Watch This Space..

..'cause tonight I'm carving pumpkins for the first time, and will be liveblogging* with photos!

Yeah, I'm that cool.

6:53pm: After 4 supermarkets and no tools found (I'd seen a 'pumpkin carving kit'), I have come home and set up my area:

Pulled out tripod, found covering for floor, guessed at what tools I should have and grabbed 'em.

7:04pm: Can't say I love the feel of pumpkin guts on my hands but I am rather fascinated by the insides!

7:14pm: Am amazed by 2 things - 1, how much there is inside a pumpkin. 2, how well an icecream scoop works!

7:21pm: Yes, I'm wearing pajama pants. They have Cookie Monster on them.

7:35pm: Went for the cliche face. Fun times cutting it out, I'm surprised how easy it was for me. I'm not the best with a knife.

7:42pm: Voila! This brought me way too much joy. Unsure if I will do the other one, though, I am craving soup.

*(sadly 99% of my readers are not in my timezone, but sshh, you).

Autumn nights.

...Yeah. And while this is a 6pm shot, it was like this at 5pm. No going back 'til February now, kids!

British Summertime Ends: 2am 25th Oct 2009.

Leaving Tesco last night with our groceries:

Dave: Guess what time it is.
Kat (looking up at the pitch black sky): Umm... 6:30?
Dave: Nope.
Kat: ...6?
Dave: Nope.
Kat (meekly): 5:30?
Dave: Bingo.

Eep. It has begun. And sure, it's certainly only starting to set 15-20 minutes earlier than the shortest day of Wellington winter, but today I'll be leaving work with a pitch black sky, the street-lights aglow, a cold nip in the air.

I know I blog a lot about this. And the photos will continue. But it blows my mind. I sometimes feel like I live in Alaska. Unless I pop outside at lunch time, I'm not getting any light in my day at all. I already feel anaemic lately, what with the lack of red meat in my diet, but not getting any Vitamin D has got to be a killer.

I'm seriously thinking about investing in a natural light lamp. Probably make me happier than dosing myself with tablets and watching sunny television shows. I think I'm definitely going to get S.A.D. this year.

New Zealand's back to being 11 hours behind, where I do that confusing "it's an hour later there, but the other part of the day" thing, and forget to call my mother because I fall asleep thinking she won't be up yet. The Royal Mail are still striking, and ruining birthday present arrivals. Sure, they're late, but now they're super late. And I now know why our power bill will be so much more in winter than in summer, and with our double-glazing, it's got nothing to do with heating. It's all lights, baby.

For now, though, it's my multi-vitamin, a lunch-time stroll, and a lot of forcing myself out of bed.

A wee story.

6 months ago today I boarded not one, not two, but five planes to begin my journey to Edinburgh and my new life with Dave.

I can't say it has been an easy process. The visa process was difficult and scary and at times, unsettling. The packing was a nightmare. I still have shoes at home that I dream about. And leaving my family and friends has been particularly tough.

I think the worst thing, though, is not having an instrument. This will hopefully be rectified by the end of this month, or within the first few weeks of November. It's an odd feeling. It's like not having my voice.

I left Wellington and sadly looked out over my home as it got smaller and then the clouds came in. What an odd feeling. My tears were drying and I hadn't yet grasped the massive undertaking ahead of me. I thought I would write in between flights and use Twitter to report and take pictures, but instead I changed terminals, sat, boarded the plane, sat, slept, got off, changed terminals, repeat. It was, however, surprisingly easy: a really pain-free experience.

The big plan had always been to arrive a day earlier than Dave expected, so that even though he had taken the day off to prepare for my arrival, I would be able to spend all of his days off with him. I'd taken his mother's email address from his brother, organised his mother to collect me, and faked an elaborate power cut and sent confusing messages to Twitter to throw him off the scent.

Once I flew into New York, however, I'd sat myself down at the gate for my flight to London, only to find out I was seriously delayed. I spent the better part of my wait watching an NBA game on TV, and made the mistake of sending a tweet about it. Luckily, Dave thought it was odd, but didn't think much more of it.

I still made my connection in London, which made my 3.5 hour transit booking a piece of very good foresight. Terminal 5's new layout is great, and I'm glad they did the overhaul.

On my final flight, I sat next to two men on a "boys golf weekend", who were very chatty, and baffled that I'd just travelled 29 or so hours to move to Edinburgh. "Don't you know it's kinda cold up there?" Well..

And after all the nervousness regarding UK border control (as when I arrived last time they gave us a bit of a grilling, etc and especially with the letter accompanying my visa that basically said, "THEY CAN STILL SAY NO. SORRY."), I sailed through. She wasn't particularly friendly, however. I was hoping at least for a "Welcome to the UK." Bah. LA super friendly, UK not? interesting..

I arrived into Edinburgh to Ann already waiting for me. It was so nice to be arriving to someone actually picking me up, as airport arrivals are so depressing for someone in transit at times, and I still ached a little for family.

One hiccup was that one of my bags had missed the plane in Edinburgh, but the baggage manager for BA arranged for me to have it delivered to the house that afternoon (read: next day at about 4pm!) - the whole process took much longer than planned, though, so we were nervous that we would make it home after Dave.

She drove me home after my extremely extended travels with us babbling in the car about surprising Dave and I was so pleased to arrive at a house with a dog and a soft bed and clean bathrooms. Airports can really make you feel displaced.

I only made it there about 5 minutes before Dave was expected home, and Ann and I sat on the couch nervously smiling and wondering exactly how to surprise him - do I stay downstairs? wait up in his bedroom? But we didn't really get a chance to get too far. Not even time for a cup of tea.

