Mali's A to Z

The End

2009-01-06T15:13:00.002+13:00

Everything must come to an end, and my explorations of the alphabet are over. I realised when X was for Xmas, that I had plumbed new depths. Z was also proving somewhat of a challenge, so it is time for something new.

Join me over at A Separate Life.

Z = Zigzag

2009-01-05T14:56:00.002+13:00

The logical, pragmatic, planning, and list-making part of me loves the idea of setting goals, achieving them, having the next five or ten years of my life planned out. But then I listen to people who do that, and think of everything they are bypassing.

Life doesn’t take us where we plan. For that I am very grateful. Some of my most rewarding experiences have been when plans have gone awry. Some of my most successful career moves have been the result of a barrier in the way of my plan, or simply of chance, being in the right place at the right time. I am who I am now, simply because my plans didn’t go the way they were supposed to.

A straight line is so boring. No stopping off to sample experiences on the way, to meet new people, to try new things. A straight line has no imagination, and covers far less ground. Zigzagging my way through life is much more fun.

Y = Year

2009-01-03T16:38:00.004+13:00

Y = Year was going to cover 2008. I thought of all the things I’d done, the places I’d been, the people who had made the last year a good one for me. As I lay by the beach on my summer holiday, contemplating this post, I imagined (on my return home) industrially calculating how many litres of coffee I'd consumed, how many letters I'd blogged, how many stairs I'd climbed at the gym and at home, etc.

But it is now the 3rd day of 2009, my summer holiday is over, and so my thoughts are turning to 2009. What will this year hold for me?

I know there will be travel and celebrations (our 25th wedding anniversary and my husband’s 50th birthday), but I’d like to see some changes in our life.

We're going to get out and about more. There is great theatre in Wellington, and we hardly ever go. Likewise, the art galleries. And plenty of bush walks (See 3 and 4 below).
I’d like to end the procrastination.
I’m sick of being scared of heights too. Note to consider hypnotherapy – especially as I’ve promised my husband I will join him on a balloon trip on safari in Africa.
Weight loss. I am relatively fit but want to be fitter. I am tired of cringing every time I see a photo of myself. Picture this for the ideal summer holiday. The beach on Christmas day. Catching up with a friend I haven’t seen in several years who was staying at a bach nearby. She is of course petite, skinny and glamorous, men love her. One-on-one I can cope with that. But then she introduces me to her friend, also petite, skinny and glamorous, a TV dietician who was given the name “Evil Diet Witch.” Needless to say I got out of sight as soon as possible, home to champagne and the rest of our Christmas chocolates as solace. But no more! ... though I have to finish the Christmas cake and brandy-soaked mince pies first of course ...)
Which brings me to a new hairstyle. Ditto re the photo. And if I cut my long hair off (sigh) I’m more likely to go to the gym every day.
But most of all, I’d really like to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. I’m starting to feel a little stagnant, and need some new challenges. Feel as if I've been searching for a long time. Maybe some study. Maybe a different job (though even as I type this I scream silently at the thought of giving up my self-employed lifestyle). Maybe I’ll spend the first half of 2009 working on that.

Whatever, I know that I will share my year with you. It’s become an addiction. A forced reflection on life. A good habit. A connection with unmet friends.

X = Xmas

2008-12-17T23:59:00.010+13:00

25 Things about Christmas
Bridgett and Lisa have done this, so having little imagination, I am following suit. I also cringe a little at using X for Xmas but I figure I can have a little leeway with only three letters left.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Wrapping paper, though today I have just bought a gift bag for the first time, largely because I have a pair of murano glass ear-rings from Portofino, which come in their own pink velvet gold-inscribed bags, and would look silly wrapped up!

I like beautiful wrapping paper, but invariably baulk at the price!

2. Real tree or Artificial?

Artificial. I love the smell of real pine, but I have allergies ... sigh.

I’ve had my tree since the 1980s, and not having children it’s still in perfect condition.
I love my tree. It’s the only decoration I put up, and have lots of beloved decorations.

3. When do you put up the tree?
Usually around the second week in December. Whenever I feel the Christmas spirit.

4. When do you take the tree down?
Usually on or after the Twelfth night, when it feels as if the New Year is really starting.

5. Do you like eggnog?
No, I find it a bit sickly. Like mulled wine, it’s never really caught on in NZ, as at Christmas in the summer we tend to drink champagne or other long cool drinks.

6. Favourite gift received as a child?
Goodness, I can’t name one. Any gift was a treat, as we didn’t get things bought for us during the year. My sister and I always used to buy each other a book. A new book is always special.

7. Hardest person to buy for?
No-one really, except perhaps my husband. He’s hinting about a 32” flat screen TV, but he’s not getting it. He’s quite hard to buy for, as we tend to buy things as and when we need/want them (which sounds awfully indulgent).

I occasionally have “shopper’s block” but find I’m more likely to buy too many things for someone than too few. I’m a pretty good gift-buyer I have to say, as long as I’m not under pressure.

8. Easiest person to buy for?
My sister-in-law in Melbourne. We have similar taste, and love buying each other gifts, so I don’t really mind that her birthday is only 5 days before Christmas. She’s already said she’s so excited about the present she’s bought me that I’m feeling a little pressured. Though I think the French ceramic bracelet from Annecy in France will keep her happy!

9. Do you have a nativity scene?
No.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Mail. That’s my task this afternoon. Though I do have a group of friends I met through the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust and I always email a Christmas message to them instead of buying and posting cards across the world, and donate the money I’ve saved to the Trust.

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Hmmm. When I was about six, I got given a cloth doll, the body was an open pocket for putting pyjamas in. I unwrapped it and loudly declared “oh no a DOLL!” That was my most badly behaved reaction to a Christmas gift, the gift itself was sweet.

Otherwise worst gift was probably a piece of clothing from my mother-in-law. Our ideas of taste and style don't come even close to intersecting. Fortunately she doesn't do gifts now, as my husband and I were running out of excuses why things didn't fit etc.

12. Favourite Christmas Movie?
Don’t have one. Couldn't name any I don't think!

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
Depends. Frequently pick up one or two things quite early in the year, but then get swamped with “birthday season” in August and October. Usually start shopping in earnest in mid November.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Probably. Can’t recall.

15. Favourite thing to eat at Christmas?
My famous mini-mince pies. Mmmm yummmmm. I bought the ingredients yesterday, baking them tonight.

16. Lights on the tree?
Sometimes. Not this year. Anyway – it’s light until 9-10 pm over Christmas. No point.

17. Favourite Christmas song?
Depends on my mood. Always love Silent Night though – it brought me to tears hearing it sung on my first Christmas away from home, when I was 18 in Bangkok.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Varies. Tend to alternate Christmas between husbands' parents who live in the same city as us, and my mother who lives in the South Island.

Although I enjoy Christmas I’m not sentimental, so don’t mind being away from family. On Christmas Days in the past we have
a) spent the day in an aeroplane travelling somewhere far far away,
b) driven around Oahu in a red mustang convertible,
c) in consecutive years explored northern Thailand in a red Jeep with my parents then his parents, and
d) spent Christmas in Bangkok with friends, and
e) celebrated Christmas in Vienna complete with cooked goose.

This year we’re renting a house on a beach “up north” and will have my sister, her partner and niece there in the morning, and will just be the two of us in the afternoon.

19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? Nope, not a hope.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star? An angel from the Philippines.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
The Christmas Eve thing is a northern tradition I think. These days, with few children around us, we quite often wait till the afternoon of Christmas day.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year?
Several annoying things.
Writing the Christmas cards and never quite finishing.
Covering work priorities before the summer close-down.
Mr Bean.
No kids or other peoples' kids.

23. Favourite ornament theme or colour?
I love most of my tree decorations ... with a passion! It's the closest thing I have to a collection. They are all so special to me, having collected most of them on my travels. I have lots from Thailand, where I started my obsession over different Christmas decorations. They include little red felt sequinned elephants – very Christmassy don’t you know? - and my favourite horn playing fat angels, and a Thai script "sawatdee bee mai" or happy new year. From Holland I have a pair of ice-skates – not very NZ Christmassy but so cute) - Vienna (wooden violins), the US (angel), Budapest (a baby in a walnut shell), Italy (cherub who looked remarkably like my best friends’ daughter when she was three), etc etc.

I buy a new decoration every year – I choose very carefully. This year I found a cute silvery bird, for $3.50!

As I said above, they all have special memories. I also have one I bought to remember my lost Christmas babies, but in reality, they all remind me of the children who will never see my beloved decorations.

24. Favourite for Christmas dinner?
My favourite Christmas dinner was when we had a whole salmon stuffed with herbs, wrapped in newspaper, baked in the oven. (You’re supposed to wet the newspaper before putting it in the oven – what with champagne, and guests, and chatting, I forgot. In the nick of time I remembered and as I pulled it from the oven, a wisp of smoke was rising from the corner of the paper ).

But otherwise I glaze a ham and have lots of yummy vegetables/salads, new potatoes, and always always fresh strawberries or raspberries with dessert, often Christmas pudding made by my mother-in-law.

25. What is your favourite thing about the holidays?
Summer. Knowing that Christmas day starts an 11 day summer break at least, and usually a relaxed and lazy January.

W = Wronged and Windows

2008-12-17T14:43:00.005+13:00

I’ve decided to do two Ws today, as once I get to Z I think it will be the end of my A to Z.

W = Wronged

A couple of years ago I was involved in an employment law case. Without going into details, it was a case based on a complete misunderstanding. The other party felt wronged, and would not speak to me at the end of our negotiations. He said essentially although not in quite so many words, that I was lying to him (despite also admitting I had always treated him fairly), and firmly believed his own interpretation of events. There was no convincing him otherwise despite him being terribly wrong. I am very confident in the way I handled this. My conscience is completely clear. There was no other way I could convince him when he had already convinced himself of the exact opposite. But it saddens me. That there is someone in this world who believes I wronged him, and no doubt feels terrible about it. It haunts me, especially over the last few days, for some reason.

On a brighter note ...

W = Windows

A split second glimpse through a window, in the midst of a rushed day, a busy life, stops me. I breathe. And I smile. In all weathers and in all lights, I love the views from my windows. I love the grand old macrocarpa trees from the top of the stairs,
and the cabbage tree which finally appears to be splitting this year (after over 15 years),

the valley, and of course, my cats (even though Gershwin is in my bad books for jumping on my lap as I was typing on my new laptop, and ripping out the F7 key).

V = Vintage

2008-12-10T17:52:00.002+13:00

Five years ago, I had a doctor who kept referring to “women of your vintage.” I felt like a wine that was souring, turning into vinegar, appropriately barren. He was trying to be considerate, but it would have been kinder if he had just been blunt.

Now, though, I am a very different vintage. Richer in character, able to stand up to time, changing and aging in the best possible way. I like to feel I’m maturing well. I like my vintage. It is one of the best. The kind to be celebrated, treasured, appreciated. So I do.

Vintage. There’s a lot in a word. And in five years.

U = Underwear

2008-12-08T15:28:00.002+13:00

Some years ago when I was going through a difficult time, a friend suggested I go out and buy myself some sexy underwear. At the time, sexy was the last thing I felt like. It was feeling sexy that had caused all this trouble, after all!

But one day I did as she suggested. And although it took me a while to feel sexy again, I did feel

a) younger
b) more pert
b) more feminine (which was particularly important at the time)
c) more beautiful, and
d) a wee bit naughty!

Whatever size you are, whatever you might be doing, don’t underestimate the rejuvenating power of some new underwear, a sexy new bra. They can lift your spirits as well as those cheeks and boobs!

T = Trains

2008-12-05T14:10:00.010+13:00

I grew up on a farm on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. To the east my nearest neighbours were in Chile. To the south west, the nearest town was 8 miles (I still work in miles when it comes to distances from the farm) away, and then beyond that were hills, and then snowy mountains. To the north and south, the nearest cities were about 3 hours drive away. The nearest airport was about 30 miles away. And besides, in those days air travel seemed as remote from my life as travel to the moon.

But every day, several times a day, we felt connected to the rest of the world when the trains went by. The tracks were about half a mile from our house, and we had a view up to the railway line. As we got older, we would cycle or walk or run up to the tracks, and wave to the driver. When we were learning to drive we used the rise to the train tracks for practicing hill starts, and later one of our neighbours blabbed to our mother that I had crossed a little too close to an oncoming train. There were regular freight trains and the daily passenger train. The passenger train which used to pass by when I was a teenager is now the Eastern Orient Express, running from Bangkok to Singapore. That’s a trip I would love to do one day.

To this day though, I have never been on a New Zealand passenger train. My first train trips were in Thailand as a student. Overnight third class train, hard wooden benches, lots of people, and the occasional chicken shared the carriage with us. At stations we would purchase food from vendors on the platforms, exchanging change for satay or sticky rice through the windows. We splashed out on second class travel when we went to Chiang Mai, and enjoyed the luxury of a sleeper. Waking up and looking out onto the northern Thailand countryside, steaming and misty as the day began, was magical to me, and was the beginning of my love for train travel.

Since then I have been to Chiang Mai several times since on the train, most notably with my parents. It was their first train trip too, I think. After I had retired for the night, I heard murmuring voices from my parents’ bunks across the aisle, and looked through the curtains. This is what I saw. They were sitting on the lower bunk, looking into the night behind the curtain (better to see without reflections of course), fascinated by being able to see the lives of the Thais who lived near the train tracks, cooking and eating outside. It is one of my favourite shots of my parents, perhaps because it reminds me of the wonder of travel, and gives me joy they were able to experience it.

Most recently I’ve experienced my fastest ever train trips. The first was on the TGV from Geneva to Paris, where a family sat near me and the petit garcon Jacques, about 5 years old, woke me by crying to his mother “maman, maman! Madam. elle dort!” They were going to Paris just for the day it seemed - speed has its advantages - and all were excited about the trip. The boy was most excited about seeing La Tour Eiffel, but papa was reading Rolling Stone magazine and looking forward to “mange sushi.” As we entered the outskirts of Paris, Jacques caught sight of a large power pylon, and leapt up shouting excitedly “La Tour Eiffel! La Tour Eiffel!” until a second then a third pylon came into view and he sat down disappointed and not a little embarrassed.

A few days later I travelled on the Eurostar from Paris to London, through the Chunnel. I would never fly between these two cities now. In the time it would take to get to the airport and wait to board a flight, you travel from the centre of one city to the centre of the other. Brilliant.

My most luxurious train trip was Quebec City overnight to Moncton, New Brunswick. We had booked a sleeper, and were welcomed onto the train by an attendant, shown to our cabin with the beds already made up with crisp white linen and big thick duvets. Bliss. But again, waking is the real pleasure, eating breakfast in the dining car, and seeing the countryside whizz by.

My most harrowing train experience was in India. An Indian colleague of mine was supposed to travel with me from New Delhi to Chandigarh, a few hours north, for a business meeting. But he was unable to come, and so the company in India had arranged for another gentleman to accompany me. But Indian bureaucracy stopped that. The ticket had been purchased for one person, and could not be transferred. ID must be shown, and names, gender and ages were printed on the tickets. Unfortunately my new companion was about 30 years older than my original traveller, and they would not allow him on the train. Despite our arguing and pleading, the guard remained implacable, immovable. So I boarded myself, off into the unknown. I heard later that on leaving the station, my new companion, at 72 years old, was struck by a vehicle, breaking a leg. I always think of him with guilt!

Train travel is so much more relaxing than a bus or a plane. There is more space, and it is easier to get up and walk around. I like sitting facing backwards, seeing the countryside gradually spread out before fading in the distance.

The Budapest to Vienna train took us through a frozen landscape which fascinated us. Even at the towns where we stopped, life seemed frozen, silent, deserted. The Philadelphia to New York train gave us our first sight of the city's skyscrapers from a distance, the best way to see them. On the train from Madrid, we knew we were close to Seville as we passed orange grove after orange grove. The trains in England wend their way through rolling green hills, with hedgerows and familiar looking trees, and past villages where there is always a church spire.

There are still lots of train journeys I would like to do. There is a luxury train in southern Africa which sounds wonderful, and the Orient Express of course. We might venture to Alice Springs via train one day, through the Australian Outback. If I have the stamina in the future I would be interested in the Trans-Siberian, and the trip in Canada through the Rockies to Banff and Lake Louise has been on our “list of things to do” since about 1989. I haven’t even begun to think about the possibilities in South America, or train travel in China yet, but will get there. India ... well ... I might try it again ...

As for New Zealand, we don't have a lot of passenger trains. However there is at least one trip I must do, the TranzAlpine, from the east to west coast of the South Island, through the Southern Alps. It is said to be spectacular. There's no excuse for not doing it.

S = Slice

2008-12-01T12:07:00.002+13:00

Just before I got married, the women of the rural district where I grew up threw me a “kitchen tea.” This meant that everyone did some beautiful baking, we all got together for an afternoon, and then I was bestowed with gifts for my forthcoming wedding. These were women I had grown up with, the mothers of my friends and all the children at school, the women I had seen since I was tiny at community events. I knew them as well as I knew my aunts and cousins, in many cases better. They had taught me to sew, knit, play tennis and coached me at netball. They followed my year in Thailand and my university career.

The gifts they gave were small, intended for the kitchen. Tea towels and can openers, cake tins and spatulas. All sorts of gadgets. Mrs C (Peter’s mother) came up to me with her gift, a simple and inexpensive long- bladed vegetable knife. “(Mali),” she said, “I want to explain why I gave you a knife, because you might think it is a silly gift. A good knife is invaluable to a cook. You can’t underestimate the value of a knife that cuts beautifully, and once you find one, you will hang on to it as long as you can.”

I have been married 25 years and that knife is still with me. It sharpens beautifully, cuts through carrots and pumpkin with ease, and moves from my hands to the dishwasher, rarely making its way to the drawer where it should live. I frequently marvel at how much I like using it, especially when I work in other people’s kitchens, struggling with their always inadequate knives. And from time to time, I think of Mrs C and the thought that she put into that gift.

Mrs C’s knife can’t chop herbs though, or cope with meat, and for years I have sought a suitable knife to cope with that. I bought a meat cleaver in a market in Vietnam for US$2. It is good for chopping things, but isn’t as sharp as I would like it to be. From time to time I’ve bought other knives, which have looked good but never passed the carrot or pork test. I’ve coveted some of the beautiful, expensive, high quality chef’s knives which are kept behind glass, in locked cabinets, at the Knife Shop in Petone or at Moore Wilson’s, the store where all the local chefs buy their equipment. But the choice and price range was overwhelming, and so I never got around to getting a new knife.

