Sitting in my comfy office in London my New Zealand escapades now feel like a long and distant memory. Now, nearing the 2 year anniversary since leaving that beautiful country it's probably time that I pull my socks up and have a bash at this blog...

We settled into the kiwi way of life pretty swiftly, bagging a perfect pad in Christchurch and only facing a few minor hiccups (James being stupid enough to encourage me to jump on his back and get a piggyback across a sheet of ice; me being even more stupid enough to agree to do it) along the way we settled into Christchurch. Of course it didn't take the boys long to sniff out the local pub (in fact I think that's the first place they even went to when they arrived in New Zealand - and that's before a hostel) where they spent many a night chugging away sly pints of piss water, James even making it to the 100 club for his efforts which is pretty impressive considering he wretched every time he put glass to mouth. In fact he despised it so much yet wanted his name 'etched' (let's be honest it was gold stickers) on the '100 club board' so much that he once had a genuinely serious word to me to discuss what we would do if he suffered a serious illness and couldn't make it past the 99 mark, that I needed to step up, take it for the team and drink a pint of black goup for the man. Dude!

Then, quicker than I could say "no i don't want a piggy back across an ice block", disaster struck... James left New Zealand. To be quite frank (and now that he's no longer partial to a bit of snoopage around this website) it broke my little heart because he is the most amazing best buddy a gal could ask for. But, it was time for the Milster to take a good strong cup of 'harden the f**k up' and look towards the upcoming next couple of months of travelling the globe detached from the Deighan.

A handful of months later and a whole lot of blood sweat and tears catapulted into my overpaid-underapprecaited bar job at the aptly named Bog in Christchurch it was time to hit the hills and head homeward bound. This, it has to be said was a rather knee jerk decision taken by myself and Matt based soley on the fact that the thought of Christmas in the UK sounded like a pretty swell idea. So we tipped our bank accounts into STA and embarked on a 4 week drive around N.Zealand. And that is the royal "we" I hasten to add thanks to Matt's Lazy b****** Syndrome when it came to getting one of those driving licenses.