Celebrating a life well lived

Last week my Nan (my dad's mum) passed away at the incredible age of 97 and 10 months. She was an amazing lady and I want to do her memory justice by telling you a little bit about her and how we cherished her memory last weekend.



My Nan, Marie Ruth Fletcher was born 18 April 1917 in Wellington. She lived in Wellington in her early life, firstly in Arawa Road, Hataitai before moving to Norway Street in Kelburn. This house has incredible significance for me as when Mark and I bought our first house, it was also in Norway Street right across the road from my Nan's old house. I often think that the reason the little 2 bedroom villa caught my eye in the property magazine was because I recognised the name of the street.

Marie's Dad and my great-grandad, Maximilian Gandar was a strapping 6 foot 6 (you can see how much taller he was than everyone else in the photo below!) and was involved in town planning and surveying and he also helped build the very steep zig zag path that connects Norway Street with Plunket Street above.



After they moved there, my Nan attended the school my kids go to now - and last year when the school had its 100 year centenary, I managed to speak to the oldest attendee who remembered my Nan and her family as he had lived on Norway Street too!

Marie's brother Les (who later became a politician, Vice Chancellor of Massey University and High Commissioner to London) attended Wellington College and was a keen rugby player who went on a sport exchange to Nelson during which time he was billeted with the Fletcher family, and the friendship that Les developed with Iain Fletcher from this trip eventually led to a burgeoning relationship and a marriage proposal for my Nan.

They married in 1941, but only six weeks after this my Pa Iain was sent off to war as a medic, and they wouldn't be reunited for 4 and a half years.......imagine being apart for all that time! During his time in the war, he fought in the 26th Battalion in North Africa and Italy, and was awarded the Military Cross for his bravery in rescuing injured troops under fire in the battle of Cassino. This is an excerpt from the records of the battle:

'As the dawn approached enemy mortar and shellfire increased. Direct hits were scored on a number of houses but no casualties resulted. No. 8 Platoon, stationed in and around the Roundhouse, was unlucky. A mortar bomb wounded five men, including the platoon commander, 2 Lt McLean.³⁹ Up until this stage Capt McKinlay had been unable to make wireless contact with Battalion HQ and all messages were being relayed through B Coy's set. By this means Battalion HQ was advised there were casualties to be evacuated. Captain Fletcher decided to go forward and attend to the wounded on the spot, despite the fact that it was broad daylight and the Germans were shelling all approach routes. The doctor arrived safely, and later the injured men were evacuated in jeeps, which ran the gauntlet of enemy fire to reach the station.'

During the war, my Nan kept herself busy working for the Shell Oil drafting office and as a voluntary nurse in the maternity ward in Wellington. After the war, they spent some time living in England as Pa won a medical scholarship to go there and I recall my Nan telling me how hard those times were living in post-war London with all the rationing while raising a small family - with four children born in just six short years.

On their return to NZ, they settled in the small town of Waitara, just north of New Plymouth where my Pa practiced as a doctor running his own surgery for nearly 40 years. My Nan as well as raising four children supported Pa in his practice answering the telephone. I have wonderful memories of family holidays here in their glorious big garden, checking for fish in the goldfish pond, the luxury of having a spa at their house, listening to records and stories like Thomas the Tank Engine on their gramophone and the sound of the mantle clock chiming every half an hour. I was lucky enough to inherit the clock and although it's seen better days I hope to be able to restore it to its full glory.

My Pa was a keen tramper and introduced all his children to the love of the outdoors, but my Nan had always had trouble with her hips and wasn't able to go on these long walking adventures. Her hip troubles meant that during her life she had 3 hip replacements but despite her physical limitations she was never idle. Her time spent gazing at beautiful scenery while the others were off walking may well have been a reason for her developing her love of watercolour landscapes and pen and ink sketches. She would stay at the car while my Pa walked, sketching and later painting what she saw. She even held art exhibitions for her work, and during her life must have painted hundreds if not thousands of still life and landscape works. Even in 2013, at age 96 she was still donating her art for a good cause - I found this article in the Taranaki Daily news about her donating her art.



She was also an accomplished organist and singer - having sung in the New Plymouth choir for many years. At some point, she also took up a role transcribing books into Braille using a special typewriter - something she did for 25 years and was awarded the Queens Service Medal for Community Service in 1995 for her many years of effort doing this.

