In late July last year (2017) a friend Kirstie and I had a quick holiday in Thailand. I confess I needed some dental work done and was too tight to get it done in NZ. Kirstie was at a loose end and desperately needed some RnR so off we went. It was great, no kids, cheap mojitos on what felt like a roof top bar tour of Thailand. We arrived back (with a mouth guard and two $30 fillings) on 1st August, the same day as the builders started our renovations.
But the reason I talk about Thailand though is as, whoever has spent time in that amazing culinary delight of a country would know the saying ‘same same but different’. It references to their cheap knock offs of normally expensive things which the country is famous for. Kirstie and I came back with it.
But after 2 months of being the ‘Pod People’ Richie comes down from doing the bag drop, walks in (always with a tea towel in his hand) and says ‘Same same but different’.
They come like Noah’s Ark in two by twos and they/you are all such great people. From early 20’s to late 50’s they all like younger or older versions of each other. Interested and interesting, polite, tidy, enthusiastic, and so appreciative of what we’ve done. They are from all walks of life and countries and all they are all engaging. I didn’t bank on enjoying the Podsters quite so much. I chose this lifestyle change so I could bake and cook and do this from my new kitchen which faces an amazing view. Richie did this because he loves meeting new people. Now I’m out the door with him and the girls in tow and can’t wait to meet the next lot of ‘same same but different’s' as well. Richie in reverse takes such pride in his farm produced meat and seafood sauce (when a surplus) and so we are enjoying this mid-life crisis way more than we ever thought.
Back to the podsters – we love having you and we’ve enjoyed meeting all of you. I just about burst a boiler when I met someone from my favourite country (2nd to NZ), Namibia. Anthony and then two weeks later Abrie. I loved that country and had never met anyone from there back here in NZ. Didn’t disappoint – great people. Then the newly proposed who had Louie the Jack Russel sleep on their deck for the night. Apologies about that but I loved the sneaky way of keeping the visa tractions off the visa statement. We are seriously considering an ‘ice bucket in the bush’ option as a result of all the knees dropping at the pods.
Then our first celebs (Super rugby player with his adorable partner) who had to endure kids ignoring the ‘DO NOT BE OBVIOUS’ request and suddenly taking great interest again in our morepork. Richie was also worried about him rolling an ankle so kindly delivered him safely to the pod (very eye rolling behaviour Richie – poor guy). Then recently the Tactix netballer who kindly signed our netball which was frantically pumped up minutes before she checked out. All same same but different.
Another cool moment we’ve had was some good friends booking who were celebrating their 12th wedding anniversary. Hosting friends is always a bit awkward because one doesn’t know if it’s a sympathy thing and then they can be the harshest critics. But your text at night Tristin still makes me laugh.
Tristin: “This sucks, I want to go home”
Me: “Is the hot tub too hot, too cold, too wet or too dry?”
T: “No it’s the view”
It made us laugh out loud. That was great……well I hope you were joking ;)
So to all you 'same same but differents' you’ve been just awesome and you’ve all made us really look forward to the year ahead and hopefully more replicas of yourselves in different versions.
Thanks for reading this and I’ll be back.
Kate x