I’ve not written anything for ages, I know, and I expect you may be wondering where I am.  Well, if all things had gone to plan I should be in New York right now.  Actually, however, I’m in Sheffield, which as you would expect is vastly different.

I’ll come back to New Zealand tales later on, but as I was flying from Auckland to Nadi, Fiji, I had to do some thinking and make some decisions.  I had to face the fact that I was running out of money and wouldn’t really have enough to last a week in the USA, let alone 6 weeks.  I couldn’t borrow any money to extend my stay so I spent the 9 days in Fiji, swimming, snorkeling, meeting new people, hanging out with my friend ruby and trying to mentally prepare myself for coming home 6 weeks early and missing out on visiting America, which was the part of the trip I was most looking forward to.  But I wasn’t able to manage my money as I’d planned to but it just meant I was coming home early.

My return was quite stressful, I lived the 6th of June twice, travelling through the date line from Nadi to Los Angeles, spent 23 hours on the plane, got a nosebleed (argh) and then was met at the airport by my sister, niece and nephew who had been waiting patiently for about an hour as the bags took ages to unload.

I stayed for about a fortnight with my sister and her family, visited the Jobcentre to sign up for JSA – I didn’t get it straight away as I’ve spent more than 3 months out of the country and needed to prove that I am eligible for the support.  I applied for about 12 teaching jobs in Sheffield, had an interview and have a job covering maternity leave in a school in south Sheffield.  Hooray!!

I’ve moved to Sheffield and am living, for the moment, in the attic room of Nancy Kerr and James Fagan and spend some of my time looking after their little boys, Hamish and Harry.  I saw the Tour de France grand depart come past the end of the road, I’ve started exploring the city, thinking about what I can plan for my new class, signed up with the doctors, with an online dating agency and had my fringe cut back in.  I’ve met some cousins from America who are some of our only relations left from my paternal grandfather’s side and I went to the funeral of a friend who recently died of pancreatic cancer.

I’m on my own at the moment, looking after the house and watching a lot of The Newsroom and have been sewing bunting and making my own felt (separate post about that on it’s way).

 

I’m looking forward to Towersey Village Festival and my friend Jayne’s wedding, as the markers of the end of this section of my life before I get started again on teaching.

 

I think that’s a reasonable recap!