Till last weekend, when, at the Home and Garden show at the stadium, I came upon the Victorinox stall. Knives, knives, everywhere. I picked up one that looked the size I wanted, and was the Japanese style. I was surprised how light it was, and how comfortable it felt in my hand.
“You don’t have any carrots for me to test this on,” I said to the stall-holder.

“You don’t need to test it with that knife,” he said confidently. “Look how narrow the blade is. Feel how strong it is. This knife will cut anything. In 20 years, I’ve never had any complaints with this one.”

I looked at him suspiciously. Looked at the price. But looked at the fine, strong blade. Then looked at my husband, who said “buy it.” “But what if it won’t cut carrots?” I said pathetically. Then I looked at the price again. “I guess it is only the price of a meal out at a decent restaurant,” I reasoned, feeling silly for having waited so long. “I’ll take it,” I said, and signalled D to get out his wallet.

I couldn’t wait to get home. The stall-holder had promised me it would cut meat beautifully, and that I could carve meat with it.

I cut up Agria potatoes and threw them in the roasting pan. The knife went through so easily the potatoes felt like butter. I took a carrot, with some trepidation, and sliced through it. Perfectly. An hour later, the vegetables were roasted and the peppered fillet of beef was ready. I took up the knife and started carving. The knife slid through the meat, smoothly, allowing thin beautiful slices.

I love my new knife. I can’t wait to chop things for dinner. I’m finding excuses to put finely diced onion in everything I make. I want to slice, dice, chop and carve endlessly.

I feel a little guilty about neglecting Mrs C’s knife. But it will always be there. Like my marriage, it has lasted. But the new knife will be, I hope, a symbol of the next stage of our relationship, our next slice of life. New, strong, fine, and exciting, cutting edge, and of course, long-lasting.

R = Relax

2008-11-29T16:29:00.003+13:00

I can feel it. It’s coming.

We sat on our deck last night. There was no wind, and the sky was clear and blue. The birds were singing in the pine trees above us, and in the ngaio trees below. Gershwin was lying in the sun, stretched out, basking in it. Cleo came along, jumped onto the bench beside me, in another quick movement onto the covered barbecue, and surveyed her empire. D and I had glasses of cool sauvignon blanc, enjoying that Friday night feeling.

Early summer. December is almost here. Christmas is coming. Our summer break is not far away. It’s in the air. I can feel it.

The year is almost over. So we’re going to start relaxing now.

Q = Quality vs Quantity

2008-11-25T19:01:00.006+13:00

I’ve been thinking about endings a bit lately. My father had a very difficult one. Unconscious after days of pain and distress, anxiety and hallucinations. Death truly came as a final release. Lengthening his life span would not have given him any quality of life, only quantity.

But his life was one of quality. It wasn’t an easy life, in any way. He worked so hard, but he knew when to enjoy himself too. And I am so proud of him. I am in many ways especially proud of the way he and my mother handled retirement. They saw it as their reward for having worked so hard for so long, having scrimped and saved for their entire lives. It was their time, time together without children, time to relax, time to enjoy life. It was wonderful to see. They travelled the world, despite having to wait until my father was 62 to leave the country. They travelled throughout New Zealand and did it as cheaply as possible, these old age pensioners in their tents or cabins. My father loved meeting up with international travellers in the camping ground kitchens, and would always strike up conversation and find out all about them. He bought a Lada four-wheel drive, and drove it everywhere. That old Lada, without power steering or any mod-cons, took him off-road, away on fishing trips up remote rivers in the Mackenzie country, it took him duck-shooting and white-baiting, and regularly to golf. It gave him freedom, and he used it.

I compare his life to that of another elderly gentleman in my life, who has now had four more years of life than my dad. He too worked hard, raised his family well, was a responsible and respected member of the community. In contrast however, he saw retirement as the end of his productive life. He felt useless, cast on the rubbish heap, and he brooded, and became depressed. Unlike my dad, he had the financial means to do whatever he wanted, and the education and experience to be able to contribute and remain active in the community if he so desired. But his life these last 20 years has been one of quantity (not that he is happy about that either), not quality. He is the only reason he is not happy. And he doesn’t seem to know how to be. Nothing we say really seems to help. Fortunately, he can afford the best medical treatment, as he has needed this. But he doesn’t appreciate his extra quantity of life, and doesn’t really make any effort to improve it in terms of quality.

I find it very sad. But there's a lesson in it too.

P = Procrastination

2008-11-15T16:02:00.004+13:00

Procrastination is an art form, and I long since graduated from apprentice to journeyman to master.

Unfortunately I am also married to a master. Perhaps together we have encouraged each other to refine and hone our skills to this level of performance, and I only have myself to blame. But there are times when it frustrates me. Drives me crazy, in fact. When I want nothing more than to make a decision, and just do something for god’s sake. But my chief procrastinator is till procrastinating, yet not allowing me to go ahead and do things myself. Let me explain.

Summer is almost here. In New Zealand that means that during the height of summer there are about six weeks when it is impossible to get anything done unless you do it yourself. We have a half built project. A deck to expand our outdoor living space. We need a building permit, and if we don’t get it in the next few weeks, we won’t be getting it till February, when all the good building weather will be over. But D is procrastinating. Don’t ask me why. All it takes is getting our plans to an engineer for approval, then back to the Council. Shouldn’t be too hard? According to him it is, as our plans have changed a bit since they were drawn up. But this has delayed our project for years.

We also need a builder, as part of the deck is a good 4 metres from the ground (hence the need for the building permit). Previously builders shunned our small project, preferring bigger more profitable jobs. So whilst normally this would be an excellent time – the housing market is slowing and those builders might now be prepared to work on it – all builders will be on their summer holidays till February at least. And I want my deck now. I want to be able to sit on it in a deck chair, under some shade with a cool glass of something, and a good book. I want to be able to entertain friends over the summer. We have friends who are returning to New Zealand after two summers overseas. The deck wasn’t done then and we were already the laughing stock of all our friends and family. The deck still is not done now. I’m starting to feel like the village idiot.

I now know real sympathy for my mother. She spent many years waiting for my father to decide it was the right time to approach his mother about getting the family farm, which he had worked since he was 13 and managed since he was a teen, transferred into his name. Only then could they borrow the money needed to build a new house. My mother had spurts of enthusiasm, designing the house herself, drawing up the plans. Then she’d fall into a pit of despondency, wondering if anything would ever be done, and what was the point.

I feel a bit like that now.

O = Opportunity

2008-11-09T17:49:00.015+13:00

Over the last few weeks, I have frequently found myself thinking how lucky I am.

I knew how lucky I was ...

as I walked the streets of London, savouring the delights of one of the world’s greatest cities, renewing friendships made in Bangkok in 1991 ... and trying not to think about the exchange rate
as I stood inside the House of Commons, celebrating the 10^th anniversary of the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust (for which I volunteer). It was thrilling to look through the windows of the member’s dining room to the Thames, a view more commonly seen from the tourist boats on the river itself, and to emerge into the late evening in the grounds to see this sight.
as I shared time with friends met, made, kept and nurtured over the internet.
as I sat with a good friend in Geneva, drinking wine and planning our week to come
as I marvelled at the 360 degree view of the Alps from the top of the Nufenenpass, or earlier as we stopped on the side of the road, and listened to the sound of cow bells from across the valley
as I searched for George on the shores of Lake Como, sadly in vain, but not a bad place to search
as we climbed higher and higher above the Mediterranean, periodically catching glimpses of the Cinque Terre villages we had left or were heading for
as I licked a gelato, well-earned, after one climb and before the next
as we relaxed in what quickly became our "local," over a pre-dinner glass of vermontino and antipasto, and relived our encounter with some Italian wild boars and bores
as I drove through the magnificent snow-covered landscape after the Frejus Tunnel, and the next morning as I pulled my curtains back and was greeted with the sight of green fields and golden trees, chalets and snowy mountains, and a pony in the bottom of the apple orchard
as I pottered about a French market with one old friend and one new. On a sunny, autumn Sunday morning, we drooled over the cheese, fruit, 15 different types of mushroom, etc
as I enjoyed MY day in Paris, alone, to do what I wanted, with Paris putting on a perfect, autumn day, just for me ... or so it felt anyway
as I woke in Paris at 4 am to hear the results of the US election and listened to the President-Elect's acceptance speech
and as I arrived home, to a man who had missed me, and didn’t begrudge my adventure

I have had and continue to have opportunities many people can never dream of.

I do not take them for granted.

N = Nanowrimo

2008-10-15T16:15:00.003+13:00

I was introduced to this whole blogging deal after completing Nanowrimo. Two years ago I felt I had finally found myself again after a few years when I was struggling with that. I was enjoying my professional life, but unlike many had the luxury of time and was keen to try some writing. I heard an enthusiastic blogger speaking on Radio NZ National about this Nanowrimo thing. Most particularly, he said “you’ve always said you’d write a book one day. Well, now it’s one day.” I liked the idea of that, and thought that I should see if I could in fact do it.

I cheated a little, and wrote a story based on some of my own experiences. But I found it exhilarating, and when it ended, found a link to the x365 page. From then I was hooked. Last year I wanted to try it again, but was overseas for the first few days and didn’t really have the motivation to get stuck in once I got home.

In a few hours I’m going to Europe for three weeks. Maybe I’ll find inspiration there to start working on it. If not, there might be some good blogging material.

See you in November, though I’ll try and pop in with you all while I'm away, perhaps from the Cinque Terre.

M = Mali

2008-10-09T18:13:00.004+13:00

Mali means jasmine in Thai. I always thought that if I started an interior design business I would call it Jasmine Design. Or perhaps run the Jasmine Day Spa. (I could get free massages and facials. How good would that be?)

Teachers and friends at school in Bangkok gave me the name Mali. Now, only my husband calls me Mali, usually when he’s showing off that he can still speak a bit of Thai, or when he is trying to butter me up for something. So it feels strange to think that there are a group of people who only know me as Mali. I don’t think I’m any different as Mali as I am when I am [******]. If anything, I am probably more like me. There is something liberating in anonymity, although I'm not entirely anonymous. I few of my friends who know me (as opposed to my friends who have never met me) read this blog, though they don’t ever comment. (Hint!).

So Mali protects me. Besides, it is much more exotic than my name. A very 60s, middle New Zealand kind of name. I think I would like to be exotic.

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet"

But would it?

L = Letters

2008-10-06T17:21:00.004+13:00

Lately I’ve been playing with a project, looking back on my experience living in Thailand as an exchange student. I’ve come to realise that I did some pretty unusual things, and that it might be interesting to write about it. (????) I’ve been surprised how strong my memories are 28 years on, but have also reverted to my diaries kept that year to clarify details.

I've realised I was a crap diary writer. Whilst I recorded some of my inner-most feelings, more usually and much like George Orwell, I often merely listed a few lines, usually consisting of what I had for lunch that day.

I suspect I was not inclined to record the details of my day because I was doing a lot of letter writing at the time, especially in the first few months of my time in Thailand, when I had not yet begun school, was still struggling to learn the language, and was quite lonely. I wrote detailed, descriptive letters, trying to help my family and friends at home see, feel, hear and smell what my exotic life in Thailand was like, to help them feel as if they were there too, sharing the experience.

So I was thrilled when my mother said to me years later that she had kept all my letters from Thailand. Some time after, she gave me three shoe-boxes full of letters. “You never know,” she said, “someday you might want to write about your year.” I stored the boxes away without a glance, happy that I had them safe.

Years passed. Then, a few weeks ago, I decided to dig out the boxes. I knew where they were, had never forgotten them, and opened the first box with excitement, a feeling of trepidation.

I pulled out the first envelope. But wait, that’s not what I want. I pulled out the next and next. With a growing sense of dread and horror, I rifled through the box, and the second box, and the third. I couldn’t believe it, and went through each box over and over again, as if through sheer persistence I would conjure up what I desperately wanted to be there. I went back to the cupboard where these boxes had been stored, and looked. No, these were the only boxes.

But they were not MY letters, the ones I’d written. They were letters written to me while I was in Thailand. The ones from my parents and sisters will be precious to keep. The rest – well frankly I couldn’t give a hoot. I felt sick. As if I’d lost a part of my history, through my own negligence. The worst thing was, I couldn’t phone my mother to ask her to check if she had the letters I had written, the ones which recorded my experiences, week by week. She was away for a month, helping my sister and bonding with her new grand-daughter.

After a day or two the sick feeling abated. D reminded me that my mother is a hoarder and wouldn’t have thrown them away. I knew that. But I couldn’t shake off the fear. What if she, like me, thought that those three boxes contained my year of letters? So finally, at the airport on Tuesday, as I met her from one flight and put her on the next, I told her. “Oh yes,” she said, very matter of fact. “I have YOUR letters at home!”

Aargh!

Phew!

PS. I’ll believe it when I see them.

K = Knitting

2008-10-03T12:00:00.003+13:00

Bridgett’s alpha entry on knitting brought back memories. When I grew up, every woman I knew knitted. When I think of my grandmother, I mainly picture her sitting at her dining table where she spent her days knitting, cigarette in mouth and ashtray precariously close to whatever cabled masterpiece she was making this time. Her gin in the evening didn’t seem to affect her accuracy either.

Likewise, at dancing lessons every week, the mothers (except mine who saw knitting as a chore) would sit there knitting at phenomenal speed, and at family gatherings, my aunts would sit together knitting and chatting, completing fiendishly difficult patterns without even looking at what they were doing. Or so it seemed.

Before artificial fibres arrived and the New Zealand import markets freed up in the 1980s, the most cost effective warm winter clothing were layers of home-knitted jerseys (sweaters in US lingo). In a nation of sheep farmers, it made sense to use the plentiful, high quality wool. As I said, my mother was not a keen knitter, so she bought a knitting machine. My father liked gadgets, and knitted quite a few of our winter jerseys on the machine in the lounge on wintry days when the weather was too bad to be out in the elements.

Girls tended to learn to knit (whether we wanted to or not) at primary school, and we knitted scarves and mittens and jerseys for ourselves. My mother still wears a jersey (with a lovely lacy yoke done on a circular needle) I knitted at university in the 80s. And it still looks good. The most fashionable girl I knew at university, a model and honours student, knitted a beautiful blue, slash neck jersey which she wore with jeans tucked into cute ankle boots. I thought she was the height of fashion, and as soon as it was seemly knitted a similar shaped jersey of my own. I knitted a delicate lace white outfit for Sharon’s first child, and posted it to Delaware. I remember sitting in my apartment in Bangkok, air-conditioning on full, knitting a fairisle jersey to wear on our mid-tour leave in Europe, as I had neglected to bring any cold climate clothes with me to Bangkok. I have a favourite photo of me wearing it on the Isle de la Cite in Paris.

Bridgett spoke of the debate between left-handed and right-handed knitters, the advantages and disadvantages of both, the labels these styles are given. This debate is all new to me. I didn't know knitters were so conformist! I think of those women at my dancing lessons and my aunt and grandmother, who were so very fast, fingers almost blurring with speed as they flicked the yarn around the needles and clicked them in and out to create beautiful patterns. In my recollection they all had very different styles, needles under different arms, hands holding the needles underneath or from above, winding the yarn with different flicks of their fingers, etc. I can’t quite figure out how Bridgett knits, but that’s because I can’t see her. I wish I could.

There's something comforting about knitting though, getting into a quick easy rhythm and seeing a garment grow. I haven't knitted for a long time. Fashions changed, imports became cheaper, and suddenly knitting became a more expensive option, especially as work pressures grew. The convenience of throwing something in the washing machine and then drier smashed that old protestant work ethic of making our own clothes. Plus I remember knitting my last jersey, when Cleo and Gershwin were just kittens and thought that the ball of wool on the floor was there for their entertainment. It irritated me enormously. Cleo is now 15 and still loves to chase things. I don’t knit anymore.

But I do smile, thinking of Bridgett knitting for herself and her family. I’m glad that the tradition still lives.

J = Jack of all trades ...

2008-10-03T10:49:00.003+13:00

… that’s me. Good at many things, exceptional at none. Sometimes I wonder, do I have attention deficit disorder? Or am I just indecisive? Or is it laziness, this inability or unwillingness to focus on one subject.

Even as I am brushing up my French for a trip to Geneva in a few weeks, I am thinking about refreshing my rudimentary Italian for the weekend we’re spending at the Cinque Terre. I’d dearly love to be fluent in one language, but even now I cringe as I contemplate a lifelong commitment to one language, and all the others that would be left unspoken.

I was like that at school too. Good at pretty much everything I tried, sports, music and academically. Maths and music were my best, but they each seemed too narrowly focused. Just think of all the other fun things I could learn that I would miss out on! So of course at university I double-majored in history and political science, before deciding on Political Science for my Masters. The widest of subjects, it seemed to meet my need for looking broadly at life and society. And I didn’t feel as if I was missing out on anything fun.

My career has seen me pretty much always in a generalist role. That’s what a diplomat is, after all. One day dealing with aid programmes and the issues of irrigation in the arid regions of Esarn, the next looking at human rights issues as Cambodia came back into international society, the next promoting trade relationships or analysing political parties, and on the weekend, visiting the New Zealander arrested for drugs at the police cells down by the river. I know about fireblight (an apple disease) and trade subsidies, pine forest management and harvesting, and plastic bucket manufacture. A marketer and company director too must be generalists. I now know more about dam safety, road maintenance management or curriculum development than I ever would have considered necessary or desirable! More latterly, I know more about women’s reproductive systems and pregnancy than most women who have had children. Each subject is fascinating to me … but never exclusively.

Of course, this isn’t unique to me. My former colleagues in the foreign ministry are adept at getting to grips with a myriad of subjects, as are journalists, editors, teachers to name a few. But perhaps that’s what I’m expert at? I don’t have a narrow and deep focus, which I think at times would be immensely rewarding. But I see things more broadly, picking up information on a wide variety of subjects and putting them in context.

Maybe this isn’t a skill. Maybe I am just fickle. But it’s more fun than being an accountant.

I = Intelligence

2008-09-26T15:51:00.008+12:00

Sometimes there is need to reassess the meaning of intelligence. I think I did a little of that in my previous post.

I like it when sterotypes are questioned. It keeps us alert, aware, on our toes.

This news item was my favourite of the week. I suspect bird nerds will like it too. It’s worth listening to, or follow this link and watch the videos.

Don’t stone the crows!

Hitchcock would have loved it.

H = Heroes

2008-09-25T20:21:00.004+12:00

When I was young there were certain accomplishments I aspired to, that I thought would make me happy. Generally, I admired the people who had achieved what I wanted, and wanted to emulate them. The successful, powerful people who seemed so full of the confidence and financial security I never had.

