Motherfuckers, every one.

Tonight I found out I need about $3500 worth of dentistry.
Multiple fillings and something like three root canals.

I did, however, surprise the dentist. I've managed to get to this point completely pain free.
It's just more proof that I am a complete bad ass.

Soon to be a very very poor bad ass.
Anyone want to buy my stuff?

A tweet I regret.

I was sitting at my desk at work, eleven stories up, when I felt the earthquake.
It went on for a long time. So long that I sent a message out on twitter and saw both before and after my tweet, similar Wellington based messages. After it stopped I thought about it and decided that I really rather liked these little reminders that we are small and insignificant. And then I sent the message that starts this entry.

What I didn't know then was that the earthquake I'd felt in Wellington was actually centred over three hundred kilometres away in Christchurch.



6 months ago Christchurch was rocked an earthquake. It hit in the early hours of the morning and there were no deaths or injuries.
It seems that was only a practice run.
This earthquake hit just before 1pm on a weekday. People were at work, at home, out at lunch. Exchange students were in classes and tourists were in the Cathedral. I was in my office, wondering why my screen was shaking.

Everyone I know spent that afternoon glued to the television.
Parliament rose early.
There was a profound sense of shock. We saw the shock we felt etched on the dust covered faces of the people in Christchurch. I watched the unedited footage and saw someone rescued from the top of a flattened building, I saw people loaded in to the back of SUVs as the city ran out of ambulances, I saw broken buildings and broken people.

We clung to social networking sites and I have never been more glad to have twitter. Never more glad to be able to help in my small small way.
I watched as messages headed into the ether, asking if this person or at person was okay, people sending messages that they were okay, offers of assistance. I retweeted what I could, getting messages to a wider audience, but terrified of sending out misinformation.

I have no family in Christchurch. There was no one I was frantically trying to get hold of. I am loath to admit how much the earthquake has affected me because, in the most basic sense, it has not.

But I live in Wellington. We have been warned how overdue for "the big one" our city is. There is the guilt that it should have been us and not Christchurch. There is the guilt that we are relieved it was not us.

I held Craig close that night. We decided on meeting places in Wellington and vowed to get a survival kit together. I thanked whatever gods there are out there that we were safe.

At the time of writing the death toll in Christchurch is 145. There are still more missing. Our garden city has made news across the world and international urban search and rescue teams have come to our aid.

I have donated. I have worn black. I will observe two minutes of silence.
I will offer all I can and do my job diligently and to the best of my ability. Christchurch needs the rest of New Zealand to keep the country running.
They are a little busy right now.



If you can please spare a dollar or two to help
http://www.redcross.org.nz

Anywhere but here ...

In 199 days Craig and I will be back here:


Waikiki, Hawaii - August 2008

Almost exactly. We're staying at the same hotel. For 7 nights.

On a cold, grey, Wellington morning, heading into the final stretch of rehearsals* I need to remember that there are bright spots on the horizon.


* this is when it feels hardest, when you are sick of your lines, sick of your costume, sick of the hours of rehearsal, but don't yet have the adrenaline of performances

It's the simple things ...

Today was quite a nice day.
Sometimes Mondays can be like that.

So I turn my head away.

I hate the sunsets here.
It's just another day ending in a country I find suffocating.

(photo from January 2008)

Because this is turning out to be a no-good, very-bad week ...

Here's a photo of Kat's adorable puppy gnawing on my thumb.

p.s. That's Craig's manlymanly arm at the bottom of the shot. I am not that hirsute.
p.p.s. The puppy is a chocolate labradoodle (labraDOODLE!) called Bailey and is pretty much the cutest thing ever.
p.p.p.s. With me? puppies are like babies. I distrust them generally, like a few, am definitely not ready for one of my own.
p.p.p.p.s. Sir C and I will probably eventually get a cat rather than a dog anyway. You can't parallel that one to babies.

I'm terribly sick of Funerals.

My darling sisters and I read the following poem:

Dirge without Music by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains, --- but the best is lost.

The answers quick & keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,
They are gone. They have gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

It hasn't been a good month for Grandparents*

My Grandmother, Iris



R.I.P.



* Craig's line.
And to be fair, his Grandfather passed away a little over a week ago, and now neither of us has any living grandparents.

