Jottings

Although technology is certainly a marvellous thing, you’ve got to hand it to the cultural philanthropists of the 19th century who established galleries and museums so the wider public could gain access to antiquities, artworks and knowledge only before available to the rich and learned class of people.

London is a playground for culture vultures with an almost limitless supply of things to see and do. It seems a criminal act to visit London and not squeeze in a visit, however short, to one of the cultural attractions. The hardest thing is picking which one.

My sister-in-law and I escaped for a trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum, known to its friends as the V & A. This is one of my favourite places to visit, full of arts, crafts and fashions in one of the most beautiful buildings in London. It also has the advantage of a wonderful Gothic cafeteria which gives a spot of lunch of a quick coffee a higher level of cache.

For a long time, my dream job was to be a wedding dress designer so naturally I wanted to visit the special exhibition at the V & A this trip. It was incredible to see how wedding attire has changed over the centuries but more alarmingly how the size of dresses and shoes has changed. I’m not sure I would have been that comfortable trussed up in a corset to make the minuscule waistlines of the 1800s although as wedding fashions go the extravagances people go to for their special wedding dress are eye-opening.

As a photographer you can learn so much about taking portraits by studying the painted portraits, so if I’d had more time I would have taken a spin around the competition entries for the Portrait Awards at the National Portrait Gallery. There are always so many intriguing representations of people to enjoy, including the winners of this years prize.

The best thing about London’s public galleries and museums is that they are all free to the public. Although you will pay for special exhibitions there is so much in permanent collections that you could spend a month in London and never have to pay to enjoy the millions of artifacts and art works on show.

It’s a marvel of ingenuity and engineering that I was able to send a short video home to @m_treanor of what I was seeing from the train window within seconds just using my iPhone. He then messaged back immediately with his response.

It wasn’t anything remarkable really, just a view from the window of something that had once been an everyday sight when we used to live in Oxfordshire. Obviously we’d have preferred them to be a real-time and not virtual shared experience but the act of sharing such mundane experiences, thoughts and asynchronous conversations that have bridged the miles with my nearest and dearest on this solo trip to the UK.

What’s even more remarkable is that the cost of communicating by text, instant, instant messaging and by video call was very inexpensive. It’s the efforts of @m_treanor and other ICT engineers like him that keep people across the world connected at the touch of a button. Not sure I give him enough credit for the wonderful things he really does.

That said unlike my parents in-law, my sister-in-law is not a huge fan of the FaceTime/Skype phenomena. It’s not that she’s a technological luddite but that she finds the virtual reality experience a bit unsettling. Her children, my nephews, have no such qualms and whose parting words were see you on FaceTime as they ran off into school after those embarrassing auntie good-bye hugs.

Thankfully my father has embraced the iPad and FaceTime as preferable to the traditional telephone. He is a man of a certain generation where phones are functional devices for conducting business not hanging out with his daughter on the other side of the globe.

New Zealand retailers and I have a love hate relationship. Mostly, I just love to hate them.

Even though logically I know that living in one of the most remote places in the developed world with only 4 million consumers makes it impossible to sustain markets like they can in larger countries of the world but it still drives me crazy that shopping generally, but specifically for clothes, books, shoes and electronic goods, is like being held to ransom until you buy either poor quality or pay a higher cost.

I am a bit embarrassed that I still buy most of my clothes and shoes overseas during trips. But elsewhere the choice is wider, quality better and with the kiwi dollar riding high it is cheaper than shopping in New Zealand. I know, not buying local is not helping the country’s economy but I can’t help myself.

It’s always the same on overseas trips. One bag out and two back. This trip was no exception and I feel I was particularly restrained to avoid temptation in some of my favourite shops in the UK.

Lots of overseas shopping opportunities have opened up for New Zealanders through online retailing. People not just ship to New Zealand but offer free delivery which can come in handy when you know exactly what you want and there is a low risk of needing to return goods. I think it says something when New Zealand post now offer an overseas shopping service for easier shopping overseas, although generally this is a hyper-expensive way of buying overseas.

