Diary of a Grammatical Misfit

After leaving Queenstown, things all got a little bit on the rushed side…

The next thing that happened was the only bad bit of the holiday so far when we attempted to take a helicopter up to Fox Glacier. Unfortunately, the low-lying cloud that I have been so admiring from the ground, were not favoured by the pilots and we couldn’t fly. Boooo!

The main problem with doing a bus tour is that there is no room for manouvre when things like that happen. We were in Fox for an afternoon only and if the helicopters were grounded then that was it - no heli-hike. We were sad but most of us set out on the hike to at least reach the foot of the glacier and say “ooh, I walked on a big chunk of ice!”. In my case I got to say “ooh, I almost got to the big chunk of ice before my knees turned to jelly and I climbed back down the mountain”. Was annoyed that I couldn’t finish the hike and very sad that I didn’t make it to the glacier but I was glad I tried (although sitting with the handful that stayed in the pub for the afternoon was looking mighty attractive when I was climbing back down with wobbly legs!).

Very happily I am now planning to go to Franz Josef glacier in a couple of days so hopefully (keep everything crossed!) I will get to go on a glacier after all.

It was a shame that this all fell on what has also been my only ‘low’ day of the trip so far. My doctor and I both hoped that being away would minimise the mood swings I have been having recently, and largely, that has happened. But a few periods of crazed hyperactivity and that one day of miserableness have managed to creep through regardless. I don’t know if I’d have been better equipped to get to the glacier if I hadn’t been feeling miserable and sluggish all day anyway but it’s an irritating possibility that it might have contributed. I think I’m going to have to spend some more time in 2008 looking into kicking the bi-polar thing into touch.

But back to the more interesting subject of New Zealand!!  After Fox we headed back to Christchurch - which is rapidly becoming my ‘home town’ of NZ since I’m here for the third time at the moment.  On the way down we stopped at a town with a long name and we saw our first kiwis (in a sanctuary thing - they’re really really rare in the wild) and bought some jade jewellery. Then in the evening it was time for the first emotion-filled goodbye as 16 of the 36-strong tour group were disembarking the bus in Christchurch after 6 days. It’s weird how quickly friendships are forged while on holiday - and of course, equally weird how the vast majority of these friendships fade quicker than the suntan…

But the tour group were a good bunch of people. And redhead and I got a bit emotional ourselves when we left the tour yesterday after our 13 days were up - chain-hugging people on a street in Auckland is a bizarre experience! We then had to say goodbye to each other this morning - she is winging her way to Sydney as I type and I have already returned to the bosom of south island - where I will play out (quite literally!) my second and final fortnight in NZ. 

I think this post is long enough for now so I will write of what I managed to get up to between Christchurch and Auckland and back again another day!

Hmmm… It would be so easy to just post the words WOW or OH MY GOD! and leave it at that. Because my breath has been completely taken away by this country so far - in fact my breath has been removed, bottled, frozen and then inserted back into my chest in solid lump of awe form.

So many fantastic views - lakes, mountains, waterfalls…

It’s just incredible. So far redhead and I have done a semi-circuit of south island - namely Mount Cook, the lakes, Milford Sound and now Queenstown - the lakeside town that is adrenalin-junkie mecca.

And everything is going disappointedly well. Disppointing only because I like to collect amusing travel anecdotes and so far the holiday is failing to furnish me with any. There was the promising material of the berths in the boat we stayed at in Milford Sound - I looked at the ladder, I looked at my bed, and I was convinced I’d end up giving up on the attempt to hurl myself into the bed and sleep on deck. But sadly, I managed it quite easily. Getting down again provided a bit more of a challenge but I got there eventually.

And the rest of it has all gone ok too. Perhaps the fact that I am playing it safe - namely not hurling myself off any bridges, mountains etc with various stuff strapped to me - cuts down on the opportunity for anecdotes. But I’ve never really seen the appeal of adrenalin-rush activities. I guess the natural assumption is that I’m afraid to try them but I don’t feel fearful when I imagine bungy or sky diving, just a sense of indifference. And I’d rather not pay a lot of money for another indifferent experience - I get annoyed enough when that happens on a small scale like restaurants or films. 

