Here are my two little babies who enjoy licking my face any chance they get and endlessly running in the fields. When I was away in Europe for a year I missed these two. So much so, that I did dog walking in Edinburgh to fuel my doggie love. One of them was a tiny wee dog that the owner insisted on wearing a coat - the amount of awful comments I got walking down the street (which I could HEAR) about how ridiculous a coat was. Yes, I know, not my choice people.

The French boy took some lovely photos this week (below) of these monkeys. These dogs are like chalk and cheese. Asha is so gentle and caring with a soft personality (she thinks shes more human than dog sometimes) so this photo says it all really. Georgia  has just two things on her mind all times - crumbs (in case anybody happens to drop food) and play. She loves being chased and jumps like a rabbit. Freakin hilarious.

You know what I love about dogs? Unconditional love. It’s just the best.

Another day, another quirky kiwi story.

New Zealanders love the website Trademe (kind of the kiwi equivalent of eBay).

Today I found this for sale… a bird, of the kiwi variety, that had dropped off the tree in the form of a feijoa fruit… yum! At time of blogging, the bidding was at $12.50.

Stranger things have sold on eBay. Like the corn chip shaped like the Pope’s hat. Or someone selling a ghost in a jar. Or even one guy in New Zealand convinced he was selling a time machine. Bizarre.

kiwi shaped feijoa

By the way, I use the word kiwi on this blog in many contexts so thought I would tell you what the word ‘kiwi’ can be used to describe:

a) our precious flightless brown bird (and in turn, a national symbol of New Zealand)

b) new zealanders as people e.g. I’m a kiwi (I have been asked overseas if we find it offensive being called kiwi’s - no way, we call ourselves kiwis)

c) kiwifruit (although kiwifruit is apparently not native to NZ but China so hmmm…)

Speaking of kiwi though, here is one of my favourite video’s of our special kiwi bird who is determined to fly (kiwi’s can not fly), warning: it may bring a tear to your eye. Like it did to mine. I’m a softie.

When the French boy decided to come with me to New Zealand, I warned him not to mention two things to New Zealanders while he is there…

1. the 2007 World Cup where NZ’s World Cup dream was over when the French beat us…

In a competition where NZ was tipped to win (one anonymous person even made a bet of 4.2 million dollars on us winning), the French beat us to it. The win meant that the French would go on to face England in the semi finals and the All Blacks would head home with their heads hanging low. New Zealand is a rugby obsessed nation and our passion for this great sport is mirrored by it’s players performances on the pitch, because the All Blacks are often ranked right up there. Not this time. The country went into mourning.

2. The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique…

The Rainbow Warrior was a ship of the environmental organisation Greenpeace, which was active in supporting a  number of Greenpeace protest activities against seal hunting, whaling and nuclear weapons testing during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was all about promoting peace. Two French agents, in 1985, bombed the Rainbow Warrior, killing a photographer on the boat in the act. The French govt initally denied any involvement and jumped on the “terrorist act” bandwagon.

When two of the French Agents were caught in NZ (posing as married couple ‘Sophie and Alain Turenge’), a police investigation ensued and both pleaded guilty to manslaughter and 10 years in jail. However, come 1986, and a political deal between French President and NZ President, the Frenchies agreed to pay NZ$13 million in return for the two French agents to be jailed in their own country.

The worst part of the whole thing (that kiwi’s have a long term memory about) is that upon returning to France, both of them were freed by the French Govt, therefore getting away with this crime. And are apparently still living. A complete cover up by the French government and to this day, a lot of New Zealander’s believe that these agents were acting on orders from the French Govt.

It is the only time New Zealand has been under attack and we feel strongly about it since it was a peace promoting ship - the irony of it. Most kiwi’s strongly believe they committed an act of war in our country and got away with it and think it was a shameless act by a shameless government.

And we are still pissed about the fact that the French government swept the Rainbow Warrior bombing under the carpet. When I told the French boy about it, he had no idea that this had happened. The French govt has done a good job at keeping this under wraps.

I’m sure most French people living in this day and age would be appalled by what the French did (I know my boyfriend is). I think what we have to remember is that it was the government at the time that screwed up and that is who to blame, not every French person (who probably don’t even have a clue that it happened). We will never forget that it happened but the blame should be in the right place.

New Zealand. Nuclear free and proud.

A beautiful song kiwi’s made to mark the 20th anniversary of the Rainbow Warrior bombing. Anchor me.

Peace.

We ventured down to Taranaki to WOMAD - the world music arts festival. The music ranged from Egyptian to French to Aboriginal to Chinese to African.

