I was recounting only yesterday to a very dear friend the importance of holidays for Londoners compared to those who live Down Under. Holidays are an imperative survival tactic of living in a demanding place like London and the burn of city-living definitely needs an antidote – a topical (tropical) gel you can apply for a day or two and wait for the relief to set in.

The difference being, Down Under we don’t suffer the same intense burn but more like a vague cultural itch which in equal measure needs to be seen to but with far less urgency.

Seems therefore a shame that even with the extra Jubilee dose of bank holidays, the recommended intake of public holidays are always higher everywhere else in the world than here in Ol’ Blighty.

Point 64: Always make the most of your bank holidays, they are few and far between.

My seventh London anniversary just crept by a couple of weeks ago and after the good part of a decade living in Britain I decided to put the wheels in motion to apply for my indefinite leave to remain (aka: Permanent Residency).

As if it isn’t harrowing enough to trawl through your life seeking out obscure documents like your University transcript, requesting letters to prove your education was taught in the English language, and collating bank statements that went paperless years ago, but to add insult to injury the whole thing costs an excruciating TWO GRAND for the privilege of a lawyer and a face to face interview. And whilst I agree that permanent residency should be something gained through tenure and tenacity, boring people with an 89 page application is just silly.

So this bank weekend, I will be studying the ‘Life in the United Kingdom; A Journey to Citizenship’ book. 145 pages of practical, trivial and historical facts about the great British life, and more information than I will ever truly need in order to assimilate into its culture of tea, weather critiquing and the fine art of complaining.

But funnily whilst I sip my cuppa looking out the windows at the stratocumulus pondering whether I should take a brolly out I feel as though, I’m already there.

Point 63: There’s no actual written guide on how to be part of London, but after a long while you find that the fabric of London actually becomes part of you.

Recently a dear friend of mine went a tiny bit off the rails. Bored by his studies, perpetually single and hopelessly directionless. He spent January’s rent money on a half sleeve tattoo, slept with his neighbour’s lodger in February and this month discovered the crippling combination of Whisky and week nights. With hardly enough cash for the roll part and no style for the rock part he was more ‘drink n’ dole’ than ‘rock n’ roll’.

Just last weekend after being kicked out of his cousin’s flat after an eye-watering few nights on the lash, he was told never to return, after leaving the shower to run whilst he lay comatose on the couch and allowed three of the four rooms in the flat to flood. He decided to ‘sober up’ at a local late night bar known as The Dolphin (think ‘Sons of Hackney’) and the last thing he remembers after eleven shots of Tequilla and just as many pints is walking towards a mini-cab office in Dalston with a random guy  dressed in a Robo-Cop costume. It’s the following events after that he cannot account for at all and at least 12 hours later he ‘came to’ on a train pulling into Manchester Piccadilly Station without his shoes, his coat, his wallet or his keys. In fact the only thing he had on him was the firm hand of a burly female train conductor escorting him to the security office to explain himself.

With the last remaining 8% of his phone battery my friend knew he had to choose carefully about who he called upon. Who would drop everything – no questions asked, no grief and come pick him up from Manchester on a Sunday at 3pm? Who has the energy, the love, the desire for banter, the time… which of his best friends can he call this very second to come and get him from Manchester?

Point 62: It might be a flat tyre, a last minute plane ticket, a loan, a pick-up, a house to move, a fence to paint, or a place to crash…knowing you have friends you can call on for the ‘Manchester Test’ is a big deal in this life.

It always surprises me when I meet someone who hasn’t got a Twitter account, these days it seems par the course of keeping up to date, but when I meet someone who hasn’t got a Facebook profile… well that’s something else. Part of me despises their neo-luddite attitude and part of me admires their single-mindedness. Quite honestly, most people who resisted Facebook in the earlier years were probably thinking it was a fad they didn’t need to be part of, but as the event invitations passed them by and the topics of Sunday brunch conversations veered to ‘Kathy’s status updates are sooo hilarious’ or ‘have you see how gorgeous Jack and Louise looked at their wedding’ the urge for social participation becomes overwhelming and the purists take the late voyage to the land of the Included.

Despite all this, there’s much to be said about the woman who sits next to me at work, no Linkedin profile informing her of who hasn’t been viewing her professional statistics, no Facebook stalking or re-setting privacy settings, no Tagging, no Tweeting or Foursquaring… her life is far simpler, more personal and more private. I’m not having a moan believe you me, I’m too hooked on my social networking to be concerned so late in the game but I have to admit it has its advantages.

Imagine being a teenager now. I remember high-school was already hard enough, the posturing, the insecurities, the inadequacy of my bra-size, being dumped, the failings of my wardrobe (thanks Mum), now multiply that by a digital footprint – the social pressure must be daunting. There would be no laying low, or pretending you had plans, or insisting the boy from home was actually a total babe, as opposed to a zit-ridden saxophonist who’s great Aunty still drove him everywhere. There would be no hiding, and the hardest parts of maturing would become even more testing.

