This Week I Was Grateful For #4

I’ve posted a similar picture of The Vines in Rochester before, but this is the park seen through new eyes. It all feels wonderfully similar, and wonderfully different since my Australian jaunt.

The path in this photos reminds me of the journey I’m on at the moment. I’ve got a few professional challenges coming up this year, and instead of freaking out about it, I’m choosing to be grateful for the opportunity to stretch my comfort zone.

I hope you all have a great start to the first week of March 2015. Do let me know what you’re getting up to in the comments!

The Everyday Rhythm

Week 2 of my return to England is imminent, and so I thought a little catch up might be on the cards to let you know how I’m settling in. It’s been an up and down sort of a week to be honest, but let’s start with the positives because that makes us all feel better, no?

UP:

• Actually making it through Customs at Heathrow. Despite the fact I am doing absolutely nothing illegal, somehow the powerful stares of the Border Agency staff make me regret every decision I have ever made, particularly in the lead up to the moment when I’m asked to plonk my passport on their tiny desks. I made it through, as you may have guessed, and it was a GREAT MOMENT.
• Home. Bed. Cats.
• Wandering around Rochester and feeling both the foreigner and the local. An odd yet pleasing sensation.
• Picking up long awaited packages from the Post Office. Hello engagement present vouchers and Liz Earle Skincare. Nice to meet you.
• Having time to make dinner in the evening. I love to cook, so this is fun for me!
• Catching up with dear friends and feeling as if nothing has changed. Em, I adore you.
• Snuggling with Mr Hello in the morning for five more minutes before walking him into work.
• Getting excited for phase 2 of Operation Finish The House Before the Wedding. The phase where we freak out, that is.
• Exciting meetings with exciting people about future potentially exciting jobs. I may very well soon be an employed teacher! EXCITING.
• Catching up with Mr Hello’s folks. They are totally delightful and indulged my loves of their son, eating lots of delicious food, and looking at old photos. A Sunday well spent.
• Sitting in our study (above) and watching people walk past our house as I type.

DOWN:

• Turns out it’s not that much fun not having a job. On the one hand, there is more time for Parks and Recreation viewing, but on the other there is more time for getting the guilts about being a burden on society, and more to the point a burden on Mr H. Plus it’s a bit boring.
• No Polish passport as yet, which means no working until it arrives. A couple more weeks, but then hopefully I will have that burgundy booklet it my hot little hand!
• Missing my family. Goddamn it, why do I have to feel the feelings?
• Extreme hair has arrived. Something in the British water takes a while for me to adjust to, and in the meantime my hair freaks out in an unmanageable way, making me feel more self conscious than I already was. Thanks Life!
• To top it off, I am having a particularly bad skin phase, hence the timely arrival of the Liz Earle goodies.
• I have a wedding to co-plan in six months. How, where and why did that happen? Last time I checked, it was over a year away. God preserve me.
• It’s effing cold here and I am a delicate flower who has become accustomed to a certain level of UV radiation every day.
• This may well be the most boring thing in the world to approximately everyone, but last night I had a dream that Hannibal Lector (yep, that one) was showing me his latest victim, and opened up a hole in the ground to reveal a naked and screaming Jodie Foster within. I was subsequently stabbed. Got a bit freaked out by that one, I must admit, and it was only worsened by the fact that when I checked the time it was only……11:57 pm. Not even midnight, shamefully. I then had to calm myself down by reading blogs and looking at silly gifs on Tumblr until 2am. Whoops.

Hope all is well in your lives. Seeing as I am currently a member of the unemployed, I suspect I will be dropping in to HSGS Headquarters on a semi regular basis. Here’s to seeing a bit more of you!

9 Superficial Things I’ll Miss About Australia (No, it’s Not the Weather!)

But the weather ain’t half bad, just sayin’

It’s a truth universally acknowledged by a certain resident of Kansas that there’s no place like home. There are just some certain comforts that make you feel safe and secure, and while many of these are now available thanks to globalisation, there are a few silly things about Australia that I know I wistfully think of when back in Ol’ Blighty. Let’s get listing, shall we?

