I would like…a kitten, and a trip to Paris. Thanks.

Kittens are, I have decided, the best thing in the world. I met one a few days ago for the first time, and despite it clawing my new dress (grr) and leaving scratchmarks on my shoulder, I thought it was the best thing ever! As soon as I move out I’m going to run along to the cat’s protection league and obtain one of the little critters for my very own.

Kitteh.

I’m back in the UK now, and missing my Kiwi buddies a lot! But I’m slowly getting round to seeing all the people I left behind for 3 months, which is equally as awesome. Hopefully seeing Mark and Lou this weekend, and then Becci and Jennie next weekend, and I can’t wait to go down to London and see all my beautiful WABs who I miss soooo much! I’m only back in the UK for the next 4 weeks unfortunately, so I have to cram all of this into a rather short space of time. Although I’m only going away for 5 weeks and then I’ll be back to carry on being depressed about unemployment and boredom and such things.

I am quite sad that next weekend will be the last time I’ll see Jennie for who-knows-how-long, as we are losing her once again to the people over the pond. Maybe I’ll be able to scrape together the money to visit her, if I ever manage to con someone into giving me a job. Then I can stop by Bar Harbour and see the lovely Danny at the same time! But for now I’ll have to be content with sitting around all day watching TV, reading, and laughing to myself each time one of our chickens makes a bid for freedom into my Mum’s flower beds. It sounds great, but trust me, it gets exceedingly dull. And we currently have no kitchen (parents decided ours needed a revamp) so we are cooking with a camping stove in the garage and there is furniture everywhere. Not even enough space for me to put my sewing machine anywhere! *sigh*

I am very happy that I came home to find a rather lovely boy with bright orange (sorry dear, it has gone a bit orange now) hair waiting for me. Going to have to cram in as many adventures as possible before I swan off cruising for 5 weeks (hey, a girl has to make some money at some point you know!) And the best thing ever is that two of my best friends are working with me this time. Becci for a two week cruise around the Baltic and Rachel for three weeks around the lovely Norway. And I flipping love Norway!

^_^

I think its time for me to watch more Desperate Housewives (I had no TV in NZ, ok?!) then fall asleep reading like I did last night. Fun times lol.

x

When it rains…it pours…

Its raining. A lot. I think my house might possibly wash away. I havn’t written a blog for a while, just generally been too busy/tired etc. But seeing as this is the umpteenth day we’ve had off due to bad weather, I thought I’d make the effort. Firstly, just to show I’m not kidding about the rain…compare this picture of the beautiful sunset the other day (with mountains) and now the weather today (mountains: obscured).

Nice weather.

Not-so-nice weather.

Aaand here is a close-up of the rivers of water running down our street!

Rivers.

But anyway thats enough complaining about the weather. Last Monday we went to Christchurch for the day as Ophelie needed to go anyway for her visa. It rained. We went to the aquarium which was awesome, got to see a Kiwi, which was even better! They are incredibly cute, and very awkward looking! After that we trundled around the (few) shops for a while before heading to a bigger shopping mall on the outskirts, where Leila and I spent most of the afternoon trying on clothes whilst Danny went to the cinema. Then some food shopping at Pack’n'save (yes – its as good as it sounds) and then home again. It was nice to get out of Kaikoura for a day!

Danny avoiding the rain in Christchurch.

I am a Kiwi.

What else has happened…Rowan has moved out, and another researcher, Christoph, has moved in! And another volunteer, Michelle, has arrived as well, so we have a pretty full house at the moment! We barely have enough chairs to gather around a laptop to watch True Blood in the evenings…!

Christoph is here to do some boat work, so as soon as the weather improves I should be able to get out on a boat and get some good experience of tracking whales with a hydrophone, photo-ID and all the other boaty things. Will need to buy some sea sickness tablets I think! But for the moment the weather is stopping that, not that I particularly want to go out when there are 4m swells anyway.

We went on the peninsula walk which was really nice. Well…we tried to, but got out of bed too late to do the entire walk, as it was high tide by the time we got past the seal colony, so couldn’t do the rest of the walk without getting wet feet. We saw some seals though, and found some swings on the way home to play with.

