Observations from a holiday park

The New Zealand weather gods, I am ambivalent to report, have roughly the same sense of humour when it comes to summer as the European weather gods. I expect they all meet over a frothing mug of heavenly ale and ponder how best to destroy our happy childhood memories of endless balmy summers, lying under apple trees and building houses in trees. Which is of course, another story.

As you may have suspected, it has been a little bit damp of late. Something about floods in Australia, and weather systems, and them coming over here to check out what Kiwi mountains are like as an option for dumping lots of water. Pretty good, it turns out.

Fear not however. I have not been twiddling my thumbs, peering disconsolately into the skies and wondering if it will ever end. Oh no. I have been occupying my mind with all manner of things. Here are some of them for your digestion.

Chickens

I’d never thought to start a paragraph with the title chickens, but there we are. Another life goal accomplished. Chickens, I can confirm, are not terribly bright. That, or they are incredibly intelligent, and part of that intelligence involves masking their brilliance in a show of stupidity. It’s possible of course that we are all pawns in their chickeny game. Certainly they take great delight in popping into a just cleaned room and depositing a giant pile of steamy chicken poo (who knew chickens had such big poo?) somewhere where the next person along will stand in it. Oh, and they forget pretty much straight away that you have chased them from somewhere. That, or clearly the place you chased them from holds such fiendish delight that they must return to it as fast as possible, innocently clucking as they go. Yes my friends, the chickens are pretty interesting things. I will now move on, to dizzier heights of literary discourse.. that being:

Tea Towels

If you had thought that the madness ended with chickens, let me assure you that this is certainly not the case. There is a distinct relationship between the number of tea towels provided to people to use, and the number of tea towels that are used. Arriving into the communal kitchen of a morning, my dear girlfriend instantly surveys the wreckage of the tea towel apocalypse, and attempts to work out what the ratio of people to tea towel usage is. I think she is becoming somewhat obsessed. There are hints that there is a link between nationality and tea towel usage, or age and tea towel usage. Or something. Spreadsheets will no doubt be conjured up. Theories expounded upon. This is the sort of thing that scientists should be looking into.

Signs

I am starting to come to the conclusion that signs are a largely pointless invention. No one reads them. And if they do read them, then often as not, they will choose to believe that the sign does not in fact apply to them. Surely a sign indicating that a facility is closed after a certain time cannot possibly refer to this day? Or this person? No no, there must have been an error in the judgement of the sign writer. It is best to proceed as normal, until your passage is blocked by a furious German mop wielding she-devil. I suspect I will be in trouble for describing my partner in such terms, but I assure you, this is not a terribly inaccurate description. Sign violators, you have been warned.

Walks

We have largely abstained from taking any walks of late, mostly due to the weather. However, a couple of breaks in the cloud have allowed us to take a brief trip up to the Mangetepopo Saddle, which is of course the first third of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. This is a far more attractive walk than the other third that we regularly do, that being the trek up to the Ketatahi hut, plus doing it in the afternoon means you have the track largely to yourself. Observing the changing face of the mountains as the snow melts and the giant ash mounds are revealed is wonderful, and photography worthy.

Of course, the weather doesn’t stop many other folks from doing the walk, largely because they don’t have any other time to do it. Their itineraries dictate that this is the day that they do the walk, and so, unless the weather truly is dire, off they go. I have nothing but respect for these hardy, sodden looking trampers, braving the elements so as to experience a truly moisture ridden environment. Bravo.

Dreadlocks

Finally, in today’s series of general rambles at least, I can report that that time has come round again for some dreadlock maintenance. For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with that particular saga, and weren’t aware that dreadlocks are a serious commitment in time and effort, allow me to explain briefly. Every two to three months, all the hair that grows naturally on my head, which doesn’t feel the urge to be part of the existing seventy six carefully constructed matted knots of hair, is painstakingly coaxed with a needle and thread into one of the aforementioned seventy six locks, and then sealed in place with some homemade wax. The result is that for a few days I look a little bit like a walking candle stick holder, and then all is well again. It’s a process that takes a few days and requires the endless patience of my wonderful partner, who does the actual hard work, whilst I just sit there and wince in pain from time to time. Ah. The things we do to look unkempt.

Well, that just about brings you up to date with where I am right about now. Sure, it may not have made much sense, but sometimes that is the best way. Happy travels!

Veterinary experience

Well, the parental meeting thing came and went. I’m not necessarily a tremendous judge of these things, but by the end of the meal I had been informed as to the most effective way of killing myself, which is surely a good sign against some measure.

