Yet An Other Different Kind of Christmas- 2014

Last year Christmas day was a day of rest. I was finally on holiday and all I wanted was some time to myself before going on a fabulous adventure with my friends. This year I was all for the quiet approach, knowing that two days of peace and quiet would be much appreciated after the hectic pre-Christmas hospo craziness. My friends though had other ideas. Christmas Eve saw us at a Mexican restaurant indulging in a tequila night. Two of us made it to 9pm when we called quits and left the others too it. It may have been Christmas Eve but I’d been up sin e 4am and for once my body and my brain were in complete agreement,it was bed time!

Christmas day dawned dull and overcast so from the start I knew our planned jump in the sea was not happening. Instead I spent the morning skyping my family and making the world’s most nostalgic happy playlist, appropriately named Yay! Finally friend #1 appeared and I could open the wine. She was slightly hungover and soon made great friends with the couch but only so much that it was amusing. Soon after friend #2 appeared with friend #3. Now friend #1 is from Denmark whilst the rest of us are British born and bred therefore though I had made my playlist for my own amusement but it was quickly clear that it would do for the rest if the day. In between the nostalgia of old tunes we managed to cook a group dinner and empty a few bottles. It wasn’t Christmassy and it certainly wasn’t quiet but it was fun. It was a day I thought I didn’t want but was delighted I had given in to. Friend #1 and #3 left leaving myself and friend #2 to skype with our friend in the UK, with a final glass of chocolate Baileys. Once again Christmas in New Zealand surprised me in the best way. Is it any wonder this is the place I decided to settle in for my extended stay whilst saving experiment? I’d say it was a successful experiment but I am looking forward to 2015. So much to do and so little time. Who knew that the wreck of a person that struggled to exist in March 2009 would grow to have this most amazing life. I’m sure I’ve had some help along the way and whilst I miss him I know that Josh is proud of me, even if he is as baffled as he ever was by some of my choices.

December 2014 – Dancing & Friends

Ceroc had brought up a lot of good memories and whilst it was difficult by the third class I managed to give freestyle a go and I was glad I had persevered. The taxi dancers were great at making sure the beginners got a few dances so we could practice our moves and with so much spinning it was hard to stay sad. In fact it went so well I decided to give one of the salsa socials a go and managed to enjoy that as well. I’m not sure I can convey the pride I felt in managing to find joy in dancing again and I have to confess I didn’t do this one on my own. The friend I took with me was extremely supportive. She dispensed hugs and encouraged me to stay when I would have left. Her love of our new hobby kept me going back when I was tempted to give up. It is in a large part thanks to her that I managed to enjoy and eventually fall in love with dancing again. I know that this is yet another friend that Josh would approve of and like anyway but for this I think he would love her a little too.

Despite the fact that work was crazy busy with loads of packing of Christmas products and the associate loads of customers coming in to buy them I managed to continue to spend quality time with my friends. Whilst weekend drinking with them was out I was discovering there are plenty of other ways to stay in touch with good friends. I managed to make it to the cinema to see the remake of Annie which I found thoroughly enjoyable. Whilst I had been looking forward to a repeat of last year’s mac ‘n’ cheese day my friends it seemed had different ideas. So the month was spent alternating between trying and refusing to compromise between them wanting to celebrate and me wanting to hibernate. Despite this disagreement about the day itself I didn’t go completely Scrooge on them... I happily agreed to a tequila xmas eve and a few days before took a friend to the show Empire which was similar to circ de soli. It was on a much smaller scale but still awe inspiring and humorous. It wasn’t cheap but it was worth every cent and the night was finished off beautifully by my friend announcing that her present to me was a local dive trip. I was starting to think that maybe this Christmas malarkey wasn’t too bad after all which is possibly how I ended up agreeing to host Christmas dinner at my flat. Scrooge?! Who’s that then??

 

November 2014 - I Hope You Dance

The sad news of November was that I had finally reached the end of my tether with my laptop so once again it was off to be repaired leaving me internetless once more. I managed to keep entertained though. Despite the fact that I wasn’t quite as busy socially as October I felt I had finally found a good work life balance. My photography course had come to an end but I was managing to see my friends on a more regular basis. Whilst I still wasn’t taking as many photos as I would have liked the course had rejuvenated my interest so my friend and I made the effort to go see a photo exhibition at local gallery. Toward the end of the month I even managed to get a Saturday off work so the Friday before we had a girls night out like I was a normal person. Normal people get drink and dance on bars, right? Let us just say it was a good night and fun was had by all. Even better by the time my Saturday off came around I had my laptop back so I had something to keep me entertained as I slowly recovered from my hangover the next day.

