Apart From The Weather

Apart from the weather, everything is fine.

We moved to a new city. It seems nice. It's pretty amazing actually, so far.

When I first drove here I was on my own with the kids, so I just drove in the direction of the city centre and as soon as the suburbs started looking more central-like and kind of okay, I pulled over and dropped into a real estate agents'.  Seemed like the way to go. It was fine.  Nice enough area, nice enough people.

I didn't get us a house there in the end, as the school I wanted to get my eldest into was further away and they have this thing called 'catchment area', which, as I see it, basically means you need to live in a flying castle right over the top of the school to have a hope in hell of getting in.  Well, that's how it seemed when I read about London, anyway.  I didn't move to London.

The place I found in the smaller city I did choose to move to, is a twelve minute walk to the school, which apparently was just fine cos they rang a few days after we all kissed the application form and posted it, to tell me that there was a place at the school for my girl.  Hooray.

Other places we can walk to are: A huge 'Downs' area where there will shortly be a glut of blackberries, that is fabulous for walking dogs, children and old people, flying kites, and suffering from hay fever:  The zoo.  Which is currently also home to about a dozen animatronic dinosaurs - the first of which threw my dino-loving four-year-old into screams of utter terror, for about fifteen minutes, non-stop:  A cool suspension bridge that we've been over once in the car, by accident (once you're on the approach road there's no going back): A gazzillion cafés all serving mediocre coffee and no cheese scones. Bring back the cheese scone.  When did England get such a sweet tooth? And such a crisp fetish (that's chips to much of the planet). I guess it was always like this… But we are enjoying the challenge of finding the best mediocre coffee - good excuse to go out for coffee!

A week after I found the flat there was a Harbour Festival in my new city all weekend.  It was cool. The husband hadn't arrived from our prior home in New Zealand yet, so I went with my girls and my parents.  I loved the harbour area - very cool.  The festival seemed amazing.  All sorts of arts, dance, food, circus, boaty stuff, music etc.  The weather, in a weird glitch, turned summery, and we ate dribbling ice creams and felt the need to stay in the shade.

The rain and cold (for supposed summer) soon returned, but the new city still shines.

I took a train the other day.  Wow.  Last time I took a train was in Auckland, New Zealand.  A friend and I took the train with our children, just to show them what a train was like.  It wasn't going anywhere we needed to be - we just went for a ride.  When I did need to be somewhere, there was generally no train.  Actually in a decade of living there I didn't once take a train as a transport choice.  The one time I tried to, it was laid off and I was redirected to a bus.  When I was still quite new to New Zealand I thought it would be romantic to take the train from Auckland to the capital city of Wellington for a weekend.  Leave on Friday, come back Sunday night sort of thing.  Turns out they don't run that train every day, and when they do, it takes twelve hours to get there.  TWELVE HOURS!!!!  To go under 400 miles!!! Intercity, anyone?! (It's about an 8-hour drive)

So we took the train from near our new flat to near my parents house.  Dead easy. And it passed through a inner suburban station that was covered, and I mean COVERED, in awesome graffiti art.  Bloody brilliant. Next time I am going to take the train just to there and get off to look at it.  There's graffiti art everywhere in this city. Anything dull and boring that needs a big of jazzing up is painted. I love it.

Shame about the weather.  But there you go.

I'd quite like a comfy chair to sit on.  Something that squashes down when you sit on it, with cushions.  That's the trouble with moving to the other side of the world.  You either sell everything, then buy everything, or you pack it all up, put it on a ship and wait.  Meanwhile you go to Ikea and the Sofa Workshop and think you need to buy all sorts of things that you already own. So you don't. And you sit on the floor and borrow a couple of plates here, a knife and fork there, and an air bed, and wait for your ship to come in.

And while this is happening, and your tv is on a boat on the ocean somewhere, and you're new to this city and have yet to find a babysitter or three, the Olympics is on and you're missing most of it, right when you'd told your four-year-old all about it and how much she was going to love seeing all these interesting sports.  Which is frustrating.

