blog

You moved here why?

Posted: 20-11-06

I'm getting right back into this blog – writing malarky I can tell you. Well – for the time being anyway, so enjoy it while it's fresh people!

Some Kiwis are often taken aback when I tell them I've moved here from the UK, and they're not always surprised for the same reasons either. Just today for example, at my Monday drumming lessons (yes with a real drum kit and yes with real noise that really makes my ears ring...), one of the other students asked where I was from – I said: 'The UK', she asked: 'Whereabouts?' and I replied 'London', (I'm actually from Cambridge but I said London just because it's less hassle). She then asked further: 'Why did you move here? Lifestyle?'.

Now there's a question.

So I say 'Sure, lifestyle'. Thinking that this would be the end of this line of questioning, as conversing about anything over and above 'what's your name' in a pokey room with another student punching out the intro to U2s 'Desire', isn't the most conducive environment to conduct a "getting to know you", session.

It does indeed seem that most people move out here for the lifestyle, and by that is meant rock climbing, tramping (That's hiking to you lot), kayaking, swimming and sticking pigs... (Sticking = putting a sharp piece of wood into a live, wild boar for purposes of human consumption – or just for fun, I haven't worked out which...)

However, I didn't. I mean, I didn't move out here to upturn a canoe under a waterfall, adorn large boots and wait for the contents of a small stream to fill them or clamber up the side of a mountain with only bits of string for safety.

Of course I wish I really could do these things but I really don't feel like learning to be honest. Too much outside my comfort zone and there's been a fair bit of that lately, what with learning to drive and figuring out how to buy a bleedin' house..

So then out comes the obvious next question from my co–student: 'Lifestyle eh? Really? So do you Kayak, climb or surf then?'.. 'Err umm errphhh no, not quite..' and before I stumbled yet further into defending an ill–perceived attack on my own reasoning methods, the other guy deftly moved on from U2 and tried his hand at some early 90s grunge..

So that's one common reaction I receive; Surprise, quickly followed by conditional acceptance – conditional in that I answer in the affirmative, that yes, I am indeed into lunging myself off cliffs, into frozen lakes or clambering up glacier fronts.

The other reaction though is quite startling. New Zealand, howsoever similar to any other 'western', 'civilised' country is also very beautiful and full of these wonderful people called 'Kiwis' who are friendly, inviting, straight to the point and won't hesitate to offer you a beer even in the morning.

So when I tell people I am actually a pom (Yes, even Kiwis are occasionally none the wiser that they' trading ideas on societal breakdown with someone from the Northern Hemisphere) some will actually retort: 'So why the hell did you move here mate?'. As if it had never actually occurred to them how good they actually have it here.

Well apparently it doesn't occur to some people which is why South London resembles Melbourne or Auckland rather than being filled with people from London or at least failing that, from somewhere in Britain. But I s'pose you get paid more in the UK, and the beer is stronger and there's more than one brand of cream in the supermarket and there's no poxy give way to the right rule and no legal party pills and faster, more reliable internet and better telly...

But I don't really care about all that.

I like it here and my Dad likes it here which is why he'll be spending Christmas with me in my dark, pokey wee flat and helping me pick a not–so–pokey and not–so–dingy three bedroomed house.

Oh and it's summer....

Thanks folks,
Russ