I am going to attend many a talk about Eyes.
And Tim is going to visit the Melbourne Cricket ground.
Hurrah!
In the meantime, cake!
This cake has been consumed, as was its fate, at Simon's birthday party.
It was delicious. It was voted the best icing of the night - and how could mascarpone, icing sugar, double cream and vanilla go wrong?
Answer: it couldn't. Fact.
Folks.
It's sunny outside!
It's the end of the week.
I have just worked two long days in a row- that is 32 hours out of the last 48.
I am
weary.
And slightly addled.
But I'm going to Australia!
So that is all right.
Marcus: "Are you going to the Blue Mountains?"
Me: "Yes."
Marcus: "Because the guidebook says it's so beautiful, right?"
Me: "Yes! Are you going to tell me it's rubbish?"
Marcus: "Well...well no, it's ok, it's ok, it's just....we live in New Zealand. So....it's kind of like...nothing is quite as beautiful.....ever. I mean, it's ok for Australia. But it's kind of like, 'oh look, some mountains and trees that aren't as good as the ones back home.'"
Me: "Oh."
Marcus: "But the shopping is very good in Sydney!"
Here is a picture of Marcus
He is eating a cocktail sausage, which I thought was a tiny yam, because Anneka had warned me that tiny yams often look like cocktail sausages when roasted. In fact, it was a double bluff, and it was in fact a cocktail sausage.
The confusions of food in New Zealand!
Speaking of food, we do now have our car, Sticky Gerald, who is apparently no longer sticky, though to be honest the handbrake is still quite sticky, also bearing the marks of having once been chewed vigorously by a dog. Also, it turns out I have forgotten how to drive a manual. Anyway, the point about food is, after we bought Sticky Gerald, we went straight to the store and bought an unreasonable amount of food, and are planning our trip to the English store even now. Await an update eagerly on how it all went!
***
Since I'm not going to be updating for a week or so I know you'll all be weeping into your pillows with no news from me, so I thought I'd finish the North Island extravaganza once and for all.
After we went skydiving, we went to National Park village and did 2 more days of skiing/snowboarding.
It was quiet as, the end of the season, with hardly anyone on the slopes but us. The roads were deserted, the air was clear. It was pretty paradisical.
Having been forewarned by the emptiness of Taupo, we rang up each night before we went out to make sure restaurants were open. Most were, in fact, shut, but we found a lovely restaurant by the rail lines, a converted old Station, with the most amazing food. I got very very tipsy (this was the place where the waitress introduced me to the concept of Framingham Riesling. A beautiful concept!) and ended up speaking in bad Spanish to the only other couple in the place, a Mexican couple whom I DEDUCED they were Mexican from their ACCENTS. I WIN. They were like, "how did you KNOW?" and I was like, "because the Mexican accent is the best one in the whole world" and they were like, "you speak such good Spanish (lies), come and visit us in Mexico" and I was like, "I am coming to Mexico for my honeymoon! (also, not decided yet) and they were like, "HERE IS MY BUSINESS CARD, WRITE TO ME." And then we all cavorted around the table. And Tim and the waitress were terribly embarrassed.
So I had a lovely time.
In fact, the point of that story was to say that when I rang up to check it was open, I forgot to leave my name or phone number on the first go, so relieved was I that it was in fact open, and had to call back in abashed shamefulness, to which the waitress replied, "ah no worries, there's no one here anyway, it's just good to make a reservation in case we get bored and go home early."
Entertained.
This is Tim having a lovely time on the slopes. We spent most of the morning falling over as it was so horrendously icy and hard and hideous, and then most of the afternoon taking videos of each other in the most poserish manner imaginable, going down these steep steep runs with panache and style (so I imagined).
Tim took me down a black run, for which I will probably never forgive him (I have forgiven him). I fell over 3 times and told him I hated him forever (also not true). But I suppose I am now able to say I went down a black run.
It wasn't worth it.
Look how shiny that looks! Shiny and PAINFUL to fall on.
Next season, I am going to learn how to JUMP.
That is a fact.
Goodbye Ruapehu! We both bought season passes for ridiculous cheap - about 130 quid each. Season passes!
I am going to become INCREDIBLE. Watch me. There is no excuse.
Till next season :-)
***
After the skiing, we went home.
Tim started nights.
The next day, we had to get our paperwork sorted for South Africa. Oh my God. The paperwork for South Africa. I took a photo of it at some point, but have lost it. You will have to use your powers of imagination: it showed Tim lying, despondent, on the floor, covered by heaps of paper. Everything had to be signed in triplicate, witnessed, stamped, witnessed again, verified by a Notary Public (NOT a justice of the peace, because they don't even COUNT), and then we had to all swear on the Bible all at once about how we were who we said we were and yes, I do, etc, and bring an extra doctor for verifiication, who was Helen.
This is a photo of Helen
Helen also was post nights and so between her and Tim and me being quite tired and confused, the whole thing became a surreal farce of epic proportions. None of us wanted to say how we weren't particularly Godly re: the Bible swearing, as none of us wanted to prolong this whole business longer than expected, so we all had to hold it turns, swearing, while the lawyer mumbled, "no...now you hold it...yes, now you say I do...yes, now bac to him, now...you go for it...no, back to her...." and so on and so forth. As both I and Tim had to both swear that we were us and then swear for each other and then Helen had to swear for both of us it took all a rather long time and involved much Bible passing. Then in the middle he had to verify our photos and we had failed to glue them onto our pages, so he had to lend us his glue stick, which was like one of those rolley sellotape dispensers so prominent in the 80s and 90s, and then Tim couldn't work it so he had to do it for us. It was very, very comedic.