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking 'Internet you ninny.' Well, send me the phone engineer who's not over-booked due to…. "The Olympics" and I'll give you a fiver.  We didn't get our land line or broadband until the Olympics round one was well and truly done. But we're up and running for the Paralympics - Hoorah!

Apart from the weather, everything is fine.

And aside from an initial glitch, the man and I seem to be getting on ok. It would be nice to find a babysitter and go on a date, but I'm onto that one now, so who knows.

Perhaps even the weather might rally. I bought one of those round-and-round umbrella-style washing lines. The husband said "There's no point, you'll never use it, it only rains here," or something very much like that.  I said "I have lived in this country before, you know, it doesn't rain ALL the time."  It a week and a half ago. I put it up today because I suddenly realised that not only was it not raining, but it felt warm out and I couldn't see many dark clouds.  It's out there now, with washing on it. In the absence of a mallet I found a small lump of wood and a garden spade and banged the spike for the washing line into the lawn with that, and felt most capable and just a little bit Kiwi.

So right now - just this minute, I'd have to say simply, everything is fine.


(c) Naomi Madelin

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On re-emigrating: There's No Such 'Thing as Let's Go Back'

Setting Up For Success

What is love?  Love is patient, love is kind and all that.  I'm realising more and more that Love sets up for success.

Over the past eighteen months my marriage has gone through a lot of ups and downs and change. One thing I needed to do to help things along was get my husband to engage more with our children.  And another was to take time out for myself. Luckily the two went hand in hand. So Wednesday and Friday mornings became my gym morning, and the morning my husband got the children up, dressed them, gave them breakfast etc so that when I got back nice and sweaty from the gym or a run, all I had to do (on a good day) was give them cuddles and run them to kindy.  Success all round.

This was our 'life coach''s idea. After we'd started the routine I confessed to her that I had been getting the childrens' clothes for the next day out the night before and leaving them ready.  She smiled ; "That's because you care," she said," and you want him to succeed. Setting him up for success is exactly what you need to do right now."  Setting my husband up for success worked for both of us.  So it was good for our marriage. And that was the general idea!

If I'm overtired and really need some extra sleep, the husband, once in a while, takes the children away to another part of the house so that I can sleep. That's an easy way of setting my need for a nap up for success.  I might decide to read a book instead - that's up to me. But he's done what he can to give me what I need to succeed in getting some rest.

If he needs to concentrate on an important business document, I keep the kids away from him and try not to disturb him.  Maybe he'll spend his time playing computer games or distracted by the internet. Up to him. But I've done my part. And that's all I can do.

Same deal with friends. My opposite neighbour was going cold turkey from coffee and suffering horribly.  Guess what? I didn't suggest we go out to the café for a while! If it was me, the smell of coffee would have been too much and I would have caved. I did suggest a couple of headache pills though. I've gone cold turkey from coffee myself before and seriously I've never had such horrible headaches.  It's either cave on the caffeine or take a pill… So to me, taking the headache pill is the best way to get through cold turkey and succeed in giving up coffee.

Let's not be taking friends who are trying to lose weight to the burger place, or out for greasy pizza. If they go there in their own time - so be it, but we've done our bit by guiding them to that fab new sushi place.  You never know, they might just choose to go there again.

We do it for children - set them up to succeed.  When my daughters were one, I didn't give them a shape sorter with fifteen different shapes to figure out, I gave them one with three holes and three of each shape to put in. Once they'd mastered that, we moved on.  We give kids shoes with velcro, clothes without fasteners, then large buttons that their small fingers can manage.  We don't want them to feel it's all too hard and just give up - we want them to feel that it's all possible, that they're capable and want to do more.

Adults aren't so different to children. We want to feel it's possible. I do, anyway. And I don't think I'm odd!  And sometimes it takes a little care and a little love to help us feel that we actually can do it.

