Farewell New Zealand

I have spent the last few months trying to merge in with the local way of life. I haven't picked up even a smidgen of the accent. I thought that the British accent might have given me more mileage like in America. But no one here would ever approach you in the street and say "Hey, you're English, come over and speak British to my kids" because, let's face it, there are so many Brits here, it sometimes seems they are taking over.





Having an English accent is often met with the recognition that you are different, followed by resigned acceptance that you probably live here along with an increasing exodus of Poms who are more than partly responsible for the soaring house prices. It is more often presumed that I live here, than I am a tourist. Similarly, for me, hearing an English accent does not provoke much recognition even thought the vowels are mysteriously correctly inserted!

Anyway, for most of the last 2 weeks I have lived in the pioneer's cabing at the end of the garden, where at night I would read by parafin lantern and listen to the cacophany of ciccadas and crickets. And I have finished painting James' house. This time tomorrow I will be on a plane heading home via Thailand.

After a trying month where so many possibilities came up and ebbed away, I have organised a trip to Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. I will have 10 days to explore the Golden Triangle and experience some of SE Asia. I have never been there before, but the research I have done tells me that I will have a unique experience which could well open up whole new avenues of adventure for the future. That ride home from India might just have to start a little further east...

I am on the threshold of plunging into another foreign world. The complete unknown will engulf me so quickly and be over in a matter of days. I hope I have enough time to adjust and to process everything. Before I know it, I will be back in Bristol, to find that nothing has changed, when 6 months away says it should have.

It's strange, but the reassuringly familiar is often a disappointment. When I returned from my year in Russia, I described my response to the cultural overload as being 'blatted'. Stunned. I suppose it's because you shift from a scenario of constant adjustment & thinking in another language to one of disconcerting stillness and familiarity. Even though my life for that week post-Russia was busy, I still recall it as stillness.

This time, that period of re-entry will be short as I plan to move to Sheffield until the summer. Bekki has found me somewhere to live already. I have even applied for jobs there. So for the next few months I will be negotiating my way around Northern England. That might be as foreign an experience as being in Thailand. I will still stand out as having a funny accent, that's for sure.