Living in London as an actress I’ve worked about 25 jobs in 7 years, to keep me living in this city of dreams! I’ve slowly learnt the art of booking holidays, casting aside that notion of missing the audition of your life, that life is to be lived and not waited on. So I took the bull by the horns and booked myself a trip to New Zealand and Australia for 5 weeks. It was a big bull.
I was en route to visit one of my favourite friends from school, but decided to do a two week tour of NZ whilst I was out there. It was whistle stop but it did manage to reveal the beauty of the country. A group of about 25 people from all over the world on the road on a coach for five, seven, ten, fourteen days…people joined and left along the way…including my ‘best friend’ Soon!
Now to be fair to her we had a very brief friendship, we didn’t have much to do with each other until our climb up the Fox Glaciers…stunning and awesome. When we reached the top with our expert guide he suggested we leave our cameras at his feet, walk to the viewpoint and he would take a succession of team photos on the 25 cameras available. Soon and I were last to the top…scenery not slow! So by the time we got there cameras were aplenty and I placed my camera beside the others and approached my family of travellers…it was then that I heard a ‘plop’ from behind me, followed calmly by an “oops!” I turned around to see Soon staring at the ground, actually staring at a puddle. I walked back towards her quite aware that should my fears be realized Soon could soon find herself hanging off a glacier, and yes, twas as I’d thought, she was actually staring at MY camera in the puddle!
“Sorry it not my fault” NB. Soon was not from Northern Ireland.
Rather sternly, I asked “What’s not your fault Soon?”
“It not my fault…it fell in!”
Shoving Soon to the side, I yanked my 2month old digital camera out of its bath, laid it out, dead, and stormed over to join my friends, . The 24 photo opportunities that followed show a succession of faces from the actress who comes to terms with the fact that her birthday present drowned, her memories will now be on her retinas and not on her computer, through to the fact that I did not lose a limb and no one was hurt…these I believe are rational thoughts. However for the rest of the trip I renamed Soon…Soon to be dead! Not to her face!
I do hope she is not and that she is well. In fact it was the fault of the guide for asking us to place our cameras beside the only melted pool on the whole glacier…and he knew it! Language may have been a barrier but the look of guilt is universal.
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