When you give up smoking they remind you not to say "I'm giving up smoking," but to decide not to smoke for, say, the next hour. And once you've done that, set another goal. Giving up drinking - same thing.  Bite sized chunks - making you feel capable; making it feel possible. And where love comes in is where your friends don't offer you cigarettes or take you out to the pub! And when you say - "Oh stuff it, I'm off to get some ciggies" people who really care will say "No you're not, you're staying right here." Good friends understand that you're doing something difficult, and that you need their support.  Yes, you can sneak a ciggie when no one's around - the guilt is yours to deal with. But knowing that the people who care about you really do care and have your back, is huge.

(c) Naomi Madelin

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"There's no such thing as 'let's go back'"

It's a bit of a silly motto really.

I mean, there are occasions and situations when going back makes sense, or when it's vital.

When I dropped the ring my husband had given me (no - not an engagement ring.... waiting...) somewhere in the bush on a tramp, I went back.  Hmmm... small chance of finding that in thick NZ subtropical forest!

When realised I'd left my children and my passports in the ladies' loo at Changi airport, I ran like the freakin' wind to go back.  (No, no, that reads very poorly.  I didn't realise I'd left my children, and my passports, but the passports belonging to me and my children. Ditsy? Yes. completely stupid? No.)

I adopted the phrase as my motto on a hike back in 2003.  My family were keen hikers when I was growing up. I was dragged on Sunday afternoon walks every week for years, whether I liked it or not.  Holiday memories include not infrequent images of the kagouled family sheltering behind a dry stone wall to munch cheese sandwiches and pour hot drinks from a metal thermos while the rain drove across the dale. But whatever the weather, however deep the mud, however much I complained, we never went back. In a dire emergency someone might take a shortcut to fetch the car to closer end point, but things would have to be pretty bad for that to happen.

When my then-boyfriend and I moved to New Zealand in 2003 we spent the first few months travelling our new land in a camper van.  It was on a hike in the South Island that I first introduced him to 'There's no such thing as let's go back.' Against the odds we'd found the tree-covered trail head we were looking for and were soon on the hunt for a 'mirror' lake that sounded stunning in the guide book. The trail followed the path of a river and soon crossed a small stream, and so did we. At the next, wider, tributary; my man baulked.

"Come on," he said, "Let's go back."

"What?" I retorted, "Don't be pathetic, it's just water. Anyway, there's no such thing as 'Let's go back' - not in my family!"

We took our boots and socks off. A little further and there was another, deeper, stream; boots off and trousers rolled up.  Deeper again; boots and trousers right off.  Then we hit a small tributary that would require a cold swim. This was getting fun - or was it silly?  We weren't half way to the lake and had no idea how many more crossings we would have to do needing clothes off, find a way to carry them, chilly swim, clothes back on.

"Come on," said my man, "Let's just go back."

I tried to insist. It wouldn't be so hard to swim, I said, we could bundle our clothes and throw them across. It would be fine.

"And what about when the next one is even wider.  All this boots on, boots off is taking a long time too. We really have no idea how far we have to go, either..."

"But theres' no such thing as 'let's go back'." I complained.

He won, we went back. That hike is still on my list of 'things to do' before I die.

So it was with the international move, I guess.  The man insists he hates the UK, was glad to leave, and has repeatedly said he'd never live there again.  Fast forward to 2011 when he returns from a business trip to England, and among other curve balls he throws at me, says he wants to go back to England in six months' time, to live. WHAT?

Well, we'd talked about living in Europe. We'd discussed perhaps in a few years' time - three or five were mentioned. Phrases like "the south of France", "somewhere warm, with lots of sunny days" were certainly prominent in those conversations. If I ever even mentioned England, there was usually a stream of vitriol about the country of my birth, that I sometimes found frankly rude and insulting.  I may not have wanted to live there, but...

