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Showing posts from 2018

Being a bird mum

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We found a baby bird!!!! (Well Aric did, I nearly trod on him).  Aric spotted the helpless but feisty little thing on the pavement outside some shops.  We looked around and there was a super tall tree above us - we had no chance of putting him back in the nest, and he was too young and featherless to survive on the floor.  We made a decision to take him home with us and then work out what to do from there. Aric wrapped him up in his jacket and we walked home giddy with excitement - maybe we could raise him as our own and then The Dodo would do a viral video about us! (Literally my lifelong dream). We put him down on the sofa and he starts chirping away for food - doing that thing they do when they crane their necks as long as they can with their mouths wide open.  We quickly made up some very runny weetabix for him (first thing that came to mind) and he was gobbling it down off my finger.  When he was full, he closed his eyes and went to sleep - so cute!!! We found him a box, put a

Learning to Scuba dive

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Back in April my lovely friend Luise won a voucher for the PADI Open Water elearning in a raffle.   She happens to be a super duper pro diver already, so being the lovely soul she is, gifted me the voucher as she knew Aric was keen on me learning to Scuba. (I guess I was semi-keen too – I just don’t like expensive hobbies as I am a cheap skate – so never even considered learning before.   Plus, it scares me, and I am a baby, and I am really stupid when it comes to knowing how to control my body in situations, so I was worried about pressing wrong buttons and dying of exploding lungs). Anyways after months of putting it off, I booked it and suddenly the course came round and it was time to learn. I turned up at the Dive Centre a bag of nerves and slightly disappointed at the size of our group – I was expecting maybe 4 people per dive instructor, instead we were a group of 6 per instructor, 12 in total. They had also messed up the pool booking and hadn’t told us, so we were exp

A long weekend in paradise

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A few weekends ago we had a long weekend, so Aric, Tom, Natalie and I took a tiny plane to a far, far away tropical island known as Great Barrier Island.  When I say far, far away, it's just to make it sound all romantic - it's actually only a 30 min flight on an tiny little plane - though a bit further if you decide to take the ferry - about 4-5 hours depending on sea conditions.  The plane journey over is delightful - it takes off from Auckland airport, but it's all very relaxed with no baggage or security screenings and you get on a golf cart to be take all of 20 metres to the plane.  Flying over Auckland is really cool - I know it's a watery city, but seeing it from the air makes you appreciate the vastness of it all - there's water in all directions!!  We flew over lots of little islands before making our descent over beautiful beaches and landing next to the runway at Claris airport - I am assuming the landing on the grass was intentional and no

What is home, anyway?

I feel like I am living my life in a perpetual state of limbo.   Pretty much since I graduated from uni in fact. 10 years ago.    I moved back in with my family for 2 years, which I knew wasn’t permanent, then moved to London into rented accommodation for 6 years   - the same house but an ever revolving door of new housemates.   I couldn’t afford to buy anywhere, and if I could I wouldn’t know where to live anyway – I didn’t want to live in London forever and for me it’s important to place my roots somewhere I have friends around – for me, friends make an area feel like home.   Then I moved to New Zealand with no real plans, decided I wanted to stay, had to apply and wait for visas, not knowing if I would be sent back to the UK which was a very weird feeling – not knowing if a country would let you stay there or not.   But luckily New Zealand decided it wanted me after all and granted me residency.   Now I have managed to fall in love with a boy who’s job it is to travel the world.  

What's new? Lots, actually

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Oh hai there!  Did you like my little clickbait-esque previous post? Yes, 2 comments were enough for me to write another blog - aren't you lucky! Also, Aric is in Samoa this week so I have some free time on my hands.  Though actually that's a bit of a lie as I have deliberately been keeping myself busy this week so that I don't go insane by myself- and actually I would much rather be snoozing in bed right now, but gotta keep the readers happy (all 2 of you). A little life update. A lot has happened since I last posted. 1) I quit my job 2) I got a new job 3) I turned 31 4) I went to Sydney 5) I started my new job. Not sure what to focus on most but lets just ramble and see where we get to.... So I got my residency for New Zealand when I was in America - I burst into tears at the sheer relief of it all.  I went back to my job and was about to quit when strangely it got better - people were interacting with me more, saying please and thank you, and I got involved