which one of us is the bigger fool?

So I missed one of my favourite days of the year. April Fools. Well actually, I didn’t miss it because I turned out to be the fool, but I didn’t get to play any pranks on anyone. The reason? I was in bed with an almighty hangover, barely able to open my eyes and cursing the previous night’s belief that ‘maybe Tequila and I can be friends again’. As it turned out we couldn’t be. So there I was a fool alright lying in bed wondering if my head would ever shrink back down to size, missing out on April Fools. Not my finest hour. And I’ve said that phrase enough in my lifetime that I think all my non fine hours must have added up to at least a day so far! I refuse the possibility that they could in fact form a week...

Moving swiftly on. Ollie and I have finally hit the reality that we won’t be in New Zealand forever earning money and that the time to talk of moving on and traveling things is upon us and that if we don’t get a move on with our saving, there will be no money to move on with! We are not far behind but definitely in agreement that lying low on the adventure scene for a few weeks would be a good idea to get back on track to financial stability for the next leg of our journey. Ha! How ridiculous does that last sentence sound? I slipped into Prime Ministerial election speech garbage! But yes, save we must and I know it will all be worth it. We only have about twelve weeks left until we leave! I just have to hope that during this time I don’t lose my job...

Now I like my job but I’m not so sure as to how much it likes me. I have always known I am not best suited to doing anything involved with liquids and in my current job this is perfectly reinforced. No matter how hard I try, anytime I must fill up, top up, scoop up, pour or come into contact with any form of liquid, be it chocolate sauce, ice cream, syrup or even water for that matter, without fail I will drop, spill, splatter or explode it most inappropriately! So much so that I am now even getting blamed for spillages that have occurred nowhere near where I am! And I feel so terrible because as nice as my managers are about it all I’m sure I must infuriate them. I know because I infuriate myself! So I try my best and I work hard but always under the constant fear that my next ‘moment’ is only a minute away!

And it’s not just my coordination that gets me in to trouble. My mouth is a problem too. I think it’s pretty obvious to most people that I like to talk. Actually I really like to talk. Not all the time, but when my lips are in the mood I can become a particularly loquacious personality. It was this trait of mine that used to get me in to trouble at school, how Mum used to know I was inebriated on returning from parties when I was younger and why Ollie dreads long car journeys with me. But at work not only do I get myself in trouble, I also embroil other poor innocents by ‘distracting’ them. And even worse, when we are told off I always seem to manage to be looking like I was actually doing something, leaving my other colleague stranded because they stopped to talk to me. Well, I shouldn’t feel too bad about that, they should learn to talk and work at the same time! 

I don’t mean to talk. I arrive at every shift reciting to myself three rules. Be silent, don’t get noticed and don’t cause a mess. And every shift I fail utterly. But it’s nice to be chatty isn’t it? Certainly better than looking to serious surely! Besides there are important things to discuss! For example, when the next night out should be, whether the customer I’m serving is a man or a woman because we can’t quite tell, what someone is going to have for dinner and whether I will ever make it through a shift without the word ‘oops’. And I know I can’t be all bad because I saw an assessment sheet that had been done on me and it said I had a ‘friendly smile’ and that I made ‘good small talk with customers during orders’. So perhaps being a chatter box is a quality to be proud of after all! But I must remember what Dad taught me, ‘Amy, there is a time and a place’. Actually I’m not being completely honest. He did always tell me that but the full version was usually, ‘Amy there is a time and a place, and this is NOT the time OR the place!’

But hopefully the people I work with like me. They always seems happy to work with me, but maybe that’s just because they know I won’t be around long and are busy organising a ‘Thank goodness that weirdo has left’ party!! 

* * *

Last Tuesday I took the train to the city to catch up with Ben and Fliss one last time. They were on their final New Zealand cruise and I was desperate to see them. They are/were my little bit of home! I arrived early and found them looking very happy, much happier than last time Ollie and I had met up with them! We took the ferry over to Devonport in search of decent pancakes that I knew they’d been craving. I found the cafe Ollie had taken me to a few Sundays before and we sat down to coffee, heaps of pan cakes and a good chat. It was so lovely to see them again and to hear all that had happened since we had last met. They were both counting down the days until their flight home but admitted that things had become slightly better on the ship, I think really they had finally settled in to what they were doing. It’s easy to settle in when you know you are over half way through! 

I must admit I felt a pinch of homesick as I heard excited plans for their return and how they would be back in England in only six weeks. I almost wanted to jump back on the ship and go with them! Especially knowing I wouldn’t see them for another year, which also meant I wouldn’t see anyone for that long either! But then I thought of all the plans Ollie and I have and suddenly a year didn’t seem to bigger price to pay for all that we were going to see and do.

