It's sunny - very sunny - in London. As a result, all the women are lying about on the grass with their shirts and pants pulled up, exposing expanses of white flesh, and the men have gone full crazy and have started ripping their shirts off.
Who knew the sun would make the Londoners crazy?
I must be assimilating a little, as I went for a walk along the Thames yesterday and there was a light breeze, the seagulls were calling, the sun was on my back, and I felt that if I had had my togs I would have jumped into the river without a moments hesistation.
(And then regretted it horribly once the sewage flowed into my mouth and eyes and I bumped my knee on a grounded shopping trolley (There are about 14 of those in the stretch of Thames mud by our house)...)
So instead I thought about doing a little dance, a bit of a boy in Taika Waititi's 'Boy' type of dance, but then I thought I'd better not as I didn't want to get my arse kicked by angry Londoners - of which, there are many.
So I haven't given myself over totally to London madness, but it seems the rest of the city has. We're heading for another scorcher today (17 degrees! In March!) so I'll try and keep myself under control.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
22.02.2011
God, please pour down your love on the city of my home. Bring comfort to those who mourn. Peace to those whose hearts remain haunted by that day and those that followed. Heal our city and our lives, God. Restore hope. Hope for tomorrow.
Bring comfort, Father. Hold us close and heal us.
22 February 2011. A day I want to forget, but can't. A day that will live forever in my memory. I day that I have thought about every single day since. A day that brought destruction and hurt and so much fear.
God please heal my heart and my home and help us all to move forward. Please release the bitter sting of pain.
Help us to find peace.
Amen.
Bring comfort, Father. Hold us close and heal us.
22 February 2011. A day I want to forget, but can't. A day that will live forever in my memory. I day that I have thought about every single day since. A day that brought destruction and hurt and so much fear.
God please heal my heart and my home and help us all to move forward. Please release the bitter sting of pain.
Help us to find peace.
Amen.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
A return
I am back!
I was on hiatus as i started a travel blog and knew my family would be reading it, so I hid this one from my profile and forgot about it. (!) I've now created a separate profile for the travel blog, so I can return to my true form on this blog.
HURRAH.
An outlet!
I have been in England now for over 70 days and I only know one person besides my husband. One person to talk to, and a husband who is grieved by my constant ear-bashing. So, blog, I have returned to use you for my evil purposes.
I am a little bit lonely, and a little bit disappointed in the UK, and a little bit bored. I have decided I want to be a historian and to spend my days in research, but it is proving difficult to find a job - or work out other ways to make a living - doing that. Sometimes I feel elated, like today when I visited a big Waterstone's book shop that was like a giant geek mecca. Seeing all those books about history inspires me that maybe I could write one. That history does matter, and it makes me feel alive, which a slug like me needs. And other days I just can't be bothered with the hassle of carving a niche for myself, of searching for something different, of trying to be confident enough to try and sell myself.
I haven't been very brave over the past year and a bit. The earthquakes really took a chunk out of my confidence and security and self-belief. At uni in 2010 I almost felt whole - I found where I belong, and, for once, I felt really successful and really clever. It felt good to get A's and to be told "you're good enough". I've spent so much of this last year feeling scared and not good enough and hiding away in my living room where I felt a little more secure than I did in the rest of Christchurch.
And now I'm struggling to recover from that. We've taken on this new adventure to England, and it's not as safe and secure and homely as I expected. It is expensive and dirty and full of people who I'm scared of or who can't understand me (and I, them). And now I have to get back into the swing of earning money, and I really want to do something I love, but the question is - have I got the self-belief to do it?
Life, huh? Many challenges, few easy solutions.
I was on hiatus as i started a travel blog and knew my family would be reading it, so I hid this one from my profile and forgot about it. (!) I've now created a separate profile for the travel blog, so I can return to my true form on this blog.
HURRAH.
An outlet!
I have been in England now for over 70 days and I only know one person besides my husband. One person to talk to, and a husband who is grieved by my constant ear-bashing. So, blog, I have returned to use you for my evil purposes.
I am a little bit lonely, and a little bit disappointed in the UK, and a little bit bored. I have decided I want to be a historian and to spend my days in research, but it is proving difficult to find a job - or work out other ways to make a living - doing that. Sometimes I feel elated, like today when I visited a big Waterstone's book shop that was like a giant geek mecca. Seeing all those books about history inspires me that maybe I could write one. That history does matter, and it makes me feel alive, which a slug like me needs. And other days I just can't be bothered with the hassle of carving a niche for myself, of searching for something different, of trying to be confident enough to try and sell myself.
I haven't been very brave over the past year and a bit. The earthquakes really took a chunk out of my confidence and security and self-belief. At uni in 2010 I almost felt whole - I found where I belong, and, for once, I felt really successful and really clever. It felt good to get A's and to be told "you're good enough". I've spent so much of this last year feeling scared and not good enough and hiding away in my living room where I felt a little more secure than I did in the rest of Christchurch.
