scuba divers now too, so we'll be doing some more of that and I'm definitely up for some sailing. Other weird and wonderful things we have planned include an eight week course in Polynesian Hula dancing that I've somehow managed to persuade six of the girls in work to do with me! The hospital ball which I will be attending clad in the biggest pants in the world so that I can fit into my dress, whilst Ben will be one of the official photographers. A jewellery making workshop, New Zealand theatre, loads of walking and camping, tonnes of gigs, numerous BBQs and much wine drinking :0) Bring it on!!!

Facebook photos here.
Bens photos here.
Also check out the following websites that Ben has been involved in
Capture-it NZ - Tauranga School of Photography
GATE Photography

Ski Torture

Heather:
Skiing, as it turns out, is not for me. Now given the fact that the nearest thing I have to phobia is a somewhat irrational fear of slipping, it was never going to be easy. I've never been able to ice skate, even as a kid I couldn't roller skate and seeing one of those wet-floor warning signs causes the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end. But we live three hours away from the snow field where our friend Molly (a regularly featured blog character) is living, so we thought we'd head on down for a weekend and give it a go.



The setting was stunning. I've never been right into snow covered mountains before, so that part of the experience was great. However, the actual skiing part was another matter... I don't actually have the words to describe how much I hated it. Ben thinks I got some kind of karmic payback for when I used to laugh at Karen who was scared of heights and jump up and down on the bridge we had to cross every day on our way home from school, whilst she cried and took baby steps across it. I was genuinely terrified. Even standing still on the flat made me want to cry! It wasn't the falling over that scared me - in fact the only time I felt safe was once I had fallen over! No it was the actual skiing part that scared the living daylights out of me! I lasted about half an hour before I gave up and swore that I will never be doing it again! Don't even think about giving me any of that "if you just give it a bit longer I'll learn to love it" bollocks because I will seriously never EVER be doing it again!

Ben is very keen at this point for me to mention that fact that, in his words, he was a "pro". His shield of optimism again served him well. He faced the challenge with completely unfounded confidence in his abilities to ski brilliantly, never having done it before and, I'm reluctant to admit, was brilliant! He will of course have to find himself another ski partner, because I will never (just to make it completely clear) be doing it again. As I had plenty of time to hang out watching everyone else ski I managed to get some video footage of him in action, check it out.



Despite my instant hatred of the whole skiing fiasco it was still a fab weekend. It was brilliantly sunny, so I had the brand new experience of sitting in a pile of snow in a t shirt repeatedly applying sun block. I loved watching everyone else skiing and snowboarding and the chair-lift concept is one I can get in to :0) We did a bit of hiking too and it was amazing to see the same mountains that we walked among in the Summer now totally covered with snow. Also, of course, it waslovely to see Molly and to get drunk after the whole ordeal was over!



Ben:
My photos from the journey back to Tauranga can be found here.
Heather's photos on facebook can be seen here.

Rarotonga

Heather:
What a fantastic place! It really is a little paradise. It's a small island, thirty-two kilometres in circumference, surrounded by golden, palm-fringed beaches and a crystal clear lagoon, with a mountainous interior covered in rainforest. It's hardly built up at all, everyone just scoots about on little motorbikes and the locals are really friendly and welcoming. We stayed in a little hut with a bedroom, on-suite bathroom, little kitchen, with patio doors straight on to the beach. Could you ask for more? How about glorious sunshine, a hammock and cheap cocktails?! Perfect :0)



There was an awful lot of lying around in the sun drinking pina-coladas but we weren't horizontal the whole time! We hiked from one side of the island to the other. It was bloody steep but definitely worth the effort as when we reached the top we could see the sea in both directions. It only took four hours but was definitely the most active thing we did in the whole ten days!



We didn't get to do any diving as we were still a bit bunged up (you can't dive with blocked sinuses) but we did do plenty of snorkeling. It was a considerably more enjoyable experience chasing the fish about in the warm, calm waters of the lagoon wearing only our swimmers, than it was flailing about in all that gear in the freezing waters of New Zealand! We saw all kinds of brightly coloured tropical fish and sea cucumbers and lots of other underwater life that I should probably know the names of.

