Flowers at the airport!

A very quick update to say that I got an amazing surprise tonight, I got back to Wellington, late in the end, it was 1am ish and ... Adam was waiting there for me at the airport with an amazing bunch of flowers!!! And a little card with Klimt's 'The Kiss' on it (one of my favourites!) and a message saying welcome home.


I got such a surprise, my mouth was wide open for several minutes I think, it was amazing, amazing, amazing and I am still smiling.


That is all for tonight, it is very late here :o)


xxx

Batgirl

Right.

Am in Sydney again! Did the ferry ride to the city, saw the opera house, did the botanical gardens and saw the trees, birds, flowers and bats. Again :o)

It's alright here, warm but cloudy. It's nice to be able to chow mum and auntie allie around as otherwise they might have got a bit lost. I'm pleased with how much I've remembered where everything is.

Tomorrow I'm having a shopping and pampering day after I've packed the girls off to do more tourist stuff. That will make me happy, shopping in a big city.

Also, I miss Adam! Only 3 more sleeps until I see him again. He has been texting every day and even came out to the airport to see me for 20 minutes during his lunchbreak on Thursday, when we transited between the south island and Sydney with 4 hours in Wellington airport. Isn't that nice?! And he even noticed my new earrings and... sorry, I'll shut up :o) Anyway, mum and auntie allie really like him also, which is a very good sign.

Speaking of the Macowell ladies, they have ignored me completely tonight and yesterday evening and they are just sitting there shouting at Andy Murray on TV in his tennis match. Boring!! I'm so glad Adam doesn't watch a load of sport.

Um... Adam, Adam, Adam :o)

xxx

Just a quick one to catch up with you all a bit....

I am currently in Wanaka with mum and auntie allie and we're having a great timne. We started by catching a ferry from Wellington to the south island on Saturday morning (22nd Jan) and then hired a car and drove to kaikoura. There you can catch vboat tours to see whales and dolphins, seals and albatrosses, but it was too windy the next morning so we didn't. From there on Sunday we drove across the island through the mountains for 6.5 hours and ended up in Hokitika which is a lovely little town and also very pretty. We went to Hokitika gorge the next morning and that was really gorgeous. From there it was a 2 hour drive to Franz Josef which is right by the mountains. I love it there. We visited a glacier that afternoon which was incredible and then a kiwi centre this morning. We then drove to Wanaka which is by a big lake and took about 4.5 hours. We were a bit hung over this morning so left late and got here about 7pm so just had time for dinner. Tomorrow is Queenstown which is only an hour away and then we'll relax and look around. It is the adventure capital of the world so I want to do something fun!!

We leave Thursday morning early and fly back to Wellington, have a quick lunch with Adam at the airport and then fly to Sydney where we'll be for the next 4 days. I'm back to Wellington next Monday and plan to do lots of lovely shopping in Sydney so I expect I'll need to rest after such a taxing few days :o)

The food here is really good, we have been eating out every night and unfortunately our tummies are beginning to feel it! I have a personal trainer lined up for when I get back and I am dreading it but it is the only way to guarantee I will get some exercise. February will also be the mopnth for finally, properly, giving up smoking, drinking much less (I thought not at all but am being a bit more realistic!) and dieting and generally being good. And boring, but healthy.

More from Sydney!

xxx

Hungover horseriding

So my mum and aunt are in the air right now!! Very exciting.

I had some sad news though; our cousin Isabel who is in Sydney, where they are due to visit on their way back, got in touch to say her mum is very ill and she needs to fly back to the UK to be with her family. It's such sad news and my thoughts are with her. However, it's such a shame about the timing. I know that Isabel has waited a long time for visitors from the UK and was very much looking forward to seeing them both, and I also know how excited they were about seeing Isabel.

So, we'll see what they want to do once they arrive. It may be that they decide to stay here longer. That would be lovely for me of course... but let's wait and see.

OK, short news today. I don't feel like I have too much to say really.

This weekend was very nice. On Friday I met a new friend who I found on Gumtree. Her name is Kat and I had a very nice time with her. Adam came along later and I got rather drunk. However, he looked after me beautifully, took me home, made me drink lots of water and tea and made me some food :o)

Saturday was hungover horseriding which was actually quite fun and I'd definitely do it again, although I wanted to go faster! Then the afternoon was a BBQ at a friend of Adam's. I wasn't really on top form for that, I'll admit. Although I loved the scooter ride there and back!

Sunday I made a roast dinner for Adam and his flatmate and they both seemed to really like it.

Today I am being lazy.

That is all.

Theft and a diamond ring

Luckily the two are not related!