Anyway, I must dash - it’s the best time of day for me right now. I could be in bed at home, asleep and in blissful ignorance of how soon my alarm will crash through my brain and scream at me to get up, get ready, get on the train, and go to work. Instead I’m off to drink a few glasses of wine while sitting by a lake.

Sweet!

Thanks to the clearing out of some of my drafts (’clearing’ in the sense of thinking “fuck it, so what if they’re crap” and sticking them on the blog), this is my 200th post. Which is cause for a mini-celebration.

So I’ll go “yay” in a quiet little voice, while sitting here on the train.

No-one is likely to notice and even if they do I don’t care. They probably think I’m a bit weird anyway. Coz although a lot of city types do ‘casual clothes fridays’ I am the only one in this metal box packed full of commuters that is sitting here in jeans, a jumper and walking boots. And I have a whacking great big suitcase over in the luggage rack too.

Which is the reason for the proper celebration: “I’M FLYING TO NEW ZEALAND TONIGHT!!” (I didn’t shout that out loud - I’m not quite overwhelmed by excitement enough for that!)

Or, to be strictly accurate, I fly out of the UK tonight. I arrive in New Zealand on Sunday.

I’m swapping work and commuting for sightseeing and fun. I’m going to have another midsummer’s day rather than a midwinter’s night. I’ll still get Christmas buildup but it will be carol singing with my relatives in Australia wearing tshirts and shorts rather than hats and scarves (and that is going to seem weird frankly!). And I will return home on Christmas Eve, which, being my favourite day of the year, should stop me feeling too miserable about returning to the cold.

Hopefully, wifi and/or internet cafe access permitting, I will be able to post occasionally while away. If not then there’s going to be a long run of New Zealand and Australia related stories being thrown around here come Christmas!

I think I’m going to have to start taking an interest in the appearance of other people’s ears.

Ever since the invention of in-ear headphones I have had a faint awareness that something might be ‘wrong’ with me. This faint awareness has grown steadily and in the last few months I have come to the conclusion that I am a freak.

The problem is that I seem to have freakishly small ear holes. (Technical term anyone?) I was never keen on in-ear headphones when they first appeared but I never really thought about why I continued to persist with the much-maligned ‘geekphones’ that I used with my walkman.

Years passed. I had no need for any variety of personal stereo (completely skipped the portable CD and minidisc phase) and then along came mobile phone headsets and MP3 players. And the geekphones were, by now, not only very inconvenient to carry in a handbag but very expensive to buy. (And impossible to buy for phone kits where you have NO bloody choice whatsoever about the instruments of aggravation and/or torture to use).

But the headphones they provide with these devices are definitely not designed for ears like mine. They don’t sit in my ear at all but sort of hover in the vicinity, so that if I move vigorously (walking, turning my head or even, occasionally, breathing!) they fall out and I am left with no music.

I tried plug-style headphones to see if that worked but they were all just too big to fit in my ear and if they did go in they hurt like hell. Eventually I managed to find some plug-style headphones with varying sized attachments. The smallest size ones are just about ok although they are still a bit tight and ideally would be smaller.

Unfortunately I have no such option with phone headsets. The first headset that came with an old phone I abandoned after a day, the next I never even bothered unwrapping. But my pda is bulky and annoying to talk on for long periods so I am persevering with the headset. And walking and talking like a stiff mummy because I’m anxious not to give the earpieces any excuse to hurl themselves, lemming-like, out of my ear and lose themselves in the folds of my scarf while I’m in the middle of a conversation.

I’ve been watching other people and there doesn’t seem to be a widespread problem with this. So I must conclude I am a freak. But maybe there’s a silent majority walking round with ears that are too small and saying nothing. I will observe and find out.