We even went to church on Sunday, as the Cook Islanders are known for their gospel singing. It was quite an experience, made even more enjoyable by the arrival of a bus load of gorgeous Australian rugby league players! After the service we all got invited into a hall where we got fed loads of fantastic local food and cakes made by the ladies from the church. We (in this instance "we" being me and some of the other girls from the backpackers) got to do some more drooling later in the week when we went to watch the Ozzies play the local rugby league team!



Of course we experienced a bit of the traditional local culture too. We went to the weekly market and a show which involved lots of drumming and energetic dancing (to Ben's delight) by girls in coconut bras! We ate at some gorgeous little beach-front restaurants and saw lots of picture-perfect sunsets. There was even loads of friendly dogs and cats (of the non-mangy variety) to play with - vital to make it my perfect holiday. Plus, did I mention the cocktails?!



Whilst we were in Rarotonga some of our friends were at the Glastonbury festival back in the UK and to be honest we were pretty gutted about not being there too. But I have to say the fabulous setting, combined with all those cocktails, was a fairly effective method of numbing the pain! Maybe we should go back every year :0)

Ben:
There are more photos here and some photos on facebook here

Practically Locals

I reckon Ben and I are well on our way to being Kiwis. Last weekend we went scuba diving, stacked our first fire wood delivery, went to a bbq and frolicked on the beach at the Mount with Maree - a genuine Kiwi (there hard to come by 'round these parts!). Surely that combination of activities makes us more or less locals!!

The scuba diving was predictably FREEZING! We spent ages bobbing about on the surface trying to get all our gear sorted out and swallowing what felt like litres of salt water, but did eventually gain enough control to explore the underwater world. Swimming through the kelp jungle on the sea-bed and was quite an experience and there were loads ofcolourful fish. But even the hefty wetsuits we were wearing weren't much match for the ten degrees centigrade water! You'll all be pleased to hear that I mastered the whole mask-clearing thing in the end - phew and Ben's got some contacts so he can actually see too :0) We were supposed to be going diving again this weekend but I have to say I'm pretty relieved that it's been cancelled because of bad weather as we've both been sneezing and snivelling ever since. I'm sat next to a mountain of snotty tissues with a rug over my lap like an old lady!

The fire wood delivery caused us quite a lot of amusement as we had absolutely no idea how much we had ordered. Apparently $160 buys a giant pile's worth as a truck pulled up outside and emptied it's entire contents on our drive! It was quite a mission to get it all stacked up in the garage. But we're pretty happy now that we're toasty warm :0)



We've got fairly hectic social lives now, which seem to involve a lot of wine and food - so that's all good :0) There's also a seemingly never ending supply of reasons in work of why we have to have cake. There's all theusual, you know birthdays and special occasions and stuff, but who the hell ever heard of a "it's a week until I go on holidays cake"? Oh well, Ben's pretty happy with the situation as I always sneak him home a piece too :0)

Ben's photography stuff is still going well and he's started to do a bit of computing stuff for the photography folk and has been asked totutor a course too, but really he should be the one telling you about that, so I'll write it on his list of jobs and maybe he'll get round to it sometime!!

It's only a couple of weeks until we go on holiday, which seems kind of ridiculous, but I'm not complaining because I don't think we'll be going anywhere else for a long time. When we arrived in NZ I needed an onward flight as I didn't have a work visa when we first got here. So months and months ago we booked flights to the Cook Islands and when I started work they agreed to let me have the time off because the tickets were already booked. So very soon we'll be heading off for ten days on a tropical island in the sun (hopefully). I'm really excited because I went there when I was travelling ten years ago and I've always wanted to go back. We're hopeful we'll be able to do some scuba diving when we're there and I'm really looking forward to seeing the sun again :0)



I've been mucking about with the camera so don't blame Ben for the poor quality of the photos, but at least you might actually see some pics of the local area! Here are some more.

