Thursday, March 29, 2007

I scored a free ticket today to see WICKED. Its only the second musical I've seen and I really loved this.
Its basically a prequal to The Wizard of Oz (with Harry Potter's Professor Sprout!) and deals with themes like racism and our perception of good vs bad and media spin!
And we get to see the history of all the witches, the flying monkeys (fly my Pretties! Fly!) and the Dorothys pals, the Tinman, Scarecrow, and the Lion!
I read the book before going to see this and I wish I hadn't. Normally I'm a big fan of books being better than films/musicals but I think the play and book are written by different people, and this was definately the better version!
So at the end of Charbs's little Theatre review, Ireckon you should all go and see this, if only to try and work out how she gets to be green! Is it Make up? Is it lights?
ooooh!

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

It was only ten o clock but already the man in front of me smelled like a brewery.
Luckily my name was called and I went to the desk to speak to the woman about signing on again.
She glanced at my details and asked why I had exactly left The Health Food Shop That Shall Never Be Named.
I took a breath and tried to explain to her, about the holiday I had been refused even though I still was owed 4 weeks worth, about the druggies and shoplifters, about the ones that had assualted me or other members of staff, of the working conditions, no heating, no air conditioning, not being allowed to take a cold or warm drink onto the shop floor, about how I was left for vast periods on my own.
She looked bored and said my information would go to a panel and they would decide whether I was entitled to any money or not.
She asked why I had chosen to do a career that was hard to find work for and why I hadn't applied for any jobs in that field since leaving uni, and I tried to explain that it hadn't been that simple, about Dad and how I'd had to care for him, how Mother had been in that car accident, totally writing the car off and needing a hysterectomy and not being allowed to go back to work for fear she might have a stroke.
And then I looked at her, and she was sitting back in her chair with her arms folded and the look on her face that said "You're telling me a lot of bullshit and I know it, cos you're just like all the rest of them, dole scum, not willing to work."
So I shut up and shrugged and filled out the rest of the forms in silence biting on my tongue the urge to tell her she'd spelt "relocate" wrong on the form that she was filling in on my behalf.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Its a bit of a shocker hard it actually is in London, to find a pub with a telly and for it to have sky sports on.
walking about for three hours before admitting defeat is not my idea of fun. It was raining as well! At least from what everyones been saying it wasnt worth watching!
So what have I been up too? Not a lot. Spending about 40 quid that I dont really have in order to develop all 130 holiday pics. Job hunting... oooh remember the crazy lady in the Health Food Shop that Shall Forever Remain Nameless that I used to work in on Sundays? The one who seemed to be convinced that I could work without a lunchbreak and that a packet of seeds from the shop would be a fulfilling snack?
She offered me a job. I turned it down. I have no wish to be at the mercies of a madwoman. Applied for a few more things including a job for the summer on an uninhabited Island off of Ireland (try getting that out after you've had a drink or 6!) where you get to pee in a chemical loo, live without electricity and only get a shower once a week when the mailboat comes to take you to the mainland. (Well I thought it sounded exciting! Like a real Castaway!)
Anyway that turned me down due to lack of experience. Bastards.
I've applied for a few different temporary office jobs and also on Wednesday I go back on the good old Jobseekers. Whooo.
And I need to find 450 quid for my season ticket before the end of April.
Yeah! Any donations? You know where to come!

Tuesday, March 20, 2007






Skydiving pics are here!
They're here!
HERE!!!
Look at the FEAR!









Freefall!


















A different view from Rotorua!


















Yay! I lived to tell the tale and want to do it again!

I even forgive him for being a tease!

Sunday, March 18, 2007


Wheeee!!!
We won!

Perhaps our chances of staying up are not so bad after all!

have a kea as I'm excited!

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Hi! I'm back!
Did ya miss me? Huh? Huh?
Big thanks to BlogSitter for his "eventual" updating of my blog.
Man I loved NZ It was well worth the wait!
LA airport is a bit of a bitch though, next time I go its Hong Kong all the way!
After a 10 hour flight, the last thing you wanna do is have to queue up at immigration, surrounded by big scary men with machine guns, have a hell of a lot of fingerprints taken and a reading of your eyes, collect your suitcases, recheck them in and then go straight onto the next plane.
No thats totally put me off visiting LA for the near future!
Anyway I'm back in the good old UK, where marmite tastes like it ought to and I recognise nearly all the trees and I know the names of all the birds and places and do you know what the funniest thing of all was?
I missed the history.
In Wanganui we were treated to a "Historic Site" All the signs proudly announced this Historic Site and we eagerly looked for it.
And it turned out to be a pile of 150 year old bricks.
I'm a history snob I know! But you just take seeing all the old places here for granted! So for all these reasons and the fact that I dont actually like the hot weather I could never emigrate to NZ.
But! I'm back! From outer space! With the same look upon my face!
And what seemed like living the dream before hand, in quitting work to travel now seems like a bad move, remember the 10 months of living on the dole? Well it looks like it might be back.
Which is a bit of a fucker.
But! I shall remain hopeful and I dont even need to look for a job that keeps me in London anymore.
And! Whats best of all for you guys is I now have lots of time to post my holiday pictures and you guys are forced to look at them!
So! I present for your viewing pleasure, my set of bungy pics from the Queenstown site.
Please note the look of manic fear on the face!



