Now though I know what it can take to make these achievements. The type of person you might have to be to get there. What you might have to do. I’ve come to know executives who will walk over their friends to get what they want, diplomats you can’t trust, gossips who will make up anything, politicians who neglect their families, and business people working such long hours they’re never there to say goodnight to their kids or be with their partner, hoping the big house or fancy car will be recompense. And I’ve been through a few things that have lead me to look at life differently. I finally realised that reaching that next big goal is not going to make me happy long term. There’s always another goal coming along. Relishing the process of living, of striving for something worthwhile, sometimes just being, is where I now feel joy and pride.

So, today the people who are my heroes would probably not have made the list twenty years ago.

Those who care for vulnerable friends, an ill parent, or a lonely child
Those who dedicate their lives to working with young people, despite not being able to have children themselves
Those who nurture their relationships
Those who take the road less travelled, whatever that might be
Those who volunteer for their community
Those who make me laugh without bringing someone else down
Those who deliver warmth and encouragement to fellow bloggers
Those who understand “for better or worse”

These are my heroes, life’s true success stories. I’m so proud to know you all.

G = Gales

2008-09-23T14:55:00.003+12:00

It’s blowing a gale outside today. It is the equinox, and the temperature difference between the tropics and polar regions is at its peak at this time of year. This difference drives the Roaring Forties winds in our latitude. The gales arrived right on schedule last night.

There is a parade today celebrating Wellington’s win over Auckland to take the coveted Ranfurly Shield for the first time in 27 years. Gale force winds won’t stop that from going ahead. Gale force winds don’t stop a lot in this windy city, except for long hair styles and wrap-around skirts.

F = Facts (6 unspectacular ones about me)

2008-09-17T16:55:00.009+12:00

I’ve been tagged by Indigo Bunting. As luck would have it, I was up to F for Facts, and so can respond to her request to write six unspectacular things about me:

When I concentrate (particularly when playing the piano) I stick my tongue out … just a bit.
I’m addicted to Sudoku – one a day keeps the Alzheimers away.
I'm a secret Dr Who fan.
I’m the classic middle child. I'd like to rebel against that, as long as it didn't upset anyone.
I operate the VPMS (Volcano Paper Management System). Pile things high. Whatever is important will rise to the top, what is not will slide off the side.
Mali is not my real name. (But you knew that already didn't you?)

I don't think I can tag anyone - I think all my favourite bloggers have already been tagged.

E = Entertaining

2008-09-16T16:48:00.004+12:00

Love it
Don’t do it enough
Had friends over to dinner last night
Menu included lamb tagine, and later, an almond and raspberry tart
There was music, wine, warmth, love, and laughter
Love it
Don’t do it enough
Must entertain again soon

D = Distance

2008-09-10T15:59:00.003+12:00

On Sunday, Father’s Day, we had a cheerful discussion over lunch with the in-laws who have decided it is time to plan their funerals. D is the only one of four sons who still lives in New Zealand. It seems his parents are planning their funerals based on the fact that they don’t expect their other sons to come home “all that way” just for the funeral, despite the fact that they all live just one direct flight from NZ! (Don’t get me started!) But try to explain to people in their 70s and 80s that there is really no place on this earth that could be considered too far away these days.

It got me to thinking.

When I got the letter telling me I would be living in Thailand for a year, for the first time in my life I would be leaving behind everything and everyone I knew, going to a country that was a mystery to me. I would be alone. It was frightening.

I was however excited at the opportunity – going into the unknown was a wonderful opportunity. I had dreamed of travelling overseas since I was a little girl, standing on the stony beach at the edge of our property, looking across the Pacific Ocean, and imagining the lands beyond. Waiting until I was 17 had felt like forever, but finally I would be able to see the world. The unknown was exciting. The fears and dangers to come were as unknown as the joys. This was in retrospect a good thing.

The separation was not going to be simply physical, but there would also be a very real emotional distance too, without the support of family and friends.

Now when I travel, I take my cellphone with me, I text my 75-year-old mother from Santiago de Compostela or Vienna or Manila, and we talk about the weather! I email regularly and keep in touch with friends and family through cheap phone cards.

But in 1980, none of these were available. Growing up in New Zealand’s countryside, it hadn’t been that long since we had stopped using a party line shared with our neighbours (our ring was short long short). The telephone was for necessary transfer of information, not for chit-chatting. Toll calls were expensive. International calls were … inconceivable. There was no prospect that I would be ringing home regularly. (In the end I rang home just twice). Unlike exchange students these days, I would not be emailing or texting or skyping my family and friends the night I arrived. I went armed with a pile of aerogrammes. Remember those? They would be considered antiques today.

This is of course part of the point of a student exchange. It is necessary for a student to adjust and fully commit to their new environment. If they’re connected daily with home and their old life, they might find it harder to make that adjustment. Still, support and encouragement from across the miles would have been welcome. Having to wait 6 weeks for my first letter from home (my parents had been given an incorrect address for my host family) was hard.

At least though I knew it was only for a year. I thought of my ancestors, saying goodbye to their families in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and France, setting out on an arduous sea journey to a strange land on the other side of the world, knowing that they would probably never see their families and home again. Now, that was distance.

C = Cowboy Dan

2008-09-08T18:13:00.011+12:00

I was a bit of a tomboy when I was very little. Our neighbours called me my dad’s “little shadow” as I could be found following him all over the farm. Then I discovered books. Sometimes my two worlds met.

One of my favourite early books was a small, picture book about Cowboy Dan.

“I’m a rootin’ tootin’ cowboy

and my name is Cowboy Dan

I can ride a horse

and rope a steer

As fast as any man.”

40 years later I can quote that so easily. It must have been read to me many many times. Google tells me it was written by Andy Cobb, and that I am not the only girl who was entranced by this story.

My fifth birthday is memorable, not because it was the day I started school, but because I got a little (fake) leather bolero jacket with a badge that said “Deputy Sheriff” and a holster and toy cap gun. (It was the 1960s after all!) Murray, the boy across the bull paddock, had a similar outfit but he had chaps, and I was so jealous! A broomstick was my horse of choice, but I was always frustrated I couldn’t rope a steer.

B = Bookclub

2008-09-03T11:40:00.005+12:00

The cats knew something was up. They'd been fed early and without complaint. The house was clean and quiet, still tidy after my mother's visit on the weekend. The gorgonzola and Evansdale brie were out of the fridge, soft and luscious, the virgin olive oil was dark green and pungent, the dukkah spicy, the Highfield chardonnay and Saint Clair pinot gris chilled just right, and the Kawarau Reserve pinot noir was coming nicely to room temperature. Our new couch looked great, the cushions neatly arranged, the CD player was loaded, and the husband had been dispatched to see a movie.

The box of books was downstairs, waiting. As host of the bookclub this time, it was my responsibility to add some new books to our pool. My choices were largely based on books I'd read recently, some bought on impulse at bargain warehouse stores, others specially sought out.

Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones
My Name Was Judas by CK Stead
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Note: I couldn’t find Walking to the Moon last night to add it to the pool, but will do so.

Each book is very different, but I wanted to know what the others would think of them. New books are eyed eagerly, fallen upon greedily, clutched possessively. Negotiations are sometimes necessary, schedules and commitments over the next month or two are weighed and compared, reading capacity determined, and books eventually selected.

We manage to do some serious reviewing of the books, their language, the characters, what we liked and what we didn’t. Recommendations are made carefully. A less than enthusiastic review can sentence a book to the bottom of the box for months if not years, neglected, unchosen. Other books become lifetime favourites, candidates for our annual Bookclub Supreme Award. Books are sometimes hotly debated, loved by some, detested by others. Despite knowing each other so well, we’re never quite sure who will love and who will hate a particular book, and why. That’s what keeps it interesting. Why we keep coming back. It’s not just for the friendship, wine and cheese.

A = Aging

2008-09-03T11:35:00.002+12:00

My mother visited on the weekend. It is of course always nice to see her, but often quite distressing. She is almost 76, and has not had an easy life. She is aging. I have to repeat things. Frequently. Always a worrier, she worries more now, because she forgets to tell herself to stop worrying. Did I mention I have to repeat things?

She is coping wonderfully since my Dad died, but does find it lonely at time, as self-sufficient as she is. Whilst my sister lives nearby, I worry about her on her own. (Worrying runs in the family!) Then my emotions become confused. I am glad that her daughters are around to care for her, whatever she might need. But as I do more and more for her, and as she needs me to do more and more for her, selfishly my mind turns to my own old age.

Who will look after me?

Z = ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

2008-08-29T16:15:00.002+12:00

I love my sleep.

There’s nothing quite like the anticipation of sleep: sinking my head into a soft, fluffy pillow, clean crisp sheets, a warm (but not too hot) duvet to nestle into, my body relaxing, all worries gone temporarily from my head, left to be faced tomorrow.

Even better if it is cold outside, not too windy, raining gently.

And all this is perfect if it is Saturday or Sunday the next day.

Only a few hours more to wait ...

Y = Yiminy and other Ys

2008-08-27T11:49:00.008+12:00

“Do you know what yiminy means?” I asked my friend as we left Sweet Mama’s restaurant on Courtenay Place. Jambalaya with friends on a cold night after seeing the film Prague is an excellent way of passing a cold rainy August Monday evening.

“Yemeni?” she said, “as in from Yemen?”

“No, yiminy as in by yiminy.”

She looked at me quizzically. I started to explain, but how can you really convey the essence of Helen and keep the story short or avoid being distracted? (Note: for clarification, see comments on X=XX) Anyway, after an afternoon of googling yiminy, and consulting my well-read friend, I was really none the wiser.

So we turned to other things. Twenty minutes later we were still talking furiously as I pulled up outside her apartment, still talking as she got out of the car, and barely stopped as she shut the door. By this time we were debating the merits of a gold medal in the shot put over a bronze in the 1500 metres.

The two of us could talk the hind-leg off a donkey, as my dad would have said. Why is it that possessors of the Y-chromosome just don’t get a woman’s need to converse, and the pleasure that can be taken, sharing ideas and lives? It should be admired, but instead “yak, yak, yak,” they complain.

Yiminy!

X = XX

2008-08-20T16:53:00.008+12:00

What does it mean to be a woman?

A lot of people will say that you are only a real woman if you have had children. Only when you’re a mother, do you know what it means to be a woman.

I’ve always felt uncomfortable with that kind of definition. I’ve always liked being a girl. I never played with dolls or held fake tea parties or whatever it was little girls did. But I never wanted to be a boy.

Growing up in the country in New Zealand is a very liberating experience. I could do everything and anything my male neighbours, cousins or students could do, other than standing up to pee. I was taller, faster and stronger. I didn’t need boys to do anything for me. I had no brothers, so unlike a friend of mine wasn’t raised having to make her twin brother’s bed! My sisters and I learned to drive the tractor, toss hay bales out to the cows in the winter, yell at the dogs (though I will admit I never learned how to whistle properly), jump the creeks, climb over or through the fences, chop the wood and carry it inside to the fire. When our “townie” male cousins would come and visit, we took great pleasure in their squeamishness at lambing time, or ignorance over what an electric fence would do if you placed a blade of grass on it. Boys were contemptuous creatures in our world.

There were few concessions made to us being girls. I say ‘few” rather than “no” concessions because I did learn, years later, that my father deliberately put the rams out with the ewes in a paddock a long way from the house to protect his delicate daughters! This upbringing fitted well with the societal changes at the time. “Girls can do anything” was the catch cry. I was confused. Why say it? Of course we could!

I waited for the maternal instinct to kick in until my late 30s, when it turned up rather belatedly, to the beat of a biological clock so loud it was suddenly deafening. The strength of the emotions that arrived were surprising and disturbing to me. I was equally surprised at how I felt less of a woman, judged by others, and isolated from much of society, through my simple and not uncommon inability to give birth. My failure to have children made me question my femaleness in a way that my previous lack of desire to have children never did.

After a few difficult years, my confidence has now returned, my sense of self is stronger than ever before.

I am who I am.

I’m a real woman. Because I know I am.

W = Winter

2008-08-18T17:49:00.004+12:00

Dusk is my favourite time of day. The day is done, a relaxing evening awaits. Dusk on a winter’s evening is a particular favourite, full of nostalgia. Tonight a cool mist rises from the earth, all is still, even the smoke from chimneys hangs in the cold air, as the houses around us glow yellow and warm, promising an evening filled with hearty winter comfort food, a comfy couch, a good book or movie (or another night in front of the Olympics on TV), and maybe a nice glass of red wine. Life is good.

I love to be out at this time of night, bracing against the shock of the cold on my skin. I love the soft warmth of a woollen scarf around my neck and face, a heavy coat keeping the cold out, a hat and gloves. But I also like the sensation, if I stop moving my feet, of the cold reaching up through the ground, tentacle-like, through the soles of my boots, threatening to chill my warm toes.

These feelings always evoke so many memories and emotions, particularly of my father, our life together on the farm, and more recently his death three years ago yesterday. August is often our coldest month, but it is also the time of year when lambs are born, and when I was growing up, lambing season coincided with a three-week winter break from school. So naturally on the farm we were put to work.

Every evening, just prior to nightfall, we would go around the sheep and lambs, to check that all was okay, to try to reduce any losses overnight. August memories are of these freezing evenings in the paddocks with my dad, sister, and the farm dogs. The newborn lambs feeding, their tails wagging frenetically as they drink, their mothers’ size protecting them, keeping them warm. The grass already heavy with dew, a frost looms, and the skies are clear and cold. As we headed home, the stars would appear, like tiny glittering specks of ice. Shivering now. But always there was the promise of a warm, happy house and a hot dinner waiting.

V = Vacillate

2008-08-08T15:11:00.003+12:00

It’s time for V.

I thought about writing about vegetables. I love vegetables, as long as they’re done in interesting ways, like the Moroccan salads, but I’ve talked about those over on my travelalphablog. And intend talking about vegetables when I write about Spain too. After all, travel and food go together. I love tomatoes, and could wax lyrical about them and them alone, but might need to save that for T if I go through the alphabet again.

Or should I just turn to my travelalphablog and write the “U is for …” entry. After all, T is for Thailand has been sitting there for a while now. But then I’d have to hunt up all my old photographs, scan them etc. Takes ages. Not in mood. And V won’t go away.

I had a V for Valour written – but that was appropriate for ANZAC Day which is in April and it’s now August. Gaack, it’s August!!

I love the word varmint (I’m surprised it’s in the Concise Oxford!) but aside from liking how it sounds, have nothing to say about it.

I could do V for Venison, and write about my dad going deer-stalking, but only ever eat farmed not wild venison so the link is a bit artificial.

V could be for Vanity but my vanity has already been exposed under U is for Uniform.

And V for Vernacular is tempting, but there’s been such good writing about language elsewhere recently I’m not going to try and go there. Not this time round anyway.

I’m not in the mood to write about Vile, Vicious, Villain, Violate or Violence. I’m not a Virgin, a Victim, Vulgar, Vexed or particularly Vigorous today (any day?).

So perhaps I should work on my other project? Except that I’m listening to some interesting stuff on the radio right now and can’t do the two of them at once. Not very well at least. Verily, verily.

I should really do some work tasks that have been lying around for a while. But I’d need to concentrate. See above re radio discussion keeping my attention. Perhaps I should do V for Vacuous, or Verisimilitude.

I could have a nap. I feel sleepy. But the guilt would be overwhelming when husband slaving away at work … V is for Valid.

Or should I go do the ironing? Nah. Doing that during the day reminds me that although I might be a company director, I’m also a domestic slave. Sigh. That brings me to V for Vicissitude.

It’s for Vacillate.

U = Uniform

2008-08-05T16:34:00.003+12:00

Kiwi girls grow up with uniforms. School uniforms are compulsory. I've always thought that was a good thing. There was no stigma about clothes, no competition, no embarrassment or false pride. We all wore the same. There are some girls I probably only ever saw in their school uniform.

At primary school I wore a dark brown pleated tunic with a white shirt. It’s taken me years to realise that dark brown actually looks great on me.

Secondary school was even worse. The uniform was a "bottle green" tunic with white shirt, and a red and green tie (which is why I can’t face red and green Christmas decorations). That, coupled with my mother’s intense dislike (almost superstitious fear) of green, has meant that it took me years to find that deep greens look great on me too!

Growing up in the country meant that we didn’t need many other clothes. We had farm clothes – warm, comfortable, durable, often patched, frequently hand-me-downs. Good for wrestling hay bales, or for being around sheep and dogs, mud and muck. We didn't go out much - life was school (or after-school in our uniforms) or at home. We had maybe a couple of sets of “good clothes” which came out for visits to town or outings on the weekends. It might have been different for town kids. (And I suspect it is very different for schoolgirls these days.)

Then I went to Thailand. They wear uniforms there too. Long navy blue skirts and little white blouses. They were okay. There was no way I was going to blend in though – standing a head taller than most of the girls at school. The most painful part of that uniform was the footwear. Little black mary jane shoes with white socks. My shoes had to be made to measure. They were incredibly uncomfortable. Wince. In Bangkok I even voluntarily wore my school uniform on outings to the Weekend Market as my schoolgirl status always helped when bargaining for the best price, saving a few baht here and there.

My first ever full-time paycheck was spent on a delicious soft wool jewel green (yes, green) dress, in March 1986. I loved that dress. Sigh ...

By the late '90s, our mortgage was easier to deal with and New Zealand designers started doing new and exciting things. I discovered Trelise Cooper and Kate Sylvester, and Penny introduced me to the joys of a designer coat with a $20 T-shirt underneath. Such excitement!

I am so lucky. I need never look exactly like other women again. Don’t have to be one of the crowd. Don’t have to wear a uniform anymore. The best thing is that no-one does, with apparel duties lifted and a flood of cheaper imports meaning clothing is cheaper than ever before.

So why do so many women stick so slavishly to what is "in fashion" even when it doesn’t suit them? Or so religiously wear black (Wellington CBD looks as if it is in perpetual mourning) even when it washes them out and ages them. It’s so depressing in the middle of winter. Rain, clouds, wind, gloom, black, black and more black.

It’s just another uniform. Why are so many women afraid to be different? To express themselves? To have fun? Was all that crushed at school in our uniforms?

T= Trade

2008-08-03T12:29:00.003+12:00

Part of the annual cycle of living on a farm is the harvest, or in our case and that of so many farmers in New Zealand, when the sheep trucks come to transport the unlucky chosen to the freezing works. That those sheep might end up on a dinner table on the other side of the world was taken for granted. New Zealand exports its agricultural products to the world, so international trade and the rules that govern it are very important to us.

