In my 8 November post Frances posed the question "What do you miss about one home when you're living in the other? Or do you just adapt immediately?" and Julia suggest a post on the subject. So here we are.
The short answer to the second question is "Yes, I do adapt pretty much immediately" or at least I have this time. The sort of things that catch me out wherever I am are the small things like trying to remember where that particular tool or kitchen implement is only to remember that it's in the 'other' home. Adapting from one car (a large, fast, comfortable tourer) to another (a small, nippy, rather cramped fun car) is instant but I've always been used to driving several vehicles.
The way the question was worded would suggest that in order to adapt immediately one should not be missing things. I do, however, find some big differences and also miss some things very much indeed.
Hawkes Bay is undeniably very much warmer and overall has far better weather than the Isle of Lewis especially as I am here in NZ's summer whilst Lewis languishes in the wind and rain which characterises its winter. However, and it is a very big however, when I return to NZ I always feel very much colder than when I left Scotland. Why is that? It's because when I am outside here or in Scotland I dress according to the weather and temperature. When I am inside my Lewis house the temperature in the living areas during the day rarely falls below 22℃ because I have central heating and like that temperature: I am my Mother's son and feel the cold terribly (CJ on the other hand is his Father's son and feel the heat terribly). When, however, I get to NZ the temperature inside The Cottage is more closely allied to the general temperature which, since I returned, has been around 16℃ much of the time during the morning and evening. In NZ people are more in tune with nature than in the UK and if it gets chilly they put more clothes on. Simple. It's also much healthier.
Another thing about NZ is that, as a general rule, fresh food is eaten in season and, usually, produced in NZ. In the UK few people think about seasonal food. The supermarkets have everything in all year round sourced from any country in the world that produces what is needed. The NZ way means that when a food comes into season it is appreciated more.
Of course I miss friends and family when I am away from the country they are in but modern communication makes contact on an almost daily basis a possibility and I know that it'll never be that long before I see them again.
On the whole, though, I live two very different lives in the two homes. Here I play croquet, go away to tournaments and socialise a more than I do in the UK. In Scotland I spend a great deal of time in my garden although I also spend a lot of time away visiting friends and family.
The big problem for me will be when I have to give up my New Zealand life which, eventually, will be inevitable. I love my two lives. I can not imagine what it will be like returning to one alone.
Oh, I nearly forgot. The one thing I do miss in both countries is early spring and daffodils. I do love daffodils.
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The differences in your two homes are probably what you love the best.
ReplyDeleteNot sure why you'll have to give up your NZ life eventually, but until that time comes, enjoy it to the fullest.
Virginia the contrasting lifestyles certainly plays an important part. I do not have a right to residency in NZ so my stays are limited to 6 months in any period of 12 months (or 9 in 18).
DeleteGB, as a new follower, I am fascinated by your choice of lifestyle. Don't get me wrong, I get the 12 months of Summer living in Far North Queensland I do not miss Winter weather even when much milder than the UK. But I am curious ~ What made you decide to migrate with the birds each year. I am thinking family? And you say eventually you will return to the UK when you give up NZ? Why not the other way around. I have a friend from the UK who made the permanent move to NZ. And I have to agree with the concept of eating in seasons and locally ~ they call it food miles.
ReplyDeleteIt just happened Carol. I didn't set out to have two lives. As to how, I will blog sometime. Perhaps today even because I've been confined to barracks for the day (apart from a visit to the doc) so that I can go to the Ballet this evening without coughing. I have a chest infection.
DeleteOoh I like things that just happen in life. Sorry to hear you are unwell, maybe just the body catching up with all the travel and change in climate. I hope the Ballet is enjoyable.
DeleteIt sounds idyllic. I couldn't do it because of family. I'd miss them far too much. But you perhaps have family in both of countries, GB? I do envy you the food in season thing. We have tasteless strawberries in winter, and ditto new potatoes out of season. Nothing seems quite so much of a treat, somehow.
ReplyDeleteBut how I too would miss the daffodils!
Frances my family is scattered and although technically large in practice it consists of my Brother and his family and my son, Gaz, who will marry next year and make his home on Lewis. He is away 2 months on and 2 off because of his work pattern as a Chief Engineer at sea. It is something Islanders get used to. I have Very Important Friends though who are as close as family and they are in both countries.
DeleteI couldn't do it because of work, and money. Like Virginia, I don't know why you'll eventually have to give up your NZ life, but I am sure you have thought things through very well. What about the times you spend in each place? Isn't that entirely up to you? Couldn't you just say one year, you go to Lewis early enough to still catch the daffodils, or return to NZ early enough to catch them there?
ReplyDeleteEating in season is good. I do it, too, but mostly because I simply don't feel like eating strawberries in winter or oranges in the summer.
It's not quite as simple as that Meike because of residency restrictions in NZ. Strictly speaking there are also complications for my tax and pension if I am out of the UK for more than 6 months in a year. I could probably benefit financially but it's not worth the hassle. It is also important to me that I'm in NZ during the main part of the croquet season because it is such an important part of my life here.
DeleteYou are in a similar situation that people have here. Many people spend the winter in Arizona. They have two completely different lives. Like you,they love it. They also know that it will come to an end.
ReplyDeleteYes Red. I know people who live in the UK and Spain and France for part of the year too. There is relative free movement in the EU just as there is in the US but that's not the case for NZ.
DeleteI think you probably get the best of your two worlds, Graham, even if you miss the daffodils! And major changes are usually hard to imagine before we're actually faced with them... (Sometimes they are easier than imagined, sometimes harder, and sometimes we just feel completely different about the whole thing than we'd ever have thought only a few years earlier!)
ReplyDeleteYes Monica. Carpe diem. Qué será, será etc.
DeleteYou'll just have to build houses for all your New Zealand friends/ The Family on Lewis so they can move/ stay there! (Thinking about myself? Of course!)
ReplyDeleteThat was a facile comment. Seriously, I know why you'll be changing back to one home. But you'll have all those years of brilliant memories that others have never had... And if you think about it, really, just a change is what it will be. And there's nothing so guaranteed as change... I like Monica's comment.
Would that I could implement your first sentence Katherine. That'd be Really Good. I'm just grateful I've had all this time here in NZ. Life's been Really Good. Even more so considering it might well have ended back in 1998.
DeleteRemind me to send you some virtual Daffodils...
ReplyDeleteThank you CJ. Every year Pat rubs it in by sending me photos of the mass of daffodils in my garden.
DeleteI really love daffodils too and recall that they are spectacular in England. They must be the same in Scotland, and what about New Zealand, are they just the same there too?
ReplyDeleteIn Georgia, daffodils are special because the squirrels don't dig them up!
Kay I am told that the displays of daffodils here in New Zealand are awesome and every year when we pas a particular field on the way to a tournament held in November (this year's is next week) I am reminded by my fellow-travellers that 'this is the wonderful meadow and wood full of daffodils that you never see'. People can be so hurtful!
DeleteI would love to split my time and spend half a year in the UK, and the other half here in Seattle. Which is cuckoo, because the weather in the two places is almost identical, so that wouldn't change. But when I am here, I miss the family that is in the UK and all the fun things they do that we share when we're together. And when I'm in the UK, vice versa. Perhaps the modern availability of air travel has made me a malcontent!
ReplyDeleteCarol the lives and expectations of many of my generation are so different from those of our parents. Heaven knows how different my generation's children's expectations are/will be. I have to admit that the weather is important for me because, apart from the joy of the warmth, it enables me to indulge my love of croquet.
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