Two pictures featuring a monster I just invented.

An Old Photo

This in from 1998...

Meme Machine

I suppose this is what a meme is...

Ten years ago
I was 16. I had finally convinced my parents to let me leave Devonport High School for Girls and was in my first few months of my first year at Saltash Comp, wearing my own clothes, talking my own talk and hanging out with boys. I rode a unicycle and listened to Pulp, Supergrass, Dodgy, Garbage, Bjork, 60s stuff. I read Sylvia Plath (for self-pity) and Shakespeare (for school) and drank lots of vodka whenever I could. I had nearly taken up permanent eyelinering (this was finalised the next year when I started dating a goth) and slept beneath a Klimt poster.

My family bought a dog called Eddie who I hated because he ate my shoes. My best friend left DHS to join me at Saltash which was brilliant because I loved her but also a bit crap because I had wanted to do something on my own. Within a couple of years we stopped talking because of an argument of which I have no recollection.

Five years ago
I was 21. I had graduated in the Spring and moved to Cornwall with my boyfriend. We were living in a cottage in Cawsand where I had some bar work and he made jewellery out the back. We had the best house in the world; a gorgeous cottage where we hung pictures we had made ourselves (including one memorable picture which hung in the lounge which was a paint-print of our bottoms) and a beach twenty steps from the door, but we were often unhappy and we split up early the next year. My older friends in the pub would all tell me I should get out of Cornwall, but it was another year and a half before I did.

One year ago
I had left the Channel Islands where I had been a receptionist in a hotel for the summer, gone for a splitting-up holiday in the Netherlands and was on my way to India. I wasn't really prepared for India as I'd only ever travelled on my own to Thailand before, and that had been a piece of piss and huge fun. India is anything but easy and is probably not the place to go to mend a broken heart. It is the place to go if you want beauty, excitement, nerves and diahorrea. I got more than my fair share of all these. I was very excited about the prospect of coming to New Zealand.

Five yummy things
Macaroni Cheese, Malai Kofta, Carl's Noodle Soup, Sushi, My Salads.

Five songs I know by heart
Oh I don't know, Sharon, really. I'd have to try singing them all and I just haven't the time.

Five things I would do with a lot of money
Set up a studio in Cornwall with facilities for sculpture, computer graphics and effects, photography, painting, vegetable growing, live music etc., travel a shitload, buy a bach with some forest in Dunedin for child-rearing, build an orphanage with Shane, pay my court fees after I slap George Bush.

Five places I would to escape to
Iceland, Japan, Djibouti, South America, Portugal.

Five things I would never wear
Bright pink. Anything with a big rubbish logo. That's about it.

Five favourite TV shows
Spaced, Black Books, The Office, Partridge, Eastenders.

Five things I enjoy doing
Drinking and bullshitting with my best friends, making things, singing, leaving places, beachcombing.

Favourite toys
Laptop, camera, keyboard, effects pad, pens, bouncy shoes.

Five people who get this 'meme'
Oh, must I?

Sunshine of my life

I am rejeuvinated finally by sunshine, and I'm going to turn the blog yellow.

This week I'm designing vodka packaging, and I'm going to turn that yellow too. I can't believe the joy that the sun brings out in me. It's actually making me doubt my return to England, and someone suggested to me earlier this week that I become a tefl teacher and continue travelling which would make fantastic sense were it not for my new passion for design. I'm going to give London at least six months and then decide (these six months should get me up to September so I'll hopefully get some sun in that time anyway) what to do. I'm looking forward so much to spending all my spare time with my friends but I'm also aware that the travel bug has infected me and that the sun will be calling me by autumn.

I had a creative block last week. I didn't turn up for school one day which was very unlike me but utterly necessary. It's become clear that I'm done with Auckland and I'm going to spend the next three months soaking up the sun and saying a happy goodbye. Thanks Auckland, you're a pal, but you ain't no Whitsand Bay. x

Long

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (58 letters) in Wales is supposed, according to some, to be the longest place name in the world. However I read in an article this week that New Zealand beats it with Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauaotamateaurehaeaturi
pukapihimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuaakitanarahu which has 92 letters.