Farmers here in the 1970s received a subsidy in the form of supplementary minimum prices. I remember discussing this with my Dad who, with his typical pride and dignity, believed that it was wrong to give hand-outs to farmers. He felt that you either farmed well and profitably, or not at all. He did not want government support. So he didn’t complain about the changes in the 1980s when government subsidies to agriculture were dropped, despite the timing of these that ensured the value of his land dropped just before his retirement and sale of the farm.

So I was disappointed and angry but not surprised to hear on Tuesday that the latest round of international trade talks – the Doha Round – have collapsed yet again.

I am angry at the rich west that has enough money to subsidise its farmers, artificially lowering the cost of their produce that then competes with that of much poorer, developing countries. Yet at the same time, the US (and Europe?) refuses to allow the developing world the right to provide some rudimentary protection to their farmers through emergency protection measures when they are adversely affected by the west’s cheap subsidised goods flooding into their markets. That’s not free or fair competition. And yet they claim to be in favour of free trade.

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s hypocrisy.

S = Shy

2008-07-29T18:02:00.004+12:00

A year is a long time when you’re 17. I went through a lot. It was not easy. The loneliness, the effort every day to perform, adapt, adjust. The utterly alien nature of the people, the surroundings, the life I was leading. Mentally, the stress was huge. There was nowhere I could just be me. The familiarity you have with your family and friends you’ve known for years, grown up with, allows you to just be, to mentally relax, to show your emotions, to be bad sometimes, snappy, awkward. I could not behave like that with my Thai family, my new friends, my new school. I was “on” all the time. Even when in a crowd, I stuck out as painfully different. People looked and pointed, children laughed at my size, the look of me in my Thai school uniform.

I had always suffered from an innate shyness. Going up to strangers had never been easy for me, and yet here I was doing it every day, unable to blend in. I used to watch my younger sister make friends on our holidays, playing with new kids, all of it effortless. Whilst I stood shyly by, envious that I couldn’t do that with kids my own age. I didn’t even know what to say to start. It frustrated me, I felt ashamed of the fear and trepidation that kept me from making new friends easily. I wanted to reach out.

So what was it that drove me to take on such an experience? I still don’t really know. I wanted to see the world, to do something a bit different. I was scared, but I also had my pride, and having committed to applying, I would never admit how terrified I was about what I faced. I bit my lip and went for it. Every day for a year.

I’ve since found myself in numerous situations where I’ve stepped back and looked at myself in puzzlement. Flying into the wild west city of Phnom Penh (as it was at the time) for the first time, or driving nervously to yet another appointment with a potential new client in the port area of Manila, or on the outskirts of Hanoi, I’ve occasionally thought, “I hate this. So why do I do it?”

I don’t really know. Perhaps it’s the relief I feel when I know I’ve faced my fear and survived. Perhaps it’s that I’ve never yet found a situation I couldn’t cope with (I’m sure there’s one waiting for me). Or perhaps I do it for the rewards I know are out there – meeting and learning about new people, making new friends, having amazing experiences in wonderful places, finding the humour in all sorts of situations. I would have missed out on a lot if I’d stayed in my comfort zone.

I said once to some friends I’d made in the last 10 years or so that I was basically a shy person. "YOU???” they screeched incredulously, before bursting into hysterical laughter.

Yes, me. They don’t know what goes on inside. But it’s worth it.

R = Raisins

2008-07-27T12:43:00.003+12:00

The chef on the radio this morning was tempting my taste buds with talk of long slow-cooked casseroles and hearty red wine – perfect when it is cold and wet outside. For dessert she recommended a tarte tatin, but made with pears instead of apples. I swear I started to drool.
Until she said that she would add raisins as “an extra bonus.”

“Raisins?!” I felt like shouting at her in disgust. “How could you ruin such a decadent, fantastic, timeless classic with raisins?!!”

As you’ve no doubt realised, I’ve never liked raisins ... or sultanas for that matter. They used to spoil those old English puddings my mother used to make (like bread pudding). I would carefully pick them out and pile them on the side of the plate, generously and thankfully donating them to my father at the end of the meal. He loved them.

It was the texture I couldn’t stand. Urrghh! That squirt of the sweet flesh into my mouth even now makes me want to shudder.

Some children at school used to have raisin sandwiches. They called them “fly cemeteries.” Perhaps that is why I’ve always felt as if biting into a raisin or sultana was like biting into a fly’s body. A culinary treat I can do without.

Q = Quest

2008-07-23T16:36:00.003+12:00

Six years ago, I was intent on reinventing myself. Rather belatedly I’d decided I would like to be a mother, but was facing the realisation that this is not as easy as we all expect it to be. And I was disillusioned with my life as a career woman. Even though New Zealand’s Governor-General, Prime Minister, Chief Justice, and the CEO of one of our largest companies were all women, my own head was banging firmly and painfully on the glass ceiling in the company where I was working.

I had spent 16 years working in the international arena - government and business. But although I’d had had some amazing experiences and loved moments of what I was doing, I felt taken for granted and was questioning where my future lay. By now it was very definitely work. Of course, more and more you heard people talking about being passionate about their work. I thought passion was for the bedroom, and never thought of finding it in my office with my colleagues. Shudder!

So I began a quest to find out what I should be doing with my life, what I was good at, what I loved. I’m still on that quest, having learned a few things on the way, and dabbled in a range of activities.

Motherhood it turned out was not for me. I suspect I always knew that (but that’s another post for another letter of the alphabet). However I discovered an ability to nurture, advise and help others based on my own brutally honest assessments of my own experiences. I also discovered how tremendously rewarding that was.

I learned I love to paint, and more latterly to write.

Work came to me in unexpected ways, and I became a consultant based on my expertise in working internationally and marketing. I learned I liked to teach, and was good at it. I established a new career as a company director, which has been stressful and crazy and satisfying.

I also established a small business planning travel itineraries. When friends would visit a place I had been I would ask them if they did X, tasted Y or bought Z. They would often say “I wish I could plan my trips like you” or in the case of my sister-in-law “I wish my husband could plan trips like you!” I would plan itineraries for people visiting Bangkok or for friends coming to New Zealand. I think it is best described that if your travel agent is your architect, I am the interior designer. So why not make a business out of it I thought? Unfortunately my consulting work took all my time, and I ended up neglecting my business badly. If it had been a child, I would have been charged with failing to provide the necessities of life and locked up. I haven’t given up on it, but it needs some serious resuscitation.

So here I am, in my mid-40s, I still don’t know what I should be when I grow up. Whilst I enjoy the balance in my life right now – volunteering, consulting, company director and blogger – I know the quest is not yet over. But the quest itself is endlessly fascinating, and maybe that is the point.

P = Piano

2008-07-20T15:08:00.005+12:00

I never met my great-grandmother - Grandma Grant as she was known. She was by all reports a wonderful housekeeper, strict disciplinarian, and very organised and respected lady. Sadly I didn’t inherit that. But I did inherit her piano.

Her daughter, my maternal grandmother, was a very different personality. She was not interested in housework, sick often as a young woman and therefore struggled to raise her family. My mother tells of having to fend for herself as a child and look after her younger siblings when my grandmother was ill. She relied a lot on Grandma Grant for support.

But my grandmother was a social butterfly. When well, she loved to drink and smoke and go to dances. And she was a wonderful pianist. She would go to dances on a Saturday night, and play the piano all night. On Sunday she would be at church, playing the organ, for the love of the music rather than from any spiritual interest.

My memories of her are as an old woman in her 70s, living alone, largely housebound from wonky knees and illness. Occasionally in the summer we would collect her and bring her out to the farm. On those days I remember playing in the garden with my sister, or lying under the plum tree in the shade with a book, hearing the wonderful music my grandmother was making on the piano float and fly and twirl out the windows. She would play for hours. She did have a piano herself, but it was a poor one, badly tuned with a tinny tone. To a pianist like my mother, it would have given her little pleasure. I have to admit that I don’t know why, but Grandma Grant’s piano had gone to straight to my mother, and my sisters and I were all taught to play on it.

My older sister was a competent pianist, and my younger sister also learned to play. But I was the one who seemed to have the touch, who could sight read easily, and who enjoyed playing the classics. From age 6 when my mother started teaching me to play until I left home, I spent time every day on the piano. I was lucky (again). I had my mother’s enthusiasm, my grandmother’s talent, my great-grandmother’s piano.

I love that piano. It is simply beautiful. Walnut with decorative inlays, brass candlesticks (which need polishing). The keys are no longer ivory – after about 60 years they were so damaged and yellowed, some missing, that my mother gave in and had them replaced. The piano was my mother’s most prized possession. We were never allowed to put anything on the piano except sheet music. There are one or two small scratches, but generally the polish is unspoiled and the piano still gleams. But for me it is the tone of the piano that sets it apart. There is a mellow richness, a soft beauty of tone which is rare to find. I can safely say that of all the pianos I have played, I’ve only found one – an orchestral grand piano – that could honestly compare in tone to Grandma Grant’s piano.

Of course I might be biased. But I do have a very good ear.

The piano now sits in my lounge. It doesn’t really match the rest of my furnishings, which are contemporary in style, but it has a place of honour, and will not be moved. My mother gave me the piano when I first moved north, in my early 20s. We had been chatting about her favourite television programme. Someone had died on Coronation Street and the family had been fighting over her possessions. She said she hoped we wouldn’t do that. I said very honestly that I thought the only thing we might fight over would be the piano. “But that’s going to you of course,” she said. And she made immediate arrangements for me to get it before I crossed the Strait leaving the island forever.

In 1990 just before we went to live in Bangkok we made our Wills. They now badly need updating. Our parents are older, my dad gone already. We have assets now. I’d like to leave money to my favourite charity, maybe support a scholarship. But the main thing that stops me is the question “who will get the piano?” (This question is one of the sadnesses from not having my own children). It needs to be someone who would love it like me. My older sister’s daughters never really took up the piano. But my new tiny niece might. I think I’d like her to grow up with the piano in the corner, using it every day and caring for it, thinking of the women before her who played it and loved it.

O = Ozone

2008-07-15T16:39:00.002+12:00

I live on an island in the south of the South Pacific, where the winds blow fiercely. On a fine day, our country sparkles with clarity. The quality of light here is unsurpassed. Photographers love it. I am frequently disappointed when I travel to other countries, expecting to see grand vistas but only finding haze.

There’s a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica. Ozone is a protective canopy over the earth, keeping out the harmful UV-B rays from the sun. So close to Antarctica, New Zealand has had a hole in over it for a long time. In summer, when the sun is high, we (and other southern hemisphere friends at similar latitudes) are particularly vulnerable. The combination of the clear air and the ozone hole mean that you can get sunburned in record time here.

Of course, sunburn is dangerous. When I grew up in the 70s, we didn’t really know that. People thought a suntan was healthy. I remember my mother sending me out to sit in the sun to try and get a tan gradually. She thought it was protection against sunburn. She was naturally olive-toned, and tanned easily. I had my father’s skin, classic Irish colouring, pale skin, green eyes and dark hair. When we were little, and on our summer holidays, my father would put on shorts for the only time in the year. My sister and I would run competitions to see if we could see a man with legs whiter than Dad. One year we did – I can still see that man. He was very fair, with ginger hair and freckles. Unfair competition really.

Dad spent his life in the sun as a farmer. His face was a ruddy tan, his hands a deep brown. But the colour ended at his neck and wrists. After he retired, as old folks do, he started getting spots on his hands. He visited his GP, who would generally examine them and burn them off with liquid nitrogen. He started doing the same on his face. The spots were skin cancer, but as they weren’t melanoma, the scariest of the skin cancers, he was relaxed about treating them. But there was a persistent cancer on his jaw, and eventually, after many attempts to remove it, he saw a specialist. Invasive surgery followed as the cancer was found to be more than skin deep, and radiation treatment was required. He recovered well, but a year later was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. He had none of the risk factors for it, and the doctors seemed to think that it was likely a secondary cancer from the nearby skin cancer. I can’t afford to think otherwise. Oesophogeal cancer has a poor prognosis, and is a nasty way to die. Dad died only 2 ½ months after diagnosis. I was at his side.

I love summer. I love the feeling of the sun on my back, being warm through to my bones, the freedom and joy of a warm sunny day. But I fear it too now.

I am an expert in wearing suntan lotion, and always wear makeup with a sun protection factor. I get regular mole checks from my doctor. I wear hats too, despite the difficulty in finding one that looks good on me. In New Zealand now school children have big floppy hats as part of their school uniforms, and have to wear them when they’re outside playing at lunchtime. They wear swimwear with long sleeves to protect their beautiful pale perfect skin from sunburn.

For years, there have been advertisements on TV reminding us to Slip Slop Slap (Slip on a shirt, slop on some sunscreen, and slap on a hat) when out in the sun. I believe there’s a similar campaign in Australia. The newspapers, radio and TV report the daily burn time during the summer. There are articles and documentaries about the dangers of sunburn and its relationship with skin cancer. But it surprises me how many people still live in ignorance, or worse, denial, of the dangers. I met someone a couple of years ago who still uses baby oil to try and give herself a tan. Frying herself. Some friends ask, when I’ve returned from beach holidays, if I got a tan. Others look at me as if I’m mad when I say I won’t sit outside for lunch unless I’m in the shade. Quite aside from the aesthetics (my skin is nice and smooth but sun worshippers start turning leathery and aging in their 30s), don’t they know the risks? They should.

Maybe I need to move someone where there is no ozone hole. There are reports that it might be healing as CFC use drops. I hope so. I need it. We need it.

N = Now

2008-07-10T17:58:00.002+12:00

A Buddhist friend of mine in Thailand gave me a book about mindfulness, about how to appreciate the moment, about how to wash the dishes not to get them clean, but to simply wash the dishes.

My mother had a more simple version of this. When I used to get gloomy or grumpy, I was told “it’s time for you to read the Pollyanna books again.”

Sometimes this is easier than others. It’s not hard right now. The sky is clear but dark, it will be cold tonight, but there won’t be any wind or rain. I am comfortable and warm in my office, my fingers are typing my words as I think them, and the radio is telling me the news of the day. I can hear the ruru or morepork (night owl) calling in the trees outside my window. My husband will be home from work soon, when we’ll open a bottle of pinot noir or cabernet sauvignon, and I’ll pop the tiny lamb roast with garlic and rosemary in the oven with the kumara and parsnip and pumpkin, and steam some broccoli and peas. Oops. I’m anticipating. See, it’s harder than it looks.

Deloney is the master of celebrating the now. He’s my Pollyanna, my Buddhist monk. My daily reminder to love what I’m doing. To be glad.

I'm so glad we have him.

M = Mmmmmmm

2008-07-07T15:48:00.004+12:00

The clouds hung low and ominous, it was cold and windy, and as I scuttled down the street towards my destination, the first large drops of rain landed on my head. I ran quickly up the stairs, took a deep breath, then entered. It was calmer here, oils scented the air, soft music played. The world outside faded almost instantly.

I was ushered into a small room, dimly lit, but made cosy with the warm glow of a heater in the corner. I took off my clothes and with them, folded all my worries, thoughts and tensions away. This is not a place to be thinking about what has just happened, or what needs to be done. It is a place to be in the moment. I was conscious of the rain pelting down and the wind whipping up the streets outside, but was happy to be safely cocooned in my cosy haven.

She gently closed the door, and I could hear her pouring oil into her hands, and rubbing them together to warm it before she started to spread it on my back. I’m long, with broad shoulders. She needed more oil, but soon her hands got down to work, starting gently but firmly, and gradually increasing the pressure, employing her fists and elbows to work the muscles around my tense spine and stiff neck, injured several months ago but still not quite healed. The knots were tight, and probably needed a few more hours hard work, but even in that short time my neck relaxed and lengthened under her attentive hands.

An hour on a massage table goes too quickly. What can be more decadent than lying on a bed in a dimly lit room with soft music playing, swathed in towels and having sweet oils massaged into your skin? Feeling the knots being worked out of your body, focusing on releasing all the tension that you don’t know is there until it’s gone. Concentrating on what you’re feeling at that moment, making the most of every stroke, every pressure. I don’t understand people who can fall asleep during a massage. Do they not pay attention?

I’m particularly fond of hand and feet massages. Appendages so taken for granted and over-used that I never expected the pleasure you can feel when they’re pressured and moulded and stroked.

The worst part of a massage is when it is over. Even when it hurts it is worth it.

I’ve had massages in many places. A foot and calf massage from a blind man in Singapore that hurt so much I wanted to cry. A back massage by a woman in Wellington who said if it didn’t hurt it wasn’t doing any good (she was right, so I groaned out loud for the whole hour). In Bangkok, hand massages whilst getting my hair cut were a routine service. Head massages at my hair salon here that make me want to cry when they stop. A woman walking on my back in Bali in my first ever massage. A tiny Thai woman manipulating my back, click, groan, click, groan, click, aaaaaahhhh, perfect. The Fijian girl who had just set up her salon at the Cook Islands resort and had a rough piece of skin on her hand which scratched, but the sound of the waves on the beach made up for it. The massage therapist who has such slow long relaxing strokes every millisecond is pure bliss.

I wish I could afford a massage once a week. Two hours minimum. It would be time and money well spent.

L = Luck

2008-07-04T15:18:00.004+12:00

I don’t believe in miracles. I believe in luck. Chance, the randomness of the world, odds, whatever you want to call it. To me, miracles are just being on the good side of the odds, a million (or so) to one chance. Someone has to be that one. Nice for them. But in my view, if miracles existed in the divine sense of the word, then miracles would only happen to worthy, deserving folk. But they don’t. They’re pretty much random. Right place, right time.

The same with bad luck. If everything was planned, surely only evil axe murderers would be on the other end of the odds. But that’s not the way the world works. So when I have bad luck, I try not to take it personally.

I heard of one guy who apparently once won the big prize in a lottery. He said how unlucky he was because he had to share the prize with another ticket holder who had the same numbers. He’d just won more money than he had ever expected, and said “I’m unlucky.”

Some say I’m unlucky because we can’t have children. It’s not what we planned, and that puts us on the outer edge of our society, but I know two things. I know that it isn’t a punishment. And I know that my life is pretty wonderful without children. Different, not worse. I can sleep in on Sunday mornings, and go out at night on impulse without worrying about babysitters. I could drive a racy two-seater red convertible (if our climate and my finances permitted.) I don’t have to childproof my house, I can take holidays to adults-only resorts during the school term, and I can get drunk at night and forget to feed the cats and it doesn’t matter.

