Home is wherever I'm with you.

Hopefully if I've done this blog scheduling thing right, this should post while I'm away for the weekend. Sarah and I are heading up north, right to the top and will check out the bay of islands while we're at it. Today it is 5 weeks until I head home.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm a little bit sad to be leaving New Zealand. And I'm well aware this is pretty pathetic because I'm coming back again in January. But the closer it's getting, the more excited I'm getting.

I'm looking forward to seeing my lovely family (and yes, I include my dogs in my family).

[I love this picture of my grandad. Shows how dapper he really is.]

Champions

Unless you live under a rock (or a country that doesn't care much for rugby) you may have heard that the All Blacks won a little thing called the Webb Ellis Cup. That's the trophy for the Rugby World Cup people. And boy, are the Kiwis celebrating.

I watched the match with Sarah over at Chapel Bar. The cheering was way underway before the team even got on the field. Me and Sarah (along with some french fans) were the only ones who didn't shriek along with the national anthem. It's not that I didn't want to sing along. I would have and I really thought the room could have benefited from my dulcet tones. But I don't know the words to 'God save the Queen' let alone the words to 'God defend New Zealand'. And they even sing it in Maori first, there was no hope for me. I sang a song in Maori once at church with RS and could not help laughing at my terrible pronunciation.

he match was a tense game and I pretty much watched the last 15 minutes through my fingers. I was so happy when it was finally over and felt a little bit of pride when they picked up the trophy. Yeah, I pretended I was Kiwi that day. I mean I've been here almost 6 months, that's surely enough to get citizenship right? When the fireworks began down on the waterfront we headed outside to check it out. I love fireworks!!

The next day was a public holiday. Not because of the world cup, it was Labor Day but I'm sure it wasn't a coincidence the final was the day before.

I had the day off so I headed into town to catch the parade with Dani and Serena. Once I managed to get off the bus I had to walk for about 30mins to get round the crowds and blockades just to meet the girls. Luckily they'd managed to find a spot where it wasn't too busy so managed to get quite near the front.

Here's a selection of photos for your perusing.

Piri Weepu, the guy celebrated for pretty much saving the All Blacks got into the parade dancing along.

Now that the world cup is over I can return to my equilibrium and go back to not caring about sport and rugby.

Yay!

A day out with Miss Raybould.

Today I somehow managed to get the afternoon off work and slinked away to the city to spend time with the fabulous Amanda. We headed over to the museum to check out the Webb Ellis Cup. We waited our turn to step onto the platform and get a little bit closer to the cup. I told Susan about how only one group were allowed up at a time (i.e. only me and Amanda that were on the platform) and she told me it was probably because last time they put a trophy - America's Cup - on display someone took an axe to it. 

2011 - New Zealand?

We managed to win the world cup once at least.

As we were leaving the museum, we saw our bus go past. I suggested we walked down to Parnell. Amanda told me about Chocolate Boutique. Obviously, as it had chocolate in it's name, I just had to try the place out.   Amanda got herself an italian denso and I got a hot jaffa - hot orange chocolate. Yum!

When we made it back to town, we had about 45mins before Amanda needed to head back over to her side of the harbour bridge so we went to the cloud to play some games. Amanda was the winner of the day as she managed to save someone's life, score two conversions and a try. I let the person drown and only managed one conversion. I love my talented friends.

In other news, I changed my flight. Instead of leaving New Zealand on 21st Nov, I'll be staying here until 3rd Dec. That means I've gone from having 2 weeks in America to two days. It's a long story that I can't be bothered to share, but it's all about the money, money, money.

It's been a while.

Dear Blog,

Please accept my sincerest apologies for neglecting you over the past 20 days. It's not that I don't have much to write about because, well, I have heaps of things to share with you. Unfortunately I can't remember it all.

The big news is that I finally took the plunge and made that important decision. I arrive in Manchester on 6th Decemeber. On 17th January 2012 I will be boarding the plane again to take me back to Auckland until the end of April. That's right Blog, I'm coming/going back to New Zealand. 