• The Size of Avocados – Being a part of the avocado lovin’ family that I am, this is *quite* a significant thing. Avocados in  Australia are deliciously bloody huge, creamy and ripe. On several occasions in the past I have had the misfortune to buy several avocados in England that have proceeded immediately from rock hard to completely rotten, totally bypassing any edible stage. This is important, you guys.
• Availability of Great Coffee – Look. It’s a lot better in Kent on the coffee side of things now, then it was in 2010 when I first came here. There are still many crappy tearooms selling crappy dishwater style coffee, but you can actually get a flat white here now, Lord be praised. But it’s just not quite as easy as popping down the road to Mooba, Lawley’s or Milkd, like I could in Perth. Heaven is a coffee flavoured place on earth. That’s a song, right?
• Grill’d & Jus Burger: 

Click for Source – Chi (in Oz)’s Photo Stream

 

Don’t know if there is much more I can say. Burgers. Delicious delicious burgers. Chunky chips. Before you say it, no, I         don’t live in London and no, Byron Burger is just not the same. Suitable replacement suggestions very welcome indeed.

• Cheap Public Transport – The People of Perth might disagree with me, but public transport is sooooo much cheaper there than in England. In the Motherland there is no such thing as a grace period, meaning you need a new ticket  every time you jump on the bus. For a non-car-owning citizen such as myself, this becomes rather problematic. Terribly interesting too, don’t you agree?
• David Jones Foodhall – I’m not saying that there is no equivalent in England. There is. It’s a tiny little shop known to the locals as Marks & Spencer, the greatest English shop of them all. But M&S is missing one crucial thing in my book, which gives my beloved DJ’s the advantage. That crucial element is the World’s Greatest Sushi Bar. I don’t know what it is about David Jones Sushi, but it’s bloody delicious and quite cheap really. It shall be missed.
• Frosty Fruit Icy Poles – Also known as quite a depressing icy pole if you’re a normal person, but the WORLD’S GREATEST SWEET TREAT when you’re trying to watch what you’re eating and are desperate for some kind of cold sweet treat on a hot Australian Summer’s day. It’s the little things you miss, you know?
• Tax Returns – Stay with me here guys. We don’t have to do these in England, but in Australia if you earn over X amount (I’ve forgotten how much because it’s been too long since I had a proper job :-/) you need to do a tax return, and if you’re lucky, it ends up that the Government owes you money and you get a nice little deposit into your bank account. A form of enforced savings, if you will. Luckily I’ve never had to repay any tax, although I know people who have, and that’s not fun in the slightest. But when I was saving for my travels, I worked three jobs and paid a lot of tax, and ended up with a $4,000 refund waiting for me come tax time. Thanks very much!
• No Electric Showers – Just typing out ‘electric shower’ makes me go a bit funny. Water pressure in Kent is technically known as ‘a bit shit’ and so if your bathroom is on the first floor or above you need an electric pump to get your shower on in the morning. In Australia I had the full force of outback water blasting me in the face every day, and by golly I’ll miss it. My English shower feels like a combination of being spat and weed on at the moment, and let me tell you, it’s not as fun as it sounds. Unless you’re into that sort of thing. I’d also like to point out that in England you’re not allowed so much as a powerpoint in the bathroom (you are in Australia!) but you can have an electric shower? MADNESS.
• Knowing How to Do ‘Life’ Stuff – Now this isn’t quite as superficial as the rest, but it’s something I’ll certainly miss. When you’re a local or a native citizen to a country, you end up just somehow knowing how life works, as if you’d picked it up by osmosis throughout your life. When you’re an immigrant, you forfeit that knowledge and so it just takes you that little bit longer to work stuff out. How to get a driving license, why you need a TV license, who pays council tax, what the hell council tax even is, who can vote and where. Having lived here for a few years, I’m much better than I used to be, but there are still times where I feel like a stranger, and I make the odd misstep. But I guess that’s life!

I returned to Rochester at about 9pm on Tuesday night, and it was incredibly surreal. I haven’t yet quite consolidated the fact that I’m back in my own house, with my own cats and my own fiancé. I haven’t yet begun to miss Australia too much, although I’m prepared for that to hit me when I am least prepared, as I’m sure those of you who have travelled will recognise.

On Loneliness…

One of the most private things I’m willing to admit is how much my personality leans to the lonely side.  Travel has done much to both exacerbate and relieve this.

With only yourself for company, in the right light it seems easy to entertain, to comfort and to enjoy yourself, and solo travel is just perfect for that. You can see the exhibitions you want, go to the shows you know you’d enjoy, look at the architecture you love, all without having to consult another person. Self-contained entertainment. Responsible for only yourself.

