In the Summertime.....

Hi all,

It’s been a while! Summer is well and truly here. We’ve have some fantastic British summer days and some not so fantastic British cloudy drizzly days. We have been so insanely busy! But that’s how it is over here in summer, being out and about with so many things to do, and being invited to so many things too…have got to cut down on spending!

I have been busy sport wise; I’ve been loving the cricket and hockey 7’s in England. There is something pleasant about being in England and playing Cricket, it’s nice to get away from the crowds and going to a beautiful open park with well established trees and bush and spend some time in the sun chasing a ball around. We have also been hauling ourselves out of bed too early (by our standards) to watch the All Blacks’ play on Saturday mornings…well worth it when we win though!

The week after we were in Berlin, we have had my parents come over for 2 weeks (start of June). They arrive tired with barely any sleep on the flight, and also arrived with a full suitcase of chips and biscuits from NZ! Hong Kong customs questioned why they were taking so much food towards the UK. It was interesting to see my parents’ initial reactions to life in London. They initially said that they could not believe how green the place was and how many brick houses there were here. We ended up going to Chinatown for dinner on the day they arrived, because my uncle arrived on the same day to visit his mate in Manchester. However, it was rush hour when we headed back after dinner. The look on dads face was classic when a guy squeezed into the tube next to him…I’m guessing he didn’t believe anyone could fit into that space! They had to learn quickly to hop on and off the tube very quickly too, else they would have been at the next tube stop on their own without realising it!

This gave us a chance to see more of London ourselves too. They got to see the usual London sights: Buckingham palace, Big Ben/Westminster, a ride on the London Eye, Tower of London, Hampton court, Thames boat ride, and we attempted to show them some vege markets….but we were horribly late and got lost. Their favourite place was Chinatown, where they hung out most of the time!

Bev's parents outside Westminster - Big Ben in the background

At Hampton Court with a dressed up lady

We then took them to Paris for a long weekend, because we wanted to show them that in a small amount of distance, there is a huge difference in Western cultures here, ie. Food, lifestyle, and language. We also wanted to show them another country too, as they had come such a long way. We took them to the usual tourist places including Eiffel tower, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, a French perfume shop, a boat ride on the Seine, Arc De Triomphe, and the Latin Quarter for dinner. We tried to convince them that French food was really top notch, but it was not to their tastes, a lot of the food was too creamy.

Us all at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower

Behind the shoulder of the portrait artist, drawing Bev's dad (sitting in background left of photo)

We ended up tiring them with massive walks to see sights, something that Jam and I have gotten use to. But we did have one relaxing morning in Montmarte in a courtyard of portrait artists. We soaked up the relaxing atmosphere, and while Jam and I got caricatures, Mum and Dad got a portrait done. Afterwards we enjoyed delicious crepes and an ice cream. Mum and Dad thought Paris was really beautiful, and enjoyed some of the quirky French characters. However, they did not enjoy Gypsies.

When we arrived back into London, my parents went up to visit my uncle in Manchester. When they got there, they discovered that the Chinatown was not as good as London, so they came back earlier. Overall, it was nice to have them here and show them a bit of our life in London.

Two weeks after my parents left, myself and a group of guys and gals form my hockey club went to Lille for a Hockey tournament, in France. All I got to say is: what goes on tour stays on tour, and that’s all I got to say about it…..nah, kidding. We were an invitational team of 29 teams - 27 were French, 1 Belgium team, and we were the only “English” team – and me, the only Southern Hemisphere person of the lot. A friend in our club in London is a French guy who belongs to a club in Lille, who organised us to go to his French club for the tournament. This was pretty exciting going on tour to another country, especially of one of a different language. It was a great laugh for both myself and the French people I bumped into because of the language barrier and we both were a novelty to each other. Personally it was the best trip I’d ever been on. There is something really fun about turning up to a foreign speaking country, playing your favourite sport, enjoying the atmosphere of the music and sun, a bit of dress up, and really teaming up to stick it to the foreigners! Lille was a bit different to Paris, it was hard to find someone who spoke English.

