Clearly it’s time for a cheerier note to enter this blog after the misery of the last post. First up, the weather: we’re now entering the third sunny Wellington day in a row. For any New Zealand city that’s a pretty good record. What makes it more special is that this is the city that had to coin the phrase ‘You can’t beat Wellington on a good day’ to account for the lack of said good days. The weather has been pretty dire, and I’d started to pine for an English autumn, so the sun has provided much-needed relief.

Next, running into people. Hasn’t happened that often yet, oddly, it feels. Where’d they all go? I say that, but just saw an old friend in the coffee shop next door (curiously the same old friend in the same coffee shop as a couple of weeks ago), and ran into an old colleague yesterday who was literally running past the Beehive. On that note…

Fitness. They’re all at it. Everywhere you look there’s someone in expensive sporting gear doing something sweaty. Seriously, you can’t ride a bike without riding it fast, you can’t walk to work without doing it quickly, and you can’t go for a run without going up and down the steepest hill you can find. I guess I’ll acclimatise, now that I’ve stopped the smoking again and started to cut down on the comfort eating, I could start running again, though I’m tempted to smoke/eat/drink/get fat/etc, just to spite the place.

Onto trivial matters, I’m still confused by the way the water goes down the plughole. I think it’s clockwise but I could be seeing that just to prove the point that Down Here We’re Different. The sun definitely goes the other way, of that I’m sure, but for the plughole I’ll need further research.

Today marks two months till departure.

In the shower this morning I saw the water running down the plug anti-clockwise; I’m recording it here so I remember to check which way it goes in the southern hemisphere. Everyone I’ve ever asked says it’s bullshit that it goes one way in one hemisphere and backwards in the other. What they don’t agree on is whether that means it goes one way in both hemispheres or both ways with no preferred direction wherever you are. The only thing anyone agrees on is that something odd might happen at the equator but I’m not sure they know what that might be (or whether it has anything to do with water and plugs).

In any event, this morning it was running anti-clockwise. I flicked my foot around at the plug for a bit and made it go the other way but it didn’t look so happy. It reverted pretty soon after with very little encouragement.

So try this one: get an empty bottle and fill it with water. Now turn it upside down and give it a flick of the wrist anti-clockwise. It makes a nice little whirlpool in the bottle and is empty in no time. Now try it the other way. Which was quicker? Which was smoother? Hang on… Hmmm, not much in it. I reckon anti-clockwise by a nose. Now I just have to get Down Under and remember to try to it there.

Speaking of Down Under, ever notice that the sun there goes the other way?