A resident abroad - an expat, an alien and a pom

Snuggled between one wet suburb and the next, the sky is dropping rain at a rate that suggests it’s never rained before and the clouds are just enjoying the novelty of it all.

That would be okay, if it were winter. But welcome to Auckland’s summer 2012 people! It’s soggy, overcast, and just a little bit warm and sticky to remind us it should be the season of sunshine and we’re being ripped off.

Sound familiar?

If I was a worrier, this out of place weather would give me a sense of foreboding for the year ahead.

I came to New Zealand five years ago for three reasons: more space, fewer cars, and a fraction of the population of Great Britain. I just needed a little more air to breathe for a while. Now I’m a resident abroad, an expat, an alien, and a pom.

When I was in the UK I took my Britishness for granted, now it defines me. I’m just a few ticked boxes away from a Kiwi passport should I want one, but my northern roots are stronger than ever.

Thursday and Friday nights at 7.30pm is prime time Coronation St in my quaint little house on Auckland’s city fringe.

Gail McIntyre (nee Platt, nee Tilsley) has just been found innocent of murdering her appalling husband. She should’ve been found guilty of boring the viewers to death by marrying Joe McIntyre in the first place.

What a snivelling turn-off he turned out to be, the only man on TV to make drug addiction and loan sharking look like paint drying slowly on a featureless wall.

We’re 18 months behind you so don’t tell me what happens next.

It’s my direct line to nostalgia, I think of Rita Sullivan as one of my aunties, and I cried when I saw pictures of people lining up outside Betty Driver’s funeral in Manchester.

More importantly, it keeps my accent in excellent condition. People here take pleasure in trying to imitate me, my voice is my party piece and theirs.

When I’m not watching the street or the water go down the plug-hole the wrong way, I watch my veggie garden grow. What turned me from an international jet-setter and party-girl into a gardener?

It crept up on me. I was giddy to see the sprouting of a purple pepper in the patch last weekend. I didn’t know they came in purple. I want to frame it.

Never will my pepper end up in one of Jamie Oliver’s “bish-bash-bosh” dishes.

Food is expensive here, hence me growing my own things. I’m just not sure how long I can live on lettuce and purple peppers. Someone has poured fertiliser on the cost of living in New Zealand since I arrived in 2006. I can’t have single handedly driven up the price of everything, although I may have had a part in pushing up national wine consumption.

I’m thinking of installing a beehive. Apparently bees love the inner city hives these days. It seems they’re looking for central chic when it comes to their honeycomb real estate.

Mental note: man of house is allergic to bees, so only purchase said hive if he becomes unbearable.

As the new year swept the country in a flurry of storms, Kiwis waved good riddance to the Annus Horibbilis that was 2011 - some like it when I quote the Queen, others find it irritating but smile anyway because Kiwis are polite that way.

2011 brought the Christchurch earthquake that killed more than 180 people in February, and a damning inquiry into the Pike River Mine explosion that killed 29 men.

Winning of the Rugby World Cup felt like a brief highlight in an otherwise testing year for New Zealanders.

Which is why it was devastating that this year started with another tragedy. Eleven people killed in a hot-air balloon flight last weekend. The relentless rain and brooding wind are not the only things giving out a sense of foreboding.

But I’m a glass half-full kind of girl when I put my mind to it.

The rain is good for the purple pepper and every tragedy brings with it a new perspective on how lucky we are to be breathing in and out.

And nothing but NOTHING will get in the way of the optimism of my resolutions:

1) Cook every recipe in Mr Oliver’s new book – leaving out some of the olive oil he drenches everything in because I have a sneaking suspicion the naked chef might have shares in it, just look at his surname.

2) Watch less TV, UK - based or otherwise, but not including Coronation St.

3) Drink less wine – the resolution made to be broken.

Until next time, from the land of the long white cloud, all my love.

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