The flipside of course, is never losing touch with the people who influenced you. You would still have a connection to Eleanor, the girl across the road who you spent years climbing trees with. You would still have all the photos from the school ball – the first time in your life you felt like a proper grown up. You would still be able to see the pictures of your first love and for better or for worse the woman he marries. And you would remember everyone who came and went in life and you could still visit with the girl from your third form class, who’s name you choke on remembering.

Point 61: A window is something you can look through from two sides, you just have to use some prerogative.

Surviving through three whole months of winter is just about enough any Antipodean can bear. Even those hardened Southlanders who are more accustomed to cooler conditions become a pastey, lethargic and pitiful little granule of their former selves by the time mid February rolls around. But what is even harder to bear is the further six weeks of winter still to grace the New Year, and the invariable dose of the ‘Antipodean Mid Winter Itch’.

London, nay, Great Britain has a five month winter (apparently this is news to the British people, but the rest of you know what I mean) and in the final weeks of it, a powerful desire stirs in those of us who originate from the alternate hemisphere. That desire is simply for winter to STOP.

A collective painful inner scream from all Antipodeans, heard only by Antipodeans begins, the slow ringing whine starts on the last week of January.  Building every day decibel by decibel, note by note, until it reaches an ear-piecing and climactic pitch by mid March, and does not abate until around April. At which time the screaming and harrowing itch to get on the very next outbound flight to a beach and never come back has almost calmed.

That ‘calling’, becomes so deafening that eventually one screaming winter, years after emigrating, when the tuning of it is so exact, the sound becomes too much, the pounding in the ear starts to burst, and the compulsion to leave the UK reaches fever pitch, you wake up and realise you simply have to go, get all your things and just get out.

Dramatic I know. But point 60 if you can hear it in your heart, then listen to it, you’ll know when it’s time to leave.

Only very recently, I’ve started to consider my family members on more individual terms rather than their familial roles. For a long time I only ever  thought of my parents, as that – parents. The guardians of my youth, the conscience of my past and the arbiters of my pre-30 self. They were the driving force behind every decision I ever made, whether in an act of rebellion or conciliation, my view of them has always been ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’. Not John and Ellen.

John and Ellen met when they were in their twenties in the mid-70s in Italy on a bus tour, they swapped addresses to write to one another at the end of the tour, and after a long-distance courtship spanning half the globe, they married in a little registry office in New Zealand in the Summer of 1979. They were inseparable, Ellen had left all her friends and family to be with her new beau in a foreign country that had no resemblance to her own, John was utterly devoted to the most gorgeously enigmatic woman he had ever laid eyes on.

Unexpectedly, they fell pregnant only a few weeks after their honeymoon, and the life long role of being a parent had begun. Ellen was just 28, no grandparents on either side to help with the daunting prospect that is parenthood, and as the home-sickness began to set in, fewer friends to rely on than most. John had the pressure of providing not only for his new bride, but also his new baby, and their first house was furnished on loans, and second-hand furniture yet, he calls this the happiest time of his life.

The years that followed, a second daughter, the small but needed pay-rises and John and Ellen became Mum and Dad, ferrying us between ballet, swimming, piano lessons, school and friend’s houses. Their own individual desires, pursuits and needs put behind that of their thankless children.

Point 59: ‘No one’s perfect’ is a waiver you grant to nearly everyone, but for the people who are your Mum and Dad, sometimes we forget who they are beyond parents.

Oh jeez where has the time gone? It was just before Christmas when I was writing my year in review, and now it’s almost the Age of Aquarius. So without further ado, antipodean_lady’s 2011 in review. The greatest and the lamest.

10. Did you hear about the loss of Jobs in America?

As I type this on my iPad, I wonder how I would’ve coped in these past few years in a creative industry without the intuition and simplicity of apple products. I guess I would’ve just used something else. That someone else invented. He wasn’t even the nicest guy, so the fact retail staff around the world who never even met Mr Steve Jobs, actually shed tears upon hearing the news he had passed away from Cancer is testament to how much he influenced a generation.

9. To love and obey

They certainly make for a lanky couple, and the return of some regal poise and peace in the United Kingdom will be welcomed after years of superfluous scandal. The day of the Royal Wedding was joyous, if not for them, for all the British men out there who think they have a chance in hell of snatching up P-Middy’s famous bum.

8. That’s what happens when you hire a ginger.

There is much to say about titillating headlines and salacious revelations in the tabloids, but the expense proved too high for NOTW this year, and seeing another Aussie going down in whipped cream, always makes us kiwis happy. Sorry, but it’s true.

7. Occupy this.

The 90% showed up in 2011 and made a stand. A long stand. A pointlessly long stand. Although not completely unified and synergetic in its efforts, the occupations made the average Londoner and New Yorker realise that accepting the status quo is just as lame as sitting in a smelly tent pontificating over it. Change is surely abound.

6. Twitter v Superinjunction

Privacy is the name of the game these social media days, but little did Imogen Thomas and beau Ryan Giggs realise their tryst would wind up revealing to the nation just how much Twitter has evolved everything from how we share ideas, to how we share news, lawfully or otherwise.