The website linked above, however, claims that there is a name in Thailand which pummels both of them, and it's Bangkok. Or as it is otherwise known, Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilokphop
nopparatrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmahasatharn
amornphimarnavatarnsathitsakkattiyavisanukamprasi (163 letters).

This week I have been planning my trip back to London (6 letters). I should be with you Brits at the end of January due to restrictions on my return flight. I'll have been out of the country for a whole year. Has it changed much? Anyone fancy a pint?

South Island Adventures

Last week I was away from the computer in the South Island with my visitor from England, Dave. If any of this description gives you a mental picture of our travels please scatter this image with sheep for increased accuracy.



We started off in Christchurch where we were entertained by fearless doofi eating maggoty cheese on the telly and picked up our car. Driving down to Lake Takapo we got our first taste of the gobsmacking scenery of the south; beautiful turquoise lakes framed by spring-green trees, hills and distant snowcapped mountains. Takapo itself was gorgeously quiet and had a few skimmable stones, and soon enough we were happy to doze around a few pints and a seafood basket.



The next day's long picturesque drive took us via Oamaru, where heritage (woman in Victorian dress) and Scottishness (man in kilt) were on display and we got our first chance to not see a penguin. We then went to see the boulders at Moeraki which were laughably unimpressive compared to everything else we'd seen and truly undeserving of the throng of tourists who followed us down. Once we arrived at Dunedin it all got reet good again.



Dunedin city centre is just like Edinburgh and is very studenty. The kid serving in Subway is the most depressed boy in the catering industry and he sighs between questions and pouts deeply over your every decision. The peninsular is beautiful, with an albatross colony at the end (you can't see the colony but the albatross do a flyovver for the tourists every now and then) and a couple of duney penguin-spotting beaches which are thankfully great fun to explore even when the penguins do a no-show. Fucking penguins.

We went to visit a very Dutch man who makes damascus steel knives and Dave enjoyed many pies. We toured the Speights brewery where I got a near-fatal attack of the giggles during the 'Southern Man' promotional video. I bought some jelly beans from a cornershop with "Can I have some jelly beans please?" "How many do you want?" "Oh just a little bag" "They're five cents each" "Oh, okay, well can I get um... some...?". Eventually I got a carefully counted bagfull but should have learned my lesson and been better prepared when the next day I ordered fish and chips on the road - "How many chips do you want?". Very precise these South Islanders. And sullen.




As we bid a fond farewell to Dunedin by scaling the steepest street in the world (there is a certificate to prove this) I guessed that we were probably finally immune to being blown away by the scenery but Milford Sound proved me wrong. The snow melting in to pretty waterfalls down the high mountain walls, the spooky tunnel and the grand forested chasms made it the most enjoyable drive of the whole trip and we weren't disappointed when we had to go back through it due to lack of accommodation at the Sound itself. We stayed that night in Te Anau by another beautiful lake.





Queenstown was all about action. We gondolad, we luged, we got wankered on delicious vodka cocktails in a bar made of ice and we flew the 'flybywire' around a valley. Dave bought a PSP. I bought a scarf. All good. On the way out up to Fox Glacier we visited a brilliant puzzleland where the highlight was a room tilted to one side. Our perceptions imbalanced we were both very very freaked out by a child leaning towards us on a wonky step and his mother was clearly amused as we edged away from him and proceeded to fall down the room into the wall, laughing like a right pair of tits.

The weather in Fox Glacier was appalling, worse apparently than it had been all winter, but was made bearable by the promise of the massive hot-tub spa in our room. The glacier itself was damn interesting and much more fun than a sun-loving sofa-surfer like myself could have guessed. Dave seemed to enjoy his birthday despite being really quite old and many cheesy photographs were taken. Here is just one...



And back to Christchurch via the snowyest path around, racing to get the car back in time and listening to Nick Cave rattle on about killing lots and lots of people and counting the word 'motherfucker'. 8 in 'Stagger Lee' if you were wondering. We passed through Sheffield so Dave could grab a pie. In Christchurch we bought Swanndris and got drunk by accident in an Irish bar before nodding off in the least smelly hotel room we could find.