Fast forward again to now, and here I sit in my parents' home (sheltering from persistent rain) in a small, pretty, English town (not the large, less-than-pretty English town I grew up in, thank god) with my two young children, scouring the internet for a rental home in a nearby city and an English school for my eldest.

Coming back is weird. I put my foot down and refused to move in the six months the man had stated. Our marriage was in tatters aside from anything else, and it would also have meant two winters on the trot. Not something I relished. And living with a man who professed a deep hatred for cold and damp it was simply a big fat no-no if our relationship had any hope at all. So we came in summer (ha bloody ha. Someone forgot to tell the weather what summer is supposed to look like...) - with me and the girls the advance party. I strongly advocated not moving back to London. If we were going back we wouldn't go back, I reasoned, we'd go somewhere new.  And so we will.

I was pretty emotional leading up to the move. Lots of tears. I'd just found some good friends and a place I love living in; we moved to our lovely seaside suburb only fifteen months ago after eight years out in the countryside. I finally found myself again this past year, and like-minded people too. I had the sea right at the end of my road.  The girls had a beloved aunt who adored them and who had become a close friend. Our marriage was mending. Leaving all that felt and feels like a huge risk. Perhaps a foolish one.

Just sitting on the plane knowing it was a one-way journey felt off-whack. I can't quite explain why. But it was odd.  When I flew out to New Zealand it felt one hundred percent right. I was relieved to be finally going after two years of talking about it.  But coming back?  A little wonky.

I needed help at Heathrow. I packed too much hand luggage, my four-year-old had thrown up the entire contents of her stomach not half an hour before landing and both children were so sound asleep when the plane came to a halt that I was worried about them. Singapore Air staff kindly helped me off the plane, and handed me over to surly British ground crew. They would help, but not with grace and no smile, and only in a limited manner. Had I been less ragged I would have been more assertive. Damn it. But someone wheeled some of our luggage while I cajoled the children through that dreadful place. And smiled.

It was raining when we left the airport.  That was two weeks ago and we've had just one day when it possibly didn't rain for most of it. In what is meant to be mid-summer.  Meanwhile in my old suburb of Auckland my friends are taking their children to the beach in t-shirts, in mid-winter. Hmmm.

I've forgotten how fast you're allowed to drive on which roads. Really no idea at all. But I learnt to drive here, I drove here for years.

So many roundabouts - my head is spinning.

The money looks odd.  Ten pen pieces seem to have disappeared and the five pees look like something from a foreign country. Very small. Very fancy.

I'm trying to rent a home for my family and am told I have no credit rating and will need to pay six months' rent in advance.

But it's lovely seeing my children form closer bonds with their grandparents.

Everyone talks with English accents. Clearly I'm not staying in a very multi-cultural area right now, but the accents are really funny.  I'm really noticing them. And for some reason even the kids who think they're talking in 'hard' voices, sound posh!

Even after ten years in New Zealand I didn't 'get' cultural references on TV shows. Switch on a telly here, and I'm auto-tuned in. Odd.

No one sells seaweed rice crackers. And this is a problem. I mean, in a Kiwi supermarket you have heaps of choice of crackers, and rice crackers in particular. And here I can't even find one.  Well, okay, there were some barbecue flavoured 'SakATa' - no thanks, especially not at two quid a pack. Missing a trick, England....

I think I'm going to like my new city. It's full of huge old buildings. It's old-fashioned, a tad quaint, rather lovely. I took my dad to a bit I liked and he thought it 'rather suburban'. I thought it rather villagey!

It's late, and I should wrap this one up.  The moral of my tale is, I guess, that going back can be an adventure in itself. A challenge all its own. It's not defeat, nor treading the same path or retracing your steps. The journey always looks different in the opposite direction. Things appear new, you view them from a new angle. Sometimes a way that was easy the first time, is harder when you turn around. And sometimes that might be a good thing.

Here's hoping.


(c) Naomi Madelin