Swings.

We had a rather impromtuq (I had spelt that right but then Leila pressed buttons on my keyboard) night out the other night when Rowan decided he needed wingmen for his trip to the pub. I said I was going to have ONE drink, ended up having three pints and waking up the next day not remembering half of the photos I’d taken! But surprisingly didn’t have a hangover, which was nice as the weather was good enough to get some land-based research done.

I make a good wingman.

We also discovered some lovely grafitti in the toilets. Whoever did it can’t spell Jesus obviously!

Jeuse loves you!

I guess the nice thing about having a few days off is that it means I get to talk to Ed in the mornings as he finally has internet. Hadn’t really spoken to him for 3 weeks, so has been really nice the past 2 days to talk to him for a few hours each morning! He is going to meet me at the airport when I get home, I am excited ^^

I have been trying to do some sewing to give myself something to do. So far I fixed a skirt and sewed some random things onto it, turned a baggy tshirt into a fitted top, and now I’m working on turning the jeans that I ripped into a new Skirt! Should hopefully keep me busy while its raining…maybe if it lets up a bit I’ll be able to make it to the gym later…

Ducks outside the Indian restaurant.

I am going to head off now as I keep getting distracted, mainly by looking at cameras on the lomography website right meow ^^

Will try and write another post soon…although I won’t promise anything!

x

Who ate all the Tim Tams? Oh…

…that would be me! Although I’m not allowed to buy any more until next week (they are biscuits by the way). Last few days have been pretty cool. There have been lots of days up on #TheHill (we have made this into a Twitter trend) looking at sperm whales, maily Tiaki the resident male. Or Teriaki the drag queen whale as Danny likes to call him…

On The Hill.

There was a party a few days ago, someone in town was leaving (no idea who). Was a good party, probably had a bit too much vodka, as I got up in the morning and fell over, then made a sandwich, which I now can’t remember making (but I had a packed lunch, so must have). Then last night we went to a talk at the local movie theatre about the history of whaling. It was quite sad, but a really good talk. Today was a pretty long day doing land-based obs, we only really saw one whale, and the sea swell was about 2 metres, making it really difficult to spot and keep track of the whales. So we only ended up with just over one tape of data. Hopefully we’ll have better luck on Thursday! Driving home was interesting though, as there were a lot of bulls in the road. It was a bit like going on safari, but with just bulls!

Tiaki fluking.

I’ve been on two whale watching boat trips now. the first time was amazing, sunny weather, and we saw Tiaki the whale twice, then went to Barney’s rock (so-called because a whaler called Barney used to stand on top of it and direct his whaling boats towards the whales he saw) to see baby fur seals. Then we encountered a pod of a few hundred dusky dolphins, so all in all a great trip.

Duskies.

Yesterday’s outing wasn’t as good, there was quite a lot of swell so I ended up feeling a little sea sick. We were chasing Tiaki around for a while so only saw him on the surface once. Saw a lot of dolphins again though, which always makes me happy!

Volunteers, oh yes!

We get a day off tomorrow, as Ophelie is off to Christchurch. Will probably spend the day chilling out, hopefully talk to Ed on Skype, oh and go to the gym! Might also end up in the garden drinking Pimm’s in the afternoon if its a sunny day! Missing everyone at home, love you all! : ) xxx

I had a day off yesterday, so decided to walk up to the seal colony on the penisula. It was really warm, so a good day for a walk! I stupidly wore the wrong boots (which are no doubt going to be ruined by the end of this trip), but at least they had enough grip to climb about the rocks looking for starfish (didn’t find one – sad face). I did however chase a butterfly down the beach trying to get a photograph of it, and in doing so put my foot right in a rock pool. So had a bit of a wet foot for the rest of the walk! But I got my photos so was happy : )

Flutterby.

I then carried on walking to the seal colony, taking about a million photos along the way. Parts of the beach were really rocky, and the tide was out, so I got to peer into rock pools looking for exciting beasties (my favourite thing to do at the beach). Unfortunately the best thing I saw was a dead fish… *sigh* (not pictured – lol).