Did you hear that England got kicked out of the World Cup by the Frenchies? I don't know much about rugby, but after playing like that England deserved to lose. While on the subject of rugby I got to go see South Africa play Samoa at the North Harbour Stadium. Amanda kindly procured tickets for us. When I got to Stacey's house, the face painting was in full swing and I even got a flag painted on my face.

Once we got to the stadium we realised that we weren't all actually sitting together! Woops! Me and Amanda were together but the guys were on their own. Our seats were impeded view, but we were sat right at the side of the pitch by the try line. The only thing impeding our view was the security-type man and even he wasn't really in the way. It was an exciting game and me and Amanda supported opposite sides. I shouted 'GO BOKKE' while Amanda cheered on Samoa.

I also headed down to Queen's Wharf to watch the England V Scotland match. Amanda and Serena were equipped with the Scottish flags and Serena even wore and quilt and had painted her nails with St Andrews crosses. For most of the match me and Stacey sat wrapped in our England flags, a little bit embarrassed as most of the crowd were supporting Scotland.

Amanda and I have had a couple of good trips to Queen's Wharfe. I even went sky diving. Not really - it's a blue screen people! I put the picture up on Facebook and I can't help but think from the comments that some people thought it was legit. Well, it ain't legit. Let it be known, you will never catch me sky diving.

So what else is new in my life? Well, I've just got back from a week on Waiheke Island! Waiheke is a beautiful, beautiful place covered in native bush with gorgeous beaches and there's a whole bunch of vineyards. There's also a whole load of crazy birds. When we pulled up to the house there were a bunch of Pukeko on the lawn. Yes, I like birds. Here's a picture of a bird. It's a pigeon.

The family I work for owns a house out there, and as it's not always occupied and it's right in the bush, the place had a few too many spiders in my opinion. I lost count of how many I killed while I was there. I know what you're thinking and yes, I would never cut it as a Buddist. Susan gave me a bug killing spray and I got a bit scared using it. I'd spray the spider. It would fall off the wall and start scurrying around. So I would spray it again and it would disappear under some piece of furniture. So each night I lay in fear of mutant spiders coming to seek revenge or the avenge the death of a friend.

Moving on from my severe dislike and totally irrational fear of spiders and all other critters, let's talk weather. The first two days there, the weather was just divine and I spent my time on the beach getting burnt and freckled. The house was less than a 5 minute walk from Onetangi Beach. It was heaven. I went on long romantic walks (on my own) up and down the beach. But mostly I just sat reading and listening to music.

After the two days of beautiful weather, we had a day of ok weather, then the heavens opened for the rest of the week. One day I took the kids on the bus (which was a new experience for them) to the local cinema to see Mr. Popper's Penguins. The cinema was pretty cool. It was old a community cinema with a projector and just a room full of sofas. And I actually liked the film.

As we were cooped up in the house, the kids decided it would be fun to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. EVERY. DAY. There's only so much of musicals I can stand, and I tell you what, I've had my fix now.Ii escaped to a cafe on the last day in Waiheke, reconnected with the outside world using the wifi on my iPod and watched the surfers out in the rain. Crazy people.

Now I'm back in Auckland, ready for another rugby filled weekend and I'm excited to be catching up with friends again.

Hopefully it won't be too long before I write again.

Much love,
Manne x

I think that's a lot.

Cast your mind back to opening night of the rugby world cup. That time I was babysitting and the kids (well, child) were misbehaving. Andrew had told each of the kids that if they didn't make any fuss that they would get a prize. Even with the bribe of dessert and the threat of not receiving a prize, Sienna refused to eat her dinner, stop shouting or quit with the Hollywood crying. Half way through dinner she went and ran herself a bath (at least she was being helpful) and then got ready for bed.

It sounds pretty straight forward but while all that drama was going on I actually thought "What am I even doing with my life?" I've only had this thought a couple of times, you know the one where you actually think there is no space in your life for kids ever, and well, she'd pushed me to think this again. Anyway, once she'd given herself a bath and got into bed she began to be quite co-operative so I read her a story and she went to sleep.