We went out for dinner in a former train station, which may not seem entirely glamorous, but it was a former train station of the Kaiser, so was somewhat more palatial than your usual train station. You can’t expect these folks to hang around on platforms and the like with the common folk after all. A large outdoor courtyard, which had presumably once been part of the platform area, was the seating venue, and the fare was largely traditionally German. I was advised against the currywurst (curried sausage, no less), despite it looking to be the largest sausage I had ever seen, and so went with the breaded fried pork and chips. Which was served, oddly, with jam. Still, it worked, so who am I to complain.

As Vera’s father is a vet, we were invited along to watch a procedure he was performing on a dog, which we did today. I guess this is another sign of acceptance. I rollerbladed along (managing to fall over quite spectacularly en route, no major damage done though) and we got to the practice in time to watch a wonderfully sedated dog get shaven and implanted with bits of gold, which help out with arthritis. There is something awfully comic about partially sedated animals, with their tongues lolling out and a general look of sad acceptance about the whole thing. Horses, I learnt, stay standing up when sedated. I am delighted to be able to share this knowledge with you.

Tomorrow we are off to a wedding, which will naturally all be in German. It’s all about the new experiences. I got a quick overview of the German wedding process, which sounded somewhat similar to the English wedding process. There will be a church, some food, speeches, and a party. I’ll let you know how it all goes. If you’re lucky, there will be reports of dancing.

Today, incidentally, is my brothers birthday - many happy returns to him. No doubt some beers will be quenched. I would advise staying away from any large platters of food if possible. He celebrates being nearly thirty in fine style from what I can tell, by retiring and moving to a tropical paradise. Not bad going. My parents, I am sure, are delighted to have two sons who now have a primary goal in life of doing as little as possible. Pity it took all that education to get us to this point really…

On an entirely separate note, I have uploaded a few more photos from my Australia trip to my Photobox gallery, which can be found at the link below, should that sort of thing interest you. They look particularly nice on canvas I believe.

http://www.photoboxgallery.com/Laurence

Finally, I feel it is my duty to rectify a common misunderstanding with regards to dreadlocks, as I’ve now been asked the question multiple times. Yes folks, I do wash my hair. More information on the whole dreadlock thing can be found in previous posts, here and here, but in summary, dreadlocks do need to be washed. There is a common belief that dreads are formed by just abandoning your hair, and this can work, depending on your hair type of course, but the risk is that you just end up with one gigantic matted pile of fairly grubby hair.

Decent looking well maintained dreads, which are basically just better managed tangles of hair, no more no less, should be washed every couple of weeks (and at least once a month), with a residue free shampoo (something organic is probably best). Avoid conditioner, as it tends to work to detangle the hair, which would go against the whole principle. Dreads need to be washed because the oil that the scalp naturally secretes works to detangle them, and you don’t want that to happen. So that’s a dreadlocking myth hopefully, ahem, unravelled. Keep smiling.

Oh, crikey

There are pivotal moments in a relationship. You know, the First Kiss. (And first other stuff that we won’t go into for fear of having to X-rate the blog.) The moving in together. The discussion about where the relationship is. The official confirmation of the relationship on facebook. Etc.. Lots of these are actually fun. However, today is a first that is usually not rated entirely highly as an activity, that being the first time I Meet The Parents. Capitalised, justly I feel. Naturally I am well prepared for the event. I have rolled my dreads. Topics of conversation are mentally prepared (What do you do? Not a lot. What do you intend to do with the rest of your life? As little as possible. And so on.) I can only see it going well.

That, I’m sure, is enough of a relationship update. No-one wants to read too much about this stuff I’m sure, unless it is of the going comically wrong nature. Naturally I will let you know when that happens.

I learnt yesterday that there is a giant gaming expo going on in Cologne towards the end of August, called Gamescon. As I’ve probably mentioned before, I’m quite a fan of gaming (although I have cut down my fix to the once a year review of the best games, as Chosen By Craig (tm)), so this will be a good opportunity to wander around and see all the latest developments before heading off to New Zealand for another year or so of technological hermitry. I am just making these words up folks. The spellchecker is having an apoplectic fit.

Otherwise it is back to business as usual in Germany. The sun is shining. The backgammon has been played. A giant thunderstorm nearly took the roof off yesterday. The sunflowers are flowering. The cats are slowly turning into puddles of cat fur in the heat. Summer continues to be pretty great. Enjoy! (apologies if you are reading this from the Southern Hemisphere in Winter. I can highly recommend a swallow like northerly migration.)