The diamond ring first... here is the ring I made!! It is silver wire twisted around and around and soldered in about 20 places to hold it together, then beaten with a round hammer to give it a textured finish. Then I attached three small diamonds to it, they are all slightly different colours - the top one is a smokey colour, the middle is fairly clear and the bottom is a bit pinky. Also, I made some aquamarine earrings - I also made the silver wire hooks with them! The teacher says that the ring could sell for between 100 and 125 GBP. The materials cost about 20GBP! And it took me about 8 hours to make. There is a student exhibition and sale at the end of the month and I might put them in... maybe not for sale, but I could see if anyone likes them at least, maybe get a commission!! I might at least sell my first ring, that is too big for me. But I'm probably getting carried away... although I am going to sign up for a 7 week course for March and April and make more things and maybe I can sell some. We'll see..... Photos and theft story below...

So - theft. Today I had lunch with Adam in a cafe and a man came in and stole a bottle of wine and put it in his jacket and tried to walk out... he saw Adam looking at him and he said 'you didn't see that, right?' and Adam said 'I did see that, put it back'. And the man didn't want to but Adam kept on telling him and said he would call the police... then he said just put it back or I'll tell the people working here and after a bit the guy did, he said 'just don't tell them and I'll put it back quietly', which he did. I felt a little bit sorry for him as he was clearly an alcohoic and he did say 'I really need it' but that doesn't make stealing right. And I was very proud of Adam and I think he was very brave. Because the man was a bit... well, maybe not mean looking, but... unsavoury looking, you know? And afterwards the staff came over and they were two girls and they said thank you very much to Adam as they were too scared to do anything.

I have a brave, feisty boyfriend!! Yay for me :o) Yay for Adam actually...

So, what else? The weather here is gorgeous today, bright and sunny and warm and cloudless. I am going horseriding with my new flatmate and her colleagues tomorrow. Tonight at 8pm I am meeting a girl who is also new here, I found an ad on gumtree that she put up, basically saying she's new here and looking to make new friends. Perfect :o) Also, I replied to an ad from someone saomeone saying they were looking for 'Gurls friend' which I took to mean a girl looking for friends as it said the same kind of thing, new here, looking to meet people and make friends.... although the reply is from a man who has already said 'how lucky is your boyfriend' in response to the fact that I am generally not free at the weekends due to Adam. Hmm... I have written back to say, and I quote 'I am only looking for platonic freinds as I have a boyfriend who I adore, so as long as that is OK with you, then lets meet up'.

I am not 100 % convinced but am happy to give it a try. I can always just leave if it's not right.

And my mum and Aunt get here in 4 days!! So very excited....

Take care my lovely readers, and please let me know what you think of the ring. Flattery not needed, just honest thoughts on whether I could actually make more stuff like the ring and sell it? Because I'm really thinking about it...

xxx

NYE 2010

Hi! Just thought that I would post a pic from NYE of Adam and me... it's not a particularly good pic of either of us and I should add that my lovely Adam looks better than this in real life (not that he looks bad in this, just that he looks even better in person). But so do I. It's good to look better in real life than in photos as we're in real life far more often than photos!!:

My new hobby

Hi everyone!

So, here are some pics of the pieces I have made so far, which is a ring and two cufflinks. They are for Adam, (not the ring!) they are bottletops engraved with his nickname, Chico. I am very proud of them, you would not believe what went into making them!! So i am going to tell you:

I cut two discs out of a sheet of silver and tried bashing them with a hammer. It didn't work. So, then I annealed them (heated them up with a blow torch until the copper in them comes to the surface) which makes them more malleable. Then I bashed them some more with a hammer and still got nowhere. I repeated this once more and still got nowhere. I sat down and pouted and then asked the teacher :o) She suggested a sandbag... you put it on a sandbag, put a round solid metal bar thing in the middle and bash it with a big hammer to get the edges to curl around it but that didn't work either so she said we need to use the 'pitch pot'. It is, quite literally, a pot of pitch tar such as you might see on a road surface. You heat it up with the blow torch, wait for it to cool a little but so it's still malleable, then vaseline the underside of the disc, stick it in the pot and bash it as with the sandbag. This time it did work, although it took several goes and lots of bashing and more annealing and several heating-ups of the pitch.

After that I clamped a metal bar and stuck them on the top and bashed the edges down with a hammer, which did work as they had been bent already. Then I used some pliers of various different sizes and kind of twisted and crimped the edges. Plus more bashing and more annealing, It was quite a long process. Then I engraved the top, stuck them in an acid bath, and then soldered on the cufflinks at the back. Then more acid and about 1.5 hours of rubbing with sandpaper! Oh I forgot, I had to oxidise the top to get the letters black too. Then they got tumbled in a tumbler for polishing for 3 hours and then they were ready.

Phew!!!!

