2010 Christmas letter: FAIL. And I have bought way more Christmas cards this year than I have sent. So I’ll have to resort to blogging to send you all my best wishes for a warm, safe, relaxing and well-fed Christmas, and an exciting and happy New Year.
For Xmas Day Mum and Dad and I are having a looooong lunch at Dad’s place in Paekakariki. There may be tennis, there may be swimming. There will certainly be roast portk, and Mum’s famous Christmas cake! I’m doing family stuff until 3 January, when I will be surfacing in Wellington for general catchups.
Will be having drinks in the evening of 4 January, somewhere in the sun. If I haven't already gotten in touch, you're still invited. Text me for details.
At work, I have a French keyboard on my computer, and on my personal laptop I have a New Zealand English one. The difference is that the numbers and symbols are reversed, but also some key letters: the W and Z, the Q and A, and the M and comma. I know I’ve been working too hard when after five days on holiday, I type the above sentence.
It’s hard being an expat. No matter how much I love living in Paris - and you’d better believe I do - on some level, I miss New Zealand every single day. It’s either being conscious of what my adopted home lacks (decent coffee, a beach within 200 kms, an outdoor washing line) or a lower-level feeling of displacement, the Ford Prefect effect of being precisely on the other side of the planet from the country I grew up in, my family, and most of my oldest friends. Sometimes you just want to go ‘Home’.
And then where is home? Wellington, where I was born and grew up? Or Auckland where I spent 7 years, got my career off the ground, and had my most significant relationship to date?
I say this not so that you feel sorry for me, but so you can better appreciate the overflowing of warmth and yes, love, that I felt first of all touching down in Auckland – and then six days later, flying into Wellington. Travel is surreal – for only 1200 euros, you too can travel all the way from the behemoth that is Charles de Gaulle airport to the compact, welcoming space that is Wellington. I looked at the airport bus timetable, but after four months, I didn’t want to wait another 30 minutes. I jumped into a taxi to Dad’s office at the Railway Station.
I gratefully left my suitcase there and went off for lunch. On the brief walk from the Railway Station to the waterfront, I had my answer. The wind tugging my hair in different directions, the churn of the waves, the embrace of the hills. I was home.
Lunch at Foxglove with Jofish and Erinp - this is the latest restaurant to open up on the waterfront, and so is a bit more young and edgy than the old classics of Shed 5 or Dockside. The décor is very funky and the wait staff are young and pretty. But the menu looked great, and the food was really pretty good. I had venison (yum) and the chocolate fondant (I just had to see if they could pull it off – very nearly!). They were forthcoming with extra brioche for our order of foie gras, even if they gave us Turkish flat bread by mistake first. However, another Turkish mistake was the “fluid Turkish Delight” served with the lemon and lime tart. Oh my god. Why would you put Turkish Delight in a blender? Why? Why? The tart was lovely, but avoid the red glue smeared across the plate.
On my way back to the Railway Station, having spent four hours in Wellington and three of them in a restaurant, I ran into the second person I knew. Wellington is just a village, isn’t it? Yes, but it’s my village.
Am staying with my Dad out in Paekakariki this week. For those of you not from round here, it’s a small settlement about 50 minutes up the coast by train. He picked the house because you can see the sea from the upstairs bedroom. It’s a long, low bungalow with a master bedroom built on top. If I open the window of my room, I can hear the sea too.
After the excitement of the Heaphy (yes I know, it’s coming), I’m taking a break from running around, and just chilling out up here before Christmas. Yesterday we did the grocery shopping, avoiding the crowds. I had a nap in the conservatory, basking in the welcome sun, and then we went for a walk down by the beach and an icecream (Kapiti, naturellement).
Today we dashed across, defying the gusty winds and the grey skies, for a quick swim before lunch. The cold and slush, the crowded metro, and more importantly my work projects, all seem about a million miles away. How am I going to get on a plane in two weeks time? This and other topics are very firmly at the back of my mind.
Yes, I know you’re all dying to hear the full story of the Heaphy track, (photos here) but I have a few other things to get off my to-blog list first.
So, Auckland. Ah, sticky, humid Auckland, how I love thee. I spent most of the week in a jet-lagged daze, drifting around between coffees, lunches and dinners. Thanks to everyone who made time to catch up, and apologies to everyone I didn’t get around to.