Because suddenly the door opened, he called out "Hello!" into the house, and walked into the sitting room, and stopped. And stood there staring at me, baffled, as we giggled away. Um, surprise?

"How are you... what?"

I immediately got up to hug him but he barely hugged me back in his confusion. His face was a priceless mix of disbelief, surprise and happiness. Adorable.

Later on, once he had adjusted, and I had slept a little, I explained the whole clever plan to him. Hours of working out timezones for every stop of the way (I flew through 3!) and carefully planning tweets, as well as a power-cut hoax, two co-operative families and months of trying not to slip up about it.

6 months in and I'm still settling, and learning more all the time. Part of me is still so very surprised that I took a chance and flew about 11,400 miles to live in a country where the accents confuse, the daylight slips away in the afternoon and I have so few people to call close. I waited so many months, counted so many days, saved so many pennies to get here.. and it all flew by so fast.

I guess I can't really predict the next 6 months. But it sure is nice to be here.

Updating.

So because I've been such a slack blogger, I'm going to start updating you on my life with stories and pictures of what I've been up to since I moved.

Today's tale, my friends, is about Seattle.

Dave's close friend Will got married in August, to a lovely Canadian lassie named Megan. Dave was asked to be best man last year, and we had planned on making the trip over to Victoria on Vancouver Island off BC for a long time, but of course we booked last minute. We decided we would fly in and out of Seattle from Glasgow, so that we could get a taste of that city as well, and then ferry our way to and from the island, where the wedding would be held.

August 2nd we headed out of Edinburgh, grabbing a very kind lift from Dave's mother, to Glasgow. We stayed at the lovely Ramada right by the airport, in a nice plush room with a window overlooking the highway and out to the runways.

The next morning we headed over to the airport and flew out of Glasgow over Greenland, towards Philadelphia, our transit stop.

The view of Greenland was gorgeous, with glacial lakes, rocky crests, snow-capped peaks, and crystal blue water. I totally wanna visit there. Wearing thermals.

Philadelphia airport was uneventful, and our terminal felt like one long, straight line. We were glad when we took our next flight and landed in Seattle. After a long time in the air, we were glad to get to our first hotel, the Moore.

Situated very close to the shopping centre of town and the waterfront/Pike Place Markets, the Moore was above/next to an old theatre of the same name, and the desk staff were friendly and knowledgeable. We had our first night's dinner at an italian restaurant a few blocks away, and got ourselves to sleep.

Our first day in Seattle involved the Pike Place Markets, a Seattle institution where anything can be found from books to bags to fish to fresh fruit and veg.

We also visited the first ever Starbucks, lazed in the sun by the waterfront, and took in a few shops.

Other highlights of the first few days include: American (kosher) hot dogs (above!) and giving my caramel frappuccino to a bum (at his request while I was throwing it out!) - oh, and the Space Needle.

We went up during the day, and then again at night, and I took a gazillion photos. We also enjoyed sitting by the International Fountain. If you'd like to see all of the Space Needle photos, check out the set (link will be at bottom of post and will be edited asap). We had a lovely Mexican dinner in between viewings, too!

And then, in the early hours, we got our ferry to Victoria. My next belated news update will feature the lovely island, the wedding, and possibly some Seattle again from when we headed back.

(Flickr set - to be updated)

Autumn nights.

6:20pm, Oct 20th. It was genuinely pretty dark this morning. It's still warm enough to cope without my gloves sometimes, and it's still light until I'm home. On Sunday when we change the clocks it shall be interesting..

Autumn nights.

6pm Oct 13th. So far, so good. It's only gonna get darker.

Speaking of cold.

Dave and I went to Matalan yesterday, the oasis of cheapness, and got ourselves some warm bits and pieces, including a few hats for me, gloves for him, and these marvellous treasures:

Yes, those are warm-as-hell pink cow socks, inexplicably carrying handbags with a heart and wearing a flower by their ears. £3.50! Beats boring old slippers any day.

♥

Brrr.

Hello, October.

Today was the first day I had to put my gloves on for the walk to work. We've/I've been out a few evenings lately, and I've ended up with gloved hands on walks home, but never in the mornings. Season's are a'changin'.

October brings many things this year. Apart from the fact that I'm now in a totally different pattern of seasons and October is cold, there's also exciting things like pumpkin carving for Halloween, soups and stews, hats and winter shopping, new boots (sure, I just got a pair in Canada, but they were brown. I need black now!), new friends to spend time with, and my 6-months-in-Scotland-aversary.

(I'm not averse to Scotland. I meant anniversary. In a funny way.)

It's weird that I've nearly been here that long. It feels longer sometimes, like New Zealand is a distant memory, but then at the same time, I still feel like a total newbie, and my family is so, so, far away. I've already missed one niece's birthday, and 2 are coming up fast.

We're back to trying to see movies weekly, too, which will kill time on long dark, cold nights**. Last night's venture was Away We Go, a Sam Mendes piece about a couple (Burt and Verona) trying to find a home to raise their child. With no ties to their home or city (now that Burt's parents are moving to Belgium!), they set off around the USA/Canada, visiting friends in different cities, trying to choose the right place for them. With lovely lead actors (Jon Krasinski from The Office!), brilliant co-star moments from folks such as Alison Janney, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Melanie Lynskey (!), and a great Nick Drake soundtrack, I enjoyed all the little moments that come with a couple who are about to have a baby, and really need to figure out what they're going to do with themselves. Go see it!

I'm also looking forward to: Adventureland, Julie and Julia (shutup), and This is It.

Oh and Up. I've missed quite a few movies lately!

♥
K

**Did I mention that by the time Christmas rolls around it gets dark at 3.30pm?