The next morning we watched the opening ceremony again while eating pancakes. Matthew and Phoebe had their prizes for being well behaved. Fortunate for them, in comparison to Sienna's tantrum, I had described M & P as 'angels' and they had been a 'dream'. Susan told me that the conversation between Andrew and Sienna had gone a little bit like this.

A: Did you make a fuss for Marianne?
S: Yup.
A: A little bit of fuss?
S: Nope. A big fuss.

Apparently she had a grin on her face the whole time. That girl was fully aware of what she was doing. Lucky for her, she's so cute and gives me so many cuddles that I forgive her.

When you wish upon a star

I feel that I should set the mood with a little music.

As some of you may be aware, at the moment I'm in the middle of making an important and difficult (at least to me) decision. It's basically about whether I come back to New Zealand again.

There are a million reason why I want to stay here and why I want to go back to England. And I'll be honest with you, right now New Zealand is winning. It's just unfortunate that the reasons for going with England carry a bit more weight.

Basically any time I have to myself to think is consumed with thoughts about whether I want to stay or not. Several nights over the past few weeks, well months, when I've been walking home I've looked up and seen the beautiful stars in the clear night sky. I've always been fascinated by stars and space (I think I get it from my mum) and a starry sky makes me feel all happy inside. It brings me comfort and gives me a sense of being while simultaneously making me feel like a tiny speck and making my mind hurt. Anyway, I digress.

I'm walking along and I'm in awe and all that jazz and think "I can't imagine not living in a city where I can see the stars like this". I see stars back home, but not like I do here. So that's one point to Auckland.

This is a long winded way of telling you that last night I saw a shooting star and it was beautiful. And shush you scientist types, I know it wasn't a star but rather dust or a meteor entering the atmosphere but it was still beautiful. Luckily, I've got my head screwed on so my reaction was "WOW! THAT IS SO COOL" and not "OH MY BLOG, IT'S A SIGN!!!!!"

When I finally got home and got into bed I remembered that you're meant to make a wish. I should have wished that I woke up on time the next day. But instead I didn't make any wish and I woke up 30 mins after I was meant to start work today. It's times like this where I'm grateful that my place of work is just outside my bedroom door.

Ou est la gare?

Comic by Gemma Correll. Check her out.

Today I finally realised what Madame Groarke was going on about when she was saying that learning French was one of the most important things about school. She told us that without a French GCSE we would never be able to get a job. She must be right because I do in fact have a GCSE in French and a job.

I'm on the bus on my way to town when a Frenchman gets on. He's probably in his 60s and quite possibly drunk. He pays the bus driver and takes his ticket which promptly flies out of his hand. He's saying something so I stop my music to hear whats going on (because I love listening to people on the bus under the deception of listening to music). When he finally catches up with his ticket he picks it up, turns to the bus and announces "LE TICKET IS ALL BLACK!" He then stuck the ticket to his eyebrow and took his seat.

He was trying to ask a question but no one quite knew what he was saying. He kept pointing where he was and saying 'Brito. Brito." Then made train noises. I figured he wanted to go to Britomart. So in my best french accent I said "ou est la gare?" (because it's the only way I can think to ask if he wants to know where the station is.) The guy gets excited "Oui! Oui! Oui!". Next I use an international language I honed while in Asia, I put up two fingers and say "Two stops". I don't know how to say that in french, soz. He then said something I did understand, "Je suis francais." Then he said a sentence I only understood two words of  "blah blah blah All Blacks blah blah." I smiled and nodded, hoping it wasn't a question.

It's nice to know that the 5 years spent learning French didn't go to waste. Thanks Madame Groarke!

I'm still trying to see the connection between his ticket and the All Blacks though. Suggestions welcome.

Disclaimer: I do not claim to be able to spell things correctly in French. I'm English, what did you expect?