Part 7 - Magners sidder

Well we went out last Saturday to HMS Kings in Invercargill with the OH's (Other Half's) work. It was a really good night. The food was absolutely delicious - I had calamari to start followed by the chef's special of Blue Cod & Brill (both fish) on potatoes and fennel. It was yum yum yummy. They sold oysters in various states - fresh / battered / with cheese & bacon. The OHhad them fresh to start & I couldn't bring myself to try one because they look gross. However, I did eat half of a battered one after practically the entire table 'encouraged' me to. I have to say it actually tasted nice. NICE! That's only cos I couldn't see it though I think. I need to stop eating with my eyes and start just trying things. One of the other guys had seafood chowder, that was absolutely gorgeous so I think I'll try that somewhere next time. While we were in the restaurant one of the boys said to one of the others "are you going to try that stuff... (looking at the drinks menu)...is it...sidder?" It was in fact good old fashioned Cider. It's so unknown here. They only had one on the menu called Nallys or something, it was hilarious to think they didn't know they name of it. They'd never heard of Magners or Koppaberg so you cider drinkers might have trouble here in Invers!

Saying that I have also learned some new words here. I'll give you a little taster:

• Friand - a small gluten-free cake. We sell them in the cafe and they have raspberries and cream cheese in them
• Friselle - a toasted sub-like roll
• Infomercials - adverts that they play on certain TV channels ALL DAY LONG
• Chips - crisps
• Hot chips - chips
• Afghan - a chocolate flavoured biscuit
• Jandals - flip flops
• "Far out!" - "wow!"
• Liquefaction - something that happens when water mixes with the ground as a result of earthquakes

There you go - don't say I never teach you anything.

The Batch Cafe is still very busy - 44 hours this week and my first paycheck in NZ$ Yey! We get paid weekly or fortnightly over here as opposed to monthly so that's a big difference to the UK. I served the mayor on Monday - as I was informed by my colleague after I'd served him. Our place has it's fair share of local celebs by all accounts - the NZ Prime Minister officially opened our building a month ago as we're situated directly underneath the offices of a BIG company called WHK and apparently he popped in to the cafe. Once again I went in to work on Thursday and after an hour or so a few people poured in with cameras. It seems that Venture Southland is filming and wanted to feature the city's newest cafe so we had to do a few takes of me serving customers and people were taking more and more pics of things. Apparently I'm very easy to photograph! Lol. That's not to say the pics are any good judging by the one in the Southland Times the other week when I looked really mardy! The highlight of the filming for my colleagues was when Venture Southland said "we can't see you, can we get you to stand on a crate?" and I had to stand on a milk crate...I know I'm short but come on! It was very entertaining as my height has been a hindrance in my current job as I can't actually reach the bar which we stick the dockets on for the chef. In the 1st week I kept leaning on my one elbow and jumping up to reach it...until I got a nasty bruise on my arm from doing it! Now I just leave it on the top and they pick it up from there.

We moved into our new temporary home on Tuesday. It's great to be in the centre of Invers and means my alarm is now set for half an hour later than when we were in Riverton! We had a few glitches in the 1st 2 days: the OH's first coffee had 2 salts in it instead of 2 sugars (oops!) and on the 1st day we got lost on the way to work and on the 2nd day we got lost on the way home from work. Invercargill is just a series of looooong streets crossed by other looooong streets so you always eventually get to where you are going but a wrong turn can throw you off for a little bit. On Tues we had our 1st Indian meal in months which was lovely then on Friday we had a takeaway from a local chippy / Chinese. The OH had the BIGGEST Chinese meal I have ever seen, it barely fit onto the plate! Absolutely ginormous.

I haven't mentioned yet about the fire siren in Riverton. Before I got out to NZ the OH was awoken in the middle of the night one evening by a very very loud siren. He hadn't been pre-warned about this so he didn't have a clue what it was about and wondered if it was a tsunami alert. He turned on the news but there was nothing mentioned on there so he text one of the boys he works with to find out what was going on. It turns out it's the fire warning. If there's a fire in Riverton that the fire service are called out to they set off this fire siren which wakes the entire village. The reason is because the Fire Service there is voluntary so they set off the alarm to wake up the voluntary firemen and the siren continues to go off until they get enough fire fighters at the station to put out the blaze. The OH wondered why they don't just page them and apparently they do that as well but they need to get as many firemen to the station as quickly as possible and that's the best way of achieving that objective. Quite clever really!

There's still no snow here in Invercargill and ski season was supposed to start last week. The Southlanders can't remember the last time when ski season had to be put on hold in so many ski centres. We headed up to Queenstown for WinterFest yesterday with my friend Kate from work and we stayed at her parent's holiday home. What can I say about Queenstown...? WOW! It is simply amazing. The 2 hour car journey on the way had some completely amazing views - driving towards mountains on clear roads and we went up around Queenstown Lake District which was simply stunning. I took some pics and will put them up on FB but it felt like I just couldn't capture the sheer brilliance of the place. Kate's holiday home has a balcony which looks directly onto the lake and a HUGE mountain ski range, it's amazing. There was no snow at all in Queenstown and one of the ski resorts has had to invest in some very expensive snow making machines so that they could open the slopes. The lack of snow and the recent Chilean volcanic eruption resulted in loads of people cancelling their trip to Queenstown which is unfortunate for the town. Saying that it was still extremely busy! We didn't end up going to WinterFest at all! We went for some lunch in the new Hilton complex and then moved on into Queenstown for a night on the tiles. Then this morning we headed to Kate's family friends who made us breakfast rolls and then headed off into Arrowtown to take a look around. It's a very quaint little town that's decked out to look all western, it was very gorgeous and the small boutique-type shops had some amazing things for the home. After Arrowtown we headed to a place called Millbrook Resort for some lunch and a coffee before we headed back into Invercargill. This resort is built on a golf course and has houses on the edge of it that you can buy or rent for a good few dollars!! It has a spa, gym, restaurant and cafe set in some gorgeous grounds and it was really nice.

I can't believe I have been here for a month already - it's gone so quickly and I am missing everyone back home today. There's only so many times you can explain what a 'cwtch' is before you need one. Have a lovely Sunday everyone, much love.