Mental

Dad and I walked into the tiny 'Fireworx' shop in Inverurie today (highly recommended - generally online only apart from 2x 4 days of the year - guess which) and were confronted by fireworks much larger than would be permitted as hand luggage, even if explosives were allowed on planes, ranging through to smaller 'best sellers' and of course good old sparklers.
When we asked the lad in the shop about how to choose between the giant box-like ones (roman candles, apparently) and the ones that stood a metre high, shaped like a bullet, we were informed that (and please imagine the strongest Scottish accent or - if you know your regions - Aberdonian accent here) the former had 'lots ae effects', but that the bullet-shaped ones were (and lots of enthusiasm here please) 'MENTAL!'. No wonder they look as though they're better suited to a bazooka than a back garden... So, 2 'mental' ones it was.
He also elucidated that the distinction between 'cheeky cherries' and 'zesty lemons' is that one is red and the other yellow. Duh. But 'emerald fire' is 'like little fish' (?!).
Knowing little of the technicalities of fireworks, I accepted his assurance that we had a good mix of 'pretty ones' and 'ones that go bang' (that's as technical as I get) and off we went, satisfied customers with our explosive treasure.



Sure enough, the mental ones were mental, 'cheeky cherries' absolutely deserve their bestseller status, and the fish one, well, it really did look like little fish. Kind of. Even the sparklers were better than many I've experienced. Good work guys!

Mental...

Snow problem

Why do so many people still expect everything to operate absolutely as normal when we get snow storms and insane ice? Agreed, there is probably more that could be done to prepare for the possibility. But really?
Prime example: The 'huffing' guy with a flight home from Glasgow getting the train from Edinburgh that leaves him the smallest margin for getting to the airport and missing his plane because he hadn't allowed for the inevitable delays. To get on that same train I had to bang on the window from outside to hint to other passengers that it might be useful for them to move right down the train to make space for the hundreds of us wanting to join them. And then I got grumped at by the few who wouldn't budge that we had to squeeze past. Those same grumps were almost certainly the ones who, when the train stopped for 45 mins because of frozen points, exclaimed 'Could it get any worse?!'. Actually, yes it could. The heating could break down; we could be stuck for hours; there could be hundreds more passengers crammed into the 3 carriages [and now I can also add: there could be tonnes of floodwater rushing at us and washing us all away]. And that's just for starters.

News presenters are becoming more blunt with their recommendations for how to prepare for these conditions. However, we have clearly become such a selfish, consumption-obsessed society that many do not understand that 'essential travel only' does NOT in fact include their shopping trip to Glasgow or the long-awaited booze-cruise to Edinburgh. Apologies if the (quite rightly) safety conscious managers of Scotrail have reduced your precious shoe shopping time by an hour...


That said, this unprecedented harsh weather does bring out faith-restoring acts of humanity and sense of community.
The 'Longniddry 8' who, instead of standing silent at the bus stop, individually fuming at the train cancellation, banded together to glean the desired bits of information and then yakked away for the long wait for the bus.
Neighbours who shovel out each others' paths and share rides to town.
Random people who pull over to help push your silly little red two-wheel-drive over the even sillier hillstart junction.

Unexpected, unprecedented extreme weather can obviously bring out the best and worst in society, casting an incredibly honest light on its true nature.

Picture time!

I am regularly reminded or berated by friends and family that I appear to be neglecting this blog. Not so, it's just that, well, there isn't really that much of interest to write about my every day life at the moment. Or at least, anything that I have to write about I really do not feel is going to be of much interest to anyone else and will only be coming across like those awful 'status update' thingies on Facebook.

However, what I do have (and have also been told I've become more and more negligent at updating) are photos. Lots and lots of photos. As I am currently all but snowed in at my parents' place in Aberdeenshire, I shall make use of the long dark evenings to upload my backlog (as well as socialise a bit with said parents...), starting with dad's visit to New Zealand and our road trip together.

Check em out here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oddballproductions/

Lost & gained

4 years ago I left home to travel. In that time, by being away I have missed:

• Grandie's 90th
• Take That's comeback
• 4 Edinburgh Festivals
• dad's retirement
• second graduations
• the inauguration of Creative Scotland (has that even happened yet?!)
• mum's last Munroe

However, the things I've gained and experiences I've had that I might never have had had I stayed at home include:

• Gregg
• Maverick the cat
• the ability to cook a great Thai curry
• improved skiing technique
• life on a Borneo jungle lodge
• the Bombay wild food festival

Oh to teach is a joy?

You see them all in this job. Teachers. It's part of my own inspiration to enter the profession.

The teacher who reads all the pre-visit advice and documentation, communicates and is well-organised, just like their group, is a rarer specimen than you might think or expect. When one of these teachers enters our office hope returns. Equally faith-restoring is the teacher who makes a point of coming back at the end of the day to thank us, or just let us know how they got on, or the class that sends you a thank you card.