The New Zealand Government is of course not happy about this, nor are the powers to be in the UK. We have had to stop sending physical gifts from New Zealand to the UK because people have to pay import duty for anything bought over $15 or gifts valued at over $36. It rather takes the shine of the giving of gifts when the recipient has to deal with UK customs to release their gift from you. Similarly if you order goods over a certain level into New Zealand you will have your parcels impounded until you pay the import duty.

It’s going to be interesting to see how the global economy evolves over the coming years. I can’t help but feel that it will ultimately end up a battle of trade agreements with consumers feeling the tightening of the noose of Government tax regimes because we are easier to penalise than global companies who develop ever more elaborate ways to dodge their taxation responsibilities.

Surrounded by evidence of my pilgrimage to replenish my underwear supplies, it didn’t seem an overly strange question to be asked “How was Marks and Spencer?”. “Umm, busy” was my slightly bemused reply. It was only the insight of another friend in this conversation that what I was actually being asked was how were the bassets?

I didn’t know which to be more bothered by. The fact that my friend couldn’t remember the names of the bassets or the fact that she would actually think I would name my dogs after Britain’s leading underwear supplier. But such is the nature of firm friendships is that you can forgive the fact that over time the details of our lives can become a little fuzzy but what remains strong is the loving connection that makes them still part of my life 20 years after we first met.

The downside of short trips back to the UK is that it’s impossible to meet up with all your long-standing friends, acquaintances and former colleagues. Shuttling across the country to snatch an hour here and there is exhausting and deeply socially unsatisfactory. This trip I plumped for staying in Hereford with my parents and London which is so readily accessible for my in-laws and my closest friends. From my perspective it worked really well although I still have some regret not making it to Oxford or North Yorkshire although these will definitely be on the cards for next time.

Facebook, Blogging and Twitter makes is possible to stay in touch on day-to-day happenings so reunions can pick up on the deep and meaningful parts of our lives. And even for those that don’t embrace social media, conversations with true friends pick up where you last left them as though the two years in between have melted away.

It’s a gigantic ask to make of friends and family to venture to New Zealand to see us but it’s always exciting to know when people are making plans to come visit. I’m hoping that my powers of persuasion that New Zealand  just a short hop from Australia or Bali may bring a few more people down south but that aside I’m pleased that others are looking to be pencilled in to stay over the next couple of years.

I may be a Londoner by birth but since I was very small it has never been my home. Instead I’ve roamed settling for a few years here and there, although London has been a constant feature in my life through family who live here or the 7 years I commuted in from Surrey and Oxfordshire to work.

For a long time I was completely out of love with London. The crowds, the crime and sheer enormity of the place made it so unappealing; it wasn’t until I visited in 2012 for the London Olympics that I fell in love with it all over again. Coming back for this trip I wondered whether the Olympic glow would have worn off but it hasn’t. Perhaps it’s the good weather but London feels vibrant and embracing once more.

Spotting all the familiar landmarks flying across London in the last minutes of my flight from New Zealand makes you realise how green London is. The birds-eye view showed large parks and green spaces that you might not otherwise be aware were there. Thanks to enlightened Georgians and Victorians in the 18th and 19th century, London has vast parks and gardens that breath natural life into the city although in the 21st century most Londoners are trapped in tightly squeezed hard landscape with no green space in sight although I am pretty sure they wouldn’t have to walk far to enjoy a garden, park or landscaped space.

Wandering through Hampstead Heath with my nephews is a far cry from roaming the country parks of Kaitoke but still a wonderful place to be with them.

Recharging my batteries over the last week has been a marvellous boost. It’s not until you slow down that you realise how unthinking life has become.

In this dash about and have it all world we live in finding time to sit back, relax and think seems incredibly hard to do. Like magpies, we’ve become distracted by all the bright and shiny objects that surround us, including the attention of other people that feeds our insatiable appetite to connect with other human beings.

Admittedly people with fingertip access to the world through our electronic gizmos may suffer most from this condition. When you combine with busy professional and personal lives it’s hardly surprising that we often feel emotionally, physically and intellectually depleted.

Professionally I have deep interest in what brings focus, clarity, creativity and compassion into people’s working lives. With neuroscience and psychology catching up with what ancient traditions have believed for centuries, recent thinking on leadership emphasises mindfulness and personal spirituality, meditation and yoga are the new armoury of the modern world.