I did take a bit of time out from subsidizing the Auckland hospitality industry to check out the Outrageous Fortune exhibition at the Auckland Museum. The museum has had a bit of a makeover in recent years. They’ve built a big new section round the back to house temporary exhibitions, events, a shop and a café. But it doesn’t interfere with the glorious old façade, which doubles as a war memorial.
On the Wednesday I was up bright and early, but still not quite the first one through the door on the first day of the exhibition, which runs until May. The exhibition is fantastic if you’re an OF fan, with lots of paraphernalia and trivia from the series. Sadly I am very behind in my viewing, only partway through season four. I knew I shouldn’t have read the season six storyboard, but I just couldn’t help myself. Don’t worry, if you’re also a fan, no spoilers here. But I think Dad was right when he said it had jumped the shark a bit towards the end. Sigh. But the exhibition did remind me of everything that was great about the series. Hoochie Mama outfits, Cheryl’s makeup routine, even Munter’s van! And copious clips from the series.
The double highlight was being able to stand in the actual set of the actual West house family lounge, and the 3D movie made especially for the exhibition. Hilarious.
The day before, on a trip out to Te Atatu for coffee, we made a detour past the actual house used for the exterior shots. Do you sense a theme emerging here?
Since I got back, everyone has been telling me how French I look. I think this is largely down to a leopard-print scarf I’ve been wearing. Ah-hah, well, don’t worry, Parisian style hasn’t gone to my head. In fact I found the scarf the first day I was back in NZ, as we were walking into town past the Victoria Park Market. I picked it up off the pavement and Claire instructed me in the correct way to tie it around my neck. Voila! Instant style – not so much French as my little Cheryl West tribute.
Dinner at the Engine Room with Claire, in Northcote. What a great little place. All fresh food and the chef really knows what he’s doing. Not quite sure why I ordered the steak frites, when I can get that any time in Paris. But I guess I wanted to see what a New Zealand version was like. Huge, is the answer. But very tasty.
Special jet lag massage at the East Day Spa – it didn’t help sort out the sleep patterns, but it did make me feel a lot better. Just a tip, in case you were wondering, having your eyebrows threaded is not less painful than having them waxed – it’s just a different sort of pain. A bit like flossing with broken glass.
You'll be pleased to hear there are no photos of this.
Well the flight home itself was so smooth as to be unremarkable, and almost painless. The great thing about going this early before Xmas is that Charles de Gaulle felt deserted rather than chaotic. I smiled sweetly at the woman on the counter and she gave me a forward row seat, meaning heaps of legroom and no-one dropping their seatback in my face.
The inflight entertainment on the Airbus from Paris-Singapore is fantastic. Lots of classic movies as well as new releases, and you can make your own playlist from hundreds of CDs. But then I was so spoilt that the piddly selection on Singapore-Auckland seemed miserly. What do you mean only 10 channels of movies? And I can’t start watching them when I want?
Amazing how quickly 12 hours passes by the time they feed you, you watch two or three movies and doze off for a bit, then they feed you again. The food was pretty good, I just made sure to avoid the chicken after my first homecoming experience ended spectacularly with an oxygen mask and a wheelchair.
The Paris-Singapore flight was a bit early getting in, so rather than sprinting for the next plane, I had the better part of two hours to chill out, check out the butterfly garden, and most importantly, have a shower. Oh blessed hot water.
I got crammed into a middle row middle seat for the second leg, which was annoying. I appealed to the stewardess for an upgrade if possible, pleading a bung knee. But the polar fleece and tramping shoes didn’t exactly put me at an advantage, so there was nothing doing..
Movies watched:
Never Let Me Go – am obsessed with this story. They did a good job of it, but I almost wish they’d cast someone less well-known as Ruth. Keira just played Keira really. Andrew Garfield was extraordinary – his eyes are so expressive. Heartbreaking.
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice - yes I know, but I needed something trashy to cheer me up. I lasted approximately two minutes – the prologue was just unbelievably, howlingly bad that I abandoned ship and switched to…
Transformers – ok, I was expecting this to be slightly better, and I got about halfway through it, but then the jive-talking robot showed up and I started having Jar-Jar Binks flashbacks. Woop Woop! Pull out!
In desperation, and needing an action fix, I resorted to Total Recall. Clunky, certainly, but I was loving the 80s vision of future dystopia – xray body scanners! Full screen video players that fit in a briefcase! And I was getting quite hooked by the twists and turns of the story – is he just delusional? Is he really a secret agent?? Also enjoying the shades of Matrix – go on Arnie, take the red pill! Just when the bad guys look like they might finally have the upper hand, and Arnie wrenches his arm free for the big fight scene… “This is your captain speaking. We will shortly be commencing our descent into Singapore. Please return your headsets to the cabin crew and return your seat backs to the upright position.” Noooooooo!!!