Tarzan with his modern day axe

Wimbledon
On a perfect Tuesday evening during the annual Wimbledon tennis tournament, we decided to check out what the excitement was all about. We headed in after work to get cheap tickets to watch a game on court 1. We enjoyed watching the quaint etiquette of the ball handlers and pomp and ceremony of the umpires. It was a fantastic afternoon to bask in the late sun, and enjoy a very Posh British event of strawberries and cream, and Pimms. It was very amusing that every steward/ticket person/souvenir shop worker/food outlet person had a very proper posh accent. We found this very amusing because Wimbledon is only 5 minutes down the road, and we found a population of posh people pretty much next door. We found it so convenient to travel to the event down the road, because it’s probably the only place/event we’ve managed to commute to that was well below the 45minute average mark.

Strawberries and cream whilst watching Wimbledon Tennis

A few weeks on, some more kiwi mates arrived to stay with us for a week. They had been doing Turkey, Italy and Greece for the last 3 months and were here to kick off his UK visa. Their introduction to the UK was quite funny: firstly the Monopoly pub crawl the day after they arrived. And 2ndly experience of what happens when you make eye contact with tube commuters – big butch dude says to his bull dog “what’s that guy staring at!?”. The pub crawl was organised by the TNT magazine, Kiwi/Aussie/Saffa (short for Sth Africa) travel magazine. We went around 10 pubs located on the British Monopoly board. Our kiwi mates and us dressed up as cops and robbers, and a dice. We were quite disappointed that not many others got dressed up and that we didn’t get any photos of us in the magazine! But it was a great day out. With a bit of kiwi ingenuity in my costume, I was mistaken many times for a real police officer! Haha, I think I missed my calling! I made a stack of go to jail cards, to which Jam had heaps of fun handing out, especially when we walked through a market, bumping into a guy selling pirated DVDs! Jam handed him a go to jail card, which he accepted surprisingly gracefully! LOL!

A force to be reckoned with!

We’ve had a few good BBQs since the weather has warmed up, learning the difficult art of coal BBQs! It’s a horrible memory of how much of a contrast winter is every time I spot my coat hanging on the back of the door (it’s so thick it can stand up by itself!), and how we had to armour up in gloves and a warm hat!

It’s also been nice waking up at 5 (every second week I have to do an early shift for my job) with full day light and still having light right up to 10pm…..WOOOHOO! An extra few hours of light to play with. You really enjoy going out to the parks in the evening….I never thought I’d enjoy going to a park so much before! But it’s because of the well established trees that make it, and also the open green spaces are a contrast to the concrete jungle we live in. Although we have posted on our blog for so long, the amount of daylight is starting to fade. It was at its peak at the end of June, but is still the middle of summer. We’ve been for a couple of walks to explore the greater Putney area and now have discovered how swanky Putney really is! We discovered Auckland waterfront like bars and restaurants in the area….and wow!

So as you can see we've been pretty busy! Will try and get our next blog out soon!
Lots of love
Bev and Jam

Beer garden Berlin

Beer Garden....mmmmm

Sooooo Berlin - as you can tell from the title, we discovered the German beer garden! Aw we so want to have one of our own! Think hot summers night, social hub, tables and chairs, relaxing outside under big established trees and stars, drinking nice German beer and eating good food - convinced? I hope so!

FRIDAY

We took Friday off work - the day began crazily early, at 4.00am! We had to walk to find a night bus to get us to the meeting point for our tour. We then travelled to Stansted airport (approx an hour out of London), then flew to Berlin. We arrived to a sweltering 30 degree heat and soaked every minute of it up - the weather was just perfect for the whole weekend, heaven for the flagging vitamin D levels.

We knew we had flown in to Germany immediately - as we saw a guy at the airport with one of those classic german moustaches - you know the ones that are greased and rubbed together at the ends to form a straight point! Wish we'd asked him for a photo with us!

