All Bound for Wellington….

Auckland is cloaked in grey, the rain is horizontal and Glasgow is having a heat wave….still. How annoyed am I, we are missing the only sunshine we are likely to get this year back home! I am gutted.
Ashley and I stayed in the hotel in Auckland last night and edited the first live blog for our NZ trip. We then went out for dinner, ate quickly and got back to the room to pack up for Wellington, we were flying out at 9am this morning so preparations and room cleaning was on the cards.
Ashley lives like a gypsy, she throws all her belongings far and wide across the whole area, I manage to keep all my possessions to one corner. We bought an external hard drive also as my laptop was clogged up with all her film and sound files. So beside the many clothes she has scattered, we had a room full of wires and electronic camera equipment, tripods and film accessories, I thought I was going to go crazy!
We managed to get the cases packed up, and headed for the airport this morning…in the rain.
The flight from Auckland to Wellington is only an hour. I am doing two weeks in Wellington before we head back to Auckland for the last week of the festival. My show is at Downstage Theatre.
I have never been to Wellington before, so I was excited beyond belief but would miss all my mates and the familiarity of Auckland City.
We got on the busy flight and for some reason there were hordes of big fat people who all took there shoes off and the smell was unbearable! Ashley had her head in her leather bag the whole flight as she was retching.
“Mum what is wrong with these people? Don’t they know their feet and bodies smell like that?” she announced loudly. To make matters worse a big chubby girl behind her stuck her stinky feet up the side of Ashley’s seat and touched my daughters elbow! Ashley screamed and stuffed her jacket down between her airline seat and the window to stem the stench!
The air was fetid and I could hardly breathe.
As the plane approached Wellington, it came in low over the water, it got lower and lower and still the water was beneath us. My nerves jangled and I am a seasoned flyer, but where the fuck was the ground? Was it going to land on water?
Just as the plane dropped its wheels we suddenly came over land and the aeroplane actually just dropped onto the tarmac with a hefty bump! My mouth was dry and my heart leapt. No one fucking told me about this!
I looked at my daughter and she had those big bush baby eyes in sheer terror staring at me “What was that about? I thought we had crash landed” She hissed. Apparently flights to Wellington are notoriously scary as the runway is too short for the big planes, they are extending it this year. Not soon enough, I am scared to get back on that flight; I may walk it to Auckland next week.

So here we are in Wellington, we have a suite to ourselves, one big living room and good kitchen, two bedrooms and two bathrooms (bliss) I no longer walk around twisting my ankle on discarded shoes, no longer stumble over camera wires or get my feet tangled around a bra that looks like a stripper had been doing a dance beside my bed! I have my own room…..rock and roll!
The city does look nice, we are right in the heart of the shopping area, as we are living here for two weeks I went out and bought food, fuck knows who will cook it as Ashley and I are crap at that. We may entice a young guy back to the hotel suite with a promise of sexual favours and just force him to cook the steak I bought or we burn him with matches! I think there are men who would pay for that sort of service.
We are both on National TV tomorrow on a show called ‘Good Morning’. Sounds like fun? I am also doing the big opening festival show later on that night. I am busy but rested and miss home, miss my husband …..well at least his cooking skills.