Six months! It's been six months, now, since I arrived
back on these shores. It must be time to
do some sort of list thing.
Marmite
The horror of squeezable Marmite lives with me still. The
horrible oxtail soup taste…no…just no. Thankfully Vegemite exists here. I know I have been told that Marmite exists
in non squeezable form but the fact that it does exist in that fashion is
just an….eeeuuurrggh.
Chocolate
Oh, for a piece of New Zealand chocolate! Proper NZ Cadbury chocolate that tastes of
chocolate and is creamy and smooth and delicious and not bitty and too sugary
sweet and sticky on the tooth and … Cadbury is a British thing, remember? And then the bastards go and shut the Dunedin
factory! Bastards!
Running
Ok, Ok… So, the hills here mean that the leg muscles are
getting a good workout but…but…the views from the top of the domain, looking
out across the Sounds, and being able to run alongside the sea out past Waikawa
Marina. Giving the marae a nod on the
way out and thanking it for still allowing me puff on the way back. Yeah, nah…Gimme Picton, please.
That said…Sunshine
What it is to go brown instead of red! What it is to be back in a climate where I
can sit out and work and not just burn. Being turned into a tomato by overcast,
grey weather in Dunedin is now gone, sitting in the garden and reading is now
back.
And, of course, if there’s sunshine, you go out, so – Litter
It is rubbish, the way in which the (y)UK deal with
this. This morning I happened to walk
past this marvellous tractor/mower contraption that was cutting back the
greenery on the side of the road. As it
past, the detritus left behind had flicked coke cans and food packets out from
the hedge line and out into the road.
The litter in this country is soul destroying. It isn’t rocket science to fix, there just
does not seem to be the will. And, where
there’s litter, there’s…
…Cigarette Butts
They form basic blueprint plans for the layout of town
centre. I’ve had need to go to Germany
for work. There, in certain towns at certain
times of day, smoking appears to be compulsory.
They do appear to be better at extinguishing cigarettes in the bins
provided. Any way, along with the litter
and the dog shit that lines the pavements, cigarette buts play a rich and
comprehensive part of making the UK (y)UK.
Speaking of it – the Shit
There is nothing as edifying and uplifting to see dog shit
spread along a pavement by the wheel of either a pram or child’s bicycle. Maybe, perhaps, the smear of a shit from a
sliding shoe. Whichever; the sense of
pleasure one gets from the ubiquity of shit on the streets and the fact Great Britain seems perfectly at ease
with this is a little scary. Again, not
rocket science but seemingly beyond us here.
And it’s a real shame because – Britain Can Be So Pretty
Driving to the Cotswold Wildlife Park, the other day, the
villages you encounter are so wonderfully picturesque. Stroud, here, is a beautiful town. Caerleon, just down the road from where I’m
from in Wales, wears its Roman cape with distinction. I mean, these towns are hopelessly inadequate
to cope with modern life – you know, traffic and numbers, but they do look ever
so nice on a sunny day.
Coffee
Black Book Café is a delight: brilliant coffee, very
toothsome cake. I haven’t yet found the café
I would wait twenty minutes for a coffee in, though. I’ve done that in NZ. They do good coffee in New Zealand. However, one
thing they simply cannot get the hang of – and I don’t understand why because
pies are central to Kiwi existence:
Pork Pies
The Marmite may make me shudder but it has been something to
come home to a pork pie. Brown sauce on
a pork pie. It does not get better.
I miss New Zealand.
Tremendously. Great Britain
struggles to justify the adjective in the name. I wonder what will make the
list in another six months’ time?
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