And if it turns out that it’s the earphone designers that are the freaks - with their big flapping ears and cavernous ear holes - then I’m gonna start a revolution!

I’m not to be relied on when it comes to emotional responses.

Hard as nails on occasions and generally a cool head in a crisis, somehow the merest thought of the death scene in Bambi brings me to tears. And don’t even think about mentioning Watership Down unless you have a box of tissues and a supply of chocolate handy.

But I deal (most of the time!) and have learned always to carry tissues and never to wear non-waterproof mascara. My friends may think I’m soppy sometimes but I don’t think I’ve ever made a complete tit out of myself.

Until today. When I was found, staring mournfully into the window of Marks and Spencer.

“What are you looking at?” she asked. 

“The flowers,” I replied without stopping to think, “so many flowers. They’re all so pretty and so many of them will be left un-sold and thrown away.”

And I realised, too late, that a decided tremor had entered my voice as I continued “It’s such a pointless waste of life…”

Somehow I can’t quite forget the look of pity that met my suspiciously wet-looking eyes!

One place I never thought my theatre addiction would take me would be a train station. But oddly enough, in the last month it has taken me to two.

I went to see 30×30, a 30-minute performance that was part of the Dance Umbrella festival, a month ago. This took place on the pavement directly outside Liverpool Street station. It was interesting, not so much for the dance itself but for watching the reaction of the passers by who were not sure if what they were seeing was a rehearsed performance or just some random mad person. I wondered how much of this owed to his choice of clothes - a normal tracksuit and trainers - as I think if he’d been wearing more typical street performer clothes, people would have been less confused.

Small Metal Objects, which I saw on Monday night, was an even more extreme example of this concept. Sitting in a bank of seats in the upper reaches of Stratford train/tube station with headsets, the audience stuck out like a sore thumb. But such is the tunnel vision of commuters that only a handful even saw us, and most of those that did looked away hastily.

The reaction to the actors (who were mingling with the public, distinguishable by us because their innocuous looking headsets were transmitting their speech to our headphones) was similarly unimpressed. As the play unravelled - with drug deals and tantrums and conversations about the meaning of life - people swilled around and past these moments, oblivious and uncaring of what was happening.

It was fascinating.

The most bizarre moment was, perhaps inevitably, the ending when - from the point of view of a passer by - four random people lined up and bowed and a group of weirdos burst into applause. An utterly bewildered man, who happened to be going down the escalator at the time, was so surprised he almost lost his footing and had an accident.

Bizarre stuff. And very interesting.

OK, the looks of the male dancers were rather yummy but the deliciousness refers to the dancing, honest.

Carlos Acosta and guests from the Cuban National Ballet at Sadlers’ Wells (last week in October) was universally panned by the critics - they dismissed the choreography and the direction and the words ‘waste of talent’ were used more than once.

But I enjoyed it. It was fun, the performances were well-executed and the music was lively.

What’s more, all of the dancers seemed to be enjoying themselves, living in the moment rather than trying to show each other up. And maybe the dances were more limited in scope but personally, I prefer watching a perfectly executed simple routine than a hard piece of choreography littered with mistakes or a complex emotional role performed by a dancer who looks like she’s had every expression botoxed out of her face.

My preference may not be art. But in this case I’m happy to be one of those people that sits stubbornly and says “I don’t know much but I know what I like!”

I would quite like to manage six posts between now and Friday just to get up to the big 200th post before I leave the country. Since anything I write while away will be less considered and less sensible than my normal standard (um, well except the ones when I talk about pudding, or break into rhyme perhaps…).

But unless I can actually be bothered to write about how I’ve developed a formula to choose how many pairs of socks I think I’ll need (divide number of days away by likelihood of proximity to washing machine then subtract probability of weather that will lead to sandal wearing…) or the trauma of losing my holiday notepad (actually, it’s not that I can’t be bothered to write about that, it’s just too gosh darn upsetting) then I haven’t got much to say at the moment.

Although, now I come to think about it, there are a couple of theatrey type things that I haven’t recorded for posterity yet. I must get around to them before the end of the week.