They retired to New Plymouth in the early 1990's and celebrated their golden (50th) wedding anniversary surrounded by all the family in 1991. Despite Pa's health deteriorating around the time my Nan turned 80 and their move just down the road into the Molly Ryan retirement home, they even managed to celebrate their diamond anniversary in 2001 before my Pa then passed away in 2002.

My other grandmother (Gee Gee) who is nearly 90 and still lives in her own home lives about a 5 minute walk from Molly Ryan so on every visit to see her, we would also pop up to Molly Ryan and spend an hour or so with Nan. She had an incredibly sharp mind and memory and could tell us amazing stories from her earlier life - being Wellingtonians we were always especially interested in her childhood stories from Wellington and her years spent in London.

At Easter last year with her health deteriorating further, she made the difficult decision to move to Auckland to be closer to my aunty Jan. We visited her at Molly Ryan as her life was being packed up around her, and it would be the last time I saw her. She died peacefully on 12 February.

Her funeral was held last Saturday on Valentines Day - and it wasn't until we were with the extended family that I realised that my Pa's funeral had also been held on Valentines Day - 13 years earlier. The day was an incredibly special one - attended by all 4 children, and 11 of her 14 grandchildren. She also had 21 great-grandchildren although only a few were able to attend. It was the first time I had seen many of my cousins for over 20 years and was a wonderful opportunity to catch up on their adult and family lives.

 

My cousin Ruth and me

My cousins Stephen and Campbell

Cousins Daryl and Jono

My dad with his older brother Rob

My mum with my dad's older sister Corrine

We congregated at my Aunty Jan's house in Drury, South Auckland before the funeral and Nan was brought to the garden before the church service so we all had a chance to say our own farewell to her - it was a beautiful setting having her there under the big old oak tree.

My dad, his sisters and their special friend Kerry farewell their mum

Jan, Rob and Corinne (my dad's siblings)

 

Jono with mum Corrine

Rob and Carol with my mum and dad

Cousins James and Andrew with their dad and Andrew's little boy Josh

Ruth, my aunty Jan with her daughter Rebecca and me

The beautiful grapes hanging overhead you could pick and eat straight from the vine.

 

 

Each of the children spoke at the funeral, and as it was Valentines Day, all the grandchildren put a red rose on the casket during the ceremony, and the great-grandchildren who were there also put on a white rose.



Pa's war medals (including his Military Cross) and her trusty walking stick also accompanied her on her final journey.

She was an incredible lady and her life touched many.

Our loss is heaven's gain.

Through his eyes: when life changed forever

On New Years Day (cue very heavy rain in Wellington) I decided I'd tidy up some of the cupboards around the house, and I came across a copy of The Sandbox magazine (Wellington Region Parents Centre bi-monthly mag). I'd kept this particular edition all these years because an email that Mark had written to friends and family on the arrival of Noah ended up being published as an article in the magazine about 'Dad's perspective' on birth stories. Here's what he had to say:

**************

I'm going to try and keep this short and sweet, as I've just got back from the hospital and am dying for some food, a shower and a sleep.

Meghan gave birth to our little boy (Noah George) at 10.54am this morning Wednesday 2nd August 2006 after a very quick birth. The sequence of events unfolded as follows...

Yesterday, Meghan complained she just didn't feel right. She still managed to walk into town (a half hour walk) and meet some friends for lunch, but later returned home feeling a little sick.  Having put this down to what she ate at lunchtime, we carried on our evening and went to bed at 10.30pm.

From what Meghan had said to me, I had a sneaky suspicion something was up, and managed to finish as much work as possible, make some frozen meals for when we are too tired, and even remembered to bring some speakers home that a lad at work had lent me so Meg could listen to some music during labour.

I was woken at 1am by Meghan fidgeting around in bed and offered to go and sleep n the couch. She then woke me at 3am to say I might want to start preparing myself to go to hospital later that day! At this stage we still weren't sure if Meg just had a sore tummy, or if it was the real deal.

I was woken again at 4am by Meghan in more pain than an hour earlier, so I got my stop watch out and timed the contractions. At this stage they were 5 minutes apart and lasting anywhere from 60-90 seconds. Meg had a couple of baths in the next three hours, while the pains continued to get stronger.