The challenge, and I guess the glass-half-full side of me argues, the fun side of the job is in the remainder.
The teacher who thinks it's fine to let their students help themselves to rental gear before it's been paid for.
The teacher who phones and asks me personally to check the snow conditions so they can work out how wet the kids will get.
The teacher who doesn't see the problem with asking for lessons for 50 kids without having booked them (or the teacher who turns up with 50 kids without having booked at all!).
The Ee-Yoor teacher who tells us on a closed day that he's ready to kill himself, the bored students are bugging him so much.
The teacher who refuses to communicate any way other than text message, despite that being the only method of communication we currently do not have available to us.
The teacher who sends in a booking form with no school name or contact details, just a contact name. We are, of course, all full qualified mindreaders in Schools & Groups.

A local school teacher has advised me on several occasions that all teachers are idiots, morons. It's hard to disagree based on my experiences the past 2 winters.

But the good'ns are still out there and make the other 800 odd that I'll have dealt with this season fade to grey. I like to think I have it in me to be one of the good'ns when I move to the other side of the desk.

A wee reminder

I was just starting to think that the geothermal, earthquake-ridden bit of life in New Zealand was being grossly overstated. After all, I have been here for 3 1/2 years which is ages on a geological scale...
The 7.4 richter earthquake that has shaken up all and knocked down good parts of Christchurch is obviously a disaster. It is also a real good and overdue reminder to all of us living here that these dinky islands at the bottom of the world may well be far removed from nuclear warheads, suicide bombers and overpopulation, but they are completely under the control of much greater forces deep underground.

New country bumpkin

While I try to pretend to be unfazed by the chap in cowboy boots, pink corduroy coat and a top hat, deep down I'm gawping and can't help but find him extraordinary looking. The reality is that two years of life in Icebreaker-and-jeans-clad rural National Park, with no traffic lights, roundabout or cinema for 50km has turned me into a country bumpkin, wide-eyed at the bright lights of the city. I run around the shops ooh-ing and aah-ing at the variety of stuff, even though when I lived in the same city 2 years ago I found the range rather poor. The combination of city traffic, rain, neon signs and traffic lights on arrival in Wellington even had me accidentally run a red light - one of those rural idiots who should just not be allowed to drive in the city...

Run, Tuesday, run!

It would be 'Fly, Tuesday fly!', except Tuesday is a flightless, 6 month old kiwi chick.

Today I had the extraordinary privilege of holding a real, live kiwi while its tracker was installed and then holding it in its box on the back of a quad bike out into the bush before releasing it into the wild for the very first time.

They kick. They snap their beak. They shed their feathers. All while putting them through the trauma of tagging them, but it's so worth it if these little guys succeed out there in the bush. And what an amazing experience for little old me!!

Cold, bored and uninspired

Aaaah, I remember this now. This is the feeling that made me not come back originally. This is the feeling that reminds me that, deep down, I'm a (small) city chick.

Yet another evening with the computer, TV and a book for company. Yet another round of texts to friends who are not really keen on doing much, or too tired from long hours. Yet another dinner started not knowing if Gregg'll be home in time to eat it with me or not.

Don't get me wrong, I don't rely on my partner for all my entertainment. I have searched around for classes and extra-curricular activities in the area, but there is still very very little out there. My mates have different days off so are on a school night (or still at work) and not that interested in doing anything different.

I'm bored. It's plain and simple. I'm just not satisfied with going to work and that being the only thing I really 'do' in life.

Time to put some thought to some creative solutions...

Lots and lots and lots of new photos

Check em out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oddballproductions/

I'll catch up with pictures of my road trip with dad very soon.

Solstice

Even though I have experienced Shortest Days every year of my life, it still doesn't get any easier. Getting up in the dark, coming home in the dark. Here in New Zealand's North Island it's nowhere near as bad as the 4 hours of meagre daylight we get in Scotland but it still sucks.

At least it only gets better from here.

When two becomes three

A couple of months ago, Maverick Shitbag Histen joined the Odds-Histen household. He is a gorgeous, cheeky black and white cat with a bushy tail that he's clearly stolen from a much larger feline. Since moving to National Park from Taupo SPCA, he has got stuck up a tree and been rescued by the fire brigade, invited a friendly kitten into the house for a party, adopted several 'back-up' homes and discovered that the best toy in the world is a couple of bottle tops on a bit of wool.

He is an absolute joy, a total 'little dude' as Bex so aptly puts it. He's not been with us that long, but already we're completely besotted with him and would be devestated if we lost him.

On the road again (for a bit)

I always miss home, mum and parents, my brother and sister, my friends, but it's usually a wee quite trickle in the background. It's only when I go home or see someone from home that it becomes so much more acute.