I have to say though, I don’t necessarily recommend youtubing ‘Total Recall ending’ when you’re whacked out on jetlag at 5am.
Music sampled: I think I’ll be picking up some of the following when I get back to France:
DD Smash and Dave Dobbyn were on the soundtrack for my kiwi childhood: Outlook for Thursday, Magic, Whaling. That classic, Slice of Heaven, to go with the Footrot Flats movie. Later, some bitter-sweet love stories: Loyal, Belle of the Ball, Naked. And so many other great songs. Over 30 years of making music and he can still turn out the perfect track.
Last time I flew into New Zealand, nearly two years ago now, I had ‘Welcome Home’ playing in my head. It might have been written for me, and a thousand other immigrants and expats – all the ache of living on the other side of the world, and the joy of coming home, crammed into a ballad under four minutes long. A love song for New Zealand.
Two years ago I got off the plane and walked up to the customs desk. The Pacific Island guy (they’re always Pacific Islanders) looked at my form, gave me a big smile, and said “Welcome home”. It was all I could do to hold back the waterworks.
This time as the plane touched down, just before midnight on Saturday night, owing to a misjudgement with the inflight entertainment system, I had Lady Gaga, Poker Face stuck in my head. 25 hours in transit and I was feeling a little zombied. I expected to feel a wave of exhilaration as the wheels touched down. The plane got lower and lower, and the wheels made contact. The plane swayed alarmingly to the right and to the left, as unstable as a 17 year old on Jim Beam and three inch stilettos. I stopped breathing, and then the plane regained balance, I started again. All I felt was relief.
I walked straight through duty-free and up to customs. Aussie and Kiwi passports this way. But if you had a new passport with the chip in it, you could go up to the new smart gates. And there was no queue. In my jetlagged state, I needed prompting to operate the machine, but as I took off my glasses and stood blearily in front of the camera scanning my features, I realized no-one was going to say ‘welcome home’.
Of course, getting met at the airport made me forget all about that. Claire the intrepid, picking me up in her very own car and driving me all the way into Auckland. I slept like the dead for five hours and dozed for a couple more. Yesterday I trailed around in a daze, too jetlagged even to tweet. First of all coffee with Aly at the Williamson – a real flat white. Glory glory halleluiah.
Brunch in Grey Lynn at the Richmond Road café, new since my last visit. Fantastic, exotic menu, but all I wanted was eggs benedict – with asparagus no less – and spirulina. Marvellous. Then pottering around the shops, including the luxurious, super-hip The Department Store, and then unwinding with an icecream on Takapuna Beach and a view of Rangitoto.
At this point the day was just about perfect, but it was about to get better. We had tickets for Glow, a carols service with a difference organized by St Pauls Church. I’d never been into the Vector Arena before – what a great venue. We had seats in the second row of the balcony, pretty close to the stage.
On arrival, we were given a glowstick – colour of our choice – and exhorted to not snap it before the countdown. The arena was nearly full to capacity, and so when they dropped the lights and the countdown began, the sight of 6000 glowsticks coming on at once was really quite impressive.
In my naïveté I was kind of hoping for ‘Let It Snow’ or ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’, but of course those fall on the secular side of the Christmas songbook. So instead we had O Come All Ye Faithful, and Joy To The World, at full rock concert volume. The style was very definitely Christian rock, with added brass section and 30-strong choir. Now, carols are one of my particular favourite aspects of Christmas, and I’m not a purist, as anyone who has been subjected to my Jimmy Smith / Nancy Wilson / McGarrigle family Xmas mix will testify. However, I’m not sure that there is room for a guitar solo in O Little Town of Bethlehem.
The musical programme was interspersed with readings from the Kiwi Bible: sample: “Mary got kind of pregnant, but not by the usual method. You see, God had something to do with it”. This was being flogged in front of the stage by a guy wearing gumboots, a black singlet and shorts. We had a World Vision promo, and a short film - The Christmas Story, told by little kids, with an Auckland beach standing in for the desert.
