A while back, one of our brood managed to lose a large set of keys to
\nour house and car. This must have, in some way, been working on the
\nsubconscious of my beloved earlier this morning because, in the depth
\nof the night and half asleep herself, SWMBO shook me violently and,
\nin a rasping whisper not unlike Golum’s, insisted that she ‘could
\nhear Keith Chegwin outside!’ Being woken at three in the morning to
\nbe told that the moon-faced darling of 1970’s BBC children’s
\ntelevision is creeping around our garden is not my preferred way to
\nprepare for a early morning interview. Incredulity turned to
\ncomprehension when upon replaying the phrase in my head, my befuddled
\nbrain realised that she had actually said that she ‘could hear keys
\njangling outside’. The need for sleep notwithstanding, paternal duty
\nand a certain amount of nervous male pride ensured that I spent the
\nnext 5 minutes creeping from window to window, scanning the section
\nfor intruders, famous or otherwise, whilst trying not to recall
\ndetails of brutal ‘home invasions’ from recent local news reports.
\nHaving relayed that fact that the jangling was coming from the collar
\nbell of one of SWMBO’s four cats, I returned to bed to prepare for my
\ninterview with a few hours of restless tossing and turning, now
\naccompanied by persistent unbidden recollections of Keith Chegwin’s
\nincessant nasal chirping.<\/p>\n
It is two months exactly since we boarded an Air New Zealand Boeing
\n747 left the UK. In the morning, along with other bleary-eyed
\nbusiness folk, I will climb aboard a much smaller aircraft for my
\nthird day trip to Auckland in as many weeks. However, tomorrow’s
\nflight will be different from my previous excursions up country in
\nthat, this time, the cost of the flight will be covered by a
\nprospective employer, rather than our slowly diminishing family
\nbudget. Whilst there is no business class champagne and caviar
\nbreakfast option available on the thirty seat turboprop crop-duster
\nI’ll be flying, I might just chance my arm and ask Kevin or Kerry,
\nthe regular cabin crew on this route, for an extra packet of
\nMacadamia nut cookies to go with my stewed tea.<\/p>\n
Whilst I am certainly no jet set executive, I have been lucky enough
\nto travel to a variety of places on business over the years.
\nBusiness travel can be an absolute grind, especially when the
\nitinerary is tight or the schedules mean long flights with bad
\nconnections. With this in mind, I try to find something new to
\noffset the drawbacks and provide me with a new perspective to enjoy.
\nOn the outbound flight of my last Auckland trip, I was seated in
\nfront of an Un Min, the airline industry’s contraction for an
\nunaccompanied minor. From the tone of the conversations he struck up
\nwith both myself and another chap behind him, this small boy, no
\nolder than ten, was already the veteran of many an internal flight
\naround New Zealand and Australia. From what I could gather, the lad
\nlived on a remote farm station and any journey to visit far-flung
\nfamily or distant friends involved, at the very least, a four wheel
\ndrive and a small light aircraft and that was before he had left the
\nfamily property. Yet this seasoned flyer, whose trip home would
\ninvolve progressively smaller and smaller aircraft, was not too
\nseasoned to relish being given the job of handing round the sweets to
\nthe other passengers, whom he proceeded to charm with a winning
\ncombination of healthy outback complexion, cheeky smile and endless
\nbarrage of questions.<\/p>\n
With both my bicycles locked inside a bonded container somewhere in
\nthe Port of Wellington, the majority of my terrestrial travel thus
\nfar has been by car or train. Topography, geology and seismology
\nhave all played a part in making road transport the main choice for
\nmoving people and things up and down these long and varied islands,
\nwith ships and boats fulfilling the crucial role of bridging the gap
\nin the middle and providing alternatives along the sides. I use the
\nall-encompassing phrase ‘road transport’ as we have seen all manner
\nof vehicles on the roads here and have become used to rounding a
\ncorner to be confronted by some new form of wheeled vehicle the like
\nof which we have never seen. Even at the dinner table a week or so
\nback, I looked up and out of the window to see a London Route Master
\ndouble decker bus (No.18 route for those that want to know) driving
\npast the end of our road and down to the beach. This, we suspect,
\nwas the ‘English Rose’, a bus used for tours and corporate events we
\nlater saw plying it’s trade in Wellington.<\/p>\n
As someone who, at one time or another, has piloted bicycles,
\nminibuses, vans, minicabs and trucks around the busy streets of
\nLondon and around the UK, it has taken me a while to adapt to better
\nsuit the more relaxed, though arguably more dangerous, style of
\ndriving here. Although I would describe myself as an average driver,
\nmy spouse has maintained for years that I am prone to certain traits
\nthat are to be found in the sub genus Homo Automobilus. These, I am
\nreliably informed, include resetting the trip odometer to ‘0’ before
\neach journey but never checking the final mileage, passing toilet
\nstops and rest areas to avoid being overtaken by those I have just
\npassed and demanding what other drivers are doing ‘on my road’. It
\ngoes without saying that I utterly refute such allegations but am
\nhappy to repeat them here in the interests of balanced reporting.
