I love France, but not that much

Been thinking a bit this week about the France/All Blacks showdown on tonight, in which the winner of the Rugby WC will be determined. If it were any other country in the final with France I would be supporting Les Bleus to the hilt. But it's not.

If we were all, say, a series of doors waiting to be opened; our memories, experiences and loves behind each one of them, then behind one of my doors would be France. I've been there on four different occasions, each one a revelation. The last time I went there I spent three months in an old campervan on my own, wandering aimlessly from village to town to city, discovering that while some of the cliches of French life exist, it's also possible to find badly dressed women, to find supermarkets full of processed food, to hear that beautiful language used to discuss such unglamorous subjects as banking and parking tickets, (gonflage, the place at a petrol station where you pump up your tyres remains my favourite French word), and drink wine that can only be described as utter crap. I also saw no trace of that supposedly Gallic trait, arrogance. Instead I found friendliness, curiosity and an ordinariness - much like you find in New Zealand.

On that last trip, nine years ago, I worked for a week picking grapes on a vineyard in Burgundy. My French being also pretty rubbish, I barely spoke to a soul. But those who knew I was Neo Zelandaise, not a deaf mute as one girl thought - or worse, English - tried to engage with me and teach me some French words. Moutarde, panier, sang, caisse croute, porteur; some words were learnt out in the vines, autumn sun turning the scene golden, others over the daily long lunch of five courses and wine, then a sleep in the sun. The village church bells signalled lunch time. Hearing people talk was like my high school French lessons come to life. It was all too beautiful. Except when it rained.

So France, though I love that you brought us gratin Dauphinoise, the croque monsieur, Champagne, Matthieu Kassovitz, wrapped sugarcubes, broiche and Le Tour, I am hoping that tonight you'll forgive me my lapsed nationalism. Go the All Blacks!

Past Lives :: The Tokoroa Years

Although I wasn't born there and I spent my first year of life in Greymouth and a bit in Christchurch, I consider myself to have 'grown up' in Tokoroa. For those not aquainted with the town, it's one of those towns where you may stop for a burger or a pie or just hurry on through at high speed plonked on a stretch of State Highway one between Taupo and Hamilton. My first memories are of growing up in a school rental house with a huge backyard that went on forever, hanging out with my best pal Stephanie Smith who lived over the back from us, and of riding my bike and skating and generally being allowed to run riot over our neighbourhood. It was awesome. Those were the days when you stayed out till it got dark in the summer, when you walked or rode your bike everywhere, when the summers were so hot tar got stuck to your feet and winter meant frosts that turned the playgrounds and rugby fields to icy goodness that you slid on and ripped holes in your cords that your mum patched up with funky fabrics. Tokoroa these days has a bit of a bad reputation - thanks to cutbacks at Kinleith Mill where most people worked, it's a town on the decline and has been since before I left there when I was 18. A lot of shops are empty, houses are run down and it has a general aura of being abandoned. When I lived there I knew every street, knew where most people lived, knew most of the kids at school, and if someone didn't know you, you just said who your parents were. It was a three degrees of seperation kind of place. Some awesome people still live there - my good pal Tina and her family, various teachers who worked with my parents over the years are still there. And Mr and Mrs August who lived across the road are still there too, bless 'em.

Two little maids from school, Monique and I with our army canvas school bags that everyone had, and in my hand I have a Bangles single. On vinyl.

It's also where I met Monique - my best pal. We met in maths or science or something in fifth form, and been pals ever since. She's Tiny's godmother and has been a huge influence in my life. We've kind of followed each other around a bit during our friendship; she followed me to Christchurch, I followed her to the UK. Though she's a dirty pinko do-gooding vegetarian who can't eat wheat, I hold her advice and opinions in the highest esteem and admire the way she can pull off wearing a way-too-small for her t-shirt she's just bought at the Sallys.

During the Tokoroa years, I had a number of crappy jobs. My first job ever was picking gooseberries and blueberries at Loft's farm not far out of town. I was 13, I was growing my hair long for the first time ever, and made the mistake of parting it in the middle with pig tails. My head was singed one day and huge lumps of peeling scalp came off a few days later. Not pretty. My next bad job was delivering the New Zealand Herald. Six days a week for three years I got up at 5.30am, pedalled downtown hoping the bungy cords holding the yellow PVC paper carrier onto my bike wouldn't come off and smack me in the ass, and delivered papers to the good folks of Papanui Street. Some mornings were glorious - just me, the papers, amazing sunrises and birdsong. Others were torturous - rain, crazed dogs, the bungys coming off, general unpleasantness. One nice thing about it was sometimes finding a chocolate bar from the old lady who wanted her paper delivered right to her door.

Could this be where my thing for red cardigans started?

The last job I had in Tok was the least horrible - I was a check-out chick at the local New World. There were loads of other girls from school there as well as Lisa R - who when I come to think of it was responsible for me getting the jobs fruit picking and paper delivering - and who is still a mate even though I missed her wedding because I got the dates wrong, and despite standing at the end of a check-out for hours with nothing but Christmas music on repeat to listen to, it was a blast.

I left Tokoroa in 1991 for Canterbury University, which I had dreamt about for ages. Christchurch just seemed to me to be new and exciting compared to going to Waikato or Auckland which were closer to home. And it was where my older more glamourous sister Ange lived. Until I got there.

Past Lives :: Or What I Did With Myself Before Blogging and Babies Came Along

The Postie and I have been putting together a book for Tiny kind of chronicling what awesome individuals we are so when he's 16 and he hates us and thinks we're old fuddy duddys we can show him how cool we really are.

I've been thinking a bit as I lie on the couch trying to figure out what I'm craving, about my past lives, and who I've been and things I've done before now. In my time, I've been a check-out chick, a salesperson in a hardware store, picked blueberries in New Zealand and grapes in France, worked in the film and TV industry back in the 1990s before Wellywood was born, been a published poet, answered phones at more government departments than I care to remember, and more recently become a journalist. I came to travelling late (I was 25 before I ventured outside our shores) but have racked up a few overseas adventures, and now I'm going to be someone's mother. I've had more re-inventions than Madonna. Almost.

So I'm attempting a new series, if you like. Past lives. Stay tuned.

The plaid shirt years - clapper loader on William Shatner's Twist in the Tale 1997-8