Once in Berlin we were met by a bus, and we toured around Berlin on this for about 2.5hrs or so. In this time we went to the Olympic Stadium - where we learnt that it was actually Hitler who instigated the whole running through different countries with the Olympic torch thing!

Us at Berlin Stadium

Jam at the Berlin Wall

We also saw heaps of the Berlin wall, and were shown round a number of sights. However, given the ridiculous hour we had woken up, our tour guides lulling voice soon had me nodding off :o)

Feeling extremely tired (and hungry) we checked into our hotel room, and made plans with our kiwi friends (we had met them on our Paris trip and organised to come on this trip with them). We decided that all we could handle was finding the beer garden - given the gorgeous heat and weather. So we traded our London woollies - ie jeans and sweatshirts for shorts and t shirts and ventured into town. We started with a kebab nearby our hotel - and did you know that the Doner kebab was created by Germans?? There are heaps of turkish food shops in Germany, and we were mighty pleased to discover that food is really reasonably priced in Berlin - made a nice change from Londons atrociously overpriced slops.

It was so nice to relax in the sun at the beer garden, and after a beer and some nice cake (strawberries set in red jelly on top of a shortcake base) we had replenished our energy levels.
The beer garden is situated in 300 acres of park (half my parents farm!) and it was so nice walking through all the established trees - until we happened upon a naked guy showering -(think outdoor shower like at the beach - except no togs) haha yep, one side of the park is dedicated to nudey sun bathing - heterosexual, and the other side is nudey sunbathing homosexual - further up is family bbq section - not to be mixed up!

Any, once our eyes had recovered we carried on to see a few famous Berlin sites, including "Chick on a stick" - or Golden Angel (pictured below),

the Brandeburg gate(pictured below),

a Soviet Memorial (made by the Soviets before the Allies arrived in Berlin at the end of WWII, and the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (pictured below).

We then decided after all that walking it was time to have some dinner, and a good opportunity to try the German sausage - or worst (pictured below left - Bev ordered a supposed meat loaf - which just turned out to be a ham steak!).

SATURDAY

The next morning after sleeping like babies, we went on a Bunker tour, which was located at the underground station closest to our hotel - very handy. It was really interesting to learn the history (as both Bev and I are very unhistoried), and I think the most interesting bit was that this wasn't from the Jewish perspective - the bunkers were made for nazi's to hide in from the bombings. I could talk about this for ages, but it was pretty interesting! Also learning how much the Germans measured - to work out how many people they could fit seated on stools in one room they worked out that the average length of the seated persons bum to knee length is 54cm.

After this we travelled to the Jewish museum -which I found incredibly interesting/moving. It had heaps of stories about Jewish families and random facts about them and their families trials and tribulations, and the most sobering of all - how many out of their family survived.

After this we headed into the centre for some lunch, and found a nice restaurant near to some monuments we wanted to see. From here we decided to try and find a tea house that our guide had pointed out on our bus tour, and successfully found it. This was very relaxing, it was turkish styles - so everyone sat on the floor on cushions and totally veged out for an hour or so.

(see picture evidence below)

The Berliner Dom (Church)

After this refreshing break we went and saw the Berliner Dom(see above) - a really cool Cathedral, then checked out the Reichstag(see below) - very cool parliament building with an awesome glass dome at the top, which you can walk up and get a nice view of the city.

The Reichstag - Parliament building with dome at the top

Overly enthusiastic Pretzel seller - Bev and I totally wet our selves laughing at this guy for ages! (still didn't buy a pretzel from him though - they taste yuck!)

At the top of the dome, you can lie down and look out the hole at the top at the sky - very relaxing especially when you have walked 10km in one day.....zzzzzzzz!

Bev and I at the top of the Reichstag dome

From here we walked back to the Beer garden

The four of us gaining a second wind thinking about the beer garden and a yummy dinner

for a relaxing evening of more German beer, yummy as pizza's made on a kind of naan bread and half a marinated chicken mmmmm! Yum.

Bev and Corey

The two Suzanne's (we hadn't meant to be name, hair colour and clothes colour co-ordinating!)