Backgammon

When I was growing up and living the desert island lifestyle, one of things we did during the rainy season when the hotel was closed to pass the time (there’s not a huge amount of entertainment available on a desert island in the rain) was play backgammon. It’s a classic game, what with the dice and the spikey confusing looking board and the thrill of capturing your opponents stones and the.. well.. you get the idea. Anyhow, there is a fine backgammon board here, and Vera and I have been passing some of the time recapturing the thrill of my youth with a few games. Thus far Vera seems convinced that the gods of the dice are out to get her, and the results do seem to back up her convictions. Ah well.

Speaking of Gods, dice and chance, it does seem that when I lend my support to a football team they don’t do overly well. Thus far I have supported Australia (lost 4-0 to Germany), Germany (lost 1-0 to Serbia), and England twice, who drew both times, against Algeria and the USA. Something is amiss. Sadly I can’t really bring myself to convincingly support Slovenia on Wednesday, although maybe for the sake of the nation I should seriously consider it. Still, if it all goes wrong on Monday, we can perhaps just blame the ball. That seems more likely to be the culprit than a lack of ability. Yep.

Well, that was the football. The ongoing dreadlock maintenance is still ongoing, currently seventeen left to do. The thrills and spills never end. The weather has changed from glorious European summer to actual European summer, i.e. rain and cold. This does seem to line up with the onset of Wimbledon, which starts on Monday, and Glastonbury, which is also next week. It just wouldn’t be a British summer without pictures of flooded and muddy revellers or frantic court covering action from teams of highly trained ball people. Bring it on I reckon.

Finally, our social calendar dictates that we attend a party tonight, where I have been promised that classic party dish, spaghetti bolognaise, plus the thought of beer has been wafted past my mind. I’m able to confirm, in case you were wondering, that my German is still in it’s excessively infant stage, but I can at least look happily morose at how badly the football has gone, which will no doubt cheer everyone else up. Hurrah. Keep on smiling folks, summer is nearly here!

More dread care

After nearly six months of dreadlocks, there are some more things to know about. For example, and this is perhaps not revelationary knowledge, it turns out that hair grows. Bear with me. On average, hair grows around a centimetre a month. Also, hair falls out, at a rate of around 100 hairs a day. If you are not follicularly challenged, the old hair is replaced by new growth, much in the manner of a shrubbery.

The problem with this whole set up is that the new hair doesn’t automatically know to grow itself into the dreadlocks. So you end up with dreads that are mostly made up of the old hair, with fuzzy new hair surrounding it. And after six months of new growth, the new hair is probably going to be around 6cm long. Some kind of solution is required if you want to keep the dreadlock thang going instead of the fuzzy head thing.

The answer, if you happen to have an incredibly willing girlfriend / partner / friend to hand, is to enlist their help with a needle and some sewing thread, and then literally thread the new hair into the existing dreads. Then, in my case anyway, fix it in place with a home made hair wax, courtesy of some Tasmanian bees and a dash of tea tree oil. This process, when you have seventy six dreadlocks, is not a short one. We spent pretty much all day yesterday working through my hair, and still have a fair few left to do. The price of looking like a beach bum. Yep.

So what else is happening today that isn’t fascinatingly hair related? Well, Germany and England are both partaking in their second world cup games. We watched Germany take on Serbia from the fine venue of a local pub, where I observed the nations Friday afternoon productivity take a wonderful nosedive. Sadly, the game was not as pretty a sight as watching Germany take on Australia. Trying to win a game with ten men when 1-0 down is always going to be a challenge. The Serbian keeper, who looks mysteriously like John Cusack, covered himself in glory when saving Germanys main chance at equalising with a second half penalty. In conclusion, I really need to stop supporting teams, it never ends well. So.. England later then.

In other, quite spectacularly unrelated news, the worlds largest entertainment expo is upon us, with the three major gaming manufacturers touting their wares. From what I can tell, Sony and Microsoft are desperately trying to catch up with Nintendo on the “oh my god there’s a gaming market who don’t want to take gaming too seriously” front, with all manner of interactive motion capture type devices. Expect Playstation Move and Microsoft Kinect marketing messages to be liberally thrown at you over the coming months.

Nintendo, in the meantime, not one to rest on its laurels even with the unexpected success of the Wii, are embracing the wonders of the three dimensional world with their next handheld gaming device, the Nintendo 3DS, which lets you play games in 3D without glasses. Quite how this arcane trickery is achieved is a mystery to me, but it sounds like it could be a deal breaker. Expect to see people peering mystically into these screens on the tube in early 2011

Finally, in cultural news, we took a walk around a graveyard in Bonn, where a number of luminaries are buried, including Beethoven’s dear old mum. The graveyard was, well, a graveyard. Dead people and tombstones.  However famous you are, it seems you end up pretty much the same. Awesome. Enjoy your weekends :)

Dreadlock maintenance

I figure the care and maintenance of dreadlocks is probably not necessarily that high on most people’s radars, but as I've now had dreads for a few months, I thought what the hell, it’s a Sunday afternoon, I'll share what I’ve learnt.