The midwife arrived at 7am at our place and said Meg was only 3cm dilated. She expected we had at least another 7 hours from here (equation = 1 cm per hour. The midwife said she would ring us back at 10am and we would take it from there.

Well....as soon as the midwife left, I thought I was living with a Norwegian shot putter with all the screaming and shouting that was going on! Meg had another bath, but the pain was getting REALLY intense so we took to rocking on her hands and knees with hot water bottles front and back.

At 9.30am I told Meghan to start getting ready to go to the hospital as I couldn't watch her in this much pain and phoned the midwife to tell her we were on our way. By this stage Meg had also thrown up from the pain.

We left the house at 9.50am and every traffic light we came to was red!!!! I gave a running commentary all the way to the hospital while Meg was on the back seat on her hands and knees screaming like a good-un, so I don't think she heard a word I said!

We arrived at the hospital at 10.05am and I bundled Meghan through the security doors, handing her over to the midwife while I tried to find a park....luckily I got one right outside the birthing units (on double yellow lines) and wrote a note to put on the windscreen explaining that a miracle was about to happen.

I got back into the hospital, and promptly bumped into antenatal friends of ours who'd been in labour for a few hours and had just checked in. For those of you who know Wellington hospital, there only have two birthing suites with spa baths. Well our midwife had hooked one up for us and when I got in the room Meg was already on all fours in the bath.

Meghan was now in serious pain and I wondered how on earth she was going to last another four hours. How wrong could I be?!

After about 6-7 huge contractions in the bath, her waters broke and the baby's head started to crown. From here on in, it seemed like only a matter of minutes and Meghan was sitting in the spa pool with Noah in her arms, and me an absolute mess in tears.

This has to be one of the most emotional things I have ever been through, as I just felt so helpless to help Meghan, but so proud. She endured labour completely naturally with out any drugs or even gas. For someone who I've always joked about being a drama queen even when she stubs her toe, as Harry Redknapp would say 'The girl had a blinder'.

Anyway, this was supposed to be short and sweet. Just to let you know, Mum and Bub's are doing great.

Take care

Mark, Meghan and Noah

**********

The stories I could tell....{from 1997}

I'm sure all of us can can recount some interesting stories from our youth. I have a few memories from my last year at Waikato University that flooded back into my mind randomly one night and so you too get the pleasure of reliving them along with me. Lucky you huh!

My very own horror movie
So there was this one time when me and my 2 girl flatmates (there were 2 boys who lived in the flat too but they must have been out) decided to sit down and re-watch Scream one night. Asking for trouble right there for a start.

It was dusk, so we drew the curtains across the ranch slider to get all cosy and settled down for the night.

We'd gotten just a few minutes into the film, not far past the bit where Drew Barrymore answers the phone and the voice says 'Do you like scary movies little girl' and then she gets killed.

The phone rang in the flat, and without pausing the film I picked up the receiver and said distractedly 'hello?'

A voice on the other end of the line uttered the voice 'Do you like scary movies little girl?'. I screamed and dropped the phone and was just about to try and tell the girls what had happened when all of a sudden there was a huge banging on the ranch slider as if someone was trying to burst right in.

Oh my goodness, the adrenalin. The chills. We were totally freaking out!

Turns out one of the girls boyfriends who lived a few houses down the road had heard that we were going to watch Scream and had decided to play a joke on us and had co-ordinated that one of them would make the phone call and the other would wait outside the ranch slider door and as soon as he heard the phone ring he'd then start the banging on the door.

Mean much?! It took us a while to calm down after that!

Hallway rumba
Student flats aren't usually known for their cleanliness. And despite my best efforts to get a cleaning roster going, I'm sure I ended up doing more than my fair share of the toilet and bathroom because I just couldn't bear to live in a complete hovel. We were probably a pretty clean flat compared to some I'd have visited back then. And to be fair, we did pretty well out of making our grocery money stretch further than it should have. I remember many a late-night trip to Pak n Save where we'd stock up on $5 meal deals and make $100 feed 5 of us for a week!

So this one time, I was sitting on the floor in the hallway talking on the phone. It was back in the days when a phone was actually physically connected to the wall and you could only move as far from the wall as the cord would reach. Whilst talking, out of the corner of my I saw something moving along the hallway wall.