And yet…

Life is better when it’s shared. Laughter shared is laughter squared (I just made that up, but I think it’ll catch on – bear with me). My best memories are the ones I can share with the people who were in them, and we can reminisce, shaking our heads at our brilliance, or often our folly.

I’ve made a conscious decision (in part as a result of moving to the other side of the world and the reality of “starting over”) to live as much as I can, to enjoy life as much as I can, and to surround myself with people who make me feel joyous. My decision to leave Australia has meant that I forfeited a tribe. Not the only tribe I will ever have, but the tribe I joined by osmosis. I didn’t have to try so hard to make friends when I was at home. I went to university, I was thrust into friend-generating situations without much effort on my side of things, and there they suddenly were: people with whom I had a shared history, shared memories, and a shared future.

In England I’ve had to cultivate that. It’s taken three years of a concerted effort to reach. To reach for others and say “Here I am, come get to know me. Let’s have some fun”. Which I can honestly say is really bloody hard. It does get easier, and it does make you more resilient. But the loneliness is there, in the spaces between. Not always, admittedly, and to be perfectly honest I have engineered a life where the spaces are few and far between. I keep myself busy.

But in the spaces between, like this bank holiday Monday, where I’ve got odd jobs to do, but no one really to do it with, my friends and lovely partner living their own lives, I really feel that creeping loneliness. If I ignore it, it just makes it bigger and stronger. That’s a lesson to learn. Today I’m feeling lonely, but I’m going to accept the hell out of it. That’s how I conquer, by knowing it’s a part of me, but it passes.

 

Has My Traditional Education Done Me a Disservice?

“I love learning”

That’s something I can say with ease, although the last 12 months (changing into a trickier role at work) have shown me that I prefer learning when I’m able to really grasp the point quickly. I’ve found to my dismay that my enthusiasm for endlessly pursuing difficult theories is very limited. I don’t think I’m totally alone there.

Back in Australia, the high school leaving exams used to be called the Tertiary Entrance Exams (TEE), and you had to study TEE subjects to sit the exams (no surprises there). I remember hearing that the Dux of my primary school hadn’t taken TEE subjects and seeing my headmaster be visibly silent with disappointment. When I asked my mother if I had to take them, she was shocked and replied something along the lines of “abso-bloody-lutely”.  Five years later the same headmaster, now retired, sent me a card six months before my exams telling me that success was founded on proper preparation. I’ve kept that card, although I heed its advice far too infrequently.

“I’ve had a great education”

That’s also something I’ve said easily. If you asked me the days when my education was best, I could say categorically it was in year 7, at the ripe old age of 12. My teacher (the headmaster) was old school, and we’re talking seriously old school. I remember vividly how all our tests were handwritten in the most perfect cursive. We learnt well. We knew our stuff, that’s for sure, but we learnt by rote – memorising a rule, just because it was the rule. That was of learning has stayed with me to this very day, and I’m beginning to wonder if, instead of giving me a solid basis to work on, it has actually held me back.

Whilst writing has become a great joy of mine, initially I had terrible trouble learning to write essays. The topic of “personal voice” totally stumped me – how exactly were you supposed to give an essay personality if you weren’t allowed to use “I”? My contemporaries from other schools seemed to understand better, or at the very least be more comfortable with not understanding. I feel so frustrated when, after an afternoon attempting to learn, I’m still no more competent than I was before. My analytical skills are underdeveloped, which still makes my life difficult on a day to day basis – it’s totally absurd!

It hit home especially hard after watching this TED Talk by Eddie Obeng.

The world where I learnt how to learn, is over. It’s gone. I better get me some new skills, and get them stat. Things are moving fast, and the adaptable, the inquisitive, the analytical and the dedicated are going to reap the benefits. My early education was structured for the old world, and for that world it was a fantastic beginning. A solid foundation.

Having said all this, I can’t deny that there have been some benefits – a freakish ability to memorise lines from a film, phone numbers (sadly not birthdays), lyrics. You name it, I can memorise it. I’d also venture to say pretty accurate spelling 88.3% of the time, which is a boon. It’s not all bad.

Act 1: In Which it’s Still Winter

The knub and gist of this post is – it’s still winter in England – I’m cold, and ill, and at approximately 14:42 every day I delve into post-Australian-holiday gloom as I remember the blissful weather I’m missing out on back home. Is it always like this, England? So unreliable? So endless?