Sunday, March 11, 2007

And another! Teach me to go on holiday :)



I'm gonna bore you all to tears now with the tale of my skydive!!

We got to Rotorua on Monday fully intending to do our skydive the next day, I was so scared and couldnt sleep or eat breakfast, when we woke it was cloudy but we went off to the airfield anyway, filled in "our incase of death forms" chose our height and then got told that it was far too cloudy to jump so we should go home again and try again that afternoon.

That afternoon it rained... so no jump that day. The next day, after another sleepless and breakfastless night it was another cloudy day so we phoned in advance and we're told to try in the afternoon, so we made alternate plans and then phoned in the afternoon. No jump today at all, try again tomorrow, they said. Only problem was, that was the day we were supposed to catch a coach at 8am to get back to Auckland, so we re-arranged our travel and decided to stick about, thinking we'd be so pissed off if it turned to be a sunny day, and indeed how pissed we'd be if it turned into a cloudy day as this was our last attempt at a jump after our one in Franz Josef was cancelled. so not feeling very confident we actually managed to sleep!

And to our joy and fright we woke up to find not a cloud in the sky and a quick phone call confirmed that he jump was on!!!

so at 9am our time we were picked up by Kelly the Pilot and driven back out to the airfield, I decided to risk going higher after being so scared and having to wait around so long, so instead of doing the 9,000 foot jump I was gonna attempt the 12,000 feet one!!

I met Matt who was going to be my jumpmaster and Eric who was Emma's. "Dont worry." Matt Told me confidently after I told him how scared I was "This is my first jump too." Oh dear!!!!

So we were strapped up in our jump suits and harnesses and I asked Eric what the little baggy was that we was wearing.

" Oh thats the spare Parachute." I glanced at Emma worriedly and he smiled and then reassured us that it was just a life jacket. Kelly brought our plane down to land and He waved Emma on to the plane. I followed, looking for Matt who seemed to have disappeared..

So I climbed onto the Aeroplane, meeting Phil who was gonna be taking my pictures as we fell. Matt jumped on board and away we went. Matt instantly starting winding me up, making me look at how high we were out the window and the little dial on his wrist showing how many thousand feet we were up. I couldnt look out the window and was gazing up at the roof and he suddenly just pounced on me and i nearly jumped so high that I fell out the top of the aircraft!

" I wanna swap with you!" I told Emma, but it was too late, suddenly we were at 10,000 feet and I had to sit on Matts lap while he attached himself to me. He quickly went over the falling out procedure and then it was time to go! I started to protest, but he hustled me out the door and I was hanging there, still trying to convince him that I didnt want to jump when suddenly away we fell!!!

It was so scry for about 3 seconds, I cant even remember what happened, and then suddenly Phil was in front on me taking our picture and even though we was falling, it stopped being so scary! We fell to about 3,000 feet and then Phil dived away and Matt opened the chute and I was so relieved! And then the bugger decided to wind me up again.

"Lets go over here!" he said cheerily steerting our chute away from the landing site and towards the lake. And then he put the chute into a spin and we were hurtling to the ground and I screamed again and he told me the chute had failed!!! And then he righted it and started laughing at me, and I told him as soon as we got to the ground I was gonna hit him and he promised to behave!

The whole parachute bit was so awesome, you lose all perspective about how high you are and just have the most amazing views while they spin and go round corners nad whatever. And then we landed and I just wanted to go up again, higher this time!!!

But we had to hurry back to get our Coach and thats the essay!!

of our parachute jump!!!

pictures are being posted back to england as we speak!!
Another block of text from charbs!


Hi! (dunno if you got this email or not.. complying with instructions!!)currently in the glacier area, where tomorrow I plan on spending a day up a Glacier exploring all the ice caves and crevaces and stuff, have just spent two days in Queenstown, which is an absolutely awesome place, been white watr rafting, which is great and been luging on these things that were like a cross between a go-kart and a sledge!! I do have White water rafting pics to upload for you all, and I signed myself up to do the original bungy which is 43m high (smallest jump I've done so far!!) on the 1st when we get back down there. But it looks cool cos you get to be dunked head first in water!Also took a day trip to Milford Sound, which is possibly one of the most beautfiul places (and drives ever!) we got to go through rainforest and admire all these snowy mountains and see more LOTR scene locations and play with a Kea, which is about the worlds naughtiest parrot, they're about the size of a macaw but very fat and chunky, and very, very, very cheeky and playful (they're the ones you see on wildlife programmes, stripping cars of all their rubber and windscreen wipers)We took a cruise out of the bay and saw some dusky Dolhpins in the distance, very playful!I am also busy planning possibly the ultimate leap ever!!! but Its looking unlikey at the moment due to weather so I wont say any more.... After the two days we're spending here, and the day back in Queenstown, we're flying back to my friends in Wanganui, and then exploring the rest of the North Island.Cant believe our trips nearly over! I've loved every moment of it, seems like we've been here forever at times and then that we've hardly been here.