I blame my cold on Monday

If you paid any attention to my twitter at all today, then you probably think I'm whiny, paradoxical, or both. I have spent months on end dreaming (loudly) of snow and ice, of the need to wear scarves and hats, of rosy-cheeks and dragon-breath.
And then! two scant days into New Zealand's autumn, it's all I can do to keep my mouth shut about how miserable and cold I am, cotton-headed, stuffed with phlegm (ew), and prickled with goosebumps.

The truth is? I only love winter (and I do love you winter!) is when it does not adversely affect me. I hate having a cold, and being inappropriately dressed for the weather drives me crazy. I hate having to walk in the rain because in Wellington when it rains, it is windy (and when it's sunny it's windy, and when it's windy? it's really windy) and in Wellington's wind using an umbrella is pointless.

Instead I yearn for an idealised winter. Walking next to Craig, hands wrapped around a gingerbread latte or Monmouth Coffee*, bridging feet over cobblestones, deep dark brownies, and steaming venison burgers.




In my ideal winter it is perpetually Saturday Mornings at Borough Market, and I am wearing the following outfit:


Grey skinny jeans
Merino or Uniqlo heat-tech top
Butter soft black leather blazer
Effusive scarf & bobbly hat

I am going about replicating this outfit in New Zealand as well
It will be my winter weekend uniform.

Things around the Oh Darling household have been a little sad and grey and wintery themselves this week. On Wednesday Sir C and I are packing our bags and heading down to Dunedin for a family funeral.
Posting will be light or non-existent for the second half of this week.


* Monmouth is the best coffee I have ever had, bar none. The queue at the Borough Market stall was always monumental but the coffee was always worth it.

Only a day late ...

Southwark, Late 2007

Sunshine


The Blue Fin Building


&


Rain


The Millennium Bridge & the Tate Modern.

p.s. The Blue Fin Building can be seen in this photo. Looking like a little addition to the Tate Modern's glass top floor, it protrudes either side of the Chimney.

p.p.s. I might have to stop this segment. It makes me sad. Wistful, wishful. If only I still lived in Southwark.

As if the post-show blues weren't enough ...

This is the latest straw piled on top of me.

The package includes possible moves to prevent the families of skilled migrants working in Britain and restricting skilled migrants to taking jobs only in occupations with shortages.
...
Smith signalled that raising the qualification levels for tier 1 – the most highly skilled migrant route – could cut the numbers from 26,000 to only 14,000 a year. The new criteria will require a master's rather than a bachelor's degree and a job offer with a minimum salary of £20,000 rather than £17,000.

Craig and I will be effected by these changes. Wholly and completely. They will make it near on impossible for us to get the visas we've been dreaming about.
I have a bachlor's degree, not a master's, and Craig would be applying as the family of a migrant. We would be ineligible.

We are ineligible. I cannot think of this as something which might not happen. I can't deal with the hope.

Perhaps we can apply now, before the changes get rolled through, and just wait ...

Either way we have to reassess what we are going to do with the next five years of our lives, where we will live, what we will fill our days with, how I will cope being in New Zealand when everyday already feels like torture, like a waste.

And personally, while I can stand objectively and say that I understand the changes that are being brought forward in light of the economic climate, I think the reason they are tightening the points-based system has a lot to do with the European Union

The points-based immigration system does not cover the movement of workers from within the European Union to Britain but official immigration figures to be published on Tuesday are expected to confirm that the number of Poles and other eastern Europeans coming to work continues to fall, especially since the decline of the pound against the Euro.

They can't touch the European migrants and so have piled it all upon the rest of us.

Britain seems to forget that Australia and New Zealand are part of their commonwealth.

At Heathrow.

Pouting & frazzled at Heathrow.
Our excess baggage has been paid for (118kgs!!!) and we have boarding passes & everything.
This is really happening. We are really moving (temporarily) back to New Zealand. Disconsolate is a good word for me today.

P.s. Craig has just gone into an electronics store to buy my birthday present. I am a little worried.

My Sister agrees with my crazy theories. This worries me.

Dear The Internet,

I think New Zealand may secretly be a black hole.
I have been back for more than a month and yet? the fact that I'm leaving again in ... 13 Days (Thirteen! Under Two Weeks!) seems impossible. Improbable. Didn't I actually just arrive yesterday? possibly the day before?
Although, I really can't deny that the world is turning, time is passing, and all that, as within the last two weeks it has gone from darkness to dawn to ever-so-slightly daylight when I leave for work in the mornings (So Early. Hate).

