On History

The thing I've noticed about New Zealand, in my five years over here, is the lack of history. In the UK we had these great ancestral anchors holding our feet to the floor in the form of ruinous old piles dotted liberally around the landscape- surviving weather, maurading Vikings, Romans, the might of Hitler's Luftwaffe. They were just there- some unnoticed, some made into tourist attractions, some just in a no-man's land in between- the bane of farmers and the delight of antiquarians. That's the interesting thing I guess- there are standing stones and cairns and burial mounds all over England, dotting the landscape like freckles, yet no one has thought to pull them down or dig them up. They'd be pretty good farming land, and while farmers allow their sheep to wander freely (one hasn't really experienced an English summer unless you've stepped in a sheep's little present to you) they still haven't destroyed these memorials. It gives people a sense of their own past, I guess. Doctor Who references aside, Stonehenge is as British as milky tea and rain in August.

New Zealand doesn't have the same reverence. Now, I'm all for progress, but the average New Zealander takes the word 'progress' and makes it walk up and down like a two-dollar ho. The city I live in has some spectacular examples of art deco and Victorian-Gothic decor, but if there was a chance that it would get in the way of revenue then knock that fucker down guys! Since there was a bitchin earthquake down here, it's got worse- the structural damage is being used as an excuse to knock-down all the lovely old buildings, and the facades that have fallen off the front of buildings are not going to be restored. Not to mention the Music Conservatory debacle* a few months back... I think it drives them mad, a little, not having history under their feet. In the UK, pull up any road or dig into any back-garden and one can unearth old roads, old rubbish heaps, even a cache of jewellry**- evidence of the people before us. It's not so in New Zealand, and I wonder if this is what drives them to smash their history before it's really began- a sort of schizophrenia, no concept of their own past or future. They smile at you, but there's no sense of the person behind. You have to wonder what it's like, having no national identity. Sure, they have their 'green' persona, rigorously defended and neurotically kept to- in fact, any

I miss the UK, at times like this. I miss the feel of the past beneath my feet. I know the UK isn't nearly perfect- I keep up via the BBC (today my RSS feed had druids celebrating Samhain*** next to fighting knife crime**** in schools)- though often I find the television shows (Sherlock, Life on Mars etc etc) give me a more accurate idea of what the country is like. I want to go back, in fact, I probably will go back. Hopefully. But more on that later...

*YouTube video. I know the guy who made it...
**Er, just a website.
***BBC news.
****BBC news.

Writer's Block

It's kind of sad. I joined a new fandom (I know, tragic, but what can I say?) and after a dry spell of about... Seven years, I started writing fanfiction again. Bolstered by the fact that I managed to come up with a number of decent fics, that people actually liked, I joined a sort of secret Santa affair. Now it's like any inspiration I had has just sort of drained away. I'm hoping that finishing my current project will clear the block, and I'll be able to write the nice internet person a relevant piece of Christmas-filled fluff.
I'm trying to write more- anything really. This blog, for one, for sort of non-fiction-y pieces, and then the fan-fiction, because more recently I could just sort of bang one out in a couple days with relative ease, and people said nice things, and it was good to be creative like that. I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life, but I can imagine it'll be something where I'm required to do creative (or not so creative) output about once a week, maybe more. It'll be good training.
Phillip Pullman, great man and author of His Dark Materials, said there's no such thing as writer's block. I'm not sure I believe him. It's the most frustrating thing in the world- wanting to create, even in someone else's world, and not being able to. The cursor blinks at me, and it's just like it's mocking me, and there's just nothing there, none of the little rush I've come to expect with my writing.
I'm supposed to be writing assignments and studying for a bunch of tests, but I can't work up any enthusiasm to do them. It's my last semester as an under-grad, so I really should just be whizzing through them, just to show willing. But it's like all the oomph went out of me. I know that in about a week, all the deadlines will come crashing down on me, but I'm some how having a hard time caring.

What else is there to say? Not much. I've been going to uni, and coming home and faffing about on the internet, staying up too late on school nights, and really just not achieving much. I have a vague fear I've lost my wee flash drive, because it had my only copy of my CV on (I know, I know, should have backed it up, that was dumb). I think I need to get more exciting. Maybe find a time-travelling companion or genius detective. Or maybe I'll just start writing about my cat more.

Oh well, I guess the only thing to do is KBO, and be glad that I am so far managing to do one of these posts a week. Hopefully next week I'll have something a little more exciting.

Tears In The Rain

I like the rain. There, I said it. It's the best weather. When its sunny, it's either too cold, and the sun is right in your eyes, or its too hot, and you feel like the sun's personal goal is to melt you into a blob of sticky goo. When its windy, it's too cold, it makes biking a chore, and grit gets in your eyes. Cloudy days are nothing days, the elemental equivalent of a fat-day in shapeless jogging bottoms. The thing about rain is that it is what you make it- it fits round you and your mood like an old lover or favourite jumper.

Rain is cosy when its dark inside and warm inside. It keeps watch while you're curled up on the couch with a good book, movie, crafting, the cat, my laptop, a cup of tea. It makes me think of cinnamon and fruit-bread. Its the old-but-loved comfort blanket.
Rain is soothing when I'm in bed reading by the glow of a lamp, and I can hear it drumming on the corrugated-iron roof like thousands of tiny feet, and the cat is curled up on my dressing-gown or somehow taking up all my quilt despite being about a tenth my size. It's the purr of the cat, the hot drink.
Rain is homely waking up in the morning when I don't have to get up with the alarm and hearing it beat a tattoo, smelling coffee and hearing Mine Papa play Stuart and Marconie on the internet radio downstairs. It's undemanding homework and lazy lunch with the folks.
Rain is beautiful when I'm out at night and the car head-lights pick out the rain in front of them like thousands of tiny jewels. Its whispered words in a cocoon of music and petrol-smell.
Rain is cheery when I can smell the hot tarmac cooling on a warm day, and it colours in the gravel one tiny point at a time. Its eating an ice-lolly after a long hot day.
Rain is persistent, standing in the rain waiting for the bus, and I can see the rain blowing up the hill, and I can feel it soaking through my jeans but my feet are warm and dry inside a pair of Gran's knitted socks and Doc Marten's. Its getting on the bus and finding the seat with the heater under it.
Rain is coming in from the outside, glasses steamed so I can't see, hair dripping, and taking off my wet things to change into pajamas, and drinking tea. Its the Chelsea bun Mum bought for you.
Rain is seasonal: long bouts of rain in winter where its deliciously miserable for days, and I wear my dressing-gown over my clothes and toast in front of the heat-pump with the cat. The weather finally breaks in summer and soaks through thin cotton and dampens the parched ground. In spring when the rain feels fresh and makes the world lush. In autumn when the leaves are stirred to a russet mush by the damp and misty mornings smell like wood-smoke, moisture clinging to hair and clothing. Its memories and sensations, never the same twice, tumbling around you and caught on your skin.