Rock pool.

Finally got to the seals, it was really cool as you could pretty much walk right up to them. Although you are supposed to stay 10m away (I MAY have gone slightly closer…). What really made me angry was when I saw a Japanese man throwing rocks at one of the seals to make it look at him so he could take a picture. I really wish I’d said something to him, or punched him in the face, either way.

Fur seal.

On the way back I decided to take what looked like a very short shortcut up a hill, to avoid walking round a bit of headland to get back to town. Turned out to be a very steep hill, followed by a climb over a fence and another steep hill. It was worth it eventually though for the view I got of Kaikoura. We might not have many sunny days left so I’m glad I went up there when I did! After limping back down into town (definitely wore the wrong shoes to clamber over rocks and up hills – I know this now), I went back to the house and found myself to be locked out. So I sat in the sun and read for two hours until Leila and Danny got back from The Hill.

White faced heron.

Today was cold. Really cold. Apparently its only going to get colder – hooray! We saw loads of dolphins playing in the water in South Bay, as well as the usual many sightings of Tiaki the sperm whale. We got home to find that someone had miraculously cleaned our kitchen, which was pretty amazing! (It was in a bit of a state before…) We decided to carry on the cleaning spree, so Leila tackled the bathroom, I scrubbed the kitchen floor and tidied the lounge, and Danny took on the washing up. Its much cleaner now, which makes me happy! Hopefully we can keep it that way : )

Tomorrow is my first day on one of the whale watch boats, hope the weather is ok! I’m sure I’ll take a million pictures and then blog about it. Right now though I need a shower, and then maybe an hour or two of playing Pokemon (yes I am THAT sad – or that cool, whichever way you see it!)

Goodnight!

x

I’m…WHERE?!

Seeing as I was SO good at keeping up with this blog before, thought I’d have another crack at it now that I’m some 11,000 miles away from most of you. Its my third day in New Zealand, my first was mostly spend wondering groggily around the centre of Christchurch (not wanting to venture too far away from the bus station in my jetlagged state). Ashamed to say I actually sat in Starbucks for a few hours in the afternoon just to kill some time! Then I got on the bus to Kaikoura, the (incredibly tiny) town I will be calling home for the next 3 months. The place is absolutely beautiful, which I guess makes up for the lack of…most things! When I arrived all my housemates were partying, which meant I had a pretty cool welcome (it involved toast and beer – not sure it could have been better!)

Beach at Kaikoura.

Today was my first day volunteering for the Sperm whale project (NB – that’s the species’ name, the project has nothing to do with whale sperm). At the moment we are doing land-based observations as the research boat is out of action. This pretty much involves tracking the whales from land, recording when they surface, and then how often they blow, until they fluke and dive again. Hopefully with a bit of practice they will get easier to spot, as its almost impossible to see them when there are no whale watching boats ganging up on them. So,  in short, I spent a day sat on top of a hill in the sunshine, not bad really!

Whale watching.

On the way back into town, we had to stop the car because of the immense cow (well…bulls actually) fight that was happening in the middle of the road. Actually had to back the car up to move out of the way haha! Thats how things roll in NZ ; )

Beach, I am on one.

Tonight my roomate Leila and I, and also Danny (both volunteers for the project) are going to an “open mic night” at one of the local bars (I use the term loosely because apparently there is only one band). Some of the other guys from the house might come as well, and Tom (a guy who works on one of the whale watching boats) said he might even play guitar if he goes! I only have $25 to last me until Monday, so can probably only afford 3 drinks, but its better than none! But anyway I’m off to get out of my pyjamas and into something more suitable for being out in public, and also to make dinner (mmm supernoodles). Miss everyone back home! Love.

xxx

Boredom leads to blogging.

