Honeymoon update

We’ve done most of the planning and organising for our honeymoon now – as much as we are going to.

We have:

• Booked, paid for and picked up our tickets. Actually, there is no tickets. In this modern digital age, we’ve been issued an itinerary and we don’t need a ticket to travel. So much easier, since it’s one less thing to worry about forgetting to bring!
• Booked and paid for our rental car – we are picking up a car at Heathrow when we arrive and using it for 3 weeks.
• Booked a transit hotel in Singapore for our 6-hour stop over. This hotel is such a great idea! We can have a shower, a lie-down, grab something to eat and even work out in their gym if we want.
• Booked our first night’s accommodation in Brighton. We are staying at the grand-looking Royal Albion Hotel on the beach front.
• Been buying GBP while the going is good. I have a OneSmart card that gives a good rate and means that when we are in the UK we are spending in the local currency (so no conversion charges for every purchase). We’ve set aside all the money we need for the trip – now we just need to save for the luxuries.

Now all we have to do is wait for February 29th to roll around!

Queenstown getaway

We’ve come to Queenstown for a wee break this weekend. The idea was that we both worked over the Christmas break (I had a few days off, Stephen only the stats) and then take a long weekend once the Christmas / New Year crowd had passed. It was a great idea! It’s quiet in Queenstown, but not too quiet – we still have plenty of people to watch (one of our favourite pastimes).

Having a holiday now also breaks up the time until we go on our honeymoon to the UK. Its now only 7 weeks until we go, and it’s been a lovely little treat to help pass the time.

We’ve done very little here. Often our holidays are action-packed – there is always so much to see and do! But this break has been very laid back. All we’ve really done is hang out at that hotel, ate and drunk coffee at a whole range of cafes, and wander around looking at everything. We did stumble upon the gondola and luge yesterday, so we gave that a whirl. Fun!

And now we are sitting in the Koru Lounge waiting for our flight home – back to reality. It’s going to be a very busy few weeks before we go away, and I feel very grateful that we can take these mini-breaks here and there when we get the chance.

The 40 b4 40 Challenge

My Twitter friend Lana tweeted the other night that she was writing a list of 30 things to do before she turns 30 in November. Since I’m turning 40 in November, I thought this sounded like a great challenge. Thanks for the inspiration Lana! Her blog is here.

Each time I achieve one of my goals, I’ll blog about it. If I don’t achieve them, I’ll blog about that too. Here it is, my 40 b4 40.

1. Write a list of 40 goals to achieve before I turn 40
2. Host a tweet up BBQ at our house
3. Have a relaxing long weekend in Queenstown (completed 13-14-15 Jan, I haven’t relaxed so much in years!)
4. Visit Tintagel Castle
5. Stay overnight in a castle
6. Learn to drive a manual car
7. Run 10km
8. Run 5km in 35 minutes (5km in 35min 45sec, 29 Jan)
9. Own an iPad 3
10. Visit Singapore
11. Save $10,000.00
12. Bake a cake
13. Buy a new car
14. Drive on the M1 in England
15. Visit 3 Apple Stores
16. Celebrate my baby girl’s 20th birthday
17. Tell my husband I love him every day
18. Go on a cruise
19. Visit Melbourne
20. Visit Napier
21. Teach Bronwen how to apply make up
22. Visit the Franz and Fox glaciers
23. Complete 40 blog posts
24. Cook a three course meal for my husband
25. Take a moment every day to be grateful
26. Stay sober every day
27. Celebrate one year of marriage somewhere interesting
28. Visit the birthplace of Captain Cook
29. Take my grandson to visit a train
30. Complete Portal
31. Finish the Millennium trilogy by Steig Larsson (finally finished the third book 28 Jan, good series, the third one dragged on a bit in the middle).
32. Publish my Daily Bebe book
33. Plant a herb garden
34. Learn the Paso Doble
35. Learn how to use MS Project
36. Go jet boating
37. Meet 10 new people
38. Attend a tweet up in another city
39. Give blood
40. Visit 10 cafes in Christchurch and review the coffee / service on my blog (they are over here)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Our wedding day

What a year it’s been. One of the biggest years of my life, I’d say. Here how it shook down (earthquake humour):

January: Wedding planning in earnest. We conceive a idea to buy our own house.

February: The month that changed everything. How can I describe it? It was the most exciting and the scariest time of my life. On the morning of February 22 I warned my workmates that I might be a little more stressed than usual that week. It seems funny now, the things I was worried about.