5. Last Dictator Standing

It is with plenty of satisfaction, that I reflect on 2011 as the year where a number of the world’s loony dictators suffered significant falls from power. Although nature had its hand to play. The people of the impoverished world spoke up and united for the betterment of society. A real reminder that growing up in a place like New Zealand and the United Kingdom is a privilege. More importantly, it reminds us humanity is still what unites us.

4. London’s Burning

Nothing brings a community together like a common cause and some profitable enterprise. The horrifying thing is watching your neighbourhood burn for Umbro tracksuits and Adidas trainers. It was a sad few days in London during this year’s opportunistic and pointless riots. Let’s hope Londoners bind togther this year as they realise just how disenfranchised the City’s youth is.

3. Don’s Bloody Driveway

My father sent me an astonishing text message a few days ago, “in 500 days Christchurch has had 9500 earthquakes, that’s approximately one quake every four hours, now tell daddy what your troubles are”. One can only imagine how our friends and family in Christchurch can still have a sense of humor.

2. Japan Tsunami

The heartbreak of the Japanese Tsunami was enormous, watching a hyper organised and prepared country suffer in such huge proportion, makes the whole world sit up and take notice. Mother Nature will not be stopped.

1. Bringing it Back

It wasn’t their finest hour of the tournament, but it certainly was their most definitive in the past 25 years. The drama of this year’s World Cup didn’t escape any code playing nation, and by the hair on their chinny chin chin’s our darling boys brought the cup home.

Not long ago, whilst I was walking towards Camden Road station to catch my train at the end of an insufferably long working week (month) I was contemplating how to put my misery to an end. Not in a ‘jump in front of a garbage truck’ kind of drastic way, but in a ‘should I go for a massage, or lock myself away with an entire pint of Cookie Dough ice-cream kind of way” – I was stopped by a stranger.

She and her hoodie wearing companion, both not much older than 21 had passed me just moments before, and I had caught her eye only momentarily.  It had barely registered in my mind, but she walked on by, then clearly stopped turned back and ran towards me.

Perhaps it’s a testament to the Great British Public,  or proof of my utter inability to hide my every inner feeling and emotion, but she stopped me to ask me if I was okay. I was a little surprised I guess, but reassured her that I was fine, she patted me on the shoulder looked me square in the eye, and told me everything would be alright, and then went back to her friend who was standing on the corner waiting for her. Ashamedly my first instinct was to check if I had my phone, wallet, ipod. My second instinct after I realised all were in the rightful jumbled position in my handbag, I smiled.

Sometimes the kindness of the jaded London crowd surprises me.

Point 58:  If you take the time to watch, you  see Londoners generosity and moments of camaraderie all around you, it may not always be as obvious as a stranger checking you’re feeling okay, or a geezer holding open the train door for you. But it is there.

Understanding yourself is probably life’s greatest challenge. Knowing what you want from life is something not everyone is blessed enough to be sure of. For the people who know, it’s merely a matter of getting on with achieving what you want. Engineering a plan that will result in you working towards your life’s goal and with some effort and luck, achieving it. For the people who don’t know what they want from life, the journey is far more complicated. Distractions, choices, potential opportunities and missed chances line the drawer of life, meaning the ability to figure how you are faring becomes impossible, because your own terms for assessment are just not clear to reference.

For instance, for a career driven person the measures are easy; respect, ambition, projects and reward, indicate whether life is blazing a good trail. For the altruistic person; caring for others, money raised for good causes, and upholding their moral code in everything they do, appraise a fulfilling life. For the family man, it is building a home, teaching their children all they can about being the best they can be and generosity of time to those they love. But for those who are not clear what it is they want ultimately in life, the path to knowing oneself is a scramble of it all. A myriad of terms that cannot be applied without the counter of something else, possibly quite conflicting. It used to be once upon a time, most of us were one or the other: a single-minded worker, an academic, a do-gooder, a yes man, a lover, a musician,  an adventurer… even now, those who start sentences with “All I want from life…” can be counted as the lucky ones.

Point 57:  Really weighing up what it is you want from life, because you only get one such life, in a simple and focused way gives you more freedom, than resisting a decision completely.

It’s that time of year again, when the office Christmas Parties are looming. When your colleagues down tools and your clients let their hair down and you remember that there are just a few perks to working in your job other than the free stationery and cups of tea. But this year I am worried. This year’s party is whole different kettle of fish.

It’s not unusual for a Christmas Party to be a costume party or as they say in England a ‘fancy dress’ party, which is exactly what my fellow ad-man colleagues and I have to look forward to this festive season. And I’ll tell you something for nothing, I DO costumes. I mean, any chance to wear obscene Lycra and inappropriate accessories, and I’m there with you know what on. Not only am I an enthusiast anyhow, but to add extra incentive there is also a highly lucrative prize for the best effort. So, what’s stopping me I hear you ask naively…

The theme. Best of British.

Point 56: Would you ever let a Brit take home the grand prize at a ‘Back in Black’ or Kiwiana party? No I thought not.