Aotearoa

Well – thanks to everybody who hosted me on my recent trip around New Zealand/Australia – and apologies to people who I didn’t get to see.

But – the trip was a success overall.  The main purpose was to spend some time with little sister Angela, littler niece Meiken, and smallest-of-them-all nephew Cohen.  So – after a weekend in Sydney to try and get rid of the jet-lag (Pen deciding the cure for jet-lag was a big old night out at the pub) – I arrived in Rotorua and just chilled out for a week or so.  To be honest – I was planning on maybe doing some day-trips here and there to visit people, but once I got there – I just collapsed into sloth.  But it was all good – Meiken’s actual birthday was the day after I arrived – and after a quick visit to the playcentre for cake/birthday-songs/etc – we hung out at home all day.  Trying to get Meiken to remember/meet/trust/like me.

I was supposed to be doing a bit of cooking and what-not also, to take the load off Angela – but didn’t really end up doing much of that.  My bad habits of cooking late at night don’t really suit the ‘young family’.  Anyway – it was all good.  A week of sitting around the house, playing with Meiken, watching Cohen, and watching daytime television.  (To all those who blame the degradation of society on violent movies and/or videogames, etc… you’ve got it all wrong – it’s mainstream daytime television)  The birthday party per se was on the Saturday – which was handy for catching up with a few more people without having to make the effort to travel to them.  Muhammed and mountains, or some-such.

And then the fruits of my postponing the travelling and visits came home to roost.  (Trying to figure out how to mix another metaphor into that, but I just cannae.)  So, after a week of sitting still, I embarked on a whirlwind tour of the North Island.  I missed Hawkes Bay this time, as most of my family from that way were at Meiken’s party (sorry to everyone else down there) – so the trip was just Hamilton – spent an evening catching up with the Wards, including Shainee & Tylah who have grown a ridiculous amount since I last saw them; Taranaki – catching up with Dad’s side of the family; Wairarapa – catching up with an auntie who has rather the sweet set-up, self-sustaining vege gardens etc, a bus for road-trips, and a decent collection of wine – I’m thinking about retiring myself and turning up on the doorstep; and finally Wellington – for a rather boozy night, starting with Bob & I drinking whiskey from the bottle in a primary school carpark, ending with H & I drinking red wine and having chit-chat, and my spilling of red wine all over the carpet and laptop.

And then I fled to Melbourne for a bit of a rest.  Yep.  Still a little intoxicated from the previous night is never a good time for me to find a CD store on my last day in New Zealand.  Despite having bought a dozen or so albums in Rotorua – I somehow managed to find another 20 albums of kiwi music to purchase.  (And remember – it’s only been two months since I was last in NZ, and did a binge buy then also).  And then I rushed through security because I thought I was late for my plane.  I wasn’t – I had misread the time by an hour.  So I was stuck on the wrong side of security/immigration from the Icebreaker store – which is probably a good thing.  I’ve had my eye on a coat from there for some time, but it is rather pricey… and it is summer in London.  But, this still left me on “airside” with nothing to do, really, except drink.  So, I set up a bartab, and had some delicious NZ boutique beers.  And then get on the plane, and had some wines.  And then landed and bought duty-free, and had some beers while waiting to be picked up from the airport.  And then had some delicious Bailey’s in the car on the ride into town.  And then beers at some dodgy little bar.  And then it was time for dinner, and there was wine, and ouzo, and just all-round silliness, and then it was the bar with the champage, and then when I asked for milk with my Bailey’s I got told I wasn’t allowed to drink anymore – and really… fair enough.  About bloody time, in fact.

The next day I spent catching up with little Eli – and being convinced that it was a good idea (considering the number of young children I caught up with on my trip, and those here in London) for me to set-up some kind of competitive rating system for everybody’s children.  Perhaps even with some constructive criticism for the mothers of those children who were struggling in certain areas.  Still not sure if I’m going to follow through on that – it just seems all too likely that I will at some point have my eyes raked out by some mother objecting to my describing their child as anything but the next messiah.  Anyway – Eli did display some aptitude in several areas – while struggling with such simple concepts as “Salad Fingers is no good.  No good.  No no good.”  Anyway – after that, I returned to Elise’s place to watch something much more appropriate.  Thor.  Starring Natalie Portman.  Whooaa.  What a movie.  (Terrible).  And then I woke up, feeling very very ill, and had some champagne, and got the hell out of dodge.

Back to London.  Just in time to go home, have a shower, stagger to work, and discover that absolutely NOTHING had been accomplished in my 2 weeks absence.  Which is to be expected – I fully expect that after I have been back for 2 weeks, absolutely nothing more will have been accomplished.  Except for the one project where I have sole responsibility.  I have just nailed that in the last couple of days – up until the point where I first rely on other people to do their jobs.  And have resigned myself to the fact that this project will now also stagnate in the Pit of Apathy.  Still – for the last two days, I’ve done stuff.  Yay.