The big news for November was that I purchased a grab one deal for 5 ceroc dance lessons. I talked a friend in to coming with me and one Wednesday night at the end of the month we went along to see what it was all about. The class was massive, there were easily 70 people there. It was completely different from the salsa classes I had attended in Wellington. They lined us up in four rows and the teacher explained the basics of dance to us. He discussed tension and the importance of following and leading and then he taught us four of the basic moves. The class was great fun. As well as the class being taught well the teacher had the girls change partners after every other practice of a moved so that we got to dance with everyone including some experienced dancers know in our class as taxi dancers. After the class we had 15 minutes of freestyle to practice our new moves then it was on to a smaller room to practice our new moves over and over with a different teacher and a few taxi dancers. It was great fun and once the lessons were over we had the option of going back to the main room for more freestyle. We had look but my friend was tired and I found that watching others dance the way that I used to with Josh was too much. I had though a different style would be easier but I found freestyle too much and found myself questioning whether or not the joy of dancing was worth the heartache it was still bringing me. Soul searching aside my friend loved it and I had a 5 trip pass so I was determined to go back the next week and try again. It would seem like December was shaping up to be another interesting an challenging month.

October 2014 - More Photography

As much as I enjoyed planning future trips sometimes February seemed very far away which is why in October I finally signed up for a photography course and for the second time a salsa course. The salsa course was inspired by a friend who wanted to learn so I decided to go along with her whereas the photography course was something I had been hoping to do since I realised I would be staying in Wellington long term.

The photography course was a great success. I met some interesting people and learned lots of new things about my camera as well as new techniques. The main benefit was that it gave me a reason to take my camera out and practice. Our first assignment involved a day trip out to Makara where we concentrated on my favourite kind of photography, landscapes. Despite being my most comfortable area I felt that I learnt a lot and it was nice to be in a group of people who were as excited about photographing the same thing 20 different times in 20 different ways as I am.

Our second assignment was portrait photos of friends and ourselves. I roped one of my flatmates into being an impromptu model one afternoon then attempted to take some self portraits using my tripod and timer. The photos of my flatmate turned out a lot better than the ones of me. Partly this was due to the fact that it’s hard to smile when it’s just you and partly because I’m never overly fond of being on the other side of the lens! I was fortunate that another friend was also happy to pose. She like me is a keen photographer so she was happy to help me improve my skills and even lent me her prime lens so I could try it out. Our third assignment was low light which was much more in my comfort zone. There was a heavy emphasis on varying exposure times to see the effects of a shorter versus longer exposure times.

I think the photocourse helped rejuvenate my enthusiasm for life in Wellington as in October I managed to see my friends a lot more. Of course this could also have been due to the fact that one of my favourite people returned to Wellington later in the month just in time for me to help her celebrate her thirtieth birthday. The salsa course with my friend didn’t go so well and we both lost interest in it fairly quickly but we were happy that we had given it a go and it is always nice to spend time with my friends as finding the time could be difficult when I was working every weekend.

Wellington is a brilliant city and my dissatisfaction in previous months was very much due to my inability to enjoy all it has to offer so I was delighted to find my enthusiasm returning just in time to go see the T-Rex exhibition at Te Papa. Finally as if dinosaurs, Dr Who and friends weren’t enough I ended the month on a great high. Lorde had returned to New Zealand and we playing a gig in Wellington on the very last night of the month. Since her music had been the soundtrack to our road trip the previous year I was really excited about going with the same two friends. She was brilliant live and came across as a genuinely lovely person. It was brilliant end to a much better month which I hoped was a sign of better times to come.

September 2014 - I Took Some Photos

Looking back at my facebook posts (How else do you think I was remembering what I did more than two days ago?!) it is very clear to me that as the year progressed I was struggling a lot. Having said that life wasn’t all bad. September started off with an impromptu bingo night at a local pub where my friend and I had gone in search of burgers. We didn’t win the game but we won a couple of lines and got some free wine as a result. Of course back home the great independence debate was going on and my facebook was full of it but as I was not in the country and the referendum counted as a local vote I was unable to cast my vote. In the end the people decided we would stay together. To quote myself “Personally I am happy to be part of the UK but gutted that we missed out on a chance get rid of the broken political system that is Westminster. No matter I am still proud to be Scottish and I hope that we can all agree that we had our chance, we did our best and with any luck in 20 years the British political system will have improved or the next generation will do better!”

Whereas August was the month I started writing again September was the month I caught up with my photos. I uploaded a ton of them to FB and even managed to go for a walk one day to take some more.  So life in one place was wearing thin. There was too much work and not enough play. However life cannot always be fun and games in during my up times I had fun planning for my trip to the South Island the following year. As well as being a distraction it helped me to remember why I was working as hard as I was. In between the work and the planning I was delighted to see Dr Who return and rather took to the new Scottish Dr. In less happy news my laptop was playing up again so I spent a great deal of time installing updates in an effort to fix it. Thankfully the You Tube app on my phone was very useful at keeping me entertained which just goes to show I really should have been getting out more.