Actually more than one something moving, it was a lot of somethings moving in rumba-like fashion steadily along the wall.


Ah yep, a whole lot of maggots, making their merry way through the house. I was so grossed out that we had maggots crawling in the hallway that I promptly called a flat meeting and demanded to know how on earth it could have happened. Turns out someone had left the lid off the outside bin after throwing out some meat, the flies had got in and the maggots had hatched and made themselves at home, all in the space of a few days. Blergh! 

House meets car
One of my flatmates Jackie was very kind at letting others in the flat borrow her car, and she would always park her car in the driveway right in front of the bedroom you can see on the right with the wooden walls.

Bevan, upon borrowing the car one day, instead of putting the car into reverse, put it into gear and drove straight through the wall of another flatmate Rachel's bedroom.

OK so not quite as impressive as this accident below, but you get the drift. 

There was most certainly a hole in the wall that you could see daylight through and poor old Bevan's parents had to cough up to help get the wall fixed and Rachel had to move out of the bedroom for a few weeks till it was livable again.

Calf-poo car
Meanwhile I was just happy to have a car at all having inherited my Nan's old 1974 Toyota Corolla as my first car that year. After 23 years on the road it was still going strong, it did feel weird knowing I was driving a car around older than me! It must have been one of the first automatic cars made in NZ, and it looked just like this one, right down to the beautiful calf-poo colour!

It was very handy for getting me to and from work (at Burger King) and weekend trips to Auckland to see my then boyfriend. I have fond memories of de-icing the car at 5am on a Saturday for the drive up to Auckland and having to go super slow through all the back roads covered in famous Waikato fog until I reached the Bombay Hills. After I bought my first car, this one got handed down to my youngest brother, who from memory rolled into into a ditch somewhere outside of Morrinsville and that was the end of that!

Would you like fries with that?

While I was at uni I spent 2 years living at College Hall before going flatting in my last year, and during my 2nd year I had the awesomely privileged job of taking the rubbish bags that the cleaners emptied on a Wednesday morning, collecting them in a big rickshaw type trolley and carting them around the back of the hostel and emptying them into the commercial skip. It was a pretty unglamorous job, especially when 200 odd-students your age would see you 'taking out their rubbish'. Needless to say though, any shame was worth the fact that it paid my bills and paved the way for 2 trips to Japan during my degree.

So from that,  it was a bit of a step up in the world when I actually scored a job at Burger King in my last year. I used to work the pre-close shift 4.30pm- 12.30am on a Monday night, mostly working on the till and keeping the lobby clean. I only ever stayed to do the full close shift (till 2.30am) a couple of times, but one night after I'd left at 12.30am my work mates were the victims of an armed robbery when 2 guys managed to get access through the back door which had been accidentally left unlocked for a short time while emptying some rubbish.

I will be forever thankful that I didn't go through that experience as the 3 who were on duty were pretty traumatised by the whole thing for a long while after.

Keeping up appearances

The only downside to working that shift at BK on a Monday night was that I would be super tired the next morning. I always had Japanese language class first thing on Tuesday morning, and it was such an interactive class where you were constantly in conversation and being asked questions that I never struggled to stay awake.

Not so my Chinese history class which followed straight after. I'd sit at the back of the tiny lecture (of 20-odd students), put my book down, put my pen in one hand poised on the paper and rest my head down onto my other elbow - something like the shot below. I never made it through more than about 15 minutes before nodding off and dozing for the rest of the hour. Thankfully my lecturer was gracious enough NOT to pull me up on my lack of attention, and how I still managed to get an A+  for that class I'll never know, perhaps I was subconsciously taking it in whilst off in la-la land.

Lightning crashes

I have vivid memories of the music of this day and age, it was the days where any song by the Spice Girls, Ironic by Alanis Morrissette, and the song most played at College Hall (where I lived my first two years) by Live could be heard blaring out at full volume.

Can you remember this song and the era of your life when you remember hearing it? 

To be honest I can't believe this time in my life is nearly 20 years ago, way to make me feel old!

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The original MNM's: Surviving the storm

If you've missed earlier instalments of this story, you can find them here: how it all began, truly, madly, deeply, long distance love, and making it work.