If you think this sounds a bit “new age” and “woo-woo”, you’d be right. Although having a yoga mat and developing elastic-like properties are the symbolic of bringing equanimity into your life I find a basset hound and wielding a Nejiri Gama hand hoe can have a similar effect. Also sitting in beautiful garden, or indeed any quiet, can be as soothing than a yoga studio full of steaming bodies.

Tomorrow I return to the big smoke of London where it will be trickier to find a quiet spot than it is in sleepy Hereford but my energy replenished I feel ready for anything, even a spot of retail battle on Oxford Street.

At first my trip seemed like small speck on the horizon, then I arrived in the UK and it felt like I was standing on a hilltop looking out to a big view with limitless time to explore. Alas time is running out all of a sudden. London is calling again and I can faintly hear the howl of a basset hound across the globe.

It’s been a wonderfully relaxed time in Herefordshire. A few trips, limitless family time and plenty of inspiration for my garden at home. But I can’t kick back forever and I shall be soon returning to London for a full-on programme with friends and my in-laws. Not to mention the last fling to fill up my luggage.

It’s a fine balance between being with people and doing stuff together without exhausting everyone. Previous trips have been a bit fraught with lots of dashing about all over the country.  This time I’ve been more focused, two locations and acceptance that you can’t do it all. I feel extraordinarily blessed that so many friends are descending on London to meet up with me. The party atmosphere is already building as we swop messages about where to go, what to do and where to eat.

I am sure that the next week will gallop by.  No it is just a question of hanging on tight and enjoying the ride

Visiting gardens in the English National Garden Scheme  is enough to bring on an attack of horticultural obsequiousness. As much as I can admire the gardens of others it’s hard not to feel completely idiotic in the company of learned hardy planters. Luckily I could find sanctuary in the tea tent.

Hard to know if it’s all the latin names that send me into a spin or the ease at which proper gardeners talk of planting combinations. I find myself admiring the fact there is not a weed in sight.

It’s like receiving cold water treatment walking around my parents garden and admiring proper gardening. Makes me realise how far I have to go. I console myself with the facts. My step mother has gardened for – let’s just say – a very long time. She spends as much time tending the garden as a workaholic overachiever spends at work and her attention to detail is laser-like. The odds are stacked against me but I’m determined to push on.

With some gardening heavy weights on standby for when I return, blokes built like rugby players, we’re going to wield their shovels to overhaul our low maintenance garden into something manageable but with more floral character. I’ve been taking notes, photographs and trawling New Zealand nurseries online to create a wish list of plants that shall grace my acres this growing season.

I’ve learned a few things this trip that now I think about are plainly obvious. To start with, more plants, I’ve been too cautious so far. Also, less varieties and bigger blocks of planting. When you have a garden that spreads as widely as ours you need to aim for impact not intricacy. The biggest realisation is the shelter belt hedge I’ve been umming and ahhing about needs installing if anything in our garden is going to survive the pounding of Wellington winds.  Oh, and before I forget, more climbers. Roses, clematis and honeysuckles and to heck with worrying about them invading the spouting (that’s guttering to those reading this in the UK).

The sad reality is that if I lived  a little closer I’d probably have a garden filled with plants propagated by my step-mother and shaped by her expert hand. But no sense in lamenting what you can’t have. Best to dream on instead.

Sitting by the little pond in my parents garden last night reading was a near perfect moment until it a touch of solo holiday guilt overwhelmed me knowing that my New Zealand family and friends were down under with the dark and cold.

Separation from family and long-time friends is the toughest part of being an ex-pat so trips back the UK are short but precious moments. Shared experiences become more special, almost sacred. Just sitting chatting over a cup of tea takes on greater significance because you are mindful of the scarce moment.

The summer and winter solstice are such defining points in the year. It gave me some comfort knowing that while I was spending the longest day of the year with my folks, my long-suffering husband was enduring the shortest on his own. It is even better knowing that from here on in New Zealand we have the best of the year ahead of us. Longer and warmer days.

My dream life would be able to live a life chasing the longest day. Six months in the northern hemisphere and the remaining six down south. That way I could drop winter from my calendar and revel in the warm seasons of hope, relish and bounty.

For now, I must embrace this northern summer and think warm thoughts for all my loved ones who are I hope cosy and warm in front of the fire.