Warn The Town, The Beast Is Loose

I'm sat here in my 'new' room in Kaikoura, propped up on the pillows in bed.  Heated blanket is on, hair's wet and my finger is throbbing and has gone slightly poisonous because I'm a child and don't know when to stop biting my nails.   As I look around this room I'm reminded of all the bedrooms that have come before it.  My shoebox child's bedroom with a bed on a high frame to create space for furniture underneath it, the walls covered in posters of Ricky Martin, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lara Croft.  My uni dorm room that I had to paint over blood spatters on the wall with tippex (there's a story there, but maybe not one for the blog), the variety of disgusting bedrooms in Hatfield that followed it with awful wallpaper and single beds and no sound insulation.  My two rooms in my house in London - both large considering our rent, cold and creaky and the floor wasn't flat so all furniture would wobble.  My favourite room of all is my first roo

As this is such a weird moment in history I thought I ought to record it in a blog post.  It's been surreal, but also very quickly, normal - it's crazy how quickly humans can adapt to new situations.  NZ went into lockdown on Mar 26 th .   Lockdown.  It sounds like something out of a computer game doesn't it.  We heard about this crazy new virus in China around January time, but as with SARS and Bird Flu I figured it wasn’t anything to worry about –initial reports seemed like it was a bit like the normal flu, and China was really far away, and the previous virus's hadn’t really got out of hand.   In early February time, more reports were coming of people outside of China having contracted it.  My colleague Adele was meant to be heading off to Australia and Singapore for a holiday in March, and was religiously checking the daily infection count.  I thought she was over reacting a little bit, but I like to underplay stuff, mostly I guess for my own sanity. We were plann

The great pandemic of 2020! Isn't this crazy? Never in my life would I expect that I would be in a government enforced lockdown, stuck on the other side of the world, away from my family and most of my friends, being forced to live 24/7 with someone I have only known for 3 months.  But - I am eternally grateful for the circumstances I find myself in - for now, I have a house I don't need to pay rent or bills on, I still have a job, I am able to work from home, and I am in a beautiful part of the world where I step out my front door and am a stone's throw away from a stunning beach, mountain views, and accessible walking tracks. I guess I haven't updated in a wee while, so I'll run through the last few months quickly. I am much more settled in Kaikoura now.  My wise mother has always said 'give everything 3 months, if you don't like it after that then it's OK to quit, but it takes time to bed into something'. It worked with my ex, and with every j

I'd been back home for all of a week when I got itchy feet and booked a train to Edinburgh.  I booked 3 nights in the city, then a bus from Edinburgh to Glasgow, and then car hire for a week so that I could do a bit of a roadie whilst up there. Edinburgh was awesome - bloody cold, but awesome.  It was so chilly I ended up having to buy extra clothes!! There is so much history and the streets are incredible - tiny little secret alleyways with exciting names like World's End Close, cobbled streets, spired buildings - it's easy to see where JK Rowling drew her inspiration for Harry Potter from. I did the free walking tour and really enjoyed it - there was heaps to learn such as the haunted cemetery in Greyfriars, and a water fountain that they used to pin criminals to by their ears - all pretty gory stuff!! I met a real nice girl called Salma on the tour and we hung out a bit, meeting up to go to a comedy show (when in Edinburgh!) where we got a gif

Back in 2017, I wrote (in my opinion) a really awesome post summing up 2016.  2016 was a ROCKING year.  It was all shiny and new.  Everything was an adventure.  I made some great friends and did some really cool shit.  I challenged myself a lot. 2017 was good.  Not as new, but still good.  I was messed about by a boy.  Things in my flat started to fall apart and so I moved out.  I was in a bit of a flux regards visas and jobs and had to take a job I wasn't sold on to stay in the country.  I met Aric and fell in love.  Things got quite stable. 2018 was also good, but less shiny.  I moved in with Aric, and experienced what I presume being an adult felt like.  We had a joint bank account. We did "couple" things. I was incredibly happy with our relationship.  But, our future was uncertain because of his job, which kind of hovered above us like a cloud.  And my job - well, it fucking sucked. Hated it. Had to do it for visa reasons and hated it. Ugh. It made me cry and dou