Bucket, string and some aspirin....

I'm alone in my lounge right now apart from a squat fir tree propped up in the corner of the room, encased in mesh like a bank robber with his face in a stocking. He has a wooden base next to him which will eventually support him, once we 'let him out of the bag'.

I carried him home on my shoulder this very cold winter's evening. My breath tumbled in front of my face, and my fingers stung with cold despite being wrapped in gloves.

When I was a kid Dad would go out onto the farm and find a festive looking pine tree branch to become our Christmas tree. More recently, Mum has gotten someone to deliver a suitable branch to the house. Usually it is enormous. As in about ten feet of 'enormousness'.

Our Christmas tree 'Herbert' will (hopefully) sit nicely on his wooden base.

Mum props the pine tree in a bucket, goes out into the paddock to get the appropriately sized rocks, then fills the bucket with water and aspirin to keep tree alive for the next two weeks. Then she will string it up in some elaborate fashion so it doesn't topple over on some unsuspecting relative.

Herbert au naturale

This week we will go out and buy decorations so Herbert feels suitably like a cross dresser whilst he sits in the corner of our room for the festive season.

Dressed up Herbert

Every year Mum will go to the hall cupboard and pull down the same cardboard box of Christmas decorations she has had since I can remember. She will pull out the toilet roll covered in crepe paper to look like a cracker; the angel cut out coloured in with crayon I did when I was five; and of course the string of Christmas lights she has had since she married my Dad. Over 40 years ago. Some of the bulbs have blown. But they still work.

The Bramwell Xmas Tree 2008

I remember once when I was about ten, sneaking into the lounge in the middle of the night and sitting underneath one of those big pine branches. I sat there amongst the piles of wrapped underwear from various aunties. All the lights were out except those persistent coloured tree lights. And even though by that time I knew there was no Father Christmas; and I knew the small, soft parcel from Auntie Colleen was underwear, Christmas was magical all the same.

Welcome Home

Sometimes in a quiet moment at work I daydreamed about how I would react should I get that 'the work permit is yours' e mail. Of all the scenarios I invented, there was not one where I get the news in my red fluffy pyjamas with a 39 degree fever and a jackhammer in my head. But you can't plan these things. And that is how it happened. And maybe I was too sick to do a little solo (no one is watching) dance in my teeny bedroom, but I smiled to myself for a little bit. And then exhaled properly for the first time in weeks.

So the champagne remains unopened, but it is in the fridge. Until I'm fully recovered. And I can now start working through my list of things I had put off until my work permit came through. Membership to the Tate. A subscription to Vanity Fair. Book another trip to New York. Get on with my life.

The relief is almost indescribable. Sometimes I just sit back and let it wash over me.

London Limbo

My fate currently rests in the hands of a seemingly nameless, faceless Home Office employee.

In two weeks time I should know whether I can stay in this country I now call home; continue working at the place where I finally actually get a little bit of respect and responsibility; and keep my lovely house with my even lovelier housemates.

I don't want to think about the alternative. Maybe because I haven't thought of one yet. The idea makes me feel a bit sick really..

The Democratic Right

Nine years ago I cast my first vote in a general election. I can remember the day so vividly, even still. On a sunny Saturday morning, myself and my friend Janine took a stroll down to the Aro Street polling booth after having decorated our flat with stolen election advertising the previous night.

Mine was one of the votes to bring in Helen Clark and the Labour Party who would reign in New Zealand until today.

This week I cast my fourth vote in a New Zealand election. By fax. Much to the amusement of my colleagues.

And as I lay in bed this morning, with Radio New Zealand streaming live to my duvet, I followed the fall of that party and leader I helped elect all those years ago.

Earlier on this week I woke to a text message at 4am telling me history had been made. The headline on the Metro one day later said it all. 'The day America became a little cool again'. It was a happy day in the office that Wednesday.

And two days ago a nice lady stopped by my house to inform me that I am eligible to vote in this country's general elections too.

How nice. Women can't even vote in Saudi Arabia and I get to vote in two countries.

Where has the time gone..

If someone had asked me 20 years ago, what I would be doing on the 3rd of November, 2008, I can't think what I would have said.

But 15 years ago, I'm pretty sure I would have said I would be a star of the stage.

10 years ago I would have been a touch more realistic and would have said working for the United Nations as an environmental development officer in Sri Lanka.

Five years ago I would have said I would be now working in my first international posting for the New Zealand Foreign Affairs and Trade. Maybe somewhere in South America.

One year ago I would have said I would have just started my intensive Japanese language studies for my Masters research.

And here I am. The third day into November - 2008 and I'm sitting by myself in a crappy 1980's office building, waiting for an engineer to come out to fix the alarm system at 7pm on a Monday night. Not only is it dark outside, but it is raining. And I'm meant to be sitting in a Covent Garden theatre right now watching a play.