Checking the last time I wrote about visiting home – it was really rather long.  I will endeavour to make this much shorter, at the cost of scrimping on details on some pretty sweet events…

First of all – left Heathrow on a Friday evening.  Must remember not to do this ever again.  Airport bars just packed full of Ingerlund geezers & birds off to Spain or Ibiza or something for the weekend.  Not pretty.

Then the long flight home.  Arrived in Auckland on Sunday afternoon – tried in vain to find a CD store in the airport – instead went and picked up my rental car.  Advice from girl at the rental place for CDs… “there’s a Warehouse just down the road”.  Argh… had nearly forgotten about the existence of the Warehouse.  I thought I’d pop in for a quick look, on the off-chance it actually had some decent CDs.  Nope – never doing that again either.  Their “Top 20″ rack was comprised solely of compilations – terrible terrible bargain bin compilations.  Drove down to Rotorua, with the fatigue only starting to kick in near the end of the journey – which was quite lucky.  Got to Rotorua just in enough time to make an appearance as a stumbling stinky mess of an uncle to a scared little girl before she went to bed.  Well – not so much scared, so much as shy.  Or just not wanting to know – which would be fair enough.  That first impression took a little while to wear off – but eventually we got along pretty well.  Hopefully I won’t have to start from scratch when I return.  Leaving a collection of sand-castles for Meiken to destroy will hopefully help my chances.

After an all too brief time in Rotorua – not even enough time to visit anybody I really should have (sorry to all) – I picked up Katie from Taupo.  (Finding out, at the last minute, that Katie had – of course – assumed that I would have enough room for a bicycle.  Luckily I did – but it sure didn’t help promote bicycle rights for me.)  A drive up to Auckland, (finding out at the very very last minute, that Katie needed to make slight detours to pick up stuff in both Hamilton and Auckland – luckily I had allowed over an hour for such Katie-isms) – and to the airport, and onwards to Melbourne.

A remarkably rapid and hassle-free progression through Melbourne airport, despite bicycles, Katies, and smuggling teabags – and shuttled like rich people to the Crowne Plaza.  Left Katie at the hotel while I headed off to find “the boys” in town.  Found “the boys” – and proceeded to have a few beverages and what-not.

Next day – discovered the Stormers (the rugby team, not the… other Stormers) were staying in the same hotel.  Listened to the coaching team discussing strategy in the lifts – and discovered why de Villiers has still got his job.  There’s just nobody else.  But anyway – Pen joined us at the hotel for a quick swim in the hotel pool – which was nowhere near as heated as advertised.  Still – rather nice to be able to actually swim.  Then – we checked out, and wandered around town.  Met Justin in Brunswick for coffee, then lunch, joined by a few others (but not Dave – Dave can’t handle his vodka).  Op-shopping for a while, some beverages, chats, etc – and then finally Pen, Katie & I returned to pick up our baggage, and head to our apartment in Williamstown.  Checked in to that, and proceeded to have an evening of chinese takeaway, and good old grumpy-tired-Kruse vs Pen-Katie-girlie-chatter times.  Which some how turned into my staying awake until midnight in order that Pen could open birthday present.  This was achieved with the help of a rather tasty bottle of whisky.

And then it was wedding-day.  Finally got to wear my new suit.  Had a rather tasty bottle of champagne while getting dressed (vintage Krug) – and then headed into Yarraville for some lunch.  Then – to the theatre for the wedding.  “Wha…. wedding, theatre?”  Yep – wedding in a theatre.  Not going to talk too much about the ceremony – as it’s kinda a private thing, I guess – plus once I start – it would probably take a very very long time to do it justice.  I just gotta say, Prince Mark and Cindy Middlesborough, or whoever – have got no chance of being anything but overshadowed.  In fact – I think everybody there on the day gave up on any chance of getting married.  Not including myself, of course.  I gave up years ago.  Ha ha ha ha …. aaaah.  But after the ceremony – relative normalcy returned.  Drinks at one place (where I was shown the cellar, and chose another really rather tasty bottle of champagne) – followed by another for the main reception – emcee’d by some Nathan chap.  I danced.  First time I’ve done that in quite some time.  And didn’t even attempt to play the bride like a guitar (I don’t think).  Did, however, instead slide across the floor on my knees like some kind of rock-start/footloose-Kevin-Bacon.  Eventually stumbled back to our apartment, to share some whisky with Dave.

Sunday – the aftermath – dropped gifts off at the newly-weds house of no-longer-sin, and ate some scallops and fish and what-not.  Chit-chat, then into town, some more chit-chat in a swanky hotel room – then chinese for dinner.  Where I proceeded to prove to myself that maybe the two months of lack-of-drinking followed by the two-days-of-yes-drinking had caught up with me, and the old Sunday-babble-Kruse started to rear his ugly head.  But managed to not offend anybody too much, except maybe the waiter (who was a prick anyway, and deserved anything he got – or that’s what people told me to make me feel better).  Back to hotel for a nice early night.

