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.

Thankful Thursday

It's Thursday morning and this afternoon I shall be back in my Lewis home.

A few weeks ago I was listening to Radio New Zealand Concert and a conductor was being interviewed.  He travelled frequently between New York and London if I recall it correctly and he said that he had never, after many years, managed to get over the problems of jet-lag.  Since then I have listened to stories of what people go through with jet-lag.  I have to be honest and say that I had never realised how unpleasant it could be.  Yes, after being awake and traveling for long periods of time, I sometimes feel tired (most of my life I have needed very little sleep so that helps) but I had never appreciated what people who suffer from it experience.  Yesterday a friend was explaining.

So today - having had a great day yesterday without even feeling tired - I am exceptionally thankful that I don't experience jet-lag.

Floods in Napier

I'm up early this morning thanks to a Blackbird and the beautiful clear skies even though it's not yet 6am but I'm alarmed to find that Napier has had a really bad time since I left.  Jayne sent me these pictures of the croquet lawns:

@?!%$^&*(

0345!  I'm developing a love/hate relationship with a Blackbird!

I'm Awake

After being awake for nearly 50 hours (except for a few hours dozing on the plane between Auckland and LA) I fell into bed  before 10pm last night and slept soundly until......   0430 this morning when a lone Blackbird outside my open bedroom window started the dawn chorus.  Wow.  I had forgotten just how noisy the dawn chorus could be.  In fact, though it was the single Blackbird's very shrill, loud song that woke me, the comfort of the dawn chorus soon lulled me back to sleep and I woke at 0600 to make myself a cup of green tea.  The household is awake and the morning here in Glasgow promises to be absolutely stunning with the sun shining out of a cloudless sky.

Hearing the Blackbird and the dawn chorus was quite an experience.  At The Cottage the song of the birds including the beautiful but noisy Bellbird and Tui is ever-present as are the cicadas when the weather is warm enough but, because I sleep with the windows closed (if I don't I've discovered that the mozzies and so on come in and use my dormant body as a feeding place) and The Cottage is double-glazed the bird-song is not loud enough to wake me.  In Eagleton we don't have a dawn chorus and, in any case,  I tend to sleep with closed windows because of the wind!

So I woke to the following Facebook message: Fiona Richardson You missed the Waipuk earthquake last night, and they are evacuating the Hastings waterfront because of torrential rain and storms.... pretty good timing to escape! Sounds as if I've been lucky.  Fortunately, despite the bad weather and storms in Taupo where The Family are on holiday the weather has improved and they are enjoying some sun.  The landslips on the Napier to Taupo road should have been cleared by the time they are ready to return to Napier.

A day doing odds and ends today and then I return tomorrow to Eagleton.

Safely in Heathrow Terminal 5

The USA and LA airport seem to be on a charm offensive.  Over the last 6 years I have gone from waiting over 2 hours to get through Immigration into a transit lounge where the rest of the plane is already boarding (we set off late!) to today where we were through quickly (possibly 10 to 15 minutes at most).  More peculiarly though is the fact that both my NZ Telecom and my UK Vodafone cellphones worked!  This has never happened before.  Wow.  We even had free internet access.  Unfortunately it seemed to be down as was the T-Mobile network.  Very odd.  Of course the answer is to get my emails set up properly on the cell-phone.

The new Air New Zealand 777-300 is a splendid aircraft.  I haven’t quite worked out the ‘cuddle class’ yet.  The 3-seat beds either haven’t been taken up or they are not yet in use.

So now I've arrived at Heathrow Airport and am waiting for the flight to Glasgow.  Frankly a shower and change of clothes will be very welcome indeed.

And on that note I shall set off on the last leg of the journey - for today at least.  I'll be back in Eagleton on Thursday.

Almost Ready

With two hours to go before the off I'm packed and The Cottage is ready for it's new occupant.  So I thought I'd just say 'cheerio'.  I don't arrive home in Eagleton until Thursday afternoon because I'm stopping in Glasgow for a few days.  I had hoped to get more blog posts done today but 'twas not to be.  I always believe that things will take me less time than they actually do.  

I'll post a few more on this blog when I get back to Scotland and then I'll be back on Eagleton Notes.

See you soon.  Oh, and while I'm away don't do anything I wouldn't do.  That's what my Grandmother always said to me.  I never really knew how much scope that gave me!