\nThat said, in the early weeks here, I did notice that I was
\nconstantly passing people on the roads. Over the weeks, it has
\ndawned on me that this ‘must pass’ mentality was a hang over from
\ndriving on British roads where every mile might be your last before
\nbecoming trapped in a 20 mile Bank holiday tail-back. Of late, I am
\nmore than happy, when the conditions allow, to edge up to just shy of
\nthe prevailing speed limit, set the cruise control to keep me legal
\nand let the car take the strain, knowing that we’ll get there soon
\nenough.<\/p>\n
The vast majority of Kiwi drivers are perfectly sensible and
\ncourteous but the tiny remainder fall into two distinct camps – the
\ndreamers and the boy racers. The former are those who make use of
\nthe full width of the road, including the opposite lane and both
\nshoulders, as though driving was like one of those early video
\ndriving games, which simply required one to steer down the black
\nribbon between two sets of green pixelated markers. These folks mean
\nno harm but simply seem incapable of steering a vehicle within the
\nconfines of a designated lane and clearly have less of a grasp
\nconcerning New Zealand’s particular ‘give way to the right’ rules
\nthan I do. The latter, allowed to drive from the age of 15, feature
\ndaily in the newspapers here, where graphic tales of speed freak
\nantics and lurid reports on road deaths share the same pages as
\ndetails of the latest safety campaigns and editorials exploring the
\ncausal factors involved. Shock tactic television adverts feature
\ntearful actors as bereaved relatives or families in magically
\nsuspended cars suddenly dropped to earth to simulate a head accident
\nbut the thrill, kudos and machismo associated with customised cars,
\near-shattering sound-offs and street racing by New Zealand’s youth
\nensures the tolls continues to rise.<\/p>\n
As with road deaths the world over, there are no easy answers and few
\ngovernments will risk their majority by taking on the road transport
\nlobby head to head. The inevitable corollary to this is that the
\ndrive for such change invariably falls to volunteer campaigners and
\npressure groups. Having been involved in a small way with the London
\nCycle Campaign and Tower Hamlets Wheelers’ Bike Buddy scheme, two
\nstories in Wellington’s Dominion Post caught my attention this
\nmorning which illustrate how the efforts of such groups can make all
\nthe difference. The first concerned a novice cyclist who died whilst
\nout training for an upcoming charity ride. After carrying the bike
\nin a car, it seems that both the rider and their friend neglected to
\nreattach the quick-release brake cables after refitting the wheels.
\nAny but the shortest journey in Wellington will involve at least one
\nsteep hill, so the consequence of this oversight was the cyclist
\ncareered downhill, through a junction and into a pickup truck, with
\nfatal consequences. As “not a confident bike rider” who disliked
\n“riding in the city”, perhaps this rider might have benefited from
\nhaving an experienced bike buddy who, as well as helping them ride
\nconfidently along the safest route possible, might just have advised
\nthem to check the reassembled bike before heading down a steep
\nslope. In the second story, prompted by a coroner’s report,
\nWellington City Council is considering lowering the speed limit in
\nthe city centre from 50 to 30 kph in order to reduce deaths and
\naccidents involving vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and
\ncyclists. However, the union representing the bus and tram drivers
\nhere claim that, because pedestrians stepping into the street leave
\ntheir members “nowhere to go”, the pavements should be lined with
\nchains or railings except at designated crossing points. This is all
\nwell and good unless, as has been found in London, you are a cyclist,
\nwhen these railings are potential killers that prevent riders falling
\naway from the traffic and leave them more vulnerable to being
\ncrushed. Without a unified and comprehensive approach, the city runs
\nthe risk of reducing casualty statistics in one user group only to
\ncause them to rise in another. Who knows, I may just add my voice to
\nthe debate.<\/p>\n
Talking of casualties, we had our first opportunity to experience New
\nZealand’s healthcare system when daughter two managed to over-extend
\ndaughter three’s ankle joint in a bout of playground rough and
\ntumble. Despite the lack of visible symptoms, an increase in the
\npain after a few hours raised concerns enough to indicate a swift
\ndrive to the emergency room forty kilometres away was in order.
\nDespite some concerns over the extent of the reciprocal healthcare
\nagreement between the UK and NZ, we were dealt with pleasantly and
\nefficiently in a clean and welcoming environment, a welcome change
\nfrom the madhouse atmosphere and cast of social outcasts that made up
\nLondon’s busiest ER, which was nearest to our old UK home. After a
\ncouple of hours waiting punctuated by a visit from a triage nurse and
\na trip to x-ray, we were ushered into a consulting room to see the
\ndoctor. Seemingly almost as young, blonde and smiley as her patient,
\nthe lovely Dr Williams spoke with a soft lilting voice that could
\nonly originate in the valleys of South Wales. The telltale signs of
\njunior doctor tiredness receded a little as she talked of home and
\nchecked the ankle for damage. Having ascertained that the damage was
\nminimal, we said our goodbyes and left the good doctor to her work.
\nWhilst she professed to be enjoying her work experience and social
\nlife abroad very much, I detected more than a hint of homesickness in
\nher tone and suspect that, on completion of her rotation, she’ll be
\nheading back to the UK. Come tomorrow morning, I’m interviewing for
\na job that may just mean that, when March rolls around, we can avoid
\nhaving to do the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A while back, one of our brood managed to lose a large set of keys to our house and car. This must have, in some way, been working on the subconscious of my beloved earlier this morning because, in the depth of the night and half asleep herself, SWMBO shook me violently and, in a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":249,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[258,264,37],"tags":[760,761,261,263,762,759],"class_list":["post-216892687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-emigration","category-ponderings","category-work","tag-emigration","tag-family-friends","tag-immigration","tag-out-about","tag-ponderings","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216892687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/249"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=216892687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216892687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216893083,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216892687\/revisions\/216893083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=216892687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=216892687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=216892687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}