We were exhorted to stand up and sing, but the jet lag was starting to kick in big-time. At one point I found myself drifting off… and then Petra Bagust announced a very special guest. Claire said – it’s been top-secret, I wonder who it is? I got goosebumps. Well-known Auckland Kiwi musicians who are also committed and public Christians – I only had time to make a very short list before the one person on it walked on stage, and it was (drumroll please)… Dave Dobbyn.
He walked up to the mike, said a few words and then launched into a song. As he strummed the first chords, I found tears streaming down my cheeks, and I hugged Claire.
“Tonight I am feeling for you Under the state of a strange land You have sacrificed much to be here 'There but for grace' as I offer my hand”
“There’s a woman with her hands trembling Haere mai And she sings with a mountain’s memory Haere mai”
Forgive the somewhat shaky filming, but hang in there and you’ll see the Vector Arena lit up by 6000 glow sticks.
Welcome home indeed. Thank you Claire for a perfect day.
In case you've had your internet disabled for the last month, I'm going home for Xmas - yippee! So I'm pretty busy with the last pre-Xmas sprint before I get on a plane on Friday. Haven't got the head for writing, so here are a few photos to keep you all happy.
Stopped into the Kiwi pub night for a glass of red to warm me up on my way home. It did the trick, but wasn’t quite as nice as the glass of Brouilly I had on Tuesday night when a few of us went to a Finnish restaurant up in the 17th. While we were waiting for the restaurant to open, we stopped into a little place all decked out in red called Café Marcel, on rue des Dames. This is a tiny pocket of trendiness round the back of Place du Clichy, with way too many hip little restaurants. I am not swayed by trendiness, but when the menus look inviting and they have updated their décor in the last 10 years, I’m in.
Brouilly – look, I’m not name-dropping like I know anything about wine. In fact I have forgotten the names of 99% of wine I have ever drunk. But if you want one red-wine-drinking tip this winter – Brouilly. Trust me, it will reach the places other red wine can’t.
I’ve been caught out before, so now I always ring up to book my restaurants. I rang the Finnish place and he gave me instructions on how to get into the restaurant. I seem to have a blind spot where instructions are concerned – I just thought, yeah, yeah, I can find it no worries.
Hmm. From across the road all I could see was a boarded-up entrance with Café Lapon stenciled on it. Looked pretty dodgy. I glanced in the window of the jewellery shop next door, which was still open at 8pm – not unusual in Paris. The man in the shop caught my eye, and he was wearing an apron. Also not unusual when you run a jewellery shop, I suppose. But then I noticed a review of the restaurant on the window, and the internal stairs leading to the basement. And basically he had converted his basement into a restaurant, I suppose for when the jewellery is a bit slow – and hey, a man’s gotta eat, right?
He welcomed us in warmly – as it turned out, we were the only customers all evening, so no wonder he was pleased to see the six of us. Clotilde spent a year in Finland last year, and she was teasing me saying we were going to eat bear and wolf. I almost believed her, and I got quite excited when I saw reindeer on the menu – but apparently he was having supply problems and didn’t have half the things on the menu. What was on the cards tonight was mostly herring, and beef meatballs, and everything came with crème fraiche, beetroot and tomatoes.
We had the special Finnish kir to start with (not to finnish, ho ho). Couldn’t tell you what was in it, but it warmed us up nicely. Then I had the plate of three kinds of fish – herring done two different ways and the smoked salmon. Not sure if it was exactly Finnish smoked salmon, but it probably was if you squinted the right way. The potatoes were delicious with the crème fraiche and the beetroot. We managed to make some conversation but there was quite a lot of eating going on too. I did manage to try some dried reindeer from someone else’s plate, and it was intriguing. I’d definitely order it another time.
The dessert menu looked enticing, but sadly there was only one option in stock – a slightly flat chocolate cake that was cheered up by the application of large quantities of jam. I put my hand up quickest and got the last of the cloudberry jam – a distant relative of gooseberry perhaps. Then we had a round of mulled wine to fortify us against the cold. It’s very bizarre, but going home for a month means I was already wishing people a Merry Christmas and it was still November!
Mr Lapon apologized for the lack of choice, but in fact he is closing the restaurant at the end of the year, due to lack of interest. Well, it is a bit tucked out of the way, but apparently the Finnish community don’t make much of an effort to support it either. It’s a shame, but on the other hand we do live in Paris – you can eat your way around the world with very little difficulty, as I am discovering. Having said that, though, I am just counting up the number of times I have eaten in Kiwi Corner – and I have run out of fingers! So there’s plenty of time to support good old kiwi cooking in Paris.
