Diary of a pondering wanderer: March 2009

Not really a lot to report at the moment. I'm still not working so that is making life very difficult.

Just thought I'd check in and let you know I'm still alive.

Congratulations to Claire and Richard on the birth of Annaleeza, and to Rich and Jodie on the birth of Alice, I'm sure that both of them will create as much mischief as their parents do!

Missing friends and family very much, and knowing that it will be a long time until we get to see everyone again in the current situation.

And wondering whether it is better to unemployed in New Zealand, or in the UK? At least in the UK we'd have friends to see and share a consolidatory bottle of wine or two with.

It's very hard not to be melancholy having all this time to myself, I'm reading a lot, revising my very rusty french, and spending far too much time on Youtube.com and watching E! on sky (sometimes you just need a hour or so of pure trash tv). Oh and I'm now really good at spider solitaire and hearts (God I'm bored!).

I've applied for everything that I can do in Gisborne, and have only had a rejection letter back from three of them, so I guess the rest of them are working on "east coast time" and I probably will never get an acknowledgement of my application.

In a lot of ways here, businesses are very "cruisy" (i.e. laid back), but some just take it to extremes and in a lot of instances quite unprofessional. The problem with people running franchises or small businesses here, is that their personal life seems comes before their work life - don't even bother trying to get hold of people in the east coast on a Friday afternoon - they will be playing tennis, or golf, or gone to their "bach" (beach house) for the weekend, or gone to watch the rugby, or to buy a new boat, gone fishing, or some other similar thing. But yet they expect everyone else to be there when they want something. Very strange. I think this is more of a Gisborne/small town thing than a New Zealand thing, having spoken to other kiwis who were not Gisborne born and bred, but it's really annoying!

I managed to get to see a neurologist about my back pain and pins and needles and he told me that as my reflexes are fine, I should just keep taking the painkillers. Which was really helpful - and when I tried to question him about what causes the pain, he said that he didn't have time to discuss it further as he had a plane to catch! Just goes to show there are idiots everywhere, although he wasn't as bad as the psychologist who reviewed my meds who told me that coming off my tablets and having kids would sort things out, as I'm not working anyway I might as well start popping kids out!!!!!!! I must go back to hospital soon, I do so love being patronised!

We had a bit of a scare last week as Dave had a fever, and had spots of his legs that wouldn't blanche on touch, so he had to go to hospital to get checked for Meningitis. Whilst on the other side of the world, poor little Belle was also very poorly and was in hospital getting checked for meningitis as well. Spooky! Thank God, they are both fine