God Save the Queen!

Heather:
I've never been a royalist but over here we get a day off for the Queen's birthday - so from now on I'm her number one fan! We've made the most of the long weekend and been exploring up the coast. It's cold but beautifully clear and sunny so it's been lovely messing about on the beach and stuff. We had our first night in Marge since we moved into the house and we realised that we've missed her a little bit. It felt like we were home :0) She's pretty cosy too with our little heater. We've discovered that living in a wooden house isn't quite so toasty! Fortunately we have a wood burning fire to cuddle up in front of but first thing in a morning we can see our breath! The weather forcast has come on the TV as I write this and it's all about the snow. TROPICAL they told us. The big fat liars! OK it hasn't actually snowed here but there has been a few hail storms!



We're on the scrounge for furniture because the stuff in the house at the moment (in the video) is due to go in the next week or two. We've had a few offers of freebies so who knows what kind of tatty second-hand stuff we'll end up with. Ben thinks we're going to spend the money we have got on a huge flat-screen LCD television - I don't think so!!!

The scuba diving torture sessions, I'm sorry, I meant lessons (?!) are well under way. I've done a bit before and I really don't remember it being so bloody difficult. Even just in a pool wrapped up in all the clobber I just cannot make my body do what I want it to! We have to do this horrible thing where you take your mask off under water and then put it back on and blow all the water out by blowing hard out through your nose. I just cannot get it right. They actually sent me home with a mask to practise with IN THE BATH! And... the worst thing is, when I had a go I still just ended up coughing and spluttering everywhere. How the hell am I going to do it in the sea? We're due to go on our first proper out at sea dive on the weekend and I'm actually really scared. It's bloody freezing. It wasn't like this when I did it on a Florida beach!



I am feeling a little bit smug too though as I did that a 10km run around the Mount yesterday and I didn't even find it hard :0) I may be eating like a horse and not losing anymore weight but at least I'm fit. Which reminds me I had a health check at work. I had to have blood tests and stuff and to jog up and down a step for a few minutes, have my blood pressure taken, answer lots of questions blah blah. With all the results they calculated my body's physical age as apposed to my actual age and.... I'm 29 apparently which is a bit of a bonus seeing as I am 33 :0)

Our social lives are definitely improving. We were even invited to an eighteenth birthday party and I have to say I wasn't entirely happy being on the "adults" table. They were the best behaved teenagers I have ever encountered and they "don't drink alcohol". The teenage years without alcohol? Can you imagine it? No thank you!! We were wondering if all Kiwi teenagers are the same and then discovered that they most definitely are not when we went to a gig (Katchafire, they're a Kiwi Reggie band and are surprisingly good so look out for them) and everyone was completely bolloxed!



We had Michelle and Phil, a couple of Brummies who moved here a few months ago, over for curry and lots of wine. We've got plenty in common as Phil's into photography too so Michelle and I can compare stories as to the lengths our other halves are prepared to go to to get the perfect shot. Ben has recently had me hanging about in the cold and dark dressed in hoodie impersonating a graffiti artist whilst Michelle has been forced to pursue old folk in mobility buggies. I keep nagging Ben for photos of the local area so you can actually see what it's like here but apparently it's more important that he takes photos of his guitar or a hammer on my dressing gown (?!) Ben and Phil are both doing photography courses and it's "homework" apparently!



The whole hoodie thing was another experience that highlights the differences in the way people treat each other over here as compared to the UK. Instead of calling the police, as you might expect the law-abiding owners of the shop Ben and I were suspiciously hanging about behind pretending to be vandals, they came out to see what we were up to and offered to hold the flash! Kiwis, you gotta love 'em :0)

Ben:
There are more photos here. Most are homework from my course. The photos named "one spot" were some of ten totally different photos that were all taken from one spot. The guitar photos are from a series of ten different photos of my new guitar.