An attempt at capturing the awesome atmosphere in the beer garden!

On our way back to the hotel from here were saw a movie set that had been set up around the Chick on a stick - they had film crew and big commercial lights all set up - our tour guide said that a lot of movies get filmed in Berlin, because it can look like London, and more modern cities all in the one location. (see picture below)

SUNDAY
On Sunday, our feet were nearly ready to drop off, so it was a perfect time to go on a bike tire of Berlin. This is probably the second most highlight of the Berlin trip (after the beer garden), as again the weather was great, it was so relaxing riding around a flat city - and you can get everywhere so much faster on a bike than you can walking! We worked out that we had walked at least 10km the previous day - so no wonder our legs weren't working anymore!
We had this really cool tour guide on our bike ride - he was a german guy that had spent a few years in America, so he had the whole Californian beach bum thing going on, but was extremely good at relaxing and entertaining. Our favourite bit was his descriptions of what the Soviets decided to do with East Germany. He always gave two options for us to choose from. Option number 1 (this would always be something sensible) and Option number 2 - blow it up and concrete it over.....which one do you think the Soviets chose....Option number 2!

After this we had to quickly make our way back to our hotel to meet our tour group to go to the airport and fly back to London.

So overall what did we think of Berlin?

Berlin was really cool - it is the first city (that I Jam) actually thought - "I could live here" - after talking to my dad about this he wonders that is because my paternal great grandparents were from Germany/Poland and perhaps it is one of those random sensing where your roots are from moments - so am not sure??
We really like the size of Berlin - 3 million people, meant that there weren't the huge London crowds etc. Lots of old monuments mixed with new buildings, and cheap food. Not to mention the weather and the beer garden!!

What random things can we mention about it?
They have these really cool little men as symbols for the pedestrian crossing lights in Berlin
We found the Germans extremely friendly, we were asked if we needed help no less than three times when Germans saw us stumped looking at the map - pretty impressive considering this hasn't happened in any of the other countries we have been to - Egypt, Netherlands and Paris.

We found that the Germans weren't very eager to speak English to us - perhaps even more reluctant than the French, however we also found that a lot of them couldn't speak very much English anyway - a stark contrast to the Dutch who happily flicked between the two languages for us, and the French who are happy to if you try some French first - perhaps the Germans would have like us to try speaking in German first??

The only downside of Berlin is that it is a swamp - it therefore has bad swampy smells that you get a hint of every now and then - but at least it has a natural excuse for bad smells - London just smells!

To keep Berlin free of swamp water, it has heaps of unsightly above ground water pipes - really strange.

The Germans love David Hasslehoff - he is more famous in Germany for his singing than his role in Baywatch haha!

Berlin is basically bankrupt (hence the reasonable price of food) - it is still recovering from the wars, and the inequality that was created between East and West Berlin. And because of the East-West split that Berlin had, there is no real centre to the city as there is two of everything ie two town halls etc.

Anyway thats about all there is to say about that! Now we just have to catch you up on our 2nd Paris trip - watch this space!
Lots of Love
Jam and Bev

Dossing Kiwis

Hey Everyone,
Sorry for being so crap and not writing blogs more often - it's not for the lack of stuff to write about! It is merely just having the time to jot them down!
The few months have been extremely full on (so different from the first few months we spent here).
As we already briefly mentioned before, our Kiwi friends who had been in China came to doss (sleep on our couch - there's a special word for it cos so many kiwis and aussies do it here) at our house. After a week Mark had to head back to NZ to get his visa sorted, so we just had Mess staying. It was so nice having another kiwi friend to do things with - esp when she is your best girlfriend from home! Being the perfect house guest she even had dinner ready for us when we came home from work - what a dream! It was nice watching her be excited about the things that we had been excited about when we first got here, and also help her with the hard bits that we had been through too.

Mark is now back from NZ, and now have a flat all set up. We hope to do heaps more with these guys - it makes such a huge difference to how you enjoy a place when you can share your experiences with good friends.