I really am that bored. Thing is, I am actually supposed to be doing something. Putting things on Ebay to try and pay for the shoes I bought earlier (in my defense they were only £31.95 including postage when normally they are £50!). However I can’t remember what size the pair of trousers are that I’m putting on, and they are all the way in my brothers room sat on a chair. Its at LEAST 10m from my current location (slouching on my bed). So, I need to convince myself to move. It would be a better option that refreshing facebook and twitter every 2 minutes (which I have been doing for the last half an hour). Ugliesttattoos.com doesn’t even keep me entertained for that long now that I follow them on twitter and look at it more regularly. The Michael Jackson one yesterday really made me laugh ahahah! I have nothing against tattoos quite obviously, but WHY would you do that to yourself?! Or, at least find a good artist and save up a bit of extra money to get it done well?!

I think I’m starting to miss being a student. Not the fact that I got up late (still do really), actually had a social life (well yes, I do miss that quite substantially actually), or was living in one of my favourite cities (ok, maybe I miss that too). Nope I mean the actual studying. Yup. I’m sure if you took me back to this time last year, with PBLs in full swing and exams every 6-8 weeks, I would have said otherwise. But the problem is, I’m far too lazy to learn about things in my spare time. Occasionally I’ll see something zoology/biology related online or in the paper and I’ll read it, but thats really as far as it goes. When we got sent an email about a job doing iguana capture and relocation in Barbados the other day, I realised I miss all the animal-sciency stuff. So much so that I just checked out the vacancies at Colchester and Banham Zoos. Nothing that pays unfortunately : ( If I didn’t need the money so badly I’d quit selling shoes on a saturday and volunteer as an education officer at Banham Zoo *sigh* Still unsure if I want to do a PhD or not. Maybe I’ll have more of an idea after I go to New Zealand (if I ever manage to make it happen). Should have applied for the position in Cardigan Bay in Wales instead, would have been more realistic haha! Maybe next summer? Although I’d still like to spend a summer in Mull working on their whale watching tours. Gargh. I think I’m going to go see about those trousers now before I start thinking about this too much! Then its blatently time for more arrested development : ) GOODNIGHT!

x

The last week.

All of last week was pretty much just leading up to the weekend. I barely remember anything else that happened, days seem to be blurring together at the moment. The only way I really know what day it is is because I’m always at Clarks on a Saturday. Incidently I actually had fun at work on Saturday, as the tills broke so we couldn’t accept any credit card payments. I found it quite entertaining having to do everything manually. Think I was the only one though, everyone else was flapping and going >_< like it was the end of the world. Then I got on a bus to London to go to Bex’s 25th birthday party. It was really cool seeing Bex, Alun and Claire and meeting some of Bex’s other mates as well. Alun’s costume made me want to cry a little (see the pics on facebook and you’ll know why).

I also seem to have acquired myself one of those boyfriend people. I thought they were a myth, but apparently they exist! He’s very pretty, and is quite content if you give him a comic book/games console/bacon sandwich, so I don’t think he’ll take too much looking after ^^ His name is Ed. He came with me to Bex’s party, it was cool that he got to meet some more of my friends : ) We went shopping (wellll…window shopping/sleepwalking) on the Sunday. With my amazing sense of direction I managed to find both the Volcom and WESC shops *is awesome.* Shame I was so tired, I was a bit lazy and didn’t take many pictures. Next time I’m in London I’m going to be more photo crazy than a Japanese tourist on speed. That is my plan!

Immagonna go watch Arrested Development now and then die/fall asleep. Need to go to the gym more then I will have more energy to write pointless blogs that only about 4 people read! At least it gives me something to do…

x

Dear Jennie…

I havn’t written one of these for ages. Not sure why, just been otherwise occupied I guess. But Jennie is snowed in, AND has run out of milk, and I know she likes reading my ramblings : ) Trying to think what has happened and/or changed since I last wrote one. I’m working at Jessops, which I really like. Get to learn a bit more about cameras and photography, and get paid for it. Sounds good to me! Havn’t done TOO much to screw up so far…accidently exposed a whole roll of film paper on my second or third day (they are worth about £40 I think – oops), have sold a few people the wrong memory card (oops). Oh and the other day, whilst telling my boss how clumsy I am (which I’m sure he’s noticed) I knocked a whole load of batteries on the floor, then said “you should ask people if they are clumsy in interviews, you don’t want to employ people who are going to be throwing cameras down the stairs!”….thus making him think that I have done this. I actually havn’t. I just tend to look guilty even when I’m telling the truth. I then knocked some more batteries on the floor. Good times! I’m getting back into photography a bit more since working there which is good. Have my film camera back now, and got a flash for it the other day for 9p, pretty epic bargain if you ask me ^^

Mongrel camera.

