Australia has a lot of lotteries - there are national ones and federal ones and it seems like there's one every day of the week. They can reach pretty high stakes, and recently the prize pool topped $70million. We bought a ticket , but we didn't win. Fair enough - it is, after all, a lottery.
What does annoy me, however, is when people say, 'oh, it won't change me'. Well, clearly you don't 'deserve' to win it then - give it to me! Of course I would pay off my mortgage and that of any other of my family members who need it, I would buy an E-type Jag and another couple of houses somewhere, preferrably one in Park Crescent, and indulge myself in my dream holidays.
But I would make changes to everyday life as well. If I had unlimited funds, here are the ways I would change:
5 Lottery Winning Changes:
- I would always fly first class
- I would hire a cleaner - housework would be a thing of the past for me
- I would always get taxis home from a night out, rather than having to plan for a sober driver or leaving on the last train/bus home - or if I were in a decent city, I would just stay in a hotel overnight
- I would donate money to every charitable organisation I walked past (as long as they weren't supporting right wing politicians)
- Every time I had a health niggle, I would go straight to the relevant practitioner (doctor/ dentist/ physio/ massage therapist) rather than saving up all my ailments until I felt I had enough to justify the consultancy fee.
On the subject of dreams (which we were) and holidays (which we have been), here are some of my dream destinations. They're all places I'd really like to go on holiday but cost a fair bit; maybe if I won a medium-sized lottery I'd blow the cash on one of these. Mind you, I suppose I would have to start buying the tickets first.
5 Dream Destinations:
- Safari in Africa: It's all about the wildlife - lions; leopards; cheetahs; zebras; elephants; antelope; wildebeest and giraffes (crouching or otherwise). Whether in Botswana, Kenya, Zambia, or any other realtively stable African country, I would love to experience the stunning scenery and the play of light and colour. Those lodges look like my idea of heaven, and are way out of my price range.
- Antarctica: The same but different, i.e. It's all about the wildlife, scenery and light and colour. And it would have to be seen from a (warm) cruise ship, which is way beyond my budget. My camera would get such a hammering!
- South America: yup, the entire continent. I mean, it's got everything: ancient history (Incas and Machu Pichu), colonial cities, vibrant modern cities, deserts, mountains, glaciers, beaches, rainforests, waterfalls, wildlife (imagine visiting the Galapagos Islands!) and wine - and my life will not be complete until I have learned to tango in Buenos Aires. I know, it will take at least a year (and that's just learning to dance...)
- Vienna: Speaking of dancing, I would love to sweep down a staircase in Vienna and glide across the ballroom in a fabulous dress dancing a waltz. The opera; the music; the architecture; the palaces; the Lippizan stallions; the cake... And I would probably take a side-trip to Budapest to see my bridge (the same design as the one in Marlow)
- Uluru: specifically as a highlight of a trip on the Ghan, the train that travels from Adelaide through Alice Springs to Darwin. And I don't care how naff it is; I want to dine by candle and starlight at those tables with white linen tablecloths and know I don't have to do the washing up or the laundry!
Holidays are great; coming home can often be a bit depressing. We have just returned from the most amazing time in Borneo visiting family and exploring. Life back at work is a bit of an anti-climax (although it is always a pleasure to see our gorgeous cat again) so I played at Pollyanna to cheer myself up.
5 Good Things about Being back in New Zealand:
- Flushing toilets
- Clean drinking water from the tap
- Sleeping without mosquito nets
- Walking without having to check for snakes
- Being able to go into buildings without air-conditioning
I used to love the summer holidays during my student years. I have heard that some people didn't - apparently they got bored. Where was their imagination? True, the holidays seemed to stretch on forever, but that was the joy of them. You could always postpone that essay on Marxist interpretations of linguistic theory while you went to pubs in the afternoon and drank real ale in the sunshine.
When I was little there were games to play, when I got older there were boys to see, and there were always books to read and, if you were lucky, countries to visit. Inter-railing around Europe was a teenage rite of passage. And then there were the summer jobs. We went hop-picking or worked in factories and shops to save up for the holiday, or the records, or the clothes or the fags. And we thought how lucky we were that we would never have to do this full-time. Clearly we were wrong, but we were young and life was fun.
Now life is still fun, but holidays are shorter and every day off is precious. When we can mark it with a celebration it is even better. Here are my favourite:
The Best 5 Holidays*:
- Christmas: Family; friends; food; bubbles; lights; tinsel; glittery stuff; good cheer and, if you're lucky, snow - who could ask for anything more?
- Easter: Now that I no longer have to run around the forest in my pyjamas, I love Easter. It's a time of rebirth and new beginnings; a chance to catch up with friends and family; lambs and daffodils; green grass and the promise of Spring.
- St George's Day: A chance to celebrate all things English, recite Shakespeare, listen to Britpop, drink real ale, eat cheese and pickle sandwiches and even indulge in a spot of Morris Dancing.
- Harvest Festival: The cornucopia of colours; the abundance of wine; the church floral arrangements and window displays with sheaves of wheat; the bigs hats and village fetes; the collections of canned food for the aged; the chance to use words like bounty, abundance, and cornucopia.
- Guy Fawkes night: The smell of cordite and mischief in the air; bonfires, baked potatoes and toffee apples; fireworks exploding in showers of colour in the night sky; a brisk chill and the thought of witches; and, if I remember rightly, a damn fine rave or two.
* You will notice, these are all Northern Hemisphere-based holidays - as I've pointed out before; they just don't make sense down here.
I like to read the paper in the morning with a cup of coffee before I head to work. I sit in the cafe and watch people come and go clutching their takeaway paper cups and their bags of bagels. I read the paper from cover to cover, lingering over the meagre world section and the comments and editorial. 
I do this when I'm on holiday and I once read an article that said one way to extend the holiday feeling was to do the things that you associate with your weeks off. Unfortunately I can't laze in bed for the morning, go scuba-diving with shoals of angel fish, lounge on the deck of a yacht, or cycle through vineyards filling my panniers with champagne and baguettes. What I can do is leisurely catch up on the day's events and it is one of my few simple pleasures.
How I hate it, then, when someone asks if they can 'steal a bit of the paper'. For a start I loath the idiom. It is not my paper - it is thoughtfully provided by the cafe - so you wouldn't be stealing it. This is a Kiwi-ism I have noticed, whereby people try and lessen the impact of what they are doing by referring to their actions in a depreciating manner - apparently they 'swing by' the house to 'grab a feed'. Are they Tarzan?
Leaving the language aside, of course I mind! I don't wish to be disturbed. I wish to read the paper, chronologically, at the pace I choose without being hurried or harried. It bothers me when people fold the paper the wrong way (it's almost bad as realigning maps) or insert sections out of order. I consider it inconsiderate when people do the crossword in a paper that it is not their own, and as for tearing out a section or an article - you'd be surprised how much this can annoy me. Or maybe you wouldn't.