Land of the Giants

Bev at Schiphol Airport - Amsterdam

On Thursday evening we left London City airport – a small airport only minutes from our workplaces, and stress free compared to Heathrow! We flew into Amsterdam, all excited looking down on the Canals and seeing the beach coastline….and thinking that we were going to land at an airport under sea level! The first thing we noticed was how tall everyone was - yep we'd obviously flown in to the right country :o)

We then noticed that people don’t know how to queue as well compared to the British, as we had to wait for nearly an hour in a disorganised line/mingling groups for our free buses to the hotel. We also noticed on arrival that it stayed light for at least another hour later than London - apparently it doesn't get dark until 11pm in the height of summer - perhaps we should move there!!!

Friday was our first big day out in Amsterdam. The weather was awesome, hot and blue skies. We met with Jam’s good friend from Holland, Naomi, who showed us around and introduced us to some of the most finest bread, cheese and Dutch foods…unlike the Egypt trip, we must of put on 20kg! We checked out Anne Frank’s house (a bit of a sombre experience) and walked down the small canalled streets to enjoy a drink in the sun and tried some yum as Dutch pastries.

We then walked all the way to Van Gogh’s museum to decide not to go in because it wasn’t really a must see for us for the price. We then met another of Jam’s friends from her trip to South Africa in 1999 for a catch up and went for a Canal boat ride, along with Naomi.

Us on the Canal boat ride

Cool old houses built really close together seen from canal boat ride - in Amsterdam

Pretty canal in Amsterdam

Naomi and Jam on the canal boat ride

Enjoying the sun, Jam and Naomi relaxing by the canal

We then checked out some tourist shops,

Jam trying out some Clogs for size - think they're a little big!

bought some cheap sunnies, and then checked out the Red light District. We then settled down in the sun to try some white beer (with the must-have 2 fingers of froth), and tried some Amsterdam old cheese with yum as croquets! We later went to dine out at a quirky restaurant that was called and themed “mums”. They had mismatching plates and cutlery and they had pictures of 100’s of mums decorating the walls.

We travelled via a double-decker train to stay the night in Utrecht. They have very interesting flats in Holland. Because of the population size (about 16 million in a country about the size of NZ), they need to make do with the little space they have. We noticed that the stairs were pretty vertical, like climbing a ladder! In the flat we stayed in, the shower was in the kitchen!

Saturday was a big day out to see the country side of Holland. The weather was again fantastic but even hotter. By left-hand drive car (so weird going the opposite way around round-abouts) we made our way to Keukenhof, a massive park and fields of tulips and other flowers. It was so relaxing in the car seeing the country side of water ways, green paddocks with good conditioned cows and spring lambs, windmills, wind turbines, families of white swans and vertical roads that let canal boats thru!(at one point we were stopped at traffic lights while the road/bridge opened up for some boats to go through). It was amazing seeing the array of saturated colours at the tulip fields, but because of the weather and holidays it was chocka with people!

Road opening up to let boats through on the canal

Gorgeous daffidols and tulips at Keukonhof

Naomi and Jam mocking people who take silly photos amongst the flowers

Endless fields of vibrant red tulips

Classic dutch windmill amongst the tulips

Bev having a cheezy photo amongst the tulips

Hanging out at the beach

We then headed to the beach nearby for a quick look; it’s the first sand beach we have seen since being here! We then went back to Naomi's flat in Wageningen - so interesting to see how students live in another country! Wageningen is such a cute little town/city, very like Palmerston North! Naomis flat was just like any student flat in Palmy, except it was a town house, with vertical stairs! Naomis room was the coolest though, because she had suspended a double bed from the ceiling - a bit like staying in a tree hut, enabling her to have a couch positioned under the bed creating a lounge facility in her room to entertain guests :o) Don't get us started on her crocodile collection!

Sunday was another big day out in the awesome sunshine. This time we headed to the Primate zoo. This was an extremely cool primate zoo as there were no real barriers between you and the animals – so it felt like they weren’t caged in any way. The highlight was little squirrel monkeys who you could actually walk amongst, as they zapped to and fro in the surrounding trees, often scampering right in front of you!