And now I'm struggling to recover from that. We've taken on this new adventure to England, and it's not as safe and secure and homely as I expected. It is expensive and dirty and full of people who I'm scared of or who can't understand me (and I, them). And now I have to get back into the swing of earning money, and I really want to do something I love, but the question is - have I got the self-belief to do it?
Life, huh? Many challenges, few easy solutions.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Not this year, sorry.
I hate mother's day - it always evokes negative feelings, rather than happy ones. My mother always tried to force love and respect from us on mother's day, and thus it actually became a very difficult day for our family, rather than a special one.
We couldn't do anything right. If we made breakfast, we got yelled at for not making lunch. If we did the dishes for the day, mother cried because she'd had to cook. If we didn't get the right present, chosen from her precise list, then there were tears and tantrums. If my mother had to lift a finger on mother's day, then she was somehow less respected than the other mothers, her family less caring, and her life more burdensome.
Sometimes, if we were particularly unlucky, it would all go pear shaped and we would get the full monty. We would hear all about what failures we were, how we were such a horrible family, how we would send our mother to an asylum. She would storm out of the house and we were never sure when she would come back.
I'm not saying we were perfect: we were probably rather lazy and uncommitted. But that's not the way to go about loving your kids and gaining their respect. In my opinion, a good mother's day would include acceptance and grace and appreciation for however your family tries to love you. When love becomes conditional, and becomes about ritual and meeting some unspoken set of criteria, then it's not really love, but duty. And the danger with this is that any love that does exist can become resentment.
Whenever it gets to that time of year when all your junk mail and spam emails shout "EVERYTHING FOR MUM", "SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR SOMEONE SPECIAL", "TREAT MUM ON HER SPECIAL DAY" all I want to do is snarl and rip it all up with my spittle-covered teeth. You can't buy love. You can't force love. You can't hurt others in the name of love.
If you love your mum and she loves you, you don't need to pander to some stupid day to prove it. And just because you don't buy into the dictates of consumerism doesn't mean you love each other any less.
This year, I won't be celebrating mother's day. I've tried so hard every other year, and I'm tired. Love should be reciprocal. I know it isn't always, and I know the Christlike thing is to love regardless, but this year I'm afraid the stretch is too great. If you're always going to come up short then there comes a time when you decide to try a little less.
I'm sick of coming up short.
We couldn't do anything right. If we made breakfast, we got yelled at for not making lunch. If we did the dishes for the day, mother cried because she'd had to cook. If we didn't get the right present, chosen from her precise list, then there were tears and tantrums. If my mother had to lift a finger on mother's day, then she was somehow less respected than the other mothers, her family less caring, and her life more burdensome.
Sometimes, if we were particularly unlucky, it would all go pear shaped and we would get the full monty. We would hear all about what failures we were, how we were such a horrible family, how we would send our mother to an asylum. She would storm out of the house and we were never sure when she would come back.
I'm not saying we were perfect: we were probably rather lazy and uncommitted. But that's not the way to go about loving your kids and gaining their respect. In my opinion, a good mother's day would include acceptance and grace and appreciation for however your family tries to love you. When love becomes conditional, and becomes about ritual and meeting some unspoken set of criteria, then it's not really love, but duty. And the danger with this is that any love that does exist can become resentment.
Whenever it gets to that time of year when all your junk mail and spam emails shout "EVERYTHING FOR MUM", "SOMETHING SPECIAL FOR SOMEONE SPECIAL", "TREAT MUM ON HER SPECIAL DAY" all I want to do is snarl and rip it all up with my spittle-covered teeth. You can't buy love. You can't force love. You can't hurt others in the name of love.
If you love your mum and she loves you, you don't need to pander to some stupid day to prove it. And just because you don't buy into the dictates of consumerism doesn't mean you love each other any less.
This year, I won't be celebrating mother's day. I've tried so hard every other year, and I'm tired. Love should be reciprocal. I know it isn't always, and I know the Christlike thing is to love regardless, but this year I'm afraid the stretch is too great. If you're always going to come up short then there comes a time when you decide to try a little less.
I'm sick of coming up short.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Why is everyone having babies?
I hate babies. Well 'hate' is a strong word. I don't like babies! I want lots of carefree, irresponsible, fun friends. Not friends with babies and other children! Bring back the rock and roll.
And I don't want children. So if everyone could please stop harrassing me about having kids that would be swell.
Have your own stinkin bebees. Oh wait, you are! All of you!
I'm off to do what I want when I want. Hurrah forthe tv liberty!
I hate babies. Well 'hate' is a strong word. I don't like babies! I want lots of carefree, irresponsible, fun friends. Not friends with babies and other children! Bring back the rock and roll.
And I don't want children. So if everyone could please stop harrassing me about having kids that would be swell.
Have your own stinkin bebees. Oh wait, you are! All of you!