March: My wedding day was one of the best days of my life (besides seeing my beautiful children for the first time, and graduating from university). The rest of March was all about trying to buy our house and making new plans. We won our B Grade ice hockey final. Go Rangers!

April: We move into our house. Our little nana house that we love so much. Never mind that it didn’t have flush toilets. It’s ours.

May: Regrouping. Trying to find normal, and succeeding to an extent. We get new carpet, our house begins to feel like a home.

June: The month starts off well enough. Normality has descended. We get a flush toilet! And then June 13th happens. It feels like square one again. Luckily it isn’t, but it’s hard for a while.

July: We buy tickets for our honeymoon! We get a dishwasher installed and find out we can use our en-suite bathroom – the pipes have been cleared. Luxury.

August: Running. Lots of it. Trying to cast off the difficulties (and flab) of the past few months. It feels good to hit the pavement.

September: We commemorate and celebrate. The first anniversary of the earthquake that started it all, and Arlia’s first birthday the next day. A steady month of running, hockey, family and spring.

October: Bronwen turns 11. Opononi! A fabulous family holiday in the north, not a lot of sleep was had. Rounded out at the end with the opening of the Cashel Container Mall. It feels like a tentative new beginning for our broken city.

November: Birthdays, too numerous to count. I travelled, a lot. Work work work and more work, and I love it! I celebrate my birthday by passing my driver’s test. Legit at last. The top comes off the Hotel Grand Chancellor as the slow deconstruction begins. Our local mall The Palms reopens, much to our relief and indescribable  joy.

December: Lots of work. Some days it feels like I’m too busy to breathe. Running, skating, hockey and family keep me centred. We get the last of our contents claim payments from the EQC, HURRAH! The deconstruction of our suburb begins, little bit by little bit. And sadly, another earthquake, followed by still more juddering aftershocks. I’ve come to the realisation that it might not end for years. Can I bear it? Yes, because I have to.

So, what sums up this year? It was a year of the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I’m glad to see it end and I’m ready to move on. This year has been a defining year. The events of 2011 have set a cycle that we’ll be playing out for years to come. I think (I hope beyond hope!) that the hard bits are behind us. What lies ahead are building, rebuilding, consolidation. Both personally for my family and our home, and for our city too.

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,900 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

I travel, therefore I am

Waiting for a plane

Did I ever mention how much I love to travel?   I love every part of it.

I love deciding what to take – making mental lists of outfits to pack, maximising the mix-and-match top and bottom options.

I love the throwing everything in a suitcase and zipping it closed emphatically.

I love the feeling of adventure as I say ‘See ya!’ to home and start putting myself into the place I’m going.

I love checking in, dropping my bags, zooming for my gate (I don’t especially love the security bit, but it’s all part of the deal).

I love settling into my seat. Airplane mode, check. iPad iPhone magazine drink bottle, check, check check, check.

I love take offs, landings, and the bits in between.

I love arriving at my new place, jumping in a cab or onto a train, figuring out how to get there.

And I especially love hotel rooms (I told you about this already, remember?).

And then I love packing up and moving out. Heading home. Winging my way back to my family, who are always happy to see me and to hear about my adventures.

Going away makes me love coming home.

I am

i am

I got a new tattoo for my birthday. It’s on my left wrist and it says I AM in big bold letters. It’s something I’ve wanted to get for a long time, and using it to mark the last year of my 30s seemed about right.

It has multiple meanings and they are a little hard to describe in words. But let me give it a try.  First and foremost, the letters represent myself and my children.

i = me

a = Antony

m = Megan

And then connected to this is a statement of the nature of my being. I am. I am who I am because of their existence. They are all tangled up with the person I am. I know, it’s pretty deep.

Who am I? This question is not answered by the tattoo. Because I am … lots of things to lots of people. Who I am has changed so much in the past few years. My tattoo reminds me of this. I want to keep changing and growing. It reminds me not to be afraid of the future because I will develop into the person I am in that future. But I am also the person I’ve always been too. I am ever-changing, but I am also me to my core. Told you, it’s hard to put into words.

It also reflects one of my very favourite paintings: Victory Over Death 2, by Colin McCahon.

Victory Over Death 2

And finally the letters are specifically in Helvetica bold 18 point font. It’s my favourite font. Yes I have a favourite font. Yes I am a nerd (and technically it’s a typeface, but you know what I mean).