But in the meantime I’ll just stare at the screen and go hmmmm.

It often feels that an MP3 player* on a random or shuffle setting, is playing music for a specific purpose. 

I think everyone has felt this at some point or other - even with songs on the radio. But on random setting MP3 it can get a bit spooky how often you think of a track and it plays next, how an upbeat song comes on when you want one or that song that you associate with a particular person comes on just after you’ve spoken to them.

So it’s hard not to take notice when your MP3 player seems to be trying to tell you something.

I have 3000 songs on my MP3 so the odds of one track playing twice during an hour-long drive should be something in the region of 0.0002% (I think. I admit it’s been a while since I did any proper probability calculations but the odds are definitely long!). When this song is called ‘Explode’ (by the Cardigans) it’s enough to give cause for alarm.

So if my MP3 player does know something I don’t, or is being influenced by some force (that sounds much better and more rational huh?!), then what is it trying to tell me?

Is it suggesting that I’m a bit too stressed and need to calm down? Is it warning me of something? (My car survived the journey but I am getting on a plane on Friday - gulp) Or was it merely an acknowledgment that I was driving to a firework display? 

Whichever way I’m spooked. Why couldn’t the song have related to true love or the weather being sunny or anything else that would seem slightly less ominous?!

I have been thinking about impoverished students since meeting up with Linay (a nickname that even she won’t understand!) on Tuesday night.

Linay is a family friend, five years younger than me, and currently in her last year of university in London. She warned me via text before we met up that she was “proper broke” and so I offered to buy her dinner. She protested a bit, but I was happy to do it. I remembered how nice it was, when I was a student and struggling to find cash, to be able to pop round to Linay’s family’s home and be fed roast dinner - this was my way of returning the favour.

Being a student was often tough on the finances. I got off pretty lightly, mostly because I had family support but also because I had savings before I went to uni and then worked every summer holiday in quite a well paid job. I didn’t travel or do any of the more exciting things that my friends were doing, I was more interested in financial ease during the year.

I think my motivation to do this was largely the result of a visit to Edinburgh uni when I was deciding which places to apply to. I went with a school friend and as well as the normal open day, we visited Daniel, a guy we knew from home who was in his first year there. He lived in a flat with other students and while we were there his flatmate, Susan, sat down with a sigh and declared:

“I’m sooooo fed up of baked beans”.

Susan proceeded to tell my friend and I that she had eaten nothing but baked beans on toast for the last four days because she was so broke that that was all she could afford. She then said that she only had twenty pounds to live off until the end of term.

My friend and I looked at each other, shocked and appalled.  The holidays were over three weeks away, how was she going to survive? 

“It’s just so hard being a student. We never have enough money.” Susan continued.

The horror was setting in. How much did I really want to go to university after all? I didn’t even like baked beans!

I had already mentally filled in the application form to work at Woolworths after leaving school when Daniel chipped in, grinning: “You’ve got them properly scared you know.”

“Well good!” said Susan, “They should be prepared for how hard it will be.”

“Yeah.” he replied and laughed. “Now tell them why you’ve got no money.”

She did have the grace to blush at that point.

It turned out that she had no money because she’d spent her entire budget on a five hundred pound dress to wear to a Christmas ball.

I was very relieved. But it was still a wake up call. At seventeen my friend and I were probably the richest we’d ever be in our lives. We had Saturday jobs and absolutely no financial commitments and still we sometimes complained that we didn’t have enough money. The experience definitely taught me to save before leaving school. And also never to buy designer clothes if it means you’re left with too little money to afford decent food. (So hard did I learn this lesson that my dress for my first uni ball had been bought the year before and was £18 from New Look!)

It seems Linay never learnt that lesson. Just as I retrieved my credit card and pocketed the receipt from the dinner and drinks I had just paid for, she made her confession - that her poverty was largely the result of a spending splurge at dolce & gabanna.

Next time I’ll buy her beans on toast!