After a day at the zoo, Naomi organised for us to borrow some bikes from her friends, and we rode for about 20mins to a memorial, in remebrance of the soldiers lost in World War II (I think, much like ANZAC day). We then rode back to Naomis flat and went out to a friendly student pub for a few drinks, to listen to a live dutch band.

Jam and Bev riding dutch bikes - crazy kiwi drivers!(It doesn't help matters when the seat is too high so you can't touch the ground!)

The memorial service

Naomi and Jam sampling the Dutch version of Fish and Chips - Sausages and Chips - with curry sauce and mayonaise on your chips.

The next day, Monday (another fantastic day of blue skies!) was a day the Dutch celebrated freedom, following on from the memorial the night before. To celebrate at 12 a big festival started - much like the big day out, but for all ages, and all genres of dutch music. This was all held in Wageningen - town centre. Very cool and lots to see! Unfortunately however we were only able to see a bit of this as we had to catch a train back to Amsterdam to fly out - this meant we missed the parade of WWII vehicles amongst other things.

A couple of random things we noticed/found out about Holland:

Everyone speaks both Dutch and English, and in a matter of seconds can switch between the two in an un-arrogant fashion! We totally loved this because no matter where we were everyone was happy to help us, and could speak our language - unlike in Paris where you have to try speaking (your bad attemps at) French first. However, we did find it hard that when hanging around Dutch people, they all speak in Dutch by default, even though they are around english speakers. It was quite funny that a couple of times people spoke to Jam in Dutch, assuming that she was a local - perhaps it was the blonde hair? Everyone is blonde!

We loved how friendly everyone was - you don't realise how sterile and unfriendly London is, and how used to this you get, until you go somewhere and people that you sit next to on a bus or train start chatting to you! The effect this has on you is astounding - it totally made Jam homesick, and just reminded us what everyone says about kiwis and visiting NZ!

We found it really relaxing spending time surrounded by green, open, flat, paddocks like NZ.

Guys are fined for peeing in the street - so for festivals they have portable (open), urinals!

Their toilets are the same looking ie a seat with a flush box, however on closer inspection they are different as the bottom of the toilet is not all water - when you do your business, it lands on a shelf with no water, and this only moves when you flush into a small area of water at the front of the toilet (not the back u bend we're used to). This means no splash back (yay), but more smelly (bad) and you get a first hand idea at how much you have produced (also bad).

Anyway moving right along.............................

We want to thank Naomi our awesome friend and tourist guide for making our travel easy and fun. The Dutch have the yummiest cheeses ever!

Mmmm dutch cheese

Midget Golf anyone?

Humming along

Hey Everyone,

Unfortunately we have been really busy since we got back from Egypt, but thought we would quickly update you on what we have been doing since arriving back.

We found it really hard getting back into work mode after being in Egypt for 9 days. It was nice to get our stomachs back to normal, and eating food that we knew was safe and hygienic - by western standards to eat! We found it especially hard being back since the week after we arrived back from the soaring 40 degree Egyptian days, it decided to snow in London!!! In April!!! After all those really butt-freezing days we endured in Dec/Jan, it decides to finally snow in April - I give up honestly! But in all honesty, we found this quite cool - especially since it only lasted a couple of hours and then it was all over.

The exciting part about finishing one holiday, is that you come home and immediately start planning the next! I think this has become Bev and my survival strategy for staying over here, instead of buckling and heading home to NZ - well it has at least kept us optimistic and got us through a year of winters. We decided with Mark and Dee that our next big trip should be to Russia and Finland, and we were all very excited to start booking flights etc when Bev's parents finally made up their mind and decided to book a trip over to see us. So unfortunately we have pulled out of the Russia/Finland trip, as we couldn't afford that trip and to do some sightseeing with the inlaws (although we hope to go at another stage), and we really want to show Bev's parents a good time over here. We are quite excited that they have made the plunge and decided to come, and are trying to think of cool places that we can show them in the two weeks that they have.