It’s a beautiful and infinitely usable font. In fact it is one of the most well used fonts around. You’ve seen it all over the place without even realizing it. Helvetica is used a lot in advertising – it’s used in the logo for American Airlines, Lufthansa, 3M, Mitsuishi, Panasonic, and Microsoft. More importantly, it is the basic font for Apple’s operating system. It even has a movie dedicated to exploring its delicious roundy-ness. And now it’s on my wrist.

I heart Helvetica (not my tattoo)

Historic places

I’ve been thinking a lot about historic places lately. As you do, when you live in Christchurch. I was shocked when I heard that the spire of the Christchurch Cathedral had come down, and that the building was badly damaged, possibly beyond repair. It is Christchurch’s most iconic building.

Christchurch Cathedral

But then as it sunk in, I reflected that I didn’t mind so much if it wasn’t there any more. Part of me thought, “good, let’s move on”. The church is a part of our past, a very important one. But to be completely honest, I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t part of my future city. I know that many many people disagree with this, but I always thought it was ugly. I think we can do better.

And when I look around at some of the other buildings that are going or gone, I feel the same way. They were draughty, un-green, impractical, dangerous buildings. Beautiful to look at, but not really all that much fun to live or work in. Need a new data cable or air conditioning unit? No worries, you’ll just need to drill through half a metre of double-brick. Brick, as it turns out, that wasn’t as sturdy as it looked. Trying to get out of one of those old buildings when your life depends on it is worryingly difficult.

Christchurch Basilica

 

I do feel sad about the loss of some of the buildings. The Christchurch Basilica brought tears to my eyes. But every time I read about the tragic destruction of these old buildings, and how we have to save them no matter what the cost, I can’t help thinking, “why?”

They are part of our heritage, but then so are a lot of things. When my Nana died, I had to let her go. She’s no less part of my history and I’ll always remember her, but I had to move on. I found new people to admire. People who shape the future me. I think we should to the same with our buildings.

Document them, remember them, but now they are dead, let them be gone. Grieve for them, and then let’s move on. We’ve got a city to rebuild.

Legs eleven

A hundred-year milestone passed by us yesterday. For a moment it was 11:11 on 11/11/11. It’s a silly thing to mark when you really stop to think about it. The way we measure the passing of time is such a cultural experience. After all, it’s only because we mark time using the Gregorian calendar (rather than the Julian or any other calendar) that we’ve arrived at this date and time when we have. In the infinite universe there is no such thing as November 11th 2011.

But, even with this information in my head, I still took a moment to marvel at the moment as it passed. It won’t happen again for 100 years – and it’s likely that no one currently alive will remember both occurrences. That makes it special I suppose.

And aside from that, why do we care about something so seemingly insignificant? (Maybe you don’t personally care at all and paid no attention, but millions of other people did). I think humans like to find patterns in life. So much of what happens around us feels random and unordered. These little numbers bring the chaos into line, just for a moment. That’s how it seems to me anyway. It was very satisfying to look at my phone and see all those ones in a row, nice and neat.

Insanely great

It’s been almost three weeks now since Steve Jobs died. He’s been memorialised in a thousand different ways by the media and by his family, friends, colleagues and fans. Until now I haven’t had the words to express how I feel. His death has felt very personal to me. If you know me well (or really, at all), you know what a huge Apple fan I am.

Apple is written indelibly on my life (and on my body). I spend most of my day using Apple products and I love them. Some people think its weird to declare love for overpriced inanimate technology. It doesn’t love me back, but I don’t care.

My iPhone, my iPad, my Mac Mini, AppleTV, iPod Nano ease me through my everyday. They keep me entertained, allow me to connect with the people I like and love, let me do my job on the run. And, as Steve says, they just work. They feel right and they look good. So yes, I’m an Apple fan.

And Steve Jobs was Apple. He was clearly a driven, visionary man. He made amazing things happen in the world of technology. Most people probably don’t even really think about how much he and Apple changed the computing landscape. Just in my lifetime, I saw it move forward in fits and starts, then leaps and bounds. I admire Steve greatly as an inventor and businessman.

Steve’s death is sad for other reasons too. He died of cancer, like Simon did. Well before his time. When I heard how sick Steve was, and then of his passing, the only think I could think was, “what a waste”. He had so much more to offer the world. He wasn’t done! I thought the same about Simon. What a waste of an incredibly clever man.

I can image what his wife and kids have been through the past few months. Cancer wears a person away slowly and it’s really hard to watch. So it feels really personal for me.

Apple will go on. It will make more insanely great products, and I’ll probably buy most of them. But I’ll always be sad that Steve isn’t there to give us “one more thing”.