First off, dreadlocks are not the easy option in hair styling that I originally thought they may be. You know, get dreadlocks, abandon hair to the fates for the rest of time. Apparently not. It seems I should perhaps have stuck to the “soon to be back in fashion and seemingly always popular in the outback” mullet look if I’d wanted low maintenance hair.

Secondly, the internet is not the unbiased source of truth for everything. I know, I was as shocked as you probably are. There are multiple theories on both dreadlock creation and maintenance, ranging from the fill it up with peanut butter option through to the roll around in the mud and leave it for a while option. Apparently the downsides to peanut butter are that it attracts insects and mud is well… muddy. Great.

After reading a lot, I came to the conclusion that you basically need to figure  out what works for your hair type. If I happened to have naturally frizzy hair, this whole process would have been a lot easier I think. Dreadlocks are not the easiest to maintain when your hair has a tendency to remain straight and tangle free. So. What do you actually do.

It turns out, it’s pretty simple. You just have to spend about an hour a day rolling the dreads between your palms. You can use beeswax if you want, or pure aloe vera, if that helps. You can keep the dreads tangling at the root by using a crochet hook, a technique that a wise beyond his years german friend (featured in the photo) attempted to teach me, which I am still struggling to master. The important thing is to have lots of time to play with your hair. Which most people don’t I guess. Unemployment certainly has it’s benefits.

When it comes to washing, the key is not to condition the hair, and to use a residue free shampoo. Something organic without a thousand worrying sounding chemicals should do. Which is actually pretty hard to find, you become slightly obsessed about visiting every pharmacy in sight. Or you can just use soap I am told. They also take a while to dry, and you shouldn’t ever sleep with wet dreads. You can wash them between once a week and once a month. If your scalp itches, a tea tree oil spray can help. Swimming is fine, swimming in the sea is particularly good as the salt water really messes the hair up nicely.

Some people say wax is the worst thing, others say wax is the answer to everything. Avoid petroleum. Use petroleum. Roll them. Leave them to their own devices. It's confusing, but like everything, trial and error appears to be the answer. And yes, it hurts to buggery getting them put in, like having your hair pulled for hours should.

Well, that’s hair care tips 101. If there are any questions on the topic, feel free to ping them over and I will add to your pool of confusion the best I can. Otherwise, hopefully I helped pass a few minutes of your time with some deep and fascinating knowledge on the subject of hair. Next up, achieving the perfect tan and thoughts on German sausage…

Cats

Today Vera has wandered off on an errand, assisting a housemate with the delivery of a truck. This actually sounds quite exciting, but involved a worryingly early start, so I elected to stay in bed. This has left me alone in the house, as everyone who lives here has this thing called a job, which I am pretty sure I should probably look into getting at some point. It would make my parents happy at least. Although I’m not sure the job market for non-German speaking vagrants In Germany is particularly flourishing, especially in a country where the economy is going through one of it’s most severe belt tightening times in 65 years.

This leaves me alone in the house, except I’m not actually alone. There are two cats here who I may have mentioned. Their names will follow at some point, when I work out how to spell them. They are rather fat, and although they started off a little aloof towards me, have warmed nicely. This morning I woke to find one happily sleeping across my feet, the other curled up on a blanket at the foot of the bed. They live in a very exciting world of expectation. Expectation that every time I move anywhere in the house, it is with the main purpose of feeding them. These, I should stress, are not cats that need a lot of feeding. A lot of feeding has already occurred. But still, they live in eternal hope. They manage to convey a sense of on the edge of famine with their eyes, eyes that bore into your soul and force you to move towards their food bowls in a trance like state. I have managed so far not to succumb, but it is only a matter of time before they control my every motion, puppet masters as they are.

Yesterday I spent a while rolling my dreadlocks, which could warrant a post all to itself. In fact, it will. But in summary, if you ever thought getting dreadlocks was the easy way out of hair care and maintenance, I would urge you to radically change your opinions.

Finally for now, I’m booked to come to the UK to visit the London based contingent of my family (brother) and friends for a very long weekend from the 8th of July. Shout if you want to hook up. Assuming I actually know you that is. Although meeting strangers is always fun :)