Whilst we were away in Egypt, our kiwi friends, who had just begun their OE got a handbag stolen and lost all of their passports, money etc. This put a major damper on their travelling (as it would!), so they decided that they would come and set up camp in the UK instead - much to our pleasure! So they booked a flight to London, and have been dossing in our lounge ever since! It is so nice having some kiwi friends from home here, great to go out for dinner and drinks and commiserate about not being in NZ, comparing travelling experiences and how nobody understands our accents etc. They were especially jaded by the non-english speaking countries - having experienced a totally different outcome to that of our small trips.

On the 29th April, a little birdy had a birthday! Bev and I took the day off work - I totally recommend not going to work on your birthday! Bev suprised me with a trip to the London Zoo - it was such a great day (although the weather only just managed to come to the party!). We saw Toucans, Flamingos, Pelicans and Hummingbirds (amongst everything else)-totally amazing. We then went out for dinner with our kiwi friends to an Indian restaurant - a great day. However the fun doesn't stop there, as for my present, Bev bought me a voucher for a test drive in a Ferrari! So cool - I can't wait to use the voucher! Will have to book this for some time soon.

Anyway that's about it for now

Jam and Bev

Blimmin Hec

I chose this title for this blog, because this last week, on 1st May, my grandfather past away, at the age of 80. Friends of my popa called him Hec (his name was Alexander, shortened to Alec, and Hec), and as kids, we joked about him being called "Blimmin Hec".

R.I.P Alexander Kenneth Pearson

20 April 1928 - 1 May 2008

When we decided to go on our OE, both Bevan and I acknowledged that our grandparents could possibly pass away while we did our OE. So in some ways we were prepared for this - well, we had at least thought about it.

In many ways I am grateful that my grandfather has been released from probably more than ten years of the tightening grip of Alzheimers, which was is an extremely cruel disease.


When someone dies, it brings it closer to home that we are mere mortal human beings. During that same week, a work mate of mine had received a phone, that dreaded phone call - at work, her parents had been holidaying in the Netherlands, and had driven to Brussels for the day, when her father died suddenly(I am still not sure what actually happened). But nobody can ever be prepared for one of those life changing calls.


The circle of life is a strange one, because whilst we mourn the loss of a loved one, I also know three couples that have had babies in the last week

I think the hardest bit for me has been that I haven't really been affected by the whole thing, because when you are on the other side of the world, you don't experience the emotion of your nana becoming a widow first hand, or your mother and uncle losing a much loved father. You don't see all the flowers that people send to the family - what's worse was I sent flowers to my nana, as if I was an onlooker, outside of the family circle.

Not to mention the funeral, you don't see the funeral sheet with a picture of your grandfather on it, with his birth date and date of passing. You don't see the 250 or so people that turned up to pay their respects to a person that has in some way touched their lives.



The weirdest thing of all, is that all of these people went to my grandfathers funeral, when even I didn't get to go. I think that the reality probably won't fully hit me until I go home to NZ again, and suddenly there will be someone missing from our family gatherings, and visits to nanas.

I don't know too much about my grandfathers life, however the thoughts I will carry with me about him will be long walks at the Mt, along the beach and around the Mt. Watching him slick his white hair using hair gel and a comb (my own father doesn't even use gel - I think this further added to the fascination).

As a child, Popa always used to get me to sit on the foot rest (a charming 1970's shade of calf poo yellow footrest I might add!) in front of his lazy-boy chair in the lounge, so that he could plait my hair. Popa was a quiet, conservative man, who provided a solid foundation for my nana. A very sporty man, he was heavily involved in golf, running fundraisers for the golf club, and I believe, back in the day, he was the kicker for the Waikato rugby league team. A mechanic by trade, we enjoyed playing with the tools in popa's garage, and rides in his ford escort van. As the only grandfather I have known (my other grandfather died before I was born), he'll always have a special place in my heart.

Rest in peace Popa
Jam and Bev