‘Over three gorgeous days around 40,000 ticket holders soaked up the sounds, smiles and sunshine at WOMAD 2009. The festival plunged festival-goers into sensory overload with sights, sounds, arts and crafts, and culinary delights from around the globe.’

i got henna done

One of the highlights for me was Gurrumul, an aboriginal who was born blind, and was a rare treat - the type of music and words that made the entire festival go silent and become transfixed on this humble shy man spilling his soul.

I loved the variety of music from different cultures and the atmosphere of the festival.

I have seen my own country from a different light since coming back.

It is so goddamn beautiful.

A few pics I have taken here…

Ohiwa beach

us bikini girls playing in the sand

the beaches in n-zed

Cathedral Cove

We plan to spend every weekend away exploring the North Island and make the most of our short time here. I want to show the French boy as much as I can. We bought tickets to Womad, the world music arts festival in the Naki and have a few weekends planned for snorkelling/diving missions as well as a few weekends away with friends.

Home sweet home.

Me and the French boy are in Paris right now, and I am coming down with the flu. I am determined to still go to the Lido (French Cabaret show) with his family at the Champs Elysee tonight. I might just skip the champagne.

The French boy’s parents gave us tickets to the Lido and paid for us to stay in a hotel for a few days as our christmas present before we catch our flight to New Zealand. How cool an idea is that.

I am hoping my flu gets better before the 36 hour flight home to New Zealand via Hong Kong. We are stopping in Hong Kong for 14 hours and a friend has advised that the best 15 quid she spent was on a shower at Hong Kong airport between long flights. So that is my plan to refresh before the second leg of the journey.

Hard to believe I will soon be home in the land of feijoas, sunshine and smiley people.

photo of a koru fern i took in my home town

On a totally random note, not to do with anything, today I am going to tell you about one of my favourite New Zealand artists/illustrators/designers -  a very talented man called Martin F Emond who designed clothing for Illicit, along with tattoos, artwork and general funky-ness.

Unfortunately for the world, he committed suicide in Los Angeles in 2004, aged 34, so we didn’t get enough of his brilliance in his short life. I first saw his illustrations in Pavement magazine when I was about 15 years old and I remember putting his drawings of the Rolling Red Knuckles up on my wall back then, so I have been a fan for awhile.

Here is a quick collage I have put together of some of his illustrations/artwork (some not for the faint hearted)… I love his stuff.

As a side note, if you’ve seen the American pop/rock star Pink’s music video for her song “U + Ur Hand“, you will see that she blatantly copied New Zealand artist Martin Emond’s imagery for her video without thinking anyone would notice. Well his friends and New Zealanders did - the characters on her video are a mirror image of his. It is not exactly subtle if you look at the pictures below and the Pink video on the right. Coincidence? I think not.

But hey, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Some little things I miss about New Zealand…

i miss you feijoa.

* All of my fantastic friends and family scattered over the country (i lurrrrve you all)

* The sunshine (almost a distant memory for me now)

* Eggs benedict (oh, the eggy goodness)

* Driving a car (which I never thought I’d miss since I avoided it back home)

* Eating feijoas (it is sooo hard to explain to people here what a feijoa is)

* My animals (unconditional love)

* Swimming at the hot pools with Rach (miss the goss sessions!)

* Having an actual lawn/grass/decking/lots of space

* Vibrant fresh fruit at the supermarket (seriously the fruit here looks 10 years old!)

It’s interesting the things you wouldn’t think you’d miss until you leave home.

And the things you discover that you love about another country that you never thought you would love…

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday aka Pancakes Day here in the UK where it is customary to eat pancakes to celebrate the days before the beginning of Lent. Hey - any excuse for pancakes suits me. It’s quite a tradition here, even pancake races are held in villages and towns around the place.

Since we couldn’t do pancakes for breakfast (me and Alley go to work at different times), we decided it was very acceptable to have pancakes for dinner.

So here are our creations, complete with strawberries, chocolate flake and icing sugar. Trust me - the photo really doesn’t do them justice. They were delicious.

In other news, we have recently celebrated Robbie Burns Day and Australia Day in the UK and now its our turn for Waitangi Day - New Zealand’s “day”. Any excuse to party. So, tonight we are heading to Kim’s apartment to celebrate our very own kiwi style Waitangi Day where we’re dressing up in black & white! There will be Kiwi burgers, Kiwi dip, Kiwi nibbles, Kiwi fruit, Kiwi DVD’s and Kiwi music to keep us going!

Then Friday night we are going to a pub meet. We are becoming quite the social butterflies which you have to be here unless you want to stay in from the cold outside and be anti social butterflies (which includes complaining incessantly about how cold it is, how windy it is, etc etc… which we pride ourselves on not doing). So that’s just not happening. My theory is if you are busy, you don’t notice the cold as much. haha. Not sure how that works but hey, it works for me.

Heading to Glasgow next weekend for a roadtrip with our friends for some clubbing fun.