I got back from New Zealand yesterday. It turned out to be a really great week. Even the flight was fine. It obviously helped being in Business Class and fairly heavily sedated with various members of the Valium, Diazipam family (thanks Tony and Mum!) but even on the way back when we were bumping around for a good few hours I never thought 'so this is it then' which, given what I have been like before is serious progress.
I loved New Zealand on lots of levels. Even though I didn't have time to get out of Auckland, I know that physically it is a beautiful place. There's only four million people in the whole country so it doesn't ever feel crowded. Everyone I met from cab drivers to airport security to waiters and waitresses were unbelievably friendly and the ad industry guys were open, positive and largely ego free, which was a refreshing change from a lot of the w***kers you meet in the UK. In fact if it wasn't so far away I would really love to live there.
I was one of three international judges, the other two were from a Swedish directors collective called Traktor. They have won Grammys, over 20 Cannes awards bla bla bla and could easily have been so full of themselves but were about as far away from that as you could imagine. They had been shooting in Auckland and went out of their way to include me in everything they were doing. It really made my stay. They were so much fun to be around.
I was upset at having to leave Jo and Sammy as he still wasn't 100% when I left and Jo was knackered. Fortunately I had loads of pictures of them both on my laptop that meant I could spend a few minutes looking through them before bed at night.
The most frustrating thing about life at the moment is that Sam has gone backwards on the sleeping front. He is so brilliant in so many ways. He has a top sense of humour and is standing and trying to climb up anything he can find, but ever since he was ill his night time routine is all over the place. He wakes at least 2 or 3 times between 7pm and 6am. We have been taking him into our room to settle him which I think in hindsight has been a mistake. I don't believe that there is anything fundamentally wrong with him. Maybe it is time we gave him some 'tough love' and left him to cry it out rather than him expecting us to come in and comfort him.
It's putting a huge strain on Jo as she is taking the night time responsibility. I can't see how she could go back to work when he is like this. It is not physically possible. She is talking about needing to get in to bed between 8-9pm which is probably right but that just doesn't work for me. I often don't get back until around then and last thing I want to do is go straight to sleep. Jo has organised a specialist sleeping nanny coming for two nights which is a great move. It will be interesting to see what she says. We can't go on like this.
It sounds like I am not glad to be back. Of course I am but this is a problem that can put a real strain on your relationship (only temporarily but, you know...) and I am jetlagged out of my head so not really feeling like myself yet. Chatted today about going to see a life-coach to get help with striking a work life-home life balance because I have found it really difficult to leave work behind in the last few months. I know I can be distant or grumpy at home when really on paper things are great. There's nothing like tiredness to make you rub each other up the wrong way though and we are both running close to empty a lot of the time. I'll make some calls this week but it is not as simple as me striking a life balance. Sam needs to start sleeping through and as soon as possible.
