Self indulgence. Now and Then: Memoirs of a Sort.

  I Hate Living Here. It was all so easy.  18 months ago we had 3 rooms, a balcony no bigger than our dining room table and a view over a patch of grass with an endless scurry of squirrels and limitless droppings of pigeons.  Both probably died and we never knew about it, or even cared. We never needed to know about the lives of either sheep or cows, but they always looked pretty content. Life was good, and generally easy.  The corporate body got someone to cut the grass. The pubs and its clientele revelled in offering unasked for gynaecological lessons on a Friday night, with the less occasional study of urban mammography thrown in for free.  If you are not very tall, there are often only 2 things at eye level on a Friday night. Here, if I want to cut the grass it is a mere 10kms going back and forth taking about 2.5 hours.  If I want a drink in a pub or have cup of coffee it's 20-minute drive, but at least the beer is better than it was 13 years a...

A YEAR ON.   There is no point in recounting what we’ve been doing here for a year, I’ve kept a pretty complete account of things as we’ve moved through the months on ihaventacluerichardinnz. But yes, it’s a year since we arrived.   I stood on our deck a year ago and I remember thinking to myself ‘Have we done the right thing?; have we bitten off more than we can manage’?.   I deffo felt daunted. The less practical stuff has also been on my mind over the year.  The stuff up in my head. Yes, I have missed things from my previous life but as you have seen there have been a whole load of new and varied experiences.  I’ve learnt more in the last 7 months than I have learnt in the last 37 years.  Everyday is school day. I did chance across some really wonderful groups of people in those 13 years in the UK.  Good people and the accompanying memories are THE BEST . By a stroke of good fortune Warwick Hospital were very short of radiographers,...