I’m lucky in other ways too of course:

I was born in the late 20^th century.
I was born and grew up in New Zealand.
I have the intellectual capability to know I can always support myself - health willing - and live in an era and a country where women can do so.
I have always enjoyed relatively good health
I’ve always been pretty good at whatever I’ve tried, physically and intellectually. (Though I can’t write poetry or curl my tongue, and whatever I try it mustn’t involve heights.)
I have a husband who seems to love me and has stuck by me through difficult times, who is warm and generous and makes me laugh.
The cats did me the courtesy of waiting 15 years 1 month before they started puking and peeing and pooping on the carpet (last week)
I have had had both opportunities and funds to be able to travel the world, experiencing things beyond my dreams.
I have good friends and family.
There are people who seem to want to read my blogs and comment on them.

Luck. I have more than my fair share.

K = Kissing

2008-07-01T16:01:00.009+12:00

New Zealanders have always been reserved people – thanks to our predominantly Anglo-Saxon heritage. Though I sense too that our isolation and the hard life of early immigrants contributed to a culture that values stoicism and has a distaste for overt shows of emotion.

So the arrival of the social kiss on our shores has disturbed a lot of people. Those of us who like to think we are more cosmopolitan have embraced it, but we still don’t understand it. Unlike the European cultures that habitually use the social kiss, we have no rules to guide us.

The Maori community, with its close-knit society and customary hongi greeting (a touching of noses and “shared breath” ), is more comfortable with being physically close to others. Maori men and women frequently greet members of the opposite sex with a kiss on the cheek.

But the rest of us grapple with the issue of to kiss or not to kiss, especially in the business context, but also socially.

Last year I was on a long business trip with several other people. After two weeks, and a successful conclusion to a very stressful negotiation, H flew out. At the airport, where we had all gone to have a final debriefing and to farewell him, I shook his hand and congratulated him on a tough time and a good result. That evening, chatting over a drink, one of our team commented that she thought Hone would have kissed me farewell, and was surprised he didn’t. I on the other hand was not surprised. I explained that our relationship was a professional one, I was his boss essentially, and that – however friendly and at ease in each other’s company we might be (we had conducted an early morning meeting with me in a sarong in front of the mirror straightening my hair only a few days earlier) - ultimately we had to keep things on a business level. At the very least in front of his staff!

This though is representative of the confusion that surrounds the social kiss in New Zealand. I recounted the story that I had once travelled with another colleague in another company – we had drunk champagne cocktails together and snuggled down into our seats on the plane side by side. But it was not until I had left the company, and ran into him again, that he said to me “now you’re not a colleague I can give you a kiss!” And I reciprocated gladly.

I should add that the next day at the airport, when it was my turn to leave, D grabbed me and said “well I’m going to give you a kiss whether you like it or not!”

It’s a minefield, even socially. Many of my peer group now seem to kiss on meeting. There’s an awkward moment, that first kiss with male friends (or the husbands of friends) you’ve known for years.

Even when we’ve dealt with the issue of whether or not to kiss, and we lean in for a kiss, there are pitfalls.

Fortunately, most people automatically go to your right cheek first. So there are not too many broken noses as a result of poor directional judgments.

With Charles, we have had the occasional clash of eye-glasses. (There’s a lot to be said for contact lenses if you’re a nervous social kisser). Even if you navigate the inward movement successfully, there is always the danger of your glasses hooking his on the outward movement, or vice versa. We kiss each other awkwardly and carefully, breaking free with relief and getting on to more interesting things, like what wine we’re drinking and what gossip needs to be told.

There is of course the issue of “one cheek or two.” It can be terribly awkward - you start to pull away after the first manoeuvre just as the kisser aims at your other cheek, then you feel terribly gauche and go back to complete the kissing, just as they give up on you. Hopefully you can laugh about it, making it much more relaxed. Last week, as I said farewell to Joe who was going home to Canada, I kissed him on both cheeks. He was startled. “Oh! A double kiss!” he said, looking relieved that I wasn’t going in for a third!

Then there’s the confused “is this a kiss or a hug” gentle colliding of bodies, and finding you’re kissing the back of someone’s head as they grab you in a bear hug.

It's a pity blowing kisses wouldn't catch on. But it's not really acceptable to do that to a member of the opposite sex over the age of about 6.

There’s a lot to be said for the Germans, the handshaking champions of the world, keeping a seemly distance with everyone with a handshake. Simple and clear-cut. Confusion-free. Unfortunately, New Zealanders have a relatively informal culture, and so the formal, business handshake hasn’t really caught on in social situations.

The Thais have it right.

They wai, and bow the head. We could do that. We like our personal space.

Whilst I am all for a good hug with close friends and family, I shudder to think that we will ever adopt the custom of hugging complete strangers or professionals (eg dentists and doctors or interviewers) that we see on American TV shows. My US friends, please tell me you don’t hug your doctors in real life?

Of course, in written form, I’m very relaxed.

So hugs and kisses, handshakes and hongis to everyone!

J = Justice

2008-06-26T15:45:00.004+12:00

There is an ugly mood prevailing in New Zealand at the moment. Recently there have been a number of high profile legal cases that have not resulted in a conviction. The public, and even the Prime Minister, have been baying for blood.

One case, where baby twins died, was a horrific situation and was another example of people having babies who could not and did not care for them, and should never have had them. The case involved a dysfunctional family who refused to talk to the police at the outset, then ended up with the mother and father accusing each other in a TV drama-style court case. The evidence was only ever circumstantial and there was opposing medical testimony. There was, to me, undoubtedly reasonable doubt.

But the media has been reporting or perhaps more accurately whipping up public outcry, the politicians (it being election year) have jumped on the bandwagon, and there are the inevitable calls for public enquiries, for changes in legislation to allow for retrials, and for the government to be "tough on crime." Lobbyists scream for longer sentences, under the misnomer of the Sensible Sentencing Trust, despite the fact that we have one of the highest prison rates in the OECD and minimum sentences have been lengthened significantly over the last 5 years. Everyone seems to prefer trial by media rather than trial in law.

“Justice!” they screech, forgetting that reasonable doubt and the right to a fair trial are the basics of our justice system, and if we lose those we lose justice. I knew we had reached a new low when our Prime Minister Helen Clark weighed in, as she is usually a very astute judge of when to speak and what to say.

The public is angry. I am angry with them. But for the opposite reason.

If I ever find myself in court, I want a fair trial, and I want to be judged against the premise of being innocent until proven guilty, and a verdict based on the principle of reasonable doubt.

Mind you, having said that, I shiver at the idea of a trial by a jury of my peers. Whilst I've never been a juror, my husband has reported that half his jury comprised retired people (because they have the time to be jurors) and several of them couldn't even hear the evidence, yet were prepared to come to a verdict. Few of the jurors had the ability to sift through evidence or use logic to determine guilt or innocence. So if I have to be judged by my peers, I want to be the one deciding if they truly are my peers. Women my age and my education level would be a good start - with decent hearing too - but I know that’s not completely foolproof because a good friend of mine, who shares my age, background, education and even a similar career, would want to string me up or get out Old Sparky. So I would want my ethics and social values to play a part in choosing the jury too.

Face it, I’d be screwed. But at least there’d be reasonable doubt ... wouldn’t there?

I = Inspiration

2008-06-23T12:21:00.005+12:00

I find inspiration in many places. Unfortunately, I act on this inspiration far less frequently.

The other day, I was driving home and saw a big yellow bus with a neon sign saying “Sorry.” It has inspired me to write a short story. I intend submitting it for a competition but will do so NEXT month after it’s been polished a bit. If I don't chicken out, that is.

On Friday, a “home office” shop inspired me to plan on tidying my office and have it beautifully and expensively organised. It might happen. I have good intentions of doing it.

My travels inspire me to paint. I got into painting when going through a rough time. I loved it, finding it very therapeutic. But I haven't done it for a long time. I feel inspired to start again.

The Biggest Loser inspires me to exercise more, as I watch from the couch with my glass of wine.

The magazines I read in my favourite coffee shops give me a lot of inspiration, both for my career and life in general. For example, Cuisine magazine inspires me to want to create beautiful meals and buy fabulous wine. My favourite cuisine recipe is a sienese recipe for chicken, prunes, spices and lots of booze.

Izzie and Sarah inspired me to help others, and so now I do.

And my blogger friends inspire me daily:

to really see the world around me ... and to learn more about birds (IB)
to write more about my life experiences (Bridgett)
to appreciate the good and often simple things in life, and how to be a friend (Deloney)
to laugh at life (Helen)
to be more poetic (Mrs S)

H = Helping

2008-06-18T17:42:00.002+12:00

Every day I log on to a charity website. This site saved my sanity when I was going through a rough time. I found other people who were experiencing the same thing, who could reassure me that I was not going mad, who could tell me I would get through it. I found an organisation set up after a young woman had died as a result of a misdiagnosis, full of compassion for those of us who experienced this medical trauma. I found an organisation backed up by the best medical research in the world, intent on teaching GPs and emergency room doctors the basics about this medical condition. I found information that helped me understand what had happened, why it had happened, what the treatment options were, and what the future might hold.

I found friends. There was safety in the anonymity at first, but our voices were clear, our personalities spoke through the internet’s series of tubes. So when I travelled to the UK, it was as if I'd known these special women for years.. Some of them travelled here. Friendships developed. Real friendships. I send their children birthday presents, send them NZ wine as wedding gifts, share their ups and their downs, and with their help I coped, and grew, I survived and yes, even prospered.

Most importantly, I found myself.

And now, every day I log on to that charity website, and see other women going through what I did. I find them young, vulnerable, terrified, angry, confused, despairing. I reassure them that they will get through this, that what they are experiencing is normal, and that it is not their fault. I listen to them, wipe their tears and hold them across the ether.

I realise how far I've come.

Helping others. It helps me too.

G = Gershwin

2008-06-16T17:43:00.001+12:00

Omitted from my x365 so here he is.

Overly, eagerly, affectionate, he can drive people away. But I know his timidity sometimes plays out in aggression, and have a soft spot for him, as I think he does for me.

He’s old now, and drools.

But his purr is beautiful. His fur soft.

F = Fraud

2008-06-14T17:56:00.004+12:00

I remember watching a TV documentary in the early 90s about four very successful New Zealand businesswomen. One of them, the head of a publishing company, surprised me by confessing that she constantly felt inadequate, and this spurred her on to work harder and always be better prepared than anyone else, in case they “caught her out” and discovered her biggest secret. She felt like a fraud, despite her evident intelligence, humanity and abilities. I was surprised.

But I was also secretly comforted. Other women felt the same way I did. (Do men suffer from this? Less so, I think). I too struggled to feel confident with my own talents and abilities. I realise now that I was intimidated by people who used their innate confidence and, at times, aggression to cow the rest of us into the belief that they knew what they were talking about. Consequently, these were the people I saw getting ahead, and I got very disillusioned at times.

Fortunately now though, I am increasingly aware I suffer from the fraud syndrome, aware that the negative conversations I have in my head are generated from my own lack of confidence. I know that if I pretend confidence, no-one will know that I feel a fraud, even if my stomach is tied in knots and doing acrobatics at the same time.

This last week I was re-elected to my position on the Board and had to chair two major meetings. I’d had a few difficult issues to deal with earlier in the year and some sleepless nights as a result. I worried that I would be voted off, and as my husband said, was seeing conspiracies where there weren’t any. By the end of the week I think I am finally beginning to believe that I deserve to be in this role, that I am doing just as well as my quite illustrious predecessors, and that I am not a fraud. I do in fact know what I’m talking about. Experience and commonsense count. Maybe other people have recognised this, even if I haven't. Up till now.

So as my hair greys, frown lines appear and eyesight lengthens, I am feeling much more comfortable in my own skin (if not the mirror).

The fading of the fraud syndrome. Nobody talks about that. But it’s definitely one of the good things about growing older.

E = Eat!

2008-06-09T17:56:00.003+12:00

We have to do it. We’d die without it.

We all eat to live. And some of us live to eat.

I’m one of the latter. We’re the type of people who like to take pleasure in all aspects of our lives. I’m deeply suspicious of people who don’t take any interest in food. Either that, or I’m sympathetic – maybe their taste buds just don’t work? Poor souls.

In the 21^st century, we have access to so many different types of food. My mother and father, and grandparents, and their ancestors, grew up on the land, eating what they could from the land, rivers, sea or sky. Their food was simple, wholesome. It looked like food. This was the food I grew up with. I remember as a child squealing as my father squirted us with milk from the cow’s teat. Fresh milk and cream daily. Sometimes, when my mother was tired and at a loss for what to provide for dessert (yes, in those healthy and skinny days, we had dessert every night), she would simply whip some cream with some vanilla and icing (powdered) sugar. Aaah. My favourite.

Then I got the letter I was going to Thailand for a year. We knew they ate rice, but little more. Rice was rarely on our table, in the South Island country farm. When it was, it was rice pudding. (Although sometimes my mother horrified me by mixing cooked rice into the whipped cream. Ruining it!) The memories I have of rice pudding are of being left at the table after everyone had gone, because I refused to eat it. I gagged . The texture still makes me want to squirm. So my family laughed at me when we knew I would be eating rice with my host family in Bangkok. I was philosophical - at least I would lose weight. (Typical teenager – skinny was not skinny enough!)

Then I landed on Thai soil. Was served jasmine rice. Sat at the dinner table in the garden as the sun set, and smelled that unmistakeable scent. I was hooked. Then I was introduced to sticky rice. Line and sinker.

Now I’m a rice snob. I’m sorry. Jasmine rice has to be served for Thai food, and I distinctly remember getting very crotchety at a so-called fusion restaurant in the Dandenong range (just out of Mrs S territory) when they had a Thai green curry and basmati rice on the menu. I love risotto (with risotto rices of course please), and paella, and Malaysian coconut rice, and Japanese short grained rice. Sushi of course.

When my husband and I chat now about our travels, you can guarantee we talk about the food as much as what we saw. I can tell you what I ate at many of the places we’ve been.

My first ever lobster on the sand in Vanuatu by the most beautiful deserted lagoon
the smoked salmon soup in Budapest I remembered just the other night
the rabbit stew in Carcassone at Chez Fred’s (yes, that was its name)
the capsicum tapas in Segovia
the seafood risotto in an alley in Rome just off the Pantheon Piazza
the honeydew melon filled with Beaumes de Venise wine in Avignon
the tiny mussels in Charlottetown, PEI
Yo! Sushi in Bayswater in London
Californian Pizza in Bangkok (the fake one who delivered to our apartment) and San Francisco (the real one – prawn and pesto pizza …. Yum )
the whole fish on the beach at Phuket our first night together in Thailand
the Moroccan tagine of beef, peas and fennel in the courtyard at our riad
endless satay at the old outdoor Satay Club in Singapore, and
the fried crickets at the mayor’s house in Kantaralak, Thailand.

The list could go on and on.

On Saturday morning Kim Hill was interviewing someone about a meal he’d eaten that cost $350 for 16 courses. “Immoral!” she declared provocatively, at the same time as I turned to D and said “that’s not too bad that price!” After all, we had a Euro 350 meal in Paris at a three star Michelin restaurant back in 2002.

His argument in defence was the same as ours would be. We don’t go to expensive sports matches for $350. I don’t have a lot of diamonds. D doesn’t have a big screen TV. Our car is ten years old, our stereo system older. Our armchairs are a bit torn and tattered. We’ve lived in the same house for 15 years.

But we like food and wine. We like eating out. It’s a form of entertainment. And we’re lucky. We have a good time together, and so a two or three hour meal passes quickly – it’s not a torture of silence we see other couples enduring. We understand the concept of destination dining.

But we like simple things too. Ripe tomatoes and fresh basil. Fish and chips on the beach. Chocolate. Anytime.

And sitting down to a platter of grilled Turkish bread and dips, with a glass of wine, is a great way to unwind after a busy day.

It’s dinnertime.

D = Distorted

2008-06-05T15:21:00.004+12:00

I understand anorexics, in principle. I can see how they can look in the mirror and see a fat person. Because I can do the opposite. I look in the mirror, regularly, and approve. This morning I saw a taut bum, flat stomach and body in proportion. The face was still young, fresh, 30-something-ish.

But sometimes I’m walking down the street, and catch sight of this round, middle-aged woman reflected in a shop window. But she’s wearing my clothes. Carrying my handbag. Huh?

Wwhen I can’t avoid it, I am occasionally photographed. And look back at the image to see a woman who looks kinda like I think I might when I'm old.

In my head, I’m still young, slim, fit and athletic. I told someone that once. They laughed.

I prefer the image in my head.

C = Coffee

2008-06-04T17:18:00.002+12:00

New Zealand used to be a land of tea drinkers. Coffee appeared in the 60s and 70s, but your options were usually instant, Greggs instant, or Nestle instant. We then almost skipped straight to espresso, which started appearing in the late 80s. Now, everywhere you go, there are little coffee shops serving great coffee. You can get a good latte or long black almost anywhere in New Zealand now, even small towns such as Whakatane where I went for the first time a couple of weeks ago.

The New Zealand coffee revolution was essentially home grown. We developed a more European approach to coffee, with small intimate coffee shops, coffee served in glasses or good cups. A good barista is worth their weight in gold, and annual national competitions are held to find the best.

I probably became addicted to coffee at Brios, where I used to drink regularly with friends from work. During work, in fact. But sadly a Starbucks opened up over the street, their landlord got scared, and to their shock their lease was cancelled. (Fortunately they opened up successfully elsewhere, and they’re still going strong). So I led a one-woman boycott of Starbucks. Colleagues used to tease me by leaving empty Starbuck’s coffee cups (cups? buckets more like!) on my desk. It’s been at least 8 years, and I am proud to say I have never had a coffee there yet. New Zealand developed its own coffee culture, one with good food and small owner-operated cafés. Only when it was obvious that this was wildly successful did Starbucks, the big bullying chain, enter the market. I won’t drink there. I have my principles. Stamping of foot!

I adore the smell of coffee, maybe more than its taste. My husband however detests it, so I don’t have a fancy espresso machine at home. I like good coffee, and only good coffee. I get my coffee made by professionals. I’d rather have nothing at all if I have to make it myself! Not because I’m lazy. I just make terrible coffee, and can’t figure out how to do it better.

So when I go out for my coffee, I have some choices to make. I look for atmosphere, service, something to read, somewhere as child-free as possible, and of course, great coffee. Being self-employed, I often drink alone. That has its pleasures too.

Inevitably, I have my favourites. Mojo on Willis St has the best coffee, feels like a little piece of Paris, and is the venue for my regular chats with Adrienne, discussing world politics, office politics, books or the latest fashions.

Wholly Bagels in Thorndon always has a newspaper and a variety of magazines that often send me away filled with inspiration. Only this morning I found reference to a short story competition in a new magazine there. Or maybe it’s the caffeine! It also has free parking, but is to be avoided at all costs during the school holidays.

The Organic Grocer at the bottom of the gorge in Kaiwharawhara is a new discovery, and has more good magazines and some peace and quiet. I also feel very wholesome there.

