Phew....

Sorry this is a little late

I did mean to write yesterday, but kind of got distracted by life. Apologies if any of you were waiting desperately for the next exciting instalment of our adventures in NZ…not that I think it likely that any of you were…

So last week was a whirl of recruitment agencies and job interviews. Well, calling it a ‘whirl’ might be a little extravagant, but when you’ve been used to doing nowt all day long even thinking about dressing respectably and having to act all grown up is a strain. There I was on Monday ambling down Cuba Street, mooching in and out of shops when my mobile rang/vibrated furiously in my pocket and I had an invitation to ‘meet’ with a recruitment consultant the next day. How exciting! Not half an hour later the same thing happened – oh to be a woman in demand – but they wanted to see me that afternoon…I explained that I was dressed rather skankily, but they weren’t to be put off. Off I trolled to meet Lynley Stanford, big honcho of Stanfords Recruitment, who was very jolly & managed to gain a disturbing level of insight into my work ethics within minutes, but isn’t quite sure what to do with me as far as the job market is concerned. Apparently she’s going to start making some calls this week and will let me know…

The next day’s recruitment consultant, who wore one of the scariest polyester suits I have seen in years (I was slightly concerned that I might be electrocuted by merely shaking her hand), immediately decided to put me forward for a ‘project coordinator’ role (up to $55k!!!!), but it wasn’t to be and I haven’t heard a word since. Bum. Then another consultant phoned and asked if I fancied being a ‘project facilitator’ for the Agricultural ITO, who are the people in charge of all the training in the agricultural industry over here. Turns out this was actually organising and updating their training programmes, which I know sod all about, so that went out the window too. Thoroughly bored with the whole thing I decided I would forget about it all until the weekend, and a damn fine job I was doing too until at 10am on Thursday (yes, I was still in bed) I got a call from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (remember them?) asking if I would come in for an interview the next day. So I spent a day rummaging through their website for any information I might find that would make me look as if I had at least some idea what the job was about and skipped a meal out with Jo to do some reading, which I was quite fed up about ‘cos she went to some groovy little Maori food place.

The next day I decided I would walk to the Ministry, which took about 45 minutes but by that time the Wellington wind whipped my hair (freshly coiffed that morning into a shining gleaming miracle) into a frenzied Patsy-esque bouffant. Luckily the ministry was on the 3rd floor of the building, giving me a chance to tame the wild beast and make myself presentable whilst hanging out in the lobby. The interview was good, I think, of course I yabbered on for ages and there were some questions that I completely cocked up (what the hell do they expect me to know about establishing women’s networks in Wellington?), but at least it was an interview. They won’t be able to let me know what is going on until next week, and I’d be surprised if I got the first job I went for, but you never know. They seemed very lovely though.

After that I strode purposefully across town to my massage appointment with the very tall and very smiley Leslie, who proceeded to pummel my shoulders into submission to the accompaniment of soft ambient music. Next week she’s decided she is going to sort out my right shoulder once and for all! Yikes…Unfortunately I had missed lunch, thanks to my interview being at 1pm, and my stomach was doing the most incredible rumbling I’ve heard since I was last in an exam hall. I managed to act cool and not snigger by thinking that surely masseurs hear worse than rumbling guts, but this unfortunately put me in mind of what they might hear emanating from their clients and a great deal of willpower was required to remain calm.

Friday night was spent watching tv and making crank calls to the English Heritage blue plaques team.

Saturday saw me heading into town to buy a new bike, one that I had sensibly ordered earlier in the week. After about an hour standing about in the shop waiting to talk to the bloke who had ordered the bike for me and trying to avoid being run down by small girls rampaging about on Barbie tricycles, off he trundled to fetch it from their store only to return with a very large cardboard box. It seems they had forgotten to put the bike together. So I went for a coffee and came back 40 minutes later to find it sparkling and new waiting for me. Huzzah! The only task then was to get it home. For those of you who don’t know, Jo’s parents place is on top of a whopping great hill. And I haven’t ridden a bike for about 5 months. I made it ¾ of the way up – in the lowest gear possible and still suffering – before I decided it was time to walk (although I did get a very cheery ‘well done!’ from some van driver. I think he was taking the piss.). Then I just about had time to stuff a cheese sandwich in my face before we headed off to ‘Real Hot Bitches!’. Jo & her mum returned from their windsock making session (in readiness for the Wearable Art parade at the end of the month) brandishing brightly coloured windsocks – Jo’s is an evening glove & Ann’s is a hat – and we headed to the drama school for a vigorous 2 hours of ‘hip hop’ dance moves to Missy Elliott’s ‘Get Your Freak On’. Again my legwarmers were a triumph.

After a quick warm-down in the local pub, we scooted home, got changed and went out for a night on the tiles with an old mate of Jo’s, Jules, and her girlfriend Harriet. The bar we had selected seemed full of suspiciously young folk and it turned out we had accidentally crashed a 21st birthday party…clearly no one thought I was too old, for just the day before I had been asked how old I was when buying a bottle of wine (though they might just do that to cheer up pissed off looking people). We stayed anyway and sampled some of NZ’s finest sauvignon blanc & pizza, before staggering up Cuba St to some mysterious subterranean bar where Harriet made us drink sparkling feijoa wine. All I can tell you about it is that it gets you really smashed. And I forgot my vow to never mix sparkling wine with any other booze on the grounds that it causes memory lapses. Apparently after that we went to Matterhorn for another drink and then onto Wellington’s premier (and only) gay club, Pound. I vaguely remember Pound being crap and Jo dancing like a fiend before we headed home in Jules’ rather fine boy racer-mobile, complete with blue furry seat covers and uv lighting in the boot, and stumbled into bed. Luckily it would seem that Harriet & Jules had fun and are still talking to us, and that Harriet’s hangover was as bad as mine. Excellent. So we have some new friends.

Today was composed of vicious shopping and we now are the proud owners of a new bed, 2 new sofas and $800 worth of paint vouchers. The tenants are moving out of Green Street next Friday and we will be spending a week decorating and making the place ours before our new gear is delivered. Lovely though it has been to take full advantage of Len & Ann’s hospitality, it will be fabulous to finally get into a place of our own after 3 months of living out of a backpack. I am hugely excited. Hopefully we’ll be able to scam some of our new acquaintances into helping with my promise of payment in beer and pizza (plus it’ll be election weekend over here, so there will be sod all on telly…).

Love to everyone!

S & J
xxxxxx