I can't see much light on this dark Monday night.

I have never...

I feel like I have squeezed a fair few things into the last 28 and a half years. But as I was walking the waterfront the other day, I made a long mental list of the things that so far I have never...

I have never read War & Peace. I have never been to Africa. I have never shoplifted. I have never eaten snake. I have never sung solo in public. I have never run a marathon. I have never been to the supermarket in my pyjamas. I have never swum in the Atlantic Ocean. I have never been in love.

I have never break-danced. I have never changed a car tyre. I have never seen Angkor Wat. I have never been to a strip club. I have never seen a glacier. I have never tasted truffle. I have never ridden in a limousine.

I have never walked out of a job. I have never been to a massive concert. I have never painted on canvas. I have never slid down a bannister. I have never seen the Northern Lights. I have never been on a sunbed. I have never had anything waxed. I have never seen Pulp Fiction. I have never owned a shell suit.

Pick-a-path

I was meant to be half a world away by now.

I would have been soaking up some New Zealand springtime before packing up and leaving again.

But I changed my mind.

Some of you may know that somehow I managed to bag an all-expenses paid stint at a university in Japan. Kick-off: October 2008. Next week. 18 months of research in a topic of my choosing.

But Japan is a very hard place to live. And when it came to the crunch, the thought of going back there freaked me out a little. Besides, I'm in love. With a wonderful city called London.

I feared I would regret giving up the opportunity. Some people would kill for it. But since I finally made up my mind, I have never once looked back. Everyday I wake up in the knowledge that I have made the right decision. Picked the right path.

London: it has been magnificent. And if you are ok with it, I'd like to stay please. What was meant to be a brief affair has turned into a proper long-term relationship. I love your crisp autumn mornings where the low hanging sun bounces off Clapham Common; your incredibly talented collection of buskers; your heaving pubs on a Friday lunch for a fish finger sandwich and a pint of Strongbow; your quirky and slightly throaty laugh and roguish, scruffy nature.

It is nice to finally feel roots grow from my feet and have no more moves tattooed in my future.

Thanks London. It's so nice to call you home.

Summer's ugly stepsister

Unfortunately for every summer, there must be an autumn. Even for a summer like this year's one, which felt pretty much like autumn anyway.

Summer is always going to be one tough act to follow. What can autumn offer that summer didn't?

Crisp sunny mornings; walks to and from the tube in half-light. Colourful death dropping from deciduous trees. Promise of short days and wintry nights.

Frantic searchings for matching gloves on frosty mornings; Tuesday evenings in with a bottle of cheap red and a good friend. An excuse to lie in for an extra hour on a rainy Sunday morning.

Steaming bowls of soup in cheap Clapham cafe. Beers on a Saturday afternoon on a couch at the Windmill.

Fortunately for every autumn, you know that a spring is sleeping somewhere in the not too distant future.

Moving Mania

My life has been taken over by moving lives from one place to another.

Two weeks ago my company said goodbye to the Borough Market; to sunsets over London Bridge; to the Nazis on downstairs security.




We packed everything and moved east. Temporarily. While we find a home worthy of our fabulousness. Until that time we are bunking down in an 80s revival office at the arse end of Canary Wharf, London's pinstriped financial district. Someone really needs to invent a new shirt pattern.

And so I said goodbye to my cathartic walks to work. Hello to tube rides in and out of a station where I am always the only person wearing jeans. Unless I'm with a colleague.

Not only has my work life relocated, but shortly my home life will do the same.

Yes, it is also goodbye to 11 Langham House.

Hello 196 Cedars Road. Hello a slightly more civilised living space and two wonderful women. Goodbye lovely housemates. Fortunately I wont be saying goodbye to Clapham. I tried to move north but instead the fates wished me to stay. And so I move from the south side to the north side of the Common.

A little further from the tube station. A little closer to..... well, a little closer a few things really.

Yes, I am alive

No I didn't fall in front of a tube. And no, I didn't fall victim to a nasty late-night kebab. And I definitely wasn't whisked away by a knight in shining armour. Nope.

Instead I am only just emerging from a dark, dark time of 12-15 hour days of work. It all culminated in a weekend where I managed to squeeze a week's work into 2.5 days. I actually even slept at work for one night. All of an hour and a half kip on the blue sofa downstairs (5.30am) before waking (7am) showering, drinking rivers of coffee, eating three slices of cold pizza, and starting the day all over again.

I am only now rediscovering my sense of humour. A long weekend at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival helped me with just that.

Now I must do some much neglected laundry. And talk to these strange people in my home who seem to think they are my housemates.