I almost don't want to go to London again. It is a trip to say goodbye. To pack up our little room & leave a few bits and pieces in storage with friends so that hopefully, by osmosis, the home office works out that we belong in London and grants our visas super-quick.
We are kidding ourselves that it's just a little vacation by planning a few days in Hawaii on the way over. To make up for the fact that we don't really get a summer this year. This is mainly Craig's idea. I am not so much a sun & sand person. Definitely not an anticipatory sun & sand person. Once I am there, with a book, Spf 500 sunscreen, and salt-dreadlocked hair, I love it. Until then ... it seems like too too much trouble.
Craig is adorable in his excitement. He wants to learn to surf. We want to go snorkelling. I am thinking of getting a waterproof digital camera.

I think that really, what I want, is to get on with the 8-10 months of working constantly. To know that each hour working is an hour closer to the goal amount that will allow us to apply for the top Tier of the cake of London visas. At this stage there are so many months stretching ahead of me that they are a pinprick in the distance. Around a huge corner. And in general hard to keep in sight.
I'm hoping that New Zealand really is a black hole and these coming months will pass in an instant.

Now all we have to do is try and work out if we're able to arrange a 10 month sub-letting situation for our Darling Flat in SE1. Do you know of anyone interested Internet?

xoxo
Sarah-Rose

Baby, what you going to do?

Do you know what I hate? Not being in London. I really hate it.
That's not to say that I hate being in New Zealand. Because I don't.
A lot of my favourite people are here.
I'm just not living in a city that gives me butterflies.

Craig and I finally finally made a decision for our future.
Instead of going to Dublin or Canada or Vienna (all of which were seriously considered at one point or another (maybe not so much Vienna. I don't speak any German (but it does look beautiful!))) we are going to spend some months (8? 9? who knows at this point? Not me!) in New Zealand before applying for brand sparkling new visas which will (fingers crossed!) allow us to spend longer than a year or two back in London.
If we had chosen one of the other countries on our list we would have ended up in the exactly same situation we're in now, only twelve months down the line!
I don't think I could do this again!
And I'm so so willing to spend a few months slightly irritated for a longer stretch of our lovely itinerant lifestyle.

I actually feel really positive about this decision (I know! me! positive! crrrrraazy).
So. August in New Zealand, September in London (love!), and from October? Nouvelle Zélande again.
Sigh.

.

On a completely different note!
I've been working as a temporary super-receptionist at a company in Wellington this week. And three out of the four days that I've been working there?
I have (accidentally!!) color co-ordinated with the other receptionist.
Yet again my life proves itself completely ridiculous!

The first day? it was cute. The second day? it was funny as other people in the office started to notice. The third day? RIDICULOUS.

Don't panic! we discussed it today and chose completely different colours to wear tomorrow. Let's see if it works!

You can never go home again

Last night I ended up collapsed on my bed crying.

Now usually when I cry I get very very still and very very quiet and tears just roll down my cheeks. But last night I was on my bed and almost sobbing (I was very tired). And when Craig got back from his shower I pretended to be reading and succeded quite well, but after we turned out the lights I couldn't stop my body from shaking.
And why?
Because it was the full moon and I couldn't sleep with my curtains open and moonlight streaming in. OF COURSE.

My childhood bedroom (well, my bedroom from ages 8 - 22, aka MOST OF MY LIFE) was the upstairs corner bedroom in our house, I had windows stretching most of the way around the north and east facing walls and as there were no other 2-storey buildings nearby I slept with my windows open. Quite often with wet hair. What? I was building up my uh immunity to colds.
Like that I could see stars and it was almost never fully dark in my room, just paling and navy-blue. In summers I would wake with the sun.
I would sleep with the windows open and piles of blankets on my bed, it was hard to get up in the mornings but the air never smells so clean as at midnight.
The full moon was my favourite time (it always has been) and last night it hit me that I would never sleep with it streaming in those windows, it would never be my room again.
My littlest sister moved in as soon as I moved out, and now ... I'm married.
I don't think I'd ever grieved after moving out, because what people usually miss is their families, and mine are so so close. I never thought I would miss a room so much.
Craig of course held me, let me leak tears all over him, and he pressed his cheek against my forehead.
Somethings are worth a little sacrifice.

Plus, there will always be more windows, and I don't think the moon is going anywhere.