In other news, my hamster is turning white. She didn’t bite me today, which was nice. She’s gone really fluffy for winter, and when I get her out she just sits in my hand and tries to burrow into it, its very cute.

Here she is eating fabric.

Also getting back into sewing. Maybe I’ll actually get good at making clothes? Made a rather awesome dress with some printed fabric with transformers on it. Although I have nowhere to wear it to haha, sad times. And now I’m making both my pixie costume for Bex’s birthday party next weekend, and also another dress as well. Should keep me busy on my day off tomorrow! The costume is by far my best effort yet, I might just wear it all the time, its THAT good. Really looking forward to going to London next weekend, should be ace : ) OH and I joined the gym, but havn’t been able to go because of all the snow. But keep eating mince pies thinking “its ok because I joined the gym” ahaha :/ I will go next week. Right I’m going to go and watch House now, and cut out more leaves for my pixie skirt.

Love.

x

I found myself wishing on the way home from work (well actually, whilst sitting on a bench next to a graveyard, in the dark, waiting for my lift) that I was sat on a sofa, drinking tea and watching awful Sunday afternoon TV with Becci and Jennie. However I have had enough tea today I think (3 cups). Had a good day at work despite feeling slightly useless due to lack of product knowledge. I now know slightly more about digital photo frames, and also know that most Sony compacts take the same batteries O_o  Yes. I am knowledgable. The only days I’m not working this week are Tuesday and Sunday, so at least I’ll be getting a slightly fatter paycheck come the end of December, so I can maybe buy half of my flights to New Zealand. I figure if I buy the flight to go out there, then I can start saving again for the flight back….makes sense right? Also need to find some way of keeping tattoo money separate. And also need to give Seb £100. Oops. And there’s this awesome Iron Fist bag with cupcakes on it…. ^_^ I think I’m going to make it my new years resolution to stop being so materialistic. I doubt I’ll stick to it, but at least I can try! Although selling stuff that I never wear on Ebay is helping, as I’m clearing a bit of space in my wardrobe (all the more space for new things…..). No one is getting Christmas presents from me this year. They will have to wait, and have post-Christmas presents! Because I won’t get paid now until Christmas eve and I have about £4 in my account…good times. I think my idea of having pic’n'mix for lunch was not a good one. I didn’t even have that much but I feel even worse now than I did before…urgh. That’ll teach me! And my mum kept me leftovers from Sunday lunch, I feel bad that I don’t want them because now I don’t feel well :/ oops. I’m going to shut up now and stop writing, might go on the Jessops website and swat up on camera knowledge….*sigh* yup I really have nothing better to do with my evening : (

x

Happy New Moon release day!

Me and Jennie are watching “hole in the wall.” She has never heard of it before. It makes for quite hilarious/awful viewing! We went to Brighton today. I booked my tattoo appointment (for July) so am now exceedingly poor. Apparently its going to take about 5 hours…ohhh pain! We then spent ages searching for a Wetherspoons, and ended up going to Yates’s instead. Then found the most AMAZING cupcake shop EVER. Seriously ^^ Later we’re going to see New Moon, after we make Twilight cookies hahaha. This is going to be a really short blog because I actually can’t be bothered haha, I am too mesmerised by the skintight silver costumes on hole in the wall! Last night we watched that new sitcom on BBC2, Miranda. We were expecting it to be awful and were surprised to find ourselves in fits of laughter! Shall be watching that next week….^^ Anyway I’m going to melt into Becci’s sofa now and annoy porky the cat whilst watching awful TV. BAI BAI!

x