Remember when I first arrived and I mentioned how “Kiwi bedtime”, as we immediately dubbed it, was a real thing? Like, people genuinely just go to bed so much earlier than in the UK? And everything else is adjusted accordingly: the work day starts earlier, it’s acceptable to have lunch at 11:30, you’ll really struggle to get a table for dinner after 9. Well eight months later and I am ALL ABOUT IT. I like early starts, and it feels so good to wake up refreshed in the morning!! (Ps. I googled out of curiosity to try find something to back me up and found this article based on such terrible data that it made me laugh, so there ya go. Guess you’ll have to take my word for it. As a bonus: the search terms I used also threw this up, which made me laugh even more.)
Gales bringing down trees in the Domain, April 2018
Also remember how the whole build up to Christmas just passed me by? Now that it’s getting cooler and autumny and the air is full of leaves and woodfire smoke, I am so ready for fireworks and mulled wine and twinkly lights and Christmas carols and ahhhhh you guys they’re not coming and it’s making me all kinds of emotionally confused and distressed.
Ponsonby
Not a whole lot to report back on this month, in the best of ways. April has been full of work and little day-to-day things, with the weather swinging between last days of summer and full on gales. Work days have been long but rewarding. Any free time I’ve had has been divided between getting outside to savour each and every moment of sunshine and warmth, or curling up with a hot water bottle and book as rain lashes against the window.
Kinda enjoying cosy hot water bottle moments. When it got real hot during the summer (because no fricking house here has any insulation whatsoever) I used to lie in bed with a cold water bottle to try fall asleep and it worked surprisingly well. Don’t knock it before you try it – I hear England is due for a heatwave soon…!
One of my oldest friends was in town for the day over Easter weekend, so we caught the ferry out to Waiheke and lazed about in the sun and drank wine and just talked and talked. It was so good. We studied German together – ten years ago now! – and she was actually one of the first people I informed of my intention to apply for Grad Med (- I remember her being suitably unimpressed with the thought of a whole extra four years of study). When we first met we bonded over the most existentially depressing textbook you could possibly design, a fellow classmate’s increasingly brazen cover stories for the glittering frenzied nights out that flashed up on our Facebook feeds every morning, and a very Baroque-heavy tour of Heidelberg that ended with our guide getting locked in a museum. She’s a high-flying accountant now, and here I am muddling along in medicine. I don’t know what became of that classmate.
Maungakiekie, otherwise known as One Tree Hill, in Cornwall Park. Easter 2018
Other things I did that weekend: explored Cornwall park, (which was full of beautiful trees and families picnicking and playing cricket), bought five musty second-hand books on sale outside a Dairy (have already finished four of the five), had so much fun playing Badminton with Luke and his friends (“Wait, does everyone here speak Canto?” “Luke!”), ate a delicious bowl of Laksa and failed to buy a single Easter egg. Ah well. Cadbury’s chocolate tastes so gross out here, at least I wasn’t really missing out.
Featuring: Rangitoto as seen from Cheltenham Beach, chilling out with Imy and her friends, my all time favourite palm tree ever (just look at it shooting for the stars!!), crowds and fortune cookies at Auckland International Cultural Festival, roadside Birds Of Paradise
And other sunshine adventures! Last swim of the summer at Devonport, letting the tide carry me out towards Rangitoto, before the thunder storms hit. Last showing of The Merchant of Venice at The Globe. An afternoon of gluttony(/”culture?”) at the world’s least well advertised truck food fair(/cultural festival). Last of the outdoor cinema at Silo Park, laying in a beanbag and catching up with friends. Reading under the oaks in The Domain on ANZAC day, while a group of Spaniards play shirtless football and runners run laps of the Sri Chinmoy Peace Mile.
One thing I’ve spoken about with lots of people recently: the quality of the light out here. It’s so difficult to put into words, but the sunshine (especially at sunrise and sunset) is so much more golden than anywhere else I’ve lived, a real deep yellow gold, and it pushes through heaps of clouds to fall in sweeping blankets across the roofs and treetops. It’s beautiful. Makes me think of Rimbaud’s Aube all the time.
A devastating moment the other day: when I saw the number plate “eh wtf” drive past and I was too slow to catch a photo. Think that one shot up to number two in the rankings (though “wtf eh” would be even better – much more Kiwi), right behind “lil bud”. S’gonna be hard to knock Lil Bud out of first place, but feel free to submit entries to me for consideration.
A terrible confession: I’ve been putting off buying a new computer for the longest time, but I discovered the other day that I missed the whole latest season of ANTM and that might just be the nudge I need to go out and buy one – my current laptop is so slow when I tried to stream episode one it took me over three hours to get through it. Y’all can judge. I know you have similar guilty secrets.
Some extra happy lil moments recently. Deep and honest heart-to-hearts with my soulbaby Ana, in between baby C naps. Liverpool celebration texts from my Papa, who doesn’t have a smart phone. An unexpected email from a former supervisor. Getting scrubbed into Caesars and assisting baby deliveries. Regs who go out of their way to teach, get you involved, and make sure you understand what’s going on. Old flatmate reunions x2 featuring dumplings, and more dumplings. Ward staff who greet you by name when you arrive in the morning. “This made me think of you!” texts. The most delicious coconut rosewater after-work tea with Ai, in a deserted staffroom bathed in golden light that trembles every time a train goes by. Flatmates back from their travels. Banter with ward clerks trying to tease out all of my secrets. Replying to emails I should have answered (a lot!) sooner. Falling asleep in someone’s arms and waking up to kisses.
And some more difficult moments that make my heart heavy and take such a physical toll on my body, but are too personal to share on a public forum. Making note of them for my own record, and for the sake of honesty. It’s been a difficult past few weeks also for me and my family, with no real end in sight. My day-to-day is happy and full of tiny little things that bring me joy, but these things exist alongside the more difficult ones, they don’t negate them.
Low lying moon and Autumn leaves in The Domain, ANZAC day 2018
When Sarah came to visit she chided me for having already accumulated so many books, and she had the right to do so as she was the one who stayed up with me all night back in Cheltenham helping me pack mine up to be put into storage when I was preparing to move out here. They’re really the only thing I buy though, almost all secondhand. I’m reading all sorts, but especially enjoying NZ and Aussie authors, and anything set in Auckland. It feels real good to be properly reading again, really immersed in ideas.
That’s all for today! Keeping this one (relatively) short! On the off-chance: does anyone know of anyone looking for copy-editing/content writing/translating work right now? Would be super grateful for a hook-up if so. Looking for a side-gig.
Thanks for checking in, my loves. Hope you’re all having the most wonderful of days wherever you are! Write and tell me about them! I’m heading off to Melbourne now for a long weekend, maybe I’ll write something about that next month <3
Mad to Live 