It's hard work, this settling into life in another land. Finding new jobs is relatively easy, and within six months they've bought their first house. She settles down to complete an Accounting degree whilst working full-time, a commitment that will take many hours of hard work and dedication over a long four years to come. But it takes even longer to feel truly settled, and for a while each time they make a trip back to the UK it unsettles them to see familiar faces and places and to wonder whether they will ever return here.

In the meantime though, there's a wedding to plan. They know that they want it to be a small, casual affair, so that they can afford a trip back to the UK to celebrate with another smaller wedding party there. They put their thinking caps on, and hatch the plan of an outdoor wedding and a marquee at his parent's friend's house up the coast in Raumati. They've heard how much more settled the weather can be up the coast and think it sounds the perfect location for a glorious summer beach wedding.

The plans take shape, and flights are booked from those travelling from other parts of the world to be here. The bridesmaid and groomsmen are selected and in some case re-selected as various life circumstances force some to pull out along the way before the big day. But they adjust their plans and look forward to what will be the biggest gathering of their family and friends in one place on this day.

And then, the week of the wedding finally arrives. And with it the worst week of storms in 40 years hits NZ. Five days before the wedding, the motorways in and out of Wellington are completely flooded. She sits her university exam at the beginning of the week with half the class missing who couldn't make it through all the closed roads. With all this unexpected rain, the roof on their 100-year old villa starts to leak in multiple places prompting her to have to get up in the roof to strategically place containers all over the place to catch all the drips. It's not a high priority this week, but it's still another thing that must be done.

Most of their overseas bridal party arrive just 2 days before the wedding (Thursday) on a hair raising Queenstown-Wellington flight with many on their flight screaming at the wild rocking turbulence throughout. The next day, the road up to the beach house is brought to a standstill for hours as a landslide at Paekakariki nearly closes the main highway north altogether. It takes the groom and his men several hours to make the usual 45-minute journey as they travel up to the beach house where they will be staying the night before the wedding. This also means the marquee is a few hours late being put up, and in their haste to make up time the marquee crew manage to hit a water main in the backyard which causes all kinds of panic and an emergency plumber has to be called.

She, back in Wellington, is blissfully unaware of some of these dramas, having been treated to a blissful half day spa session with her 2 lovely bridesmaids. And it is a good thing that she is unaware of the extent of it all, as she may have just curled up in a corner somewhere rocking quietly had she known the whole story. But one thing she does know is that the forecast for tomorrow (the day of the wedding) is for 150 km/hr winds and that isn't really conducive to a serene outdoor backyard wedding with photos on the beach afterwards now is it?!

The girls are up at dawn on the day of the wedding having hair and makeup completed before making the drive from Wellington up the coast. Despite the glorious blue skies that greet them as they awake, the clouds quickly roll in and the winds soon reach gale force by midday. She and he have made the fortuitous decision to move the location of their photos and their wedding night accommodation to a beautiful estate named Greenmantle which is inland from the beach and they are hoping will be somewhat protected from the vicious wind.

The bride is a little upset to find that the final alterations by the dress company have been grossly miscalculated and despite her knowing she has lost weight from her last fitting the dress is so tight she can barely breathe. She will later be relieved to whip off her strapless bra from under her dress during the reception to ease some of the discomfort so she can at least bear to eat.

On their way to the 4pm wedding , the girls pass a house that is being attended to by firefighters having lost most of its roof. She laughs instead of crying because that's all you can really do with the insanity of it all. She arrives at the beach house, climbs out of the car and immediately nearly loses her veil to the sky, and walks up the stairs from the garage, into the crowded lounge inside, cleared of furniture but filled with 60 of their nearest and dearest friends and sees this boy, this wonderful boy who has had her heart from the beginning. While the wind rages outside threatening to blow the very glass out of the windows all around them, he is waiting to take her hand. And that is all that matters.

Even though the marque outside nearly rips in half during the ceremony and the party lights catch on fire in the wind before everyone has even made inside to sit down for the reception, though they have to send out a runner to buy candles so guests will be able to see what they are eating as the night draws in, even though this day has turned out nothing like their original plan, it is still the best day of their lives.