I always have good intentions to walk to Rosa in Khandallah, but usually end up popping in when I’ve been driving by to get a takeaway fix. It pays not to go around 10.30 am on a Tuesday or Thursday, when the yoga mums are there though.

Rise on The Terrace does the best 5-grain toast with my coffee before a meeting in the morning, and I enjoy lingering over my coffee, or even having a second cup, when all the suits are running off to their offices at 8.30.

And when I have time to kill, and it is a fine day, I sit at the bay, looking out at the harbour, with a coffee from Kaffee Eis, breathing deeply and enjoying the good, simple things in life.

B = Birds

2008-05-30T17:37:00.006+12:00

Indigo Bunting, of Alphabird and more latterly Route 153 fame, who inspired this blog, writes frequently of birds. What intrigues me is that she does it with an infectious fascination and love. I’ve never really thought of birds this way before, but this entry is for her.

Growing up by the coast at the bottom of the Pacific, the birds we were most familiar with were water birds, apart from the odd magpie attracted by my mother’s silver hair clips, swooping at her as she hung out the washing behind our house.

In the lake nearby, wild ducks, Canada geese (introduced to New Zealand from the United States as a gift from US President Theodore Roosevelt), and black and white swans were abundant. They never learned that in the beginning of May, duck shooting season began as the winter weather arrived. My dad would go out with his brothers and neighbours almost daily, in the manuka maimai. The results of the day were brought home to us, for plucking and later, for good eating. We always knew to spit out the pellets from the shot gun (poor ducks never had a chance), but forgot to warn my city born and bred husband the first time he experienced this.

Otherwise, the birds we were surrounded with were exotic blackbirds and sparrows. I’m using exotic here in the ”not native” sense of the word.

In the swamp down the road, we often saw pukeko, one of New Zealand’s many flightless birds. The pukeko can be, I learned recently, quite a vicious bird. If you're a duck. But you have to admit, it's awfully cute in a lovably awkward indigo blue sort of way.

Occasionally a fantail or piwakawaka would venture to the coast, miles from its native bush. Going to the bush was a treat – we would look for the tui, delighting at the sight of its tuft, listening hard to identify the chattering clicks and coughs and high notes that make up its song. We also loved the calls of the kokako and bellbird. Their voices were otherworldly, beautiful in their purity. Another thrills was to hear the thumping flap of the wings of the elusive wood pigeon, or kereru.

Living in New Zealand’s capital city in 2008, you would expect we don’t see much birdlife. But in recent years the bird life in the city has exploded as a direct result of the establishment of a bird sanctuary. Tui are now commonplace throughout the city - we have several who love our trees. On fine days I sit at my computer, with my window open, and hear their song. At night, as we lie in bed drifting off to sleep, we often hear the native owl calling morepork or ruru, named as it sounds.

Because New Zealand had no land mammals (other than the bat) or snakes, there were no natural predators for our native birds. Consequently a number are flightless, most famously the kiwi.More beautiful, once thought extinct, is the slow, stately and vulnerable takahe.

Weka are curious and destructive. Many a traveller has left their car on the road to Milford Sound to look at the view or play in the snow, only to return and find their windscreen wipers ripped off by a gang of cheeky weka. Campers are equally vulnerable, leaving their tents or goods unsecured at their peril.

Unfortunately the arrival of humans, who hunted birds for food and who brought rats, stoats and ferrets, cats and dogs, our birds found themselves at serious risk. Some have disappeared, most notably the moa, others are still endangered. Our Department of Conservation has done a wonderful job of saving the black robin and the takahe, to name just a few.

I remember being on a trip once with my family. We had stopped beside a river for lunch or afternoon tea, and my father suddenly hushed us. We could sense his excitement as he pointed out a rare blue duck.

At his funeral, my sister talked about spending time with him when she was young, before I came along and disrupted things. He used to take her to the beach, by the lake, and would talk about the things he thought they could see. When she got her glasses at age 13, she could for the first time see all the birds he used to point out to her, and finally understand why he was so fascinated.

My dad would have liked Indigo Bunting.

Oh ... and I know Helen wanted a shag, so how can I deny her?

A = Architecture

2008-05-16T17:24:00.016+12:00

I come from simple beginnings. A small wooden house, which began life as a two-room dwelling but ended life as a three bedroom house. My father grew up there, though when his younger brothers and sisters arrived he was shunted outside to sleep in the caravan (which we later used as a playhouse) with his brother.

By the time my sisters and I came along, the by then three-bedroom house was badly in need of repair, renovation, or demolition. My parents knew that demolition and construction of a new house was the best option. But complications over the farm inheritance delayed this. Consequently I have many memories as a child of my mother poring over design books, or looking eagerly at any new houses she saw. This went on for years. At times she got dispirited and the books were packed away for months and years, but finally (the year I was on my student exchange) they were able to go ahead. My mother designed the house, drafted up the plans and had them approved by the local Council. My uncle then built the house.

It was a simple New Zealand farm house, but with good bones, plenty of sun, warm, and easy to live in.

Surrounded for so many years by housing design books, I learned to accurately read plans, to determine where the sun would rise and set, figure out what shade there would be, how practical different designs might be, and to imagine the house as built.

I took this totally for granted, and thought everyone could do it. Until I started living in and buying houses of my own, seeing the impracticalities of design, or wondering at the odd purchase decisions friends made, hearing them later complain of lack of sun or other problems which should (to me) have been obvious. I am also frequently appalled at mediocre houses and buildings in spectacular locations. How could they not want their architecture to reflect the beauty and magnificence of the nature around them? Or to blend in at least?

Over the years I’ve developed a strong view of the architecture I prefer. I like strong contemporary individualistic architecture. Whilst I can appreciate a classic villa and think they can be very beautiful, I am unlikely to choose to live in such a house. I also particularly dislike subdivisions full of mediocre architecture, mass built, all looking like variations of the same design. Suburbia never appealed. Perhaps it was growing up singing Little Boxes at school and playing my sister’s copy of “Mother’s Little Helper.” I was shocked when, years ago on my first visit to the US, I was taken to a housing estate in silicon valley in California. Huge expensive-looking houses, but all the same same same. No individuality. The kind of place you’re not allowed to hang your washing outside.

And whilst I love Italian and French villas, I love them in Italy and France, not New Zealand. They don't work here. They don't look at home. I love homegrown architecture, that looks comfortable in the landscape. Like this place.

Our current house appealed to me strongly with its different shapes. I fell in love with it as I walked down the drive and caught the first glimpse of its sharp lines.

When we opened the door and found a multi-levelled, spacious house with a view, with a cat curled up in the sun, it was a done deal. So we resisted the conservative advice of our engineer father-in-law who felt it needed too much work, and bought the house. We’ve been here 15 years now.

I still get pleasure from the view of our macrocarpa trees through the window in different lights,

or the different angles of the ceiling and stairs.

And I love the view across the valley.

I do however harbour a dream of designing and building my own house one day. It doesn’t have to be a mansion, and I definitely don’t want it full of marble and grandeur. I like unusual (often cheaper) materials used creatively. I want a smallish, quirky, stylish house that meets our needs for socialising and nesting, for work and play. With a view of course.

With this ambition tightly held, following in the footsteps of my mother, I buy architecture magazines to keep up with the latest trends and to get ideas for my dream house. I am constantly on the lookout for the perfect design and perfect location. For the perfect budget too of course. I know none of these exist. But it’s fun looking.

Z = Zealous

2008-05-11T16:42:00.007+12:00

I’m not the zealous type.

I’m not religious. I’m not passionate about my career. I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to be when I grow up. I enjoy a variety of pastimes but don’t want to focus on one to the exclusion of all others. I can’t even commit to learning one language fluently. I want to try them all. I struggle to name anything “favourite” as my favourite things change depending on my mood, the day of the week, the weather, what I last read/saw, etc.

I tend to do all things in moderation … well, with the exception of sweet things and wine … and time on the internet ...

Oh sure, I can be a little pedantic about certain things.

I’m a bit of a Thai food nazi. I object to so-called “fusion” food becoming lazy and serving basmati rice with Thai food (the horror!), and really object to Thai restaurants offering Malaysian roti bread, or presenting you with a knife instead of a spoon. They should know better.

I was also a one-woman crusade against Starbucks when they arrived in Wellington. (Don’t get me started ...)

But lately, I find myself becoming increasingly obsessed. I’ve even been heard to yell at the television and radio. I find myself ranting to anyone who will listen. Usually my mother-in-law and my understanding friend.

What I'm about to write makes me cringe, as I know I never received a solid education in English grammar, and my vocabulary is self-taught. I make plenty of mistakes. But I cannot believe the declining standard of English, its pronunciation and grammar.

Maybe I don’t have enough to do?

Or is it simply a case of old age setting in?

My particular pet peeves recently have been:

The increasing tendency to hear “There is ..” followed by a plural. Even Dr Who said “There is 10 million people …” on TV last night. Fortunately I have not yet seen this in written form. Then, without doubt, apoplexy will take hold, I am sure.

Toni the weather girl says “in the evening time.” “Evening IS a time!” I scream at the TV regularly. At Christmas I was delighted to discover my sister has the same peeve. Mind you, she’s older than me.

People who say “…ink” instead of “ …ing.” There is a local supermarket chain that has an advertisement that says “everythink we do, we do to save you money.” Needless to say, I shop elsewhere.

People who pronounce “remuneration” as “renumeration.” Over the last few weeks there has been an industrial dispute between junior doctors and their employers. One of the employer representatives referred to “renumeration.” Maybe that’s a Freudian slip. I doubt it. I confess to being delighted when I would catch a particular radio announcer doing this. She was also guilty of pronouncing “disingenuous” as “disingenious.” It would make my day, even as I yelled at the radio.

The struggles the news announcers and interviewers have had the last week to pronounce Myanmar. Miranmar, Miamnar, and a dozen other variations.

“Could of” instead of “could have.” I see this a lot on the message board where I volunteer. Women from all walks of life visit and I understand their mistakes. Just don’t get me started on the senior journalist who says “could of” instead of “could have.” He’s lucky he’s a radio journalist.

People who confuse “less” and “fewer.”

Unnecessarily embellished words. Spellings with a "z" instead of an "s" - like “burglarize” instead of “burgle” which manages to incorporate several pet hates in one word.

Pathetic I know. I even punctuate my text (SMS) messages.

This last week I’ve been debating telling my local café that almond is not spelled “almand” and that truffle is not “trufle.” But I haven’t. I haven't written to TV3 to complain about Toni the weathergirl, or the radio station to complain about Sean, or the supermarket about their advertisement, or the BBC about Dr Who.

Obviously, I have a way to go before I can qualify as zealous. Intolerant, however, I have well in control.

Disclaimer: I no that I could of written this real grammatically bad but if there is anythink wrong I hope you and me will still be friends.

Y = Yesterday

2008-05-08T10:32:00.006+12:00

5.55am Awake from a nightmare – involving Jennifer Garner, star-gazing, and cockroaches in my hair. Not sure which is the scariest.

8.30 Establish with some relief that only my GST (goods and services tax) return and payment was due yesterday. Finish calculations. Disgusted at pathetic number of offsets available to me. I obviously need to buy more business-related stuff!

9.30 Begin spybot scan before doing internet banking transfer.

10.30 Inexplicably spybot scan is still going on and I need to leave.

11.00 Get great Mojo coffee (my one and only coffee for the day) and feel so much better. I’m not a great coffee drinker, but I must have one once a day. I’m of the view that if I drink coffee, it has to be really good (ie not homemade – I make terrible coffee). It’s the best coffee in the city – I relish every sip/gulp.

11.30 Meeting with CEO. We’re having a power struggle between the Board and management - a relationship that by design has innate tensions. Whilst we are on similar wavelengths for most issues and have an excellent working relationship, on this one I have to put my foot down. I shudder every time I hear of fraud charges brought against company directors, and so try to make sure I operate by the book.

1.10 Yay, no ticket! Parking in Central Wellington is not easy to find. And the parking wardens are vigilant. Too often I get back to my car just 5 or 10 minutes late, and get hit with a ticket. Not today though!

1.30 Bought a pretty box for my mother’s Mothers’ Day present. I’m never sure where to put the apostrophe on Mother’s/Mothers’ Day. Is it a day for a singular mother (ie mine, or for all mothers? Found this amusing site.

1.45 Shopping for my husband’s birthday next week. I want to get him DVDs of a TV series he has loved for 30 years. But the DVDs available are confusing. Are they really asking $29.99 for just one episode per DVD, but with a whole pile of extras (interviews, discussions about the set etc) which are just boring padding and which he’ll never watch? Or are the titles for a series of episodes. Resolve to research in detail on the internet.

2.05 Receive phone call from brother-in-law. Sister seriously stressed out with new baby and her lack of growth, and needs help next week. I’m to coordinate with other sister to see which of us is available to go and help when he gets back to work.

3.00 Lamb shanks in orange juice, onions, garlic, mustard and rosemary in oven.

3.15 Disconnect my portable hard drive and complete spybot check quickly. Pay my tax, and cringe at the state of my bank account, and the lack of confirmed forward work in my order book.

3.30 Starting to stress out. It’s been a few years now since I learned I was unable to have children. It’s something we all assume we can do if we want to, and so recovering from that shock was a long process. It has been some time now since I have contemplated holding a baby in my arms, with all the related emotions. Hoping I will be able to cope, as I do want to help.

4.00 Afternoon spent creating Mothers’ Day present. I have a series of flower photographs from my recent trip to Krabi, and I am creating a Flower Series notecard set. What do you think?

5.30 The house is full of the smell of lamb shanks. Yum.

6.00 Older sister wants to be first to see our new niece. Stress relieved. She goes next week. Agree to send her a lamb shank recipe.

6.45 Finish preparing dinner.

7.30 Open a nice bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot and enjoy melt in the mouth lamb shanks.

8.30 After about a 6 week hiatus, Lost is back on TV. More mysteries of course. The smoke monster reappeared. What IS that? But where did the polar bear go? And why don’t they just do away with Ben? What is Michael doing on the boat? Naveen Andrews as sexy as ever. (Did you see him in The English Patient? Swoon!)

10.30 Aaaaahhhhh. Reading in bed quietly must be one of life’s greatest and simplest pleasures. Pity about the book.

X = Xanthippe

2008-05-04T16:54:00.001+12:00

The wife of Socrates (Mrs S no doubt knows all about her) bequeathed women with a damning stereotype. She may have been unjustly accused. Plato spoke well of her, and I like this analysis of the Phaedo scene.

Blogging is so educational.

This reminds me of an incident in the 1980s. Then New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange once got himself in trouble by reading a letter from a complaining constituent, and scrawling “She’s a shrew!” across it. The letter was mistakenly sent back to the woman along with the more diplomatic official reply.

W = Words

2008-04-30T17:15:00.004+12:00

As you probably know by now, I grew up on a farm. It was not a wealthy area, but the people in the district were good people, and we grew up with strong community values: neighbourliness, loyalty and consideration of others.

Living on a farm can be very isolating. Days go by without speaking to others outside the family. Perhaps that is why, in my family at least, what we said was important. Words were valuable things, chosen carefully so as not to offend. Plainspoken we may have been, but we were never rude.

We grew up, went to university and the city, worked in offices surrounded by people, spending all day reading and writing reports, discussing issues. Words could be flung about willy-nilly, there were always plenty to spare. In the worst cases, they became office gossip, complaints about the boss. But they also formed ideas, developed into policies, were considered, weighed, kept or tossed aside, they united and divided countries. Different languages came into the mix – where pronunciation, meaning and choice of words were more important then ever.

Then I joined a company of engineers more comfortable with numbers and drawings than words. Communication was not their strong point, but they struggled to understand even that. I left in frustration, but then returned later as a consultant training them in the use of words, talking to clients, communicating.

Today here I sit, self-employed, in my office over the garage looking out at the macrocarpa trees and across the valley, watching the southerly front come in. Like life on the farm, I find it quite possible to spend an entire day without speaking to anyone other than my husband or the cats, or sometimes, to myself. But still I use words every day – the typed word - to earn money, to support others, and to communicate with friends and family around the world.

In my life, words have been tools, not works of art. I use too many, I know. Brevity is not my strong point. My emphasis has always been on communication, simplicity and clarity, tact. Rarely, if ever, have I chosen words for their beauty, for the way they sound together, for imagery. But recently some favourite authors and other bloggers have inspired me to have a different relationship with words.

So I intend trying.

But in private first.

V = Vineyards

2008-04-28T17:53:00.001+12:00

Growing up in New Zealand, the countryside was agricultural. Paddocks full of sheep and cattle, the occasional crops. Nothing fancy.

By the late 1970s, in parts of the country, land use began to change. Grapes were being planted in the hotter, dryer, more barren provinces. We wondered if this new-fangled fad would catch on. Kiwis drank beer, not wine - though I remember my dad, always interested in new experiences, experimenting with wine one Christmas in the 1970s.

Now, driving though parts of New Zealand is not unlike driving through Chateauneuf du Pape – everywhere you look you see vines. Only an hour or so from Wellington, in a very traditional farming community, vines are rapidly replacing sheep and cows (though with high global dairy prices the cows are fighting back). A small rural village is now a trendy wine village, surrounded by dozens of country cottages transformed from shearers’ quarters to luxurious weekend retreats, nestled in the vines.

We often drive over the hill for lunch at a vineyard, or for an afternoon of wine tasting in this region renowned for its Pinot Noir. In summer we revel in the heat, eating outside and sheltering from the sun. In winter, we sit close to an open fire, but sampling the wares gives us hope that summer will come again.

I love being able to visit the vineyards, sample the wine, talk to the winemakers, and take home my favourite produce.

After a relaxed lunch at Coney Wines or Alana Estate, we always stop at Palliser on the way home, to pick up their Riesling, sumptuous chardonnay, and when it is in stock, their delicious bubbles. Atarangi is one of the most established vineyards in the region, a pleasant spot to relax, and famous for its Pinot Noir, though at $65 you pay as much for the name as for the wine. But their chardonnays are to die for and their Rose is always perfect for a summer lunch. And for a treat on a winter’s night with a chocolate dessert, we are very partial to Winslow’s Cabernet Liqueur, which fills the nose with the spices of a Christmas pudding.

Now what will we have tonight?

U = Unknown

2008-04-21T16:14:00.006+12:00

At 45 you’d think I’d know a few things by now. But I feel as if the list of unknown things is just growing as I age.

This morning though I learned two things I didn’t know yesterday.

A water contractor we use regularly has their base at the bottom of our hill. I drive past it every day, but noticed it only this morning.
25% Americans are Catholic. Never knew that. Thanks to the BBC for informing me whilst I was on the Arc Trainer at the gym.