After a very wonderful long chat and feeling very full, we went for a walk and then took the ferry back over. Auckland isn’t the most invigorating city during the day and unless you have a car, there isn’t really much to do! So to make the most of our lazy day we found a little street bar and sat down for another drink and more talking. But it really didn’t matter what we did it was just so great to be together. Ollie was very sad he had to work and we could all tell because he would phone up every hour to see how we were, what we were doing and just try to feel like he was there in general!  

Eventually I had to catch the train for work. It was hard to say goodbye but I felt happy knowing that Fliss and Ben didn’t have much longer before they could go home.  What made me laugh though was despite finding this cruise particularly difficult and last time I saw them, vowing never to do another one, when I left them this time they were already talking of a potential Caribbean one they had seen! I told them that if after they got home, they started to think about working on another ship, to come to me first and I would remind them of all the things they hated about this one! So of course, we shall see...!

* * *

The rest of the week was spent working, hanging out with my lovely friend Nirvisha and enjoying the unexpected boiling hot weather. On Thursday night I persuaded Ollie to take me to the cinema (I love the going soooo much!), and we saw a film called ‘The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’. The film was different to what I had expected but we both really enjoyed it. Although, the fact that it dealt with ‘growing older’ probably wasn’t the best for me who has enough worries about that idea without needing to watch a film about it! But luckily it was more uplifting than depressing, even if a couple’s forty year marriage was failing and I left the cinema dreading building forty years of life with Ollie only for it to be wasted! But he assured me that wouldn’t happen to us. I smiled and trusted him, trying to ignore the fact that he couldn’t possibly know...could he?

And then of course it was the Easter weekend. Although I was working everyday, I was able to join everyone for a lovely Easter Sunday lunch that all of Nigel’s family came over for and it was great for them to be altogether and for Ollie and I to be a part of that. It was a super BBQ lunch and the weather was perfect. It was my first experience of having to abandon an Easter egg hunt before it even got started due to the fact that the eggs were melting! Luckily after an hour in the fridge they were ready to go again and the kids could finally get hunting! 

* * *

Yesterday was another beautiful sunny day so Ollie and I headed for the beach! We wanted to get over to our favourite, Piha, but as always for us, things weren’t quite that straight forward. Ollie had mentioned before we left that he needed to get fuel, so when we were well on the way and he hadn’t stopped to get any, I just thought he had realised we didn’t need to. After stopping to grab a coffee and some early lunch we were still about half an hour away from the beach when Ollie went very quiet. I asked what was wrong only to receive the reply that we had ‘gone past the point of no return’ and that he didn’t know how much longer the car would continue to run. Great! My husband, the most panicky, fuel conscious, well planned, sensible, thinker aheader, always with a plan guy had abandoned all sense and got us into trouble. And I, the ever trusting wife (Cough) had blindly followed, believing that my sensible husband must have known what he was doing! The happy atmosphere in the car soon became tense as we drove round bend after bend with Ollie constantly exclaiming ‘It’s a lot further than I remember!’, counting down the Km’s we had left and saying ‘We’ve been rolling for the past five minutes!’. None of these remarks were making me feel any better but I was relieved to finally see the beach below us and as the optimistic in the car I tried to tell myself that of course we wouldn’t run out of fuel.

We pulled up and for the first time, properly looked out the window. It was cloudy. We had come all this way, risked running out of gas, and it was bloody cloudy. Typical! Ever hopeful I reminded us both that last time we came it had been cloudy but that it had cleared up. We got out the car, trying not think about how we would get back, and headed towards the sand. But we couldn’t lie to each other, we were both freezing! We had left behind a glorious hot day, only to drive over an hour to a cold, cloudy deserted beach. Brilliant. Obviously the next five minutes that followed were spent trying to find out which one of us was more to blame for the situation we now found ourselves in and me for once deciding to be quiet and not lead the way into a full blown argument. A technique I learned from Ollie, one I don’t often remember to employ, but definitely the one that makes the other person feel the worst!!! Of course because I shut up, Ollie then apologised profusely for the fuel saga and promised to turn our day around. None of it was actually my fault but if I had run my mouth off it would have become my fault, so for once I made a sensible move! We agreed to abandon ‘Operation Piha’, drive back up the never ending roads, hope the car didn’t die and pray that we would find a petrol station before it was all to late. And when the car finally had some fuel in it again, then we would decide on a new plan! 

Thankfully the Sat Nav took us the wrong way (no surprise there!), which allowed us to come across a town and a petrol station sooner than we would have had we gone the right way! So all was not lost and an hour later we were sat on a beach over on the north shore under a blue sky, happy again! 

10/4/12