These are a few of my favourite things...

Continuing the Julie Andrews inspired theme...
In a proactive attempt to not always see National Park and another winter on Mt Ruapehu as a mild form of incarceration, I regularly take time to remind myself of some of the great things about living here:
- our little house with the bath on the deck and the cosy log fire
- no traffic lights
- venison in chocolate and plum sauce at The Station
- natural hot rivers you can bathe in only an hour away
- dinner, Shortland Street and girls' nights in with Bex
- the mountains - there's no view quite like it, and there's certainly no working environment quite like it!
- amazing skiing in the winter
- hanging out with Gregg and his beloved machines
- mountain muffins

It's not all that bad ;o)

Mary Poppins village

National Park Village, my current home, is a very strange place. It's small, structured on a grid of 4 main streets by 4. It includes a mixture of holiday homes, hostels and timeshare apartments, family homes and barren pieces of land sandwiched between the railway and SH47, the petrol station at one end and the school at the other. 4 year-round bar/cafe/restaurants. 1 shop (in the petrol station). The village was originally built around the sawmill (that recently closed - the latest local victim of the recession). Many of the original houses, including ours, were only meant to be temporary wooden shacks. Instead, most of them became permanent, extended wooden shacks. Dotted between them, flash holiday homes have cropped up. The resulting mix is really rather odd. And there are so many surprising little back streets I keep discovering that don't seem like they should be able to fit in such a little settlement. It certainly feels incredible that I should be able to continue to make new discoveries here on an almost daily basis!

Observations of a returning expat

I started making a list of random observations about the UK when I was most aware of them - my first weeks back home last christmas after 2 1/2 years away. I completely forgot to do anything with the list, so here it is:
- pedestrian crossing lights are much bigger but less noisy
- Friday nights are so very messy
- it's much cheaper to use a mobile phone
- there are a lot of knickers above the jeans waistline and current fashion is terrible
- in NZ they advertise heavily against gambling; in the UK they advertise gambling websites
- the variety and range of products available in the shops is IMMENSE
- I haven't seen an umbrella in ages, but they're everywhere in the UK and people persist, despite strong winds, almost to the point of ridicule
- central heating, double glazing and insulation ROCK
- prices seem cheap because I forget to convert and I've forgotten the value of the pound
- it's so nice not to be surrounded by tacky, poncey personalised license plates
- post offices are hard to find and don't offer anywhere near as many services
- it doesn't get much more christmassy than christmas in Scotland
- I finally appreciate the value of the omnipresent streetlong solid shop canopies in NZ
- why doesn't Britain have the public toilet system of NZ?
- Long Tall Sally is the bees knees
- tipping, I'd completely forgotten about tipping...
- what's with the terrible documentary-style pieces in the middle of BBC news?! that's real dumbing down
- accommodation, food and wine are damn expensive
- the UK is still much more cash-based, I'm not used to having to regularly visit a cash machine, but it's great that they don't charge me extra for not using my own bank's ATM
- aaaaaah, Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Have I Got News for You, need I go on? they just don't have this sort of humour or TV in NZ
- Scots are just as friendly as kiwis, hurrah!

Thing is, I adapted back to the UK pretty quick. And I've adapted back to NZ almost as fast.