Still, there are a lot of things still on my list of unknowns. Questions that arose this morning at the gym:

Is the Arc Trainer really worth it?
Why did I think I was fat when I was so slim?
Why don’t politicians know when to stop talking?
What is wrong with elitism?
Is the Tall Poppy Syndrome a uniquely kiwi issue? If so why?
How can America portray itself as the most civilised nation on earth yet have 3000 people on death row? (another fact I learned this morning on the BBC)
How come the French got great food and wine, fashion AND the sexiest language on earth?
Australians ... why?
Why do I like clothes so much?
Why can’t some people have children and others, who shouldn’t, have dozens?
Has my sister gone into labour yet?

T = Tax

2008-04-11T13:41:00.003+12:00

It’s tax time again.

When I was employed by someone other than me, I never worried about tax. My take home salary, after tax, was sufficient for my needs. It enabled me to live a good life. Tax was something that I never thought of – my tax was paid by my employer, before I ever had the opportunity to become attached.

But I’m self-employed now. Tax is something intensely personal to a self-employed person. As a consultant, my income goes up and down, depending on the needs and holidays and distractions of my clients. I can go some months without significant income, then get huge (well … it’s all relative isn’t it?) welcome and relaxing lump sums in my bank account. I feel safe again for the next few months, and breathe easier.

But then along comes tax time. Self-employed people have to pay income tax three times a year, and our goods and services tax twice a year. So we have to be cautious, even when feeling flush. Because the tax we pay comes directly from our bank account – the same one we use to pay for our food and electricity. Sometimes we have to pay tax on income we don’t yet have. That really hurts.

So I take tax very personally.

I am very happy to pay tax to go towards our health and education and social welfare systems. That’s what taxes are for. I am the beneficiary of a free education, which gave me opportunities I would otherwise never have imagined. I have had the misfortune to appreciate the benefits of a free health system, and more importantly, I have seen my parents cope with old age through the universal government pension payments.

I am less happy though for my taxes to go to the expanding government we have here. The opposition party states that the fastest growing sector in the economy since 2000 has been government administration. I am unhappy about this. Unhappy about my taxes going to unnecessarily high government salaries, and padded departmental budgets. I have worked in government, and in private sector. The people in government think that they would get much higher salaries out in the private sector, and think the private sector has money slushing around, waiting to be used frivolously. But they have no direct experience of this.

But when I moved from the public to the private sector, I was struck with the difference in the attitude to money within organisations. I have seen government officials figuring out how much extra money they can make by manipulating the system regarding travel allowances. Government servants who on principle object to being paid on the basis of performance. Allowances, expenditure, salary increases – everything is theirs “as of right.”

In the private sector, by comparison, profit and performance was the motive. If the company didn’t perform as well as expected, no-one got a salary increase or bonus, whether or not there was inflation, or that they had personally performed well.

Now, as a company director (another role I hold), I see my company suffer because competition is removed and responsibilities are put in the solely in the hands of the overpaid bureaucracy. (I feel qualified to comment – I know many of the individuals involved. I have personally done some of the jobs that now require 8 or 18 people to do, when one or two of us used to be sufficient). This bureaucracy is not as skilled, and definitely not as prudent with my money, my taxes, as the private sector. In Wellington, the centre of government, I see our office rentals skyrocket as the government expands, greedily gobbling up premium office space. I see our small company struggle to recruit or retain qualified individuals at a reasonable market rate, because government departments pay 30-50% more.

And I object.

So Helen. This is my money. And if this is how you are going to spend it, I’d like some of it back please.

S = Screwed

2008-04-09T15:53:00.003+12:00

Is there anything quite like the romance of that soft pop of a cork from a wine bottle? The sense of anticipation, then the whiff of pleasures to come, and sometimes the formality of the wine waiter placing the cork on the table for your inspection?

But about 5-10% of all wines are corked. Spoiled by that romantic stopper, with its ancient history. And let’s face it – how many of us actually send back 1/10^th of the bottles we order in a restaurant? Or pour down the sink 1/10^th of the bottles we drink at home? Not many of us. No we tend just to say “I won’t buy that wine again.” So not only is there the danger of paying for a wine that is corked, but ... oh the shame ... of serving or drinking it, not recognising that it is corked, or worse, of missing out on a really special wine and not knowing it!

And so the wise wine producers of New Zealand began to introduce screw-top wine. Traditionally used for cheap wine, or by airlines for those tiny individual serve bottles, screwtops now protect my favourite New Zealand pinot noirs, sauvignon blancs and chardonnays. And I for one am not bothered about saying goodbye to tradition and romance, if it means my wine is better preserved, and most importantly, will taste better. Especially given the price I pay lately!

Besides, it’s an awful lot easier to screw off the top of a bottle of sauvignon blanc and pour a glass when I’m busy than to stop, find the corkscrew, peel off the cap, and uncork the wine … dangerously easy some might say.

Not me, though.

Cheers!!!

R = Relatives

2008-04-04T17:38:00.002+13:00

I grew up in a rural district surrounding a small town. All our cousins on my father’s side lived within about 15 minutes drive. Two of them went to our tiny school – Gavin was in my year, Stephen in my sister’s. We grew up together.

Family gatherings were big and busy. Perhaps that was the way of an Irish Catholic heritage, or perhaps just the way of farming families in those days. The men would get together for a drink (some enjoyed it too much, a family failing it seems, that Irish heritage to blame), the women provided the food, all the while gossiping and sipping on a sherry. The children were invariably outside, regardless of the weather – playing tag, cricket or softball, hide and seek. It was, usually, happy and carefree.

But as we grew up, we grew apart. I started noticing differences. I remember asking a very young cousin how she liked school, as she had started only a few months earlier. Her mother answered for her. “Oh Becky hates school, don’t you Becky?” I was shocked three ways. Why was she not allowed to answer herself? Did her mother want her to dislike school? She seemed to encourage or even create that dislike. And anyway, how could anyone not like school in the first place?

My father died almost three years ago. The funeral was, as these things tend to be, something of a reunion. I realised I had not seen most of my cousins for 20 years. About half attended, those still living in the region. The two I wanted to see most, Gavin and Stephen, had not been able to make it. Whilst it was good to see my cousins, in most cases conversation quickly dried up. I lived in the city, and had lived and worked extensively overseas. I was the first in the family to go to university, let alone graduate with a Masters degree. They had stayed in the district, built farms and businesses and families. Good lives. Productive lives. But very different lives.

I was hurt that (with the exception of Gary and his lovely wife) they didn’t make the effort to catch up more. There is a lot we had shared, after all. Actually, I think I was more disappointed they didn’t see it as an opportunity to pay their respects to my father, who as the oldest had done a lot for the wider family.

When I was writing my x365 blog, I found it extremely hard to write about most of my relatives. I couldn’t write too many in sequence - I found it depressing. I’m just not sure I like that many of them. That is hard to write.

So I wonder when, or if, I’ll see any or all of them again. I wonder if that will bother me. I wonder if it should bother me.

Is blood really thicker than water? Does our shared childhood, our shared bloodline, mean that I should make a point of seeing them more? Is that why it seems to matter to me?

Q = Quakes

2008-03-28T16:36:00.006+13:00

Just ten minutes away from our tranquil little suburb, with wooden houses covering the hills and where church bells ring down in the valley on Sunday mornings, is the harbour and the CBD. Every time we drive into the city, we drive along the Wellington faultline, and most of the time we don’t give it a thought.

But every so often the earth moves. And every single Wellingtonian wonders if this time it will be “the big one.” After all, evidence of Wellington’s dramatic and at times violent geology is hard to miss: an earthquake raised the land that is now the city’s airport; the motorway northeast along the harbour tracks the faultline.

(X = my house ... approximately)

If you have ever seen the movie “LA Story” there is a scene where an earthquake occurs when the main characters are at a restaurant. The LA natives continue eating as the earth shakes, the table rattles, cutlery is juddered across the table, pretending that absolutely nothing is wrong. That scene is very familiar to Wellingtonians, who are generally very blasé about earthquakes. Outwardly at least. I have worked with civil engineers, who stand by the windows taking an unnatural interest in how high-rise buildings around them behave (do they sway as intended etc?) during an earthquake.

I grew up in a part of the country with the lowest incidence of earthquakes, and spent my first 23 years in blissful ignorance of what it means to live on an earthquake faultline. But moving to Wellington I was horrified to be reminded of this on a daily basis – the public department where I worked had “what to do in an earthquake” posters everywhere! Like most Wellingtonians, we have emergency earthquake supplies. Bottles filled with water, cans of food, torches and candles, a red cross medical kit. We live in wooden houses – they move in earthquakes and are less likely to suffer structural damage – on the side of a hill. We joke that when the earthquake comes, we won’t need our own emergency kit but hope that the people in the houses under us at the bottom of the valley have enough to share, as that is where we will end up.

But fear does come when the ground shakes beneath us.

I have often wondered what it must be like to live in the US tornado belt, and can’t understand why people would choose to live with the constant knowledge they could be destroyed by nature’s power. But I live on a faultline. I don’t get even a warning if an earthquake is about to destroy me. How reckless is that?

The “big one” is overdue, but in geological terms it could come now, or in a few hundred years. So, like my husband and his family, neighbours, friends and colleagues - even the Prime Minister whose official residence is adjacent to the fault - I adopt the head in the sand approach, and hope it won’t come just yet.

P = Postpone

2008-03-06T18:06:00.002+13:00

My next post is postponed, put off, delayed, deferred, rescheduled. My blog is adjourned, suspended. (Don't you love a thesaurus?)

I will be sitting on a beach in southeast Asia, under a palm tree with a tropical cocktail (I’m thinking a mango daiquiri or two).

Then a week in Bangkok catching up with friends and Thai family. Reminiscing. Ahhhh, nostalgia.

See you all after Easter!

O = Organisation

2008-03-03T16:39:00.002+13:00

I love being organised. Everything in its place, and a place for everything. Being able to go unerringly to a file or drawer or cupboard to find whatever it is I want. Popping things away when I’m done with them, knowing I can retrieve them whenever I like. And being able to put my hands on the perfect bottle of wine without scrabbling around on my knees with a torch.

Being organised to me means feeling that everything is under control. Being organised means peace of mind.

Freedom.

Unfortunately, that happens for me about twice a year. If I'm lucky. Organisation is something I continually aspire to, like climbing a mountain. No sooner do I get to the summit, exhilarated with my success, then I teeter, lose my balance, and hurtle downwards into a more normal state of chaos and endless good intentions.

N = Never

2008-02-26T16:38:00.002+13:00

When you’re young, anything seems possible. I seemed to spend my childhood filled with excitement for the future. My mother and father grew up in that small rural district, married, had children, joined in community affairs, sat on the School Boards, ferried us to and from sports events, music lessons, girl guides, etc. But despite rarely leaving the area, they never allowed us to feel restricted, hemmed in, or limited. Not in that cheesy, TV movie, American (no offence intended) kind of “you can do anything you want if you just believe in yourself” way. Opportunity was always implied, but unstated. We were never discouraged from aspiring to things.

Of course I was lucky. I was born in an age when, for the first time in history, being a girl was not a disadvantage. Likewise I was at school and more importantly university when education was free. And I was lucky that things came easily to me. Schoolwork, music, sports, friends. There was no reason for me to think I couldn’t do things, because to be honest, there weren’t a lot of things as a child that I felt I couldn’t do. And I dreamed. Of owning and riding a horse. Of living in Wellington and meeting the Prime Minister. Of exotic travel, of glories. Winning Olympic medals and being in the Silver Ferns (the New Zealand netball team). Being Billie Jean King, as I hit my tennis ball against our house. Of money and good clothes. Of an exciting life.

Then you start getting older. You realise your dad is never going to buy you a horse. And even in your teens you start narrowing your options. I knew early on I would not be Miss World. That’s not something I regret, I’m pleased to say. Then gradually the other dreams fall away. The Olympic medals were never an option – winning school sports events was good enough. I knew too I’d never be a concert pianist. That was okay too, as I got tired of practising.

Then you graduate from university and start working. I realised some of my dreams were too small, but some were too big. I realised there were a lot of other talented people out there, and I would need to work hard. In my insecurities, I thought I would never

Now in my forties, there are a lot more nevers, and they stack up more each day. Some of them are regrets. I’ll never have children. I’ll never see my dad again. These ones I deal with every day.

But there are definitely some nevers I can live with, relish, embrace.

I won’t be Prime Minister or a politician. I’ll never run a marathon. Thank God to both.

I’ll never be a beauty, but never have to worry that noone will love me once my beauty is gone. It’s good to be comfortable in my own skin. I’ll never own a private jet, but will never have to feel the guilt of such elitism, not to mention environmental impact.

I’ll never bungy jump. Not. Negotiable.

I’ll never get back to my honeymoon bikini body. But I can be fit and healthy.

I’ll never be a Silver Fern and my knees will never allow me to re-enact that dream anymore, leaping light as air for that ball. I’ll never make my fortune on the tennis circuit.

And, let’s face it I’ll never win Lotto unlike this guy.

(I even had a ticket in that lottery, dammit).

M = Marina

2008-02-19T11:09:00.004+13:00

I parked under a Norfolk pine in Oriental Bay earlier this morning, and set off. The weather was so beautiful I decided my morning work-out would be a walk around the harbour. The air was still, the water was flat, reflecting the buildings from the city, softly lapping the shore. Usually I walk away from the city, around the bays, but today I chose to walk in the opposite direction.

So I joined the dozens of regular morning walkers heading into the city. The girl with her uncomfortable looking shoes setting such a smart pace it took me a while to overtake her; the man in his business suit, jacket left at home today; the obese young man taking what I like to think were the first steps of a new lifestyle; the woman in her silky top, pretty skirt and trainers, carrying her business shoes, to name only a few. We dodged those on their bicycles, the odd skateboarder zoomed past us, and I watched amused at the middle-aged man racing past on a kick scooter, reliving his youth or trying hard to hold onto what is left of it.

As we neared the city, the numbers dispersed into their shops and offices. I stuck to the seafront, and walked past the boathouses and the yacht club. There’s a good seafood restaurant there, right on the edge of the small marina. We like to eat there at least once every summer, taking advantage of daylight saving and watching the activity in the marina. The yachts coming back in after an evening sail, the people doing maintenance on their boats, or sitting having a drink with friends. The stillness as the evening fades, the sun setting and the masts casting long shadows. The masts were casting their shadows in the opposite direction this morning, but it still had that still tranquil atmosphere you only get early and late, it gets burned away by the midday sun, drowned out by all those normal daytime activities.

Further around there are apartments fronting another marina. Living here would feel like being on holiday every day. I would need to win the lottery to afford it though. The cafes at the bottom of the building looked like the perfect spot for a relaxed coffee and newspaper or a good book. I think I’ll go there tomorrow morning.

And I’ll buy a lottery ticket too.

L = Languages

2008-02-13T12:06:00.000+13:00

I grew up on a farm in the South Island of New Zealand. That’s a long way from anywhere. I studied French and Latin at school, but language teaching is not a strong point of the New Zealand education system. We struggled to even have opportunities to practice speaking French, our teacher preferring to instruct us in English. We never met anyone French, and the only person we knew who had been there was our teacher. Whilst I loved French, having an interest in foreign parts from a very young age, for most of my peers it was hard to imagine why it might be useful to learn a foreign language. Especially when our nearest and largest neighbour speaks a similar version of English to ours, and anywhere else is too far to visit on the weekend. Studying Latin was more relevant for me - at least it helped me translate some of the Italian instructions on my sheet music for the piano I spent my youth studying.

In the 1960s and 70s, New Zealand was a very monolingual society. Maori had been through a difficult time, when speaking their language at schools had been prohibited, and many Maori were growing up fluent only in English. We grew up knowing only a few words of the Maori language. The one word that was already part of New Zealand’s language at the time was mana.

Mana means respect, status, authority. It is a word that has no direct translation into English, but has been absorbed into our wider language and culture. We understand what it means, we appreciate the honour and significance of mana.

So when, 28 years ago today I learned I would be living with a Thai family and attending a Thai secondary school, I knew I would have to learn another language. It would be sink or swim. But I was told before I left home that the Thais speak quote “ a local dialect.” Dialect made it sound easy. I’d be chatting in Thai in no time, was the implication. But that local dialect, I discovered, is one of the hardest languages in the world for an English speaker to learn, ranked right up there with Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Russian and Arabic.

But over my year as a student I learned to converse, read and write in Thai. Just as I was getting more confident it was time for me to go. Ten years later I returned as a diplomat, and in my refresher course realised that I had to relearn the language. I had learned to speak Thai as a deferential schoolgirl. I now needed to relearn it to speak as a diplomat representing my country. It opened doors for me. With my language and my AFS contacts, I was able to attend political meetings where I was the only foreigner attending. I had so many opportunities to talk with the locals, gained so much insight, and felt as if I belonged. My husband worked on the language as well. His accent was atrocious, he had no understanding of the tones, but he was cheeky and supplemented his language with a type of charades, and managed to be understood and make friends. The number of Thai speakers in the foreign diplomatic community was small. Most learned enough to get a taxi or tuk-tuk and to order in a restaurant. They expected their maids to speak English, not to speak to their maids in Thai. Single men tended to learn Thai to speak to girls, and you could usually tell the social class of a man’s girlfriend (and consequently the circumstances in which they met*) from his accent.

I was not fluent. Fluency is a funny thing. You ask two people with the same language skills if they are fluent, and one will say yes and another no. Perhaps it is simply a matter of confidence? For me, the more I learned, the more I saw the goal of fluency disappearing over the horizon. The more you learn about a language’s complexities, the more you begin to realise how fiendishly difficult it really is.

Since those first Thailand days, I have studied Japanese at university, performed well on a language aptitude test and encouraged by that, spent a year studying Mandarin full-time (long story that I’ll tell you about one day) reaching the level of a bachelor degree in Chinese. I also taught myself to recognise the numbers in Arabic (does that count?), so you could say I’ve knocked off 4 of the 6 most difficult languages. Russian is next. Depending on where my next travel destination is, I’ve taught myself varying degrees of Italian, German and Spanish, and periodically brush up on my schoolgirl French. I would like to reach a degree of “fluency” or at least comfort and confidence in a language, but realise that that is unlikely now. I’m fickle. I flit from one language to another. Fluency requires dedication. But I figure I’ve still got a good 30-40 years to pick a language and work on it.

But back to my point. It was in Thailand that I discovered how a language can be a window to the culture, or maybe it is really the manifestation of that culture. It is impossible to understand a culture without the language, and impossible to learn a language without absorbing the culture. For example, sabai and sanuk are Thai cultural concepts of well-being and fun that go beyond the simple English translations of the words.