And then it was the dispersal.  Pen left early in the morning, then I left Katie stranded in Williamstown, as I headed to the airport – and caught my plane to Perth – which, as it turns out, is indeed rather warm.  Not as stiflingly oppressively unbearably hot as I was expecting – but still, pretty warm.  Got to John’n’Mel’s place, which is fairly nice.  Strange set-up – but perfect for the current use of two couples co-existing in semi-shared semi-segregated areas.

Caro’n’Dom’n’Malachy arrived the following day – and I believe the day revolved around that, and then a barbeque (mostly cooked indoors).  Next day was a day out in Fremantle.  Well – for most people it was a day out in Fremantle, but Ben & I went and did a bit of diving.  ‘Cause we’re divers.  Hired some equipment, got some directions – and headed off to do some divin’.  Got lost on land.  Then eventually went into the sea (cursing how heavy dive gear is while carrying from car to beach).  And the first thing I did was go and swim face-first straight into a jellyfish tentacle.  Still got the mark from that on my face.  Not cool.  But we eventually got out a bit – and after quite a lot of trial-and-error (okay – a LOT-lot of trial-and-error) – we kinda remembered how to dive.  So we did some divin’ until my airtank was totally and utterly empty.  Headed back into Fremantle to meet up with the others and Sam at the Little Creatures brewery – and downed some beers and dinner.  Pleasant day, all in all.

Margaret River the next day – a small road-trip, just like the old days.  Well, nearly.  Stopped off at the Busselton Jetty and went for a walk along that, and a quick snorkel off the side of it.  Very long jetty, that one.  And about to get longer.  Bought some Guinness for a few road beers to help the Paddies celebrate their Drunk-Day.  Got to our accommodation in Margaret River in the evening – dropped off stuff, and headed into town for dinner and wine.

And then some more divin’.  Ben & I headed off early in the morning – up to Dunsborough for some wreck divin’.  Dom was kind enough to drive us up – before returning and joining the others for a morning of whatever it is they did.  Meanwhile, Ben & I went out in a boat – and then dived nearly twice as deep as we’d ever been before – to check out the wreck of the HMAS Swan.  Pretty cool – except I soon remembered that I really do use much more oxygen than most people – so we had to keep returning to the surface relatively early.  But still – pretty cool.  Two dives, down to a max depth of 30 metres – and just swimming along this huge grey hulk – then over it’s decks, around it’s crows-nest, etc – yeah – I could do that again.  Eventually we returned to boring old land – for some lunch, a winery or two, an aboriginal cultural centre (pretty good for stoking up the ill-feeling towards the english), and stocking up on venison, kangaroo, emu, cheese, etc to make up some kind of dinner platter.  And tried to get through as much of our booze stockpile as possible.  Managed to do all available wine, finished all normal beers, and made a start on the Guinness – but eventually we had to give it up.

Next day – a fairly early start in order to get Kruse to the airport.  Success – and I was soon on a plane on my way to Sydney.  At Sydney airport, got myself a ‘limo’ to Pen’s flat – arriving in time to try and mix and mingle at her flatwarming party.  Didn’t do particularly well, being rather tired, sober – and thrust into the midst of a party, where I was “the ex”.  But – good bunch of people, and good to see that Pen has a pretty good crew around her – and seems to have quite the reputation as a ‘cool’, or something, spinster herself.

Another Sunday – another day of doing not much.  Had a few short wanders about Manly – but it was raining, and not the magnificent surf-paradise it apparently is usually.  Cooked a roast dinner for everybody, drank a few bottles of wine, played some scrabble, and watched a movie.  Old-school Sunday with Pen, pretty much.

And then – time to leave.  Monday – breakfast with Nic, lunch with Pen, dinner with British Airways.  The long, long flight back to London.

Where I got a fairly early morning tube back home – with jetlag starting to kick in when I at one point realised that all the people around me were on their way to work – whereas I had that “homeward bound” sleepy feeling in my head.  I started feeling sorry for them – until I remembered that once I got home, I was going to just get in the shower, get in a suit, and then head to work myself.  And that is exactly what I did.  Leading to the strange feeling at about 10am of feeling like it’s a late night in the office – but suddenly realising that everybody else is fresh and just starting.  The exact same feeling that I am getting right now, actually.  Except it really is 5pm – it’s just that it feels exactly like the bad old days of working until midnight.

Anyway – back in London now.  And I figure one weekend of some irresponsible socialising will get me right back into my normal cycle of stay-up-too-late, turn-up-to-work-late.  So, yeah, don’t expect me at work on Monday too early.