Thankful Thursday: Croquet

I was sitting in the Study here in The Cottage trying to decide what I was thankful about which could be bloggable and which I hadn't already blogged about.  Then an email came in with a comment which Jenny Woolf of An English Travel Writer had put on my post Home in New Zealand: The First Day Back in which she asked if Croquet was a popular game in New Zealand.  

The answer in short, Jenny, is in the affirmative.  I have just looked it up and I have mentioned croquet in 203 posts so far on this blog.  But then I am rather addicted to it.

So today I am thankful for the huge part that croquet has played in my life over the last few years:  for the friends I have made through it; the places I have seen travelling to tournaments; the hospitality I have enjoyed at tournaments; and the incredible personal satisfaction I have had playing such a wonderful game.

Wearing My Other Hat

Some of those of you in Blogland whom I follow have wondered why I appear twice.  In case there is any one of those whom I have started following more recently is wondering why I have just started to follow again the answer is that whilst I am in New Zealand I follow using this blog and whilst I am in Scotland I follow using my Eagleton Notes blog.  Simple really.  How can you tell which persona I'm using.  Well it's the hat I'm wearing.  On the left (my photo for this blog) is my first Tilley Hat bought in Carmel in California in 2004 and, in this photo, shown when I was on a heli-hike up the Franz Josef Glacier in South Island, New Zealand.  On the right is a similar but newer one photographed when I was playing Pétanque in France last year which I use for my Eagleton Notes blog.  I bet you can't tell the difference.  Well, actually, there is no difference.  I do love my Tilley Hats.  In fact I should really use my latest one for Eagleton Notes because it's distinctive and more appropriate to the Hebridean climate.  Perhaps next year.

Tidy The Blogger Reading List

I decided that there were a number of blogs on my reading list which I no longer had an interest in and, as the list was getting a bit unmanageable, I thought I'd remove them together with a number of blogs which no longer exist.  If anyone has succeeded in achieving that aim please let me know.  I went through all the steps (and in the process was rather puzzled how I could do that for blogs which came up as being non-existent) with absolutely no success.  However many times I removed a blog it simply re-appeared. Blogger can be very irritating at times.

Friends

Friends are what make life.  Of course I include my family - families 'cos I'm lucky enough to have two: a blood family and a surrogate family - because they are friends too.

So when I said in the last post that Lewis was another world, another life, I was referring to the obvious physical and a certain mental change that occurs when I move from one life to the other.  I assume that it's the same for anyone living two separate existences.  What never changes, though, is one's friends.  All that changes is the physical proximity to those friends.

Having lived more than half my life on Lewis it was to be expected that most of my friends would be there.  But life's not quite turned out like that.  Many of my friends, even those who were Islanders (as compared with incomers like me who were not born nor went to school there) are leaving the Island to retire on the mainland - often Glasgow.  My friends and acquaintances are, in fact, scattered across the world.

However the reality of the present day is that communications are so good and so immediate and relatively affordable that we may be far from our friends but we need never be out of touch.  In fact, in some ways, we are often more in touch than we are with people who live not 7 miles away.

So just because I'm on the other side of the world and can't go for coffee in The Woodlands or The House for an Art Lover or Linghams (for another 6 months) doesn't mean that I think about you any less.  'Cos I value my friends.

Home in New Zealand: The First Day Back

Standing on the deck of The Cottage when I arrived was like I'd never been away. 

Lewis might have been another world, another life.  Oh yes.  Lewis is another world, another life.  Physically and mentally this life is completely different from my Lewis life.  My life in New Zealand is, ironically, much more ordered and I'm tied to the routine of commitments which I don't have in Scotland.  For a start there is the routine of croquet which occupies at least four mornings and three afternoons a week assuming that I play on every occasion.  Then there's all the tournaments to be fitted in which usually involve travelling and staying away from Napier with 'The Girls'.

I used also to play pétanque on three afternoons but in those days I didn't play afternoon croquet to the same extent.  Now my pétanque has been abandoned.

A friend, Mike, had been staying at The Cottage for the weekend playing at a tournament at the croquet club so Sunday night was spent catching up over the odd glass of red or two.  

0514 Monday morning and I was wide awake.  Why?  The dawn chorus: definitely not a Lewis phenomenon.  Started emptying The Cupboard and getting The Cottage back to my normality.  Played croquet on a perfect afternoon.  It's a shame the croquet wasn't quite so perfect but then I haven't played for 6 months so I will give that excuse for my rustiness.