These two - who were willing to risk it all six years ago in their innocence and young love, have moved heaven and earth to pledge their forever vows together on this day. Thousands of kilometres and oceans between them couldn't part them and neither could the worst storms in half a century begin to dampen their day.

And on this day, this altogether crazy nothing-went-right-but-what-the-heck-can-you-do-about-it-but-laugh day, they sealed this might-never-have been-had-they-not-believed-in-it love once and for all.

If you missed the previous posts in this series, you can find them here:

Part I The Original MNM's: How it all began
Part II The Original MNM's: Truly, Madly, Deeply
Part III The Original MNM's: Long Distance Love
Part IV: The Original MNM's: Making it Work

The original MNM's: Making it work

If you've missed earlier instalments of this story, you can find them here: how it all began, truly, madly, deeply and long distance love.

So now they are in the same country at least. And that's a good start. She enjoys a few 'adjustment' weeks living with him and his lovely family down in Somerset, a beautiful part of the country. But then reality sets in. Her paltry savings aren't going to last forever and she knows she needs to find herself a job. It appears that there may be a few more twists and turns ahead before they can truly be together.

Eventually she is successful getting a job working for Thistle Hotels, but there's a catch - it's based in London. And he still has one more year of university to complete down in Eastbourne - a 2-hour train journey away. They resign themselves to the fact that this is how it's going to have to be and that at least they can travel to see each other on the weekends. And so the year goes by - with her living in an Antipodean flat in the dodgy East End of London fearing for her safety most nights as she walks home from the train station, and him enjoying student life down on the South Coast in Eastbourne.

The year passes, he graduates and by now she has a different job, working as an Office Manager for a start-up recruitment company, an experience that will completely alter the future shape of her career. They find a flat together near Wimbledon, sharing with another couple - although their flatmates change multiple times in the not quite 2 years they live in the flat - with some great and just as memorable 'not so great' flatmates along the way.

They travel at every opportunity. Although he is fortunate enough to travel frequently through his role as a travel consultant, they also manage to visit the Greek Islands, Amsterdam, Paris, Switzerland, Sri Lanka and the Maldives together. But they are also well aware that her visa end date is approaching and despite managing to negotiate a slightly longer stay through her work, her time is running out. She's always known that she wants to return to NZ, she couldn't possibly imagine not coming back to the beautiful country she calls home.

A last hurrah is planned - a trip around Europe for a month before some time in South Africa on their way back to NZ. But as fate would have it, just as they are making their plans, a petty thief uses a crow bar to break into their car to steal their stereo speakers, worth all of $10. It's enough damage to nearly write the car off and they need to sell the car to raise some cash for their trip. It forces them to re-think and they decide instead they will settle for two weeks in Italy.

They depart for Italy and return two weeks later - engaged! He has secretly been carrying a ring around for half the trip - going out of his mind with worry at being robbed at any moment - and halfway through the trip he can hold on no longer, proposing to her in the famous town square in Siena on a Sunday night in April with a light rain beginning to fall. It's a moment they will never forget.

Celebrations abound amongst family and friends when they share their happy news, but just a few weeks later they have to muster up courage to say their tearful goodbyes, leaving behind row upon row of terraced houses, smoggy air and thousands of years of history - bound for a youthful land of mountains, rivers and native bush awaiting them in her homeland.

And will it work - this plan of theirs to forge a new life for themselves here? They have to believe it will.

For the rest of the posts in this story, carry on here:


Part I The Original MNM's: How it all began
Part II The Original MNM's: Truly, Madly, Deeply


Part III The Original MNM's: Long Distance Love
Part V The Original MNM's: Surviving the Storm



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The original MNM's: Long Distance Love

If you've missed earlier instalments of the story, you can find them here: how it all began and truly, madly, deeply.

So, here they are. 18,000 kilometres apart and deeply in love. Not really what you'd call an ideal situation. And if you'd been placing a bet, not many would have given them a fighting chance at this point.

But first let's rewind a little to the moments immediately after that awful airport farewell....the first thing she does after getting home from the airport is to call her parents. She hasn't had a chance to talk to them after the weekend to find out what they thought of this young English guy she's suddenly thrust into their lives. She has barely croaked out a tearful 'hello' before her dad says to her 'so....when are you leaving?' And she will never forgot those words for the rest of her life - this affirmation from her parents that this love is worth fighting for means the world to her. And these words are really all she needs to hear to gather up the pieces of her broken and bleeding heart, take a deep breath and make some plans.

