Dorothy Cottrell

Happy New Year All – I hope that 2013 will bring you everything you wish for ! Again I cannot believe how much time has passed since I last wrote a blog. On finishing my 2-year contract in Singapore, I was overjoyed when my boss said she would like to employ me for as long as the Ministry of Education would keep renewing my work visa. A good start – they renewed my present one until the end of Jan 2016 and, after that, who knows ? My 2 years here have been spent working very hard – long hours, 6 days a week. I love every minute of my job but I was getting really tired. Much as I love my family to bits,  each visit to them has been too many planes in too short a time and on the go all the time once with them. I also maximised each holiday by flying at night after teaching all day and being back at school the day after flying back. So I treated myself to a chill-out holiday and went to Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand for 16 days. The scenery was breathtaking, I met the friendliest and most generous perfect strangers I’ve ever come across and the hotel staff were just fabulous ! Three Australian ladies insisted I join them for Christmas dinner and a family invited me to join them for dinner another evening and wouldn’t let me pay despite my protests. The highlight of my trip was the day I went on ‘The Lord of the Rings’ location tour which included the places where that film, ‘The Hobbit’, all the Narnia films and ‘Wolverine’ were all filmed. A lovely family and I spent 5 hours with the best tour guide ever, gasping as another spectacular view filled our vision. After the tour, the family asked me to dine with them and we chatted for hours. My Hogmanay was spent in the hotel bar with about 20 others. We saw an amazing fireworks display then we all chatted and I didn’t get to sleep until 2am. For most of my holiday, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky but for my last 2 full days there was heavy rain and low cloud and, from 30C (86F) on Christmas Day, the temp dropped a lot. I screamed with delight when I opened my curtains and looked at the high mountain range for the last time. All the mountains were covered in snow ! Even the locals were taken aback. Someone joked it was “global cooling” ! Back to work tomorrow, feeling fresher than I’ve done in years.