But then I walk through my town, and I get to see the view in the picture above. Filled my shrivelled heart with joy, it did, and the picture doesn’t do it justice. It was the kind of day that could only be so beautiful because of a combination of factors, which individually could (and often have) make one utterly miserable. But that day, there was just enough of a blue sky, and just enough sunshine to hint to me that Spring and – don’t get your hopes up – Summer aren’t too far around the corner.

Evidently I could never be a Stark. Shit’s waaaay too cold for the likes of me up in Winterfell.

 

Fly A Kite

When I really think about it, I’ve actually always been a terrible vintage throwback. I think the image above is to blame. That film, and the actual record pictured there were so much a part of my childhood that I can almost legitimately blame them for the way my life is now.

I think it says something about my childhood that I even had a vinyl Mary Poppins album. It’s well used too, so I either have parents who were Mary Poppins fanatics, or rather very kindly, and let me indulge my borderline autism by allowing me to play and play and play that record until we all wept. Fuck it, they even joined in half the time. So I guess it comes as a massive surprise to exactly no-one that I spend about forty percent of my life faffing about in seamed stockings and hunting down baby cham glasses. Sad but true.

It could be worse.

I need some bunting with that on, I think.

On a scale of one to ten…

I want 2012 to go up to eleven. Forget life, forget direction and focus on Happiness: Now.

This year I an going to write a show. I’m going to buy a vintage dress and learn how to drive. I’m also going to learn a lot about a profession I never dreamt I would enter, but that’s ok with me.

Let’s do this.

Anne. Diana. Matthew. Marilla.

Anne of Green Gables being The Lady of Shalot.

 

This series really had a profound effect on me. I guess I’ve never really thought about it before, but Anne of Green Gables really has a special place in my heart.

I remember watching this over and over as a child, and though there are many things I’ve forgotten, the thing I remember so clearly is Anne’s imagination. She was an orphan, and alone and talked too much, but she always relied on herself, and her own imagination to get her out of scrapes. I’m sure, had she really existed, that she was very lonely, but there are much worse ways to deal with loneliness than by pretending that you’re surrounded by friends.

I have a lot in common with Anne. Always wanting to be the heroine in some wild fantasy. Wishing I looked different or was different. But then learning that things you can’t change in real life are somehow changeable inside. Such a rich internal life. I really had that for a long time, and I guess, as I met the man I love, and met people that inspired happiness in me, I relied less and less on that internal life to provide the sustenance I needed. Now that things are a little more difficult for me, I’m finding that I’m turning inwards again. Reading more, imagining more. Is that a bad way to live your life? Should I be actively living, or is it ok to go back to the cave and wait for the sun to come again?

I’m not sure. I’m not sure what Anne would do.

And Then it Was Over.

Merry Chrimbo y’all.

What a strange Christmas it has been this year, for me as well as many of my favourite bloggers. It seems everyone has found “Start Again 2010” to be a harder year than we had all hoped.

This Christmas was my first Christmas away from my family ever, and I think the thing I missed most was the sheer number of people that I usually spend my Christmases with. I am used to boisterousity. Or sommat. This Christmas was much smaller, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t as lovely. It was. It was intimate and thoughtful and relaxed. But it was different, and it brought home to me how much my life has changed in 2010.

My general mood has been pretty reflective for the last month or so, and prone to melancholy. I’d been feeling as though the dreams I’d had for this trip, and for my life were slipping through my hands, and that I was destined for mediocrity (the horror! The horror!). But I’ve decided, fuck it, I’m due for an attitude change. There is a hell of a better chance of making my ‘dreams come true’ (gag) in a town like London, rather than Perth. The BF and I have decided to give it six months before making the move to the capital, and then we’re going to love it sick. I went it to Lahndahn the other day for a spot of Chrissie shopping, and my heart does lift a little as the train pulls through the outer suburbs. I just have this conviction that it is where I am supposed to be now. So let’s make it happen!!

We’re also booking a short jaunt to gay Paris for Feb, which is going to be delicious. I really can’t wait to show the BF around. I want him to love it the way I love it, and for him to feel as special as I do when I am there. I want him to fall in love with France, and for it to be a part of our lives. Each day that I don’t speak French, my ability gets worse, and my fear of making a mistake (which I will do more often) gets more and more paralysing. But not to worry, if we’re there every other weekend (ahem), I’m sure my French will be tip top in no time!

That’s the plan, anyway.

How was your Christmas, was it what you hoped for?