On her measly hourly wage, she calculates it'll take her the best part of nine months to save up enough for the flight to England and enough cash to enter the country with (a minimum $2,000 required on a working holiday visa). In the meantime, they must make the best with the technology available to them. And so they do.

These are in the early days of email, so as much as they enjoy the instant messaging this provides, they still love the idea of receiving written letters with care packages, and they hang out by their letterboxes most days in the hope of the next installment. Then there are weekly $10 - talk all you like phone calls through Telecom which go on for hours and with the difference in time zones means that one or other of them is usually awake in the middle of the night.

And so the days and weeks pass. Christmas comes and goes. And then the most wonderful of surprises - he tells her he is moving heaven and earth to come back for a visit at Easter and will accompany her and her family on a trip around the South Island during his university holidays.

She'll never forget the moment she sees his smiling face coming through the gates at Auckland Airport - followed by his immediate confession and apology that he must look a sight as he's managed to tip the entire contents of a yoghurt pot in his lap just before landing. But she just gazes at him thinking she's never seen anything lovelier.

And this time they spend is full of the most amazing memories, especially the campervan trip around the South Island with her family. How he talked himself into spending all this time in close quarters with a girl and a family he barely knows she'll never know. It must really have been love.

They'll never forget the unbelievable colours of Lake Tekapo and Pukaki, how he accidentally screamed an obscenity in front of her parents while they were doing a bungy jump in Queenstown, how he got stung by a wasp and had to find an emergency doctor to administer antihistamine and how being drugged up seemed to help his mini-golf playing ability that night, how her dad managed to scrape the top of campervan along the Homer Tunnel on the way to the Milford Sound, how the air was so thick with sandflies that they only stayed ten minutes at Milford Sound, how they accidentally parked on an incline in Gore and no-one got much sleep, how he managed to break his tooth on a fork without even trying. These moments somehow more than make up for all those lonely days and nights they have endured until now.

And then as quickly as he has come, he's gone again. But this time it's easier to endure, she knows that in six week's time they'll be together again on the other side of the world. And that she can bear. So she packs her bags, full of nervous anticipation with what lies ahead - a new country - a new family - a new job that she has yet to find - and a new life. For a girl who likes to plan there are still way too many unknowns for her liking, so for now all she has to hold onto is the belief that their love will somehow conquer all.

For the rest of those posts in this series, carry on here:

Part I The Original MNM's: How it all began
Part II The Original MNM's: Truly, Madly, Deeply


Part IV The Original MNM's: Making it Work
Part V The Original MNM's: Surviving the Storm

The original MNM's: truly, madly, deeply

(If you missed the first part of the story, you can find it here The original MNM's: how it all began)

Here she was. Caught between two worlds. One world, which was safe and known to her, but one that hasn't made her feel like her world was on fire for such a long time. The other world, full of risks and unknown, but full of wonder and expectation too.

She sits her boyfriend down and tells him that it's over and that she's leaving. It comes as a shock and she can hardly believe that she has been strong enough to say these words that have come from her mouth. But now that she has, she must stay strong. Especially over the next few days as he begs and begs her not to go, that he'll change, that things will be different.

But her mind is made up. And it is time to move forward. To this other world that awaits.

She goes out for a coffee at One Red Dog with this guy, this one who holds this other world in the palm of his hands. They talk and talk, making their hot chocolates last and last and drinking endless refills of the melon flavoured water that is on offer. He tells her he has nothing to offer, that soon he will be half a world away, but that he too feels the same, and what should they do?

That night there is another work function and they steal their first kiss in the stairwell, unaware that the moment has been captured on the hotel's security camera footage and soon all their work colleagues will be teasing them mercilessly about it. It is his last day of work and then he is leaving for a 2 week holiday around the South Island. The thought slays her.

She travels up to her parents home in Hamilton for a few days. She needs time to clear her head, to figure out where to next? She needs to find a new home, and a new car. But she misses him desperately already.

He calls her from the South Island that Sunday night. They talk some more. And despite having no guarantees, and none of the answers to all the burning questions the future holds, they decide that these bright and burning feeling that have eclipsed them are worth risking it all for.