And then at the end he said, "well seeing as that was a bit longer than I expected...let's charge you $50 each rather than $45." Then he said, "it's not a money making business this, you know."
!!!!!!!
He should have gone into comedy.
They also had no facilities for accepting card payments, so he allowed us to go out, with all our signed and stamped documents, to get some money out.
It's a trusting country, New Zealand.
****
After all that, I felt I deserved a holiday, so Tim went to sleep and I went to Taupo again with some other people.
It was pretty wonderful.
We went kayaking with a very friendly and cheerful Dutch chap who'd lived here for 24 years, yet was still unmistakeably Dutch, in his wholesome and cheerful manner. Observe Fig. 1 above, as he adjusts straps in his cheerful Dutch way.
What is it about the Dutch? Instantly identifiable.
We had to wear strange rubber tutus.
Again, Vogue has missed out on a scoop of a lifetime.
We kayaked out to the Maori carvings, which we all guessed as being, variously, 500 years old, 300 years old, and 100 years old. Turned out they were like, 20 years old. I mean, I know New Zealand isn't a country of history particularly, but this is just silly.
They were, nonetheless, very beautiful.
The carving had two mouths! When I asked why it had two mouths, our guide replied, "that is a very good question" and then said nothing else. The mystery remains to this day.
Strange figures cavorted in the rock, and our guide told us that they either were monsters that ate people, or were protectors, or was someone's grandmother who did a lot of cooking for the carvers and so they were so grateful to her they immortalised her in rock, next to all the cavorting monsters, which I'm not sure, as a grandmother, I would like. I mean, I'm not a grandmother. But as a theoretical grandmother, as a woman who has the capacity, I hope, to become a grandmother, I feel instinctively I would not like that.
Take note, theoretical grandchildren.
We got bamboozled by cheery Dutch person (they are very persuasive) into jumping into Lake Taupo for a quick swim. Lake Taupo is 'famously cold' - about 11 degrees. Cat and I jumped in together - there is a photo somewhere of us doing this, but it was taken on Dutch person's camera, and he has not yet sent it to us. You will therefore have to imagine it. This distresses me slightly, as I imagine it was a good photo. Almost as good as how cold that water was.
Cat told me later that I had shouted so many colourful obscenities that she completely forgot how cold the water was and was simply taken up in admiration of my imaginative expletive skills.
It was REALLY cold, guys!
We wound up the day by going to the natural hot springs in Taupo. Last time, Tim and I had gone to Debretts Spa - which was pretty fun, but very civilised and, though open to the air, notably a built pool. These natural hot springs bubbled out of the river. They ran down in a hot waterfall. And they mixed with the natural cold waters of the river. And they were HOT.
So hot that, in our chilled states, they were almost painful. In fact, they were painful.
Painfully good.
We soon got used to the joyous joyous warmth though, that suffused us through and through and left us with cheesy smiles on our faces.
It was a really good way to end the day, and when we got out of the water, we felt warm to the bone, warm all the way on our long walk back to the car, and warm the whole evening, so warm that we ate our dinner outside while everyone else looked at us like we were mad. Which we were. And I fulfilled my dream of eating in Taupo, which was so sadly denied me on my last visit there. I managed this by chivvying and harrassing Sen and Cat continuously from when we left the hot springs to when we stepped out for dinner such that we sat down to dinner at 8pm. And not a second too soon!
The next day, we went horse trekking through some beautiful woodland. I found, disconcertingly, that I did not really like horse riding as I thought I had. This is because in all my previous romantic experiences of horse riding, I'd basically let the horse do whatever they wanted viz eating, walking around in circles, taking a random detour, galloping, all the while feebly jerking the reins in a pathetic manner and hoping they'd do what I wanted. I'd never really asserted my will over a horse before to make it run, turn around, stop eating, and generally behave. And I found it surprisingly unpleasant.
Still, cantering was a fun experience.
Despite taking a load of anti histamines right before getting on the horse, I was terribly allergic yet again. Horses do tend to have a fugue of horsiness around them such as you don't get with cats, with the effect that I wheezed through the entire trip. It was a shame, but since I found all that riding and imposing my will and so on so deeply troubling (strange, since I do enjoy imposing my will on nurses and doctors more junior than me), not too much of a loss.
***********
And now finally onto Bonfire Night in Palmy, taken, as usual, at the beach.
I think I've finally got used to the idea of autumnal and wintry holidays taken at the beach. All the Christmas adverts in NZ revolve around the idea of a beach picnic, with fairy lights, and running into the surf, and a giant turkey, and this has slowly become less strange and more acceptable.
Though I watched the John Lewis Christmas advert the other day, and that reduced me to nostalgia wibbling.
John Lewis. Quality at a very reasonable price!
It was a really, really glorious day. I think the lighting is different in NZ - the sky is more blue, the clouds are more white, the sun is more bright, there is more contrast, and we all look like we are in some kind of indie road movie all the time.
It was a truly sophisticated BBQ, with garlic bread, and chilli con carne, and baked potatoes, steaks and sausages and prawn kebabs, all cooked over the fire on an iron skillet. And of course, marshmallows.
Flaming marshmallows!
I had remembered to bring my tripod this time, and I spent a long time shooting sparkling photos in the dark. It was much, much darker than this photo appears - so dark I could only see the tips of the sparklers, not the figures at all - and I did exposure times of 15 seconds, which also accounts for why our tiny little fireworks looked so exciting.
Many an expired sparkling later, we finally managed to spell out "Palmy North" and, above, "NZ 2012." You'll have to read it with the eye of faith, but there it is.
****
And now, to Australia!
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