I tried to do this post but Blogger wasn't cooperating.  In fact it's not cooperated until this morning - Tuesday - when I not only was woken by the dawn chorus but decided to get up and get on.  After all it's croquet at 0930.

Coming Home - The Other One

In an hour or so I shall be leaving Anna's for Glasgow airport.  I shall fly to London Heathrow from there and this evening I fly with Air New Zealand to Hong Kong (where my son Gaz and his girlfriend Carol are at the moment) where I shall avail myself of that lovely airport's showers to freshen up before the flight continues to Auckland from whence I shall fly to Napier and my New Zealand home.  The first leg from London to Hong Kong is about 5700 miles (9170 Km) and the Hong Kong to Auckland leg is about 5900 miles (9500 Km).  I should manage a bit of reading over the next 48 hours!

No Worries

I know that graffiti is not to be encouraged but I was mightily amused by this addition to the town sign of Matata.  Matata is a small town (population less than 900) on the Bay of Plenty coast of northern North Island, New Zealand.

Surely there can be few readers who will not know of the phrase from the song in The Lion King where a meerkat and a warthog, named Timon and Pumbaa respectively, teach the main character, a lion cub named Simba, that he should forget his troubled past and live in the present.

As for the phrase?  It is a Swahili phrase that is literally translated as "There are no worries." It is sometimes translated as "no worries", although is more commonly used similarly to the American English phrase "no problem"

It'll not be too long now before I'm back in the land of my personal place where hakuna matata.  

Drawing Near

It's Friday.  It's the 14th October 2011.  It's raining.    I'm sitting in the kitchen looking out over the bay but in fact I can hardly see across the it for the mist and rain.  I have 23 sleeps before I'm back in my New Zealand home with my New Zealand family and my New Zealand life.  It seems such a long time.   At moments like this it can't come soon enough and yet.......

........and yet I still have so much to do here in Eagleton.  I only have 19 sleeps before I leave. It seems such a short time.

Therein lies a puzzle of my life.

My life never seems to be quite started nor quite finished with the tasks in hand.  I never seem to quite catch up with my croquet world (having missed various important club competitions already this year) and yet I still haven't managed to paint the bathroom ceiling in Eagleton (despite getting everything out and ready back in May).

But wotthehellarchiewotthehell it's a great life and I hope that I'll be living it for a long time yet.

I'll be seeing you soon New Zealand.

PS Don't forget to win the Rugby World Cup whilst I'm away.  I'll be watching the match in the comfort of my Eagleton home but my heart will be in New Zealand.

Two Countries

I've posted the following on Eagleton Notes but decided that it also belongs here.  So here it is:

This morning I went for a run (in the Nighthawk - I haven't suddenly taken to physical exercise!) to Otterton Mill (where the wedding reception is to be held and where I bumped into CJ and family and had coffee)) and then to Budleigh Salterton and Exmouth.  It was a rather dull and uninspiring morning for photography but when I arrived in Exmouth I was reminded of the close bond between the two countries in which I am fortunate enough to live at the moment (sorry, Scotland, but I'm pretending the UK is a country for this purpose) by this:

I've never been one for nationalism in fact quite the contrary but this sent quite a little shiver down my spine:

Two Lives

In Scotland. 

As a general rule my New Zealand life and my Scottish life manage to separate themselves in my brain emotionally.  I am frequently asked (usually in the UK) where I would wish to settle if I had to make a choice.  That's a question I always avoid answering.  

After The News this evening I happened to notice that The Phantom of The Opera was on the box and decided to put it on whilst I was finishing organising the Study (which I've been doing all afternoon) and writing my Thankful Thursday post.  Wow.  I hadn't allowed for what happened after I'd been listening (and partly watching) it for a short while.

I occasionally have the DVD on in the evening when I'm alone in The Cottage - my New Zealand home. My brain has obviously indellibly associated it with my New Zealand life.  Suddenly I was an alien in my own land.  I looked out over a familiar and loved land and seascape and experienced another life: a life from which I am, at this moment, detached.  It's an experience I will never be able to explain adequately but it is undoubtedly one of the most emotionally harrowing experiences I've had.

I suppose it's not one helped by the fact that the music and words of the work are also so emotionally charged.

Phew.