The ring is twists of wire, soldered together and bashed and flattened a bit. It's OK, but I can do better I think. It's a bit big.

Vespa Club

I made a silver ring today! It is made of about 10 wraps of silver wire all curled together and beaten a bit flat. It's pretty. Tomorrow I put stones on it.
Adam and I had a lovely weekend. He had a surfing lesson (1st time!) so we went down to the beach on Sunday morning and I had a coffee while he started off (I missed him standing up -  damn!) and then I sat out on the beach watching him.

The very best thing about this weekend though was that ADAM TOOK ME OUT ON THE BACK OF HIS SCOOTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was one of the very best things I have ever done!! It's a Vespa 250cc (cc? Is that right) and it's dark blue and very nice. I was a tiny bit scared for the first three minutes but then I loved it, loved it, loved it!!!!!!!!!! It's my new favourite thing and I want to get a scooter too!!!

This is what Adam wrote about it on his Facebook: "Excellent scooter ride from Mt.Vic to the top of the Cable car via the wid turbine and Aro Video all with a beautiful girl on the back." I like this :o)

Also, Adam introduced me to a couple of easy computer games on his ipad. One was plants vs. zombies over Christmas and I really liked that one and now I'm playing a computer development game, which is also quite simple but I like it (you own a company who makes games and you have to try and make and sell better games and get more fans and more money and train your staff and things). Adam plays the proper ones where you shoot zombies and talk to people and have to walk for miles and miles and miles (New Vegas for anyone who cares).

Comments!

By the way, I have just updated the settings so that anyone can leave comments, you do not need to be a registered person, which was making it a bit tricky for some people I think.

So, you are able to leave a comment as an 'anonymous' person but if you do, please put your name on it so  know who it is :o)

Dad, this may help with your comments?! But my other advice is to type it up in word first and then copy across so if you do lose it you can simply copy and paste again?

xxx

Visa vs. Summer Fling

So.... I'm saying this very carefully as I don't want to scare anyone, least of all myself.

I met a boy last night, a British boy, who told me about different kinds of visas including one I had never heard of before. I thought that once you had the working holiday visa , which is a once off thing, there is nothing like it, but I was wrong. Ther is one called an IEP Work Exchange Visa which you can use in the same way as a working holiday visa, for up to 12 months in NZ, up to the age of 35 and you can get one even if you have had your working holiday already.

http://www.bunac.org/uk/worknewzealand/eligibility.aspx

So anyway, I'm just saying.

Although Adam did call me his 'lovely summer Wellington girl' today which did make me wonder if the above has any relevance! How embarrassing if I'm thinking about possible visa options and he's only thinking 'summer fling'. But we'll see, we'll see, it's too early to think about this stuff yet. It's just interesting because, well, it's an option.

My other news is:

* My new flatmate is absolutely lovely! I was out with her and some of her colleagues and their partners last night and they were all really nice so that was awesome. She is called Lisa, German and 26.
* I am doing a silver jewellery making course for the whole of next week
* I am going kayaking tomorrow in Wellington harbour with Adam and maybe to the observatory in the evening, if the weather is nice
* I am cooking a Roast Dinner this Sunday for Adam, Lisa and Adam's flatmate Amy and then we are going to play a board game called 'Settlers of Catan' that seems a bit complicated. Lisa has never played it before either so we are going to google the rules beforehand so we can try and win - a girl after my own heart!! :o)
* I have been invited to go horse riding with Lisa's colleague next Saturday! I told Lisa it was one of my resolutions and she knew her colleague was into horses so has arranged it for me. She's coming along too. And then Adam is taking me along to a friend's BBQ in the evening afterwards. Hopefully I will be able to walk and not have broken anything :o)
* And then, the Tuesday after that my mum and Auntie arrive, so i will be quite busy. I just booked our South Island accommodation yesterday. How very exciting!

Ferrero Rocher...

As in, I'm now spoiling you people with more posts in one day than you could shake a very small stick at :o)

I just also wanted top mention something, and this may make any of you feeling a tinge of the green eyed monster about my employment status!

Having no job, even if voluntary, makes you feel funny. I've been meeting a lot of new people over here and the second question ithey always ask is 'what do you do?'. I've had an excuse up to now as I've been so new, and have been able to say that and reel off what my last job or jobs were.

But it makes you feel funny. And highlights how much we all define ourselves by our jobs. 'Unemployed' just doesn't have a nice ring to it. I told Adam the other night that he had not actually done that well for himself in picking a girlfriend who is an unemployed foreigner who doesn't know anyone! He pointed out that I am voluntarily unemployed, and I am, but still... it doesn't sound good.