He returns from the South Island and extends his time in NZ by one week, to give them this extra precious time together. They find themselves spending every waking minute together, even travelling up country so he can meet her parents before he leaves. Their trip happens to fall on the weekend of an eclipse, and as they are travelling home in the dark in the car they also see a shooting star fall from the sky right in front of them. They take each and every one of these as a sign that their love is meant to be.

And then, the moment she has been dreading...his day of departure dawns. She takes him to the airport in her little car, and they hold each other tightly, wanting to savour the sense of touch whilst they still can. And then it comes...the moment they had felt their love could ward off forever....but time wins out in the end. And so he finally lets go and walks the slow walk through the gates, looking back to see her growing ever smaller in the distance with each glance. Until he can see her no more.....

And she....she manages to walk unsteadily back to her car in the airport carpark, fumbling to open the door before collapsing inside, and sobbing desperately with her head against the steering wheel, sobbing as if her heart has broken a hundred, thousand, million times over.

For the rest of the posts in this series, click here:

Part I: The Original MNM's: How it all began

Part III The Original MNM's: Long Distance Love
Part IV The Original MNM's: Making it Work
Part V The Original MNM's: Surviving the Storm

The original MNM's: how it all began

Once upon a time a young girl made her way to Wellington. She'd only really moved to Wellington because her then boyfriend was also moving there from Auckland to take up a job at TVNZ in Avalon Studios and she felt obliged to follow where he went. After making do for a few weeks with a job behind the counter at Burger King, followed by some breakfast waitressing at the Novotel hotel, she eventually found more suitable work as a receptionist at the Museum Hotel. It was her first real job out of university after completing a degree in Japanese and Chinese. Not ideal, and not really what she wanted for her career, but it was a start at least.

A few months passed. She worked hard doing 7am-3pm and 3pm-10pm night shifts. She enjoyed the people she worked with, mostly young people like her finding their way in life. Strangely enough, amongst the group of them working together, there were 2 young guys who even shared the same birthday as her. What were the chances of that happening!

Things on the home front weren't all that happy though. It had been a tumultuous relationship, this one with her boyfriend of the past four years. Break-ups and make-ups, more fights and unhappy moments than she cared to admit, and a constant worrying sense of trying to make him happy when he seemed unable to do so for himself. His jealousy and inability to trust her was a constant source of tension and uneasiness along the way. She longed for more, but wasn't sure what 'more' meant.

One night her work hosts a farewell for one of these young guys she shares a birthday with, as he is going back to the UK after completing a year of work experience for his travel management degree that he has been studying for back home at Brighton University in Eastbourne. A group of them head out to a famous Wellington landmark 'The Tugboat' for drinks and dinner.

The girl enjoys the company of this young guy and has thought on more than one occasion that it is a shame he is going back to the UK as she would like to get to know him better. And on this night, after a few (too many) glasses of wine are in her, she boldly makes a move, putting her hand on his knee under the table, although she is a little too sozzled to realise that everyone else can see what's going on as they are sitting at a  glass table!

The night continues with the group going to town dancing at Coyote, but it ends early for her as her head is spinning, and she shamefully finds herself home and seeking the solace of a bucket by the bed for the rest of the night. She isn't rostered on at work the next day (thank goodness!), but when she returns the day after, she finds a Kinder Egg in her cubbyhole with a note from this young guy saying 'hope there's no awkwardness...we were just two great mates having a good time......'.

However, she's had time (whilst spent in bed feeling a tad sorry for herself) to do some thinking. Especially thinking that whilst she should be feeling pretty guilty about putting a move on another guy the other night, she really isn't at all, and what does that say about her...really? And what does this say about this relationship she's in that she feel this way?

She thinks long and hard. About the fact that she has been unhappy for a long time, the fact that she'd like to get to know this boy better, but the madness that it would be to contemplate pursuing things when he is about to move halfway around the world in just a few week's time. But suddenly she doesn't care. And she knows what she has to do.....

For the other posts in this series carry on here:

Part II The Original MNM's: Truly, Madly, Deeply
Part III The Original MNM's: Long Distance Love
Part IV The Original MNM's: Making it Work
Part V The Original MNM's: Surviving the Storm