I'm off to do what I want when I want. Hurrah for
Saturday, October 30, 2010
This is my planet too
It's hard work saving the world....
My inlaws live on a farm, and throw all their rubbish (plastic, cardboard, glass - anything) in a pit in the ground and bury it. When we go camping with them, the campground even sorts its rubbish into 'brown glass', 'green glass', plastic Number 6', etc, but the inlaws prefer to chuck all their rubbish in a bag and throw it in the pit when they get home.
I am the person who, by hand, went through a rubbish bag full of plastic cups, plates, and, well, rubbish, after a work function last year in order to get out the recyclable stuff and put it in my recycling bin.
It really hurts me to see people living this way, espeically people in the older generation, who will die in the next 10-30 years, and this is the legacy they are leaving my generation. Thanks a bunch, gran.
It also really hurts me when these people are Christian. How are we caring for our bodies, our families, the world around us by consuming so much, wasting so much, caring so little for our future and our planet?
So this morning I suggested to the in-laws that "we" collect the recyclable waste and take it down to the town's recycling plant once a week. (Yes, just 15 minutes away from their house is a full recycling plant!!).
Stony silence. Icy looks. Then a 15 minute lecture about how I should look in my own backyard first, or start with the people who have a problem. Because there's nothing wrong with the way we do things, thank you very much.
Well I sure hope that at least a seed has been planted. That the angry reaction was a sign that I'd touched a raw nerve. Because I certainly wasn't criticising them or being rude, and yet they reacted quite badly. It's been pretty hard shutting my mouth for the 5+ weeks I've been here, but I'm glad I spoke up once.
I just can't digest this legacy we're leaving - farmers all over our country with piles and piles of rubbish buried under the ground. Factories discharging into rivers. Every product we buy wrapped in an acre of packaging that we then have to dispose of.
How do we buy out? Where can I get off?
My inlaws live on a farm, and throw all their rubbish (plastic, cardboard, glass - anything) in a pit in the ground and bury it. When we go camping with them, the campground even sorts its rubbish into 'brown glass', 'green glass', plastic Number 6', etc, but the inlaws prefer to chuck all their rubbish in a bag and throw it in the pit when they get home.
I am the person who, by hand, went through a rubbish bag full of plastic cups, plates, and, well, rubbish, after a work function last year in order to get out the recyclable stuff and put it in my recycling bin.
It really hurts me to see people living this way, espeically people in the older generation, who will die in the next 10-30 years, and this is the legacy they are leaving my generation. Thanks a bunch, gran.
It also really hurts me when these people are Christian. How are we caring for our bodies, our families, the world around us by consuming so much, wasting so much, caring so little for our future and our planet?
So this morning I suggested to the in-laws that "we" collect the recyclable waste and take it down to the town's recycling plant once a week. (Yes, just 15 minutes away from their house is a full recycling plant!!).
Stony silence. Icy looks. Then a 15 minute lecture about how I should look in my own backyard first, or start with the people who have a problem. Because there's nothing wrong with the way we do things, thank you very much.
Well I sure hope that at least a seed has been planted. That the angry reaction was a sign that I'd touched a raw nerve. Because I certainly wasn't criticising them or being rude, and yet they reacted quite badly. It's been pretty hard shutting my mouth for the 5+ weeks I've been here, but I'm glad I spoke up once.
I just can't digest this legacy we're leaving - farmers all over our country with piles and piles of rubbish buried under the ground. Factories discharging into rivers. Every product we buy wrapped in an acre of packaging that we then have to dispose of.
How do we buy out? Where can I get off?
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Quake of Doom
Earthquakes suck.
But on the bright side (yes! there is one!) all my assignments are now due on October 22nd. I have three essays of 4500 words, and my dissertation of 8000 words still to go....
I've been at thehouse of pain inlaws' for 1.5 weeks trying to escape the evil aftershocks, and there are some cool pictures here that you should look at. (DO IT!) Now I'm back at Uni, frantically trying to catch up on assignments. I actually got a few hours sleep last night, and didn't even feel any aftershocks!! (there weren't any, but that's not the point)
It sucks to be married to an engineer... I get no sympathy! ("If the house was going to fall over, it would have already done so") (well thanks, that's highly reassuring!)
hehe
Onwards and upwards! (except you, ground.)
Edit: If you're a rubbernecker you can look here for Scary Earthquake Pictures Here are the Scary Pictures
But on the bright side (yes! there is one!) all my assignments are now due on October 22nd. I have three essays of 4500 words, and my dissertation of 8000 words still to go....
I've been at the
It sucks to be married to an engineer... I get no sympathy! ("If the house was going to fall over, it would have already done so") (well thanks, that's highly reassuring!)
hehe
Onwards and upwards! (except you, ground.)
Edit: If you're a rubbernecker you can look here for Scary Earthquake Pictures Here are the Scary Pictures
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