For this reason, and this reason alone, I wish everyone could learn a language. For a start, I find it fun. Quirky facts about the way people see the world comes through in language.** Learning a language forces you to put yourself in the position of someone from that culture, living in that environment, and to think like them. It teaches you empathy, gives you understanding. We need more of that these days. To understand others, to understand ourselves, to understand those who live among us. And it shows respect.

Maori is however one language I have never formally or seriously studied, and I’m ashamed of that. In New Zealand these days, Te Reo (Maori, but literally translated as The Language) has had a resurgence. Maori words are now commonplace in New Zealand conversations. In the last ten years it has become accepted practice to sing the national anthem in both languages.

We experience and talk about powhiri (ceremonial welcome), karakia (prayer/blessings) and waiata (song) at hui (meetings) at a marae (Maori meeting house).

A Maori will know their iwi (tribes), hapu (subtribe) and whanau (family), tamariki (children) and koro (grandparent), tipuna (ancestors), kuia (elderly women) and kaumatua (elders). They are the tangata whenua (people of the land/ indigenous people).

We routinely use Maori greetings and farewells: tena koe/koutou or kia ora (hello) and haere mai (welcome) , haere ra, e noho ra and arohanui (with love)

We talk of aroha (love) and tell people kia kaha (to stay strong).

I have two brothers-in-law who left New Zealand before this renaissance began. They would not be able to understand a typical news bulletin in this country these days. Our language has changed. Our country has changed and is changing. Our culture has changed and is changing. We understand more. We understand better. We give respect. I like that.

Arohanui.

* Enough said! ;-)
** The Meaning of Tingo is a great book dedicated to this.

K= Knees

2008-02-04T15:25:00.000+13:00

The traffic light turned red, and a group of teenage girls crossed the road. They were out together making the most of the last days of summer freedom before the school year begins again later this week. They were all so beautiful, young and slim.

I ached for the days when I too, wore shorts unselfconsciously, my knees enjoying their public exposure, not realising that there would be a time when I wouldn't want to do that anymore.

I didn't know what I had at the time. The young never do.

J = Joy

2008-01-30T12:55:00.000+13:00

Joy is:

A sunny day or a good storm
A simple tomato sandwich
The first basil of the season
The smells and sounds of provencal lamb, aubergine and capsicums grilling on our new barbecue
The pop of a champagne cork
A glass of 2003 Kawarau Estate Reserve Pinot Noir
A drink with a good friend last night, watching the yachts playing on the harbour
A purring cat
Soaring music
Floating in warm water
A clean sheet of paper and a good pen
A new book
A job well done and procrastination shown the door
A happy client
Our painting from Quebec City
Business class
Arriving somewhere new
A clean house and freshly ironed clothes
Helping someone
A tui singing
Pohutakawa in flower
Agapanthas on our driveway today
A good workout, feeling virtuous
Sleeping in
Laughter
My sister (in fact and name)
My man
A list of things that make me smile

I = Ironing

2008-01-23T09:22:00.000+13:00

Why is it that ironing seems to be a uniquely female chore? Men cook, they clean, they care for children, they take out the rubbish, maintain the house and car etc. But few of the men I know will voluntarily do the ironing. Including my beloved.

When we were first married we divided up certain household duties. We shared the cooking, cleaning and shopping, but my husband organised and took the rubbish out and maintained our beaten up car, and I of course got the ironing. Oh joy.

Then we moved to Thailand. Found Gorn our maid. What a joy it was coming home from work every day to clean, ironed clothes hanging in my closet. Ah, bliss. But all good things come to an end, and after three years we returned home. I found the ironing much harder to tolerate after that. In fact I hated it. With a passion.

I noticed though that gradually I was doing more of the cooking, and decided that ironing should no longer be one of my duties. So I went on strike. My husband eventually noticed when he ran out of business shirts. His reaction was one of disbelief. “You’ve stopped ironing?” Yes! He adapted. Got by without ironing as much as possible, and managed to iron a business shirt every morning before work.

My sister-in-law was newly married. I discovered her doing the ironing. In fact, I witnessed her husband yelling at her annoyed that he didn’t have enough ironed shirts for a business trip. Like us, they were both working and equally busy. He did little else around the house unlike my husband). So I shared my philosophy. “Withdraw your services. Go on strike” I urged her. She did. He resents me to this day.

Gradually over the years our incomes improved, and once again we managed to find and afford cleaners who ironed. Happy years.

Then I decided to leave full-time employment and enter the uncertain world of the self-employed. Guilty about having downtime and less income in my first year, we dispensed with our cleaners. And for the first time in years, I began ironing.

But …

shhhhhhh …

I discovered that when I wasn’t tired or in a rush, doing the ironing was a wonderful time for contemplating life, for listening to music turned up really loud, and even for learning languages. My Spanish grew to an acceptable level thanks to time spent ironing. I hate to admit that these days I almost find it therapeutic. When I have time. Almost.

But if I ever get given an iron as a gift … it (or the gift giver) is going on Ebay.

H = Hillary

2008-01-16T15:07:00.000+13:00

I grew up on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. On a clear day, from our home within sight and sound of the Pacific Ocean, we could see Mt Cook - now also known as Aoraki, its Maori name – peeking through a gap in the mountain ranges from the Island’s west coast. It was always a thrill to see Mt Cook, New Zealand’s highest mountain, capped with snow winter and summer. On the edge of the plains and the ocean it seemed an impossible idea that men (and women) would climb it.

We learned about Mt Cook at school. It was 12,349 ft high. These days children learn the height in metres, but I have no idea what it is. A few years ago the top fell off Mt Cook, so now it’s not even 12,349 ft high anymore. My knowledge is obsolete.

Even though I could see Aoraki Mt Cook almost daily until I left home at 17, I didn’t get up close until I was 19. After they retired, my parents spent a lot more time in the MacKenzie country, the area surrounding Mt Cook. My dad loved the wide open spaces, and in his little Lada four-wheel drive he explored river valleys and camped out fishing. Now that he’s gone, my mum doesn’t get up there any more. So, at Christmas, we decided to take her for a drive. It was a beautiful day, and when we were half-way – at Tekapo - we decided on impulse to head for Mt Cook.

On arrival, we saw the new Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre which had been opened only days earlier. There was a statue of Sir Ed out front. I remember thinking that he would be in his 80s now, and that soon he wouldn’t be here anymore. New Zealand would go on without Sir Ed to keep us honest. It pained me and I was surprised at that, at the emotion I felt all of a sudden. Little did I know that we had just a few short weeks left to appreciate him.

I grew up in a country enormously proud of Sir Ed. Tiny New Zealand, tucked away on the edge of the world, had produced a man who had climbed the highest peak on the planet, thousands of miles away, before anyone else. It made us feel as if we had a place in the world. That we belonged. That we mattered.

Not that we focussed solely on Sir Ed’s accomplishments. In my experience, Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tensing were always spoken of together, never individually, when it came to the Everest climb. Sir Ed would have never had it any other way. Likewise, he was as proud of the humanitarian work he did in Nepal as in his exploits at Everest, and later at the North and South Poles.

New Zealand was a better place with Sir Ed in it.

Let’s face it. The world was a better place with Sir Ed in it.

G = Grief

2008-01-13T11:53:00.000+13:00

Snap out of it.

It’s time you were over it.

It wasn’t a baby anyway.'

You can always have another one.

At least you …. (fill in the gap … weren’t very far along; can get pregnant; didn’t die; have your health; didn’t really want children anyway; have a good job; etc ...)

Grief is something that comes to everyone at some stage. So why is it that we are so terrible at dealing with the grief of our friends and family? Why is it that we don’t talk about grief? That we don’t understand that we need to listen? When we offer platitudes or solutions, we are often trying to help ourselves to feel more comfortable, rather than thinking about what the grieving person needs. So we end up not permitting them to feel the way they feel, trying to get them to cheer up, in effect, denying them their grief.

Sadly, over the years, I have been involved with hundreds of women who have lost babies, and almost invariably their grief is accentuated by the insensitive or simply ignorant behaviour of their friends, families, and colleagues.

I shared those experiences.

My best friend gave me a book to cheer me up in hospital. It was about a woman who had a miscarriage that destroyed her relationship!
My mother said that she could relate to my feeling of isolation, because she felt that way when she was in hospital waiting to have her baby and all the other women had already given birth! (ummmm, NOT the same Mum!)
Another friend, when emailed and told about my losses, emailed back and said “thanks for your email. We’re pregnant and attached is a photo of our scan!”
A friend tried to tell me that it would be “good for me” to see another friend’s brand new baby.
My sister-in-law said I should come and visit her, just days after getting out of hospital. And that while I was visiting I could babysit for her, as the Chinese believe that you’ll get pregnant if you hold a baby.
My mother-in-law asked what was wrong with me that it kept happening.
My brother-in-law reminded us that his wife had no problems getting pregnant.
A friend said that I’d never had anything (ie a baby), so I hadn’t lost anything.
I was asked if I needed psychiatric help, after only a few weeks and whilst still undergoing treatment and surgery, because I wasn’t “over it” yet.

The sad thing is that my experiences were very mild, compared to those of many women. I knew my friends and family cared, and my husband was amazing, our relationship strengthening and deepening through all this. I might have lost a future, but I would go on. And now I can actually laugh about the lack of tact of these people!

Even though my experiences of grief have been related to loss of a baby, I feel better able to deal with others’ grief now as well. I was able to help my mother through the loss of my father. I recognised the feelings, the different stages. It helped me through his dying and death too. I knew that as horrible as things might get, I could and would survive it.

Grief has been part of me, and made me who I am.

So maybe G is also for Gratitude.

F = Family

2008-01-07T16:26:00.000+13:00

“Do they have a family?” is generally the first question my mother will ask about someone. She means, “do they have children?”

As if that makes them more interesting.

More worthy.

E = Ectopic

2007-12-31T17:56:00.000+13:00

I heard today that Sophie, Her Royal Highness the Countess of Wessex, this week gave birth to a baby boy. It seemed appropriate. I often think of Sophie in December, remembering that she had her ectopic pregnancy a few days before I found I was pregnant for the first time. Perhaps my only royal connection, I too suffered an ectopic pregnancy that year.

A year later, December 2002, I was pregnant again. But waking on Christmas Day I knew things were not quite right, and before New Year I had lost the baby. Another couple of weeks of poking and prodding, tests, scans, medical and surgical treatment, hospitalisation and suspected cancer, it was finally diagnosed as a cornual ectopic pregnancy. It took five months three surgeries five hospital stays countless blood tests and specialist appointments before I was given the all clear.

About 1 in 80 pregnancies are ectopic, which means a pregnancy outside the womb. The baby will not survive. And if left untreated, in many cases neither will the mother. Ectopics are often misdiagnosed, and every year women die as a result, even in the richest countries of the world.

About 1% of ectopic pregnancies are cornual. I was told that about 1 in 400,000 pregnancies were in the same position as mine. Suddenly I realised what it is like to be on the wrong end of the odds. When you’re the 1 in 400,000, and that is 100% of your experience, odds become meaningless.

You realise you are not infallible; things you thought would come easily do not; things which everyone assumes would be yours simply by right of existence are not.

You come face to face with your own mortality. Life seems more uncertain.

You endure invasive medical or surgical treatment, sometimes both, often on an emergency basis.

You have concerns about your future fertility – some women lose their tubes, sometimes ovaries, and cornual ectopics such as mine run the risk of losing part or your entire uterus.

Saddest of all, you lose a baby.

Pregnancy, which everyone else takes for granted, becomes something that can kill you.

So now I volunteer for a Trust that raises awareness of ectopic pregnancies, supports research into causes, treatment and prevention, and improves the diagnosis and treatment. Literally, the Trust saves lives. Just as importantly, as far as I am concerned, it saves spirits and relationships as well.

But every year at this time, I remember.

D = Duty

2007-12-17T17:33:00.000+13:00

Yesterday we had the in-laws for lunch, as they are going to Melbourne for Christmas to see the new grandchild and we will be heading south.

My husband is always pleased when we have people over. It means I will clean the house, as he knows I am proud and hate to have people see the house as it normally is – cat hair from their sibling-style spats all over the carpet, dust which is always only obvious after the visitors have arrived and the sun hits the furniture just-so, piles of things I intend sorting when I get round to it. When we lived in Thailand we had a maid who kept the place spotless. Later, back here, we had cleaners who came once a week. There was nothing quite like coming home on a Thursday evening, greeted by a clean and tidy sweet-smelling spick-and-span house, and knowing the weekend was mine.

But then one of the cleaners left, I left fulltime employment and had a few rough years getting (or even getting to look for) work, and we decided we couldn’t justify it. Now I’m busy, earning good money, and yet we still don’t have cleaners. That is first on my New Year’s resolution list. Employ a cleaner.

Anyway, I digress.

My husband is the only offspring still in the country. His brothers are scattered around the world – California, Malaysia and Melbourne. Their leaving occurred over 20 years. We also left in that time, but were the only ones who returned. Suddenly it seemed we were the only ones here, with my rapidly aging in-laws. Now we are ready to spread our wings again. But we feel we can't move and leave them here alone, despite knowing our own old age will be just that. Alone.

Or perhaps it is because of that, that we stay.

So we do our duty. Visit them regularly. Listen to the stories of what the relatives are up to. Treat them on special days. Drive them around my father-in-law’s old haunts so he can reminisce about his childhood 70 years ago. Help them with the computer and solve their emailing problems. (Father-in-law rang early one Sunday morning and announced dramatically “Mum’s in trouble.” To my panicked “what’s wrong?” he answered, “well she was sending an email …” argh!!!)

We worry about them when they get ill, which is becoming more frequent. Try and find ways to make their lives easier. Drive them to the airport or to and from the hospital. And invite them over for a Christmas celebration before they leave. They are not very social people, and enjoy seeing us – we are a link with the modern world.

After they had gone, we returned to our lounge. The house felt clean, tidy and fresh. The Christmas tree looked fabulous, if I do say so myself. The sun streamed into the living room, and we felt relaxed. The cats reclaimed their chairs and curled up for a sleep. As did I on the couch. All was peaceful. We had leftover ham and salad sandwiches and strawberries for dinner.

We had done our duty. And it felt really good.

C=Christmas

2007-12-11T17:28:00.000+13:00

Christmas has arrived early this year in Wellington. Not because the stores have been playing Christmas carols uncharacteristically early, not because there seem to be an unusually large number of buskers on Lambton Quay singing Christmas carols, not because the pohutakawa is flowering early (it isn't), and not even because I finished my Christmas shopping today.

No, Christmas has arrived early this year in Wellington because summer is here. Winter clothes have been stashed away, the windows are open, the tui are singing, barbecues are being fired up, and bare flesh is being exposed.

In New Zealand (and oft-starved-of-summer Wellington especially) Christmas is simply a gigantic party heralding the arrival of summer, the beginning of our long summer break, when school is out until February, the good weather really begins, the cities empty out and everyone heads to the beach or the lakes or sounds until mid or even late January if they are really lucky. Christmas is the smell of new cut grass and the feel of that cool grass between your bare toes, the mingled scent of Christmas lilies and pine trees in the house, picnics and burnt meat from the first barbecues of the season, long light evenings, the pop of corks from chilled champagne, new potatoes and fresh strawberries for Christmas dinner.

So all my senses are telling me it is time to relax, slow down, drink champagne, turn off the laptop, and read a good book. The trouble is, I’ve started listening to them, even though I still have to complete an assignment for a client this week.

So I hope the rest of New Zealand forgives me for this, but if the weather gods are listening, I really need a couple of days cold miserable weather – letting me knuckle down and finish my work – before Christmas and summer really begins.

So, having stated this publicly, I should go start working on that assignment right now.

No ...

... wait ...

it's time to grill the pork chops and open some sauvignon blanc on the deck.

Bon appetite. I'll work tomorrow.

B = Baking and Brownies

2007-12-05T16:40:00.000+13:00

When I was a child growing up, baking was a way of life in New Zealand – or rural NZ at least. Everyone’s mother baked. Cake and biscuit tins were always full. Girls learned to bake when they were still young, starting with pikelets (with cream and raspberry jam) and scones (date scones were my favourites) before being let loose on real cakes and biscuits.

Community functions usually concluded with a big spread of baking. Lamingtons, pikelets, scones, brandy snaps, sponge cakes, citrus slices, Neenish tarts and meringues. Everything laden with butter and topped or filled with whipped cream. On the bottom of any invitation or event notice were the now infamous words : Ladies, A Plate. My mother’s specialty – and my favourite - was a chocolate fudge slice. Occasionally someone’s mother would bring bought biscuits. The shame.

So it was a mystery to me when I first heard an American talk about “baking from scratch.” What did they mean? What was the alternative?

Of course, in the 21^st century we don’t have the time to bake, buying ready-made is quicker, easier and often cheaper. Not having children means I don’t have to bake muffins for school lunches or afternoon teas either.

But … every so often I get the urge to bake. Usually once or twice a year, and often my childhood favourite, chocolate fudge. But a while ago I heard an American chef on the radio, giving a recipe for Fudgy Chocolate Brownies.

I have a weakness for chocolate.
I have a weakness for fudge.
I have a weakness for particularly for American-style fudgy brownies

I downloaded the recipe.

I waited a week.

Feeling quite proud of myself, I waited another week.

Then ... I made them.
Ate them.
Rolled my eyes in ecstasy.

But now I worry that I will seek any and every opportunity to make these again.

I made them two weeks ago, just to cheer myself up.

Then my sister visited on Sunday. Guess what we had for dessert - with fresh strawberries to try to assuage the guilt.

I am so thankful for this recipe for perfect fudgy chocolate brownies. But I am fearful for my thighs.

Translation note for North Americans:

Biscuits = cookies
Pikelets = small drop pancakes
Scones = biscuits

A = AFS

2007-12-02T12:22:00.000+13:00

The first foreigner I ever met was Jane Nelson, AFS exchange student, from Minnesota, USA. I was 10, she was 18.

My older sister brought her home to stay for the weekend. She had a book with photographs of Lake Superior. When she left, I declared “I’m going to go to America on AFS when I’m 17.”

My family humoured me for a few years.

Then at 16, I asked to apply. Went through the interview process. Then one day I came home to find the house strangely silent, my parents uncharacteristically sitting in the front lounge in the middle of the afternoon. I remember the sun streaming through.

The letter on the kitchen table was from AFS. Told me I would be going to live in Thailand for a year. Told me I would be leaving in 3 weeks.

And so, in the wink of an eye, the direction of my life changed forever.