And the other thing is that... I'm not quite sure how to put this, but philosopically, having no job is having an effect on me. If you have a job, your life is very structured and regimented and... sort of closed. You know what you're doing day to day and it's the same thing, and it's safe.

If you have nothing to do, really nothing... suddenly all the world opens up to you and it feels a bit overwhelming as all the options go through your head over and over again. It's really hard to know what to focus in on.

Anyway, I 'm not moaning, just sharing :o)

xxxx

Knickers!

I forgot to say, Adam told me that his mum is sending some stuff that we forgot. This always happens, nearly every time I visit my parents I forget something, either forget to bring something down like my hairbrush, or leave things like my phone charger.

This time I left my plug converter thing (UK to NZ -  can't think what it is properly called!) and Adam left a cable too.... and also apparently I left some knickers.

KNICKERS people.\

And we won't be talking about clean, neatly folded ones. We're talking worn, left probably turned inside out knickers. Oh. My. Bloody. God.

The mortification is back in full swing.

And yes, mum and dad, of course I checked and double checked when I left. I looked under the bed and everything. Twice! I didn't do it on purpose for heaven's sake :o) So very embarrassing.

The best laid plans... tend to work out :o)

The juice fasting detox maybe out as it costs $2,400 (1,200GBP) which is a lot for a week of juice, enemas and yoga.

What's in is a silver jewellery making short course from 10th to 14th Jan. I've always wanted to do this, to the extent that I've actually talked out loud to friends about it (although not for some time as, you know, life gets in the way) and Freddy (Spanish Freddy for those that know him) gave me a book about silver jewellery making one Christmas years ago.

So that's that taken care of. January seems to be filling up. My new flatmate who is a German girl called Lisa arrives on 6th and I'm very much looking forward to having a ready made new friend who I can show Wellington to and not be the Newbie for a change! Then, if Adam is free, I feel like doing somehting fun on the weekend, like kayaking or the zoo. Or something. And a roast dinner on Sunday. Then a week long jewellery making course, then my mum and Auntie Allie arrive on Tuesday 18th until Thursday 27th. I've also e-mailed a guy about personal training so that may be happening. Then February I feel like doing a couple of short bus tours around the North of the North Island.

Hard life I'm leading, isn't it?!

What else can I tell you all? It's warm here today, 25 degrees and sunny. Jealous? :o) I'm just chilling out at home and enjoying life...

xxx

A juice fasting detox with twice daily enemas? Sweet as...

Hello people :o)

So, I am back in Wellington and yes, I survived for those of you that were worried!! It was all very lovely, Adam looked after me impeccably well, his family are lovely and his friends are really great. We spent 10 days (actually 11 really) together and endured my backache and his allergies with very little grumpiness and no falling out whatsoever :o)

Oh, I forgot if I mentioned - I have pretty bad backache although it's getting better now I've finally found a good physiotherapist. It's been lower backache and a really bad pain in my hip that has been searing down to my foot and causing numbness and tingling from my hip to my heel several times a day for months now. The people I saw in London were rubbish and told me totally the wrong thing. I now have press-up exercises to do several times a day which are compressing the discs in my spine - apparently two of them are squished on the inside or something! But the exercises are helping a lot and it's only a matter of time until it gets better completely I've been assured. The phusio had a good time marvelling at how flexible my back is and put me on a special table that bends you in half backwards as I can go further than my arms let me!! What fun...

So, um... Adam is lovely (did I say that already?!) and I am still very happy indeed that he is my boyfriend.

I have spent today looking at things to do online. If I am not going to work then I will need other things to fill my time or I shall have nothing to talk about and be boring for Adam to talk to :o( I have been wanting to go on a fasting detox for a few years now and have found one in Nelson, so I might pop over and do that next week for 7 days or so. It will help I think with the stopping smoking, eating better/losing weight and maybe the get some exercise resolutions (they have daily yoga) and might be a good kick start for better habits.

Then my mum and Aunt are coming over on 18th January - very exciting! I'm also trying to plan what to do with them - so far I'm thinking three days in Wellington and then a five day tour down the West of the South Island.

Adam is taking me swimming tomorrow, but first we are going to buy a helmet so he can drivwe us there with me on the back of his scotter. This is actually very, very exciting as I have never been on a bike (with a motor). I want to get a pink helmet but Adam seems not too keen on that for some reason.... :o) And yes mum and dad, he is a very safe driver.

Did I mention how lovely he is?

:o)

OK, I'll stop now before I make you all sick. And also I'll go think of another adjective.

xxxxxx

Number 10...

So, I have number 10, courtesy of Spencer.


It is, 'enjoy EVERYTHING'


So, I am. I am not going back to work, and I am going to thoroughly enjoy my time here and do what I like and travel when I want.


Awesome :-) Thank you Spencer.