I have just had the most excellent couple of weeks on the road in New Zealand with my dad. Taupo for the floatplane, bungy and Craters of the Moon. Rotorua for Mt Tarawera and more geothermal stuff. We just made it over the unsealed, windy, hilly Waikaremoana back road to Napier on a quarter tank of petrol, stopping off along the way in a tiny rural village for the best mussel chowder I've ever had. Frolics in Napier were followed by a tour round the semi-ghost towns and wharfs of the East Coast before landing in the Bay of Plenty. Or rather the Bay of Bugger All as it has now been rechristened, since torrential rain and galeforce winds scuppered all available activities in the area except for the excellent Classic Flyers Museum. So we fled to a more weatherproof option and went blackwater rafting in the Waitomo Caves before cruising homeward. Oh and wine, there was lots of wine all along the way.

It's been a very special fortnight with my dad and I can't quite believe it's over already. I'm going to miss him lots and it's reminded me all too sharply of how far away home is.

The Hicks Bay school of customer service

The envy is palpable. The occupants of neighbouring tables are practically drooling. Dad and I have just been served our starters in the restaurant at the Hicks Bay Motel, the only place to eat and sleep halfway along the East Coast Highway. The Lonely Planet describes it as 'sternly managed', which is certainly accurate, if missing the second descriptor of 'incompetently managed'.

We've waiting 45 mins for our first course. In the meantime we've watched all the truckers be served the roast lamb we were informed had sold out, and the rest of the tourists who did not order starters are progressing to second bottles of wine and a new level of irritation and hunger.

2 hours after ordering, the 17-year-old waitressed finally present us with our dry, tasteless main courses. Not much later, the arrogant, ignorant motel manager responds to his customers' various complaints and comments by yelling excuses and stomping off in a huff. There is clearly a lot we can learn from this man...

NZ Road Code

Some of my favourite unwritten parts of the New Zealand road code:

• What mirror? Maneuvre at the last minute, signal if you can be bothered
• Have your mist lamps on at all times, especially if it is not misty. This allows you full opportunity to show off to those without mist lamps, and to blind oncoming traffic.
• A U-turn must always be completed in one go, even if there is another vehicle coming up the arse of the second part of your maneuvre at 100km an hour.
• For tourists: The most acceptable place to perform an emergency stop for photos is in the middle of a State Highway, just after bends, on double yellows or both.

A fellow Brit commented quite correctly that they find NZ drivers some of the least courteous they've come across. Maybe that's why the real road code includes their crazy 'give way to oncoming traffic turning right if you're turning left but not if you or anyone immediately behind you is going straight on' rule. An attempt at forced courtesy?

Sucked in

This week saw a major turning point in the Odds-Histen household. We acquired (drum roll please...) a Broadband Internet Connection! Hello 21st century! It's timed wonderfully with 2 weeks of home rest for me, but in turn that has opened up a whole new minefield: the world of Facebook applications, especially the mindless, quick-click satisfaction of Farmville and SimCity wannabe, Social City. My bed-confined world now centres on filling the 4 hour gaps between painkiller doses with building enough leisure facilities to keep Oddsville (!) residents happy and then hoping I make it back to the farm in time to harvest my eggplant crop.
At least I'm not sat in front of the TV all day, right?!

Less than impressed

As I sit her in a hospital bed recovering from a good helping of sinus surgery and looking rather like General Melchitt with his moustache net on, I feel a whinge coming on. We'll ignore the newer grumble that my medical insurance decided to ditch me at the last minute because there was one too many zeros on the quote.

I am currently not the least impressed with the service I am getting from a major global mobile phone manufacturer to whom I have been a loyal customer for many years. Over the past 2 months I have spent around 9 hours on the phone to over 10 different 'customer service' representatives who are all clearly nowhere near New Zealand. They have only once forwarded me to their promised customer satisfaction survey (when they thought they might have resolved the issue). Almost every time they say they'll call me back they don't, so I have to call their infernal 0800 number and listen to their horrendous hold music before going through the whole story again. Twice. Because they don't understand the first time. Even when they do call me back, they don't know the background and I have to go over the story with them AGAIN.
Honestly... And I'm still no closer to resolving my warranty and repair matter than I was this time in January. Harumph!

Hottest homebaker?

Really? 'New Zealand's Hottest Homebaker'? It's got to be the new low in the mediocre 'talent seeking' reality TV show. This is a really bad knock off of Masterchef, with slightly odd contestants in pink aprons with pink loveheart-shaped pockets fretting over whether their gluten free flour will do the job of the cornflour they forgot at home. During the ad breaks, a local radio station offers viewers the chance to enter a competition to win some of the baking equipment used on the show. Really? I'm still not convinced that it's not some obscure Kiwi parody...