Post No. 98 - No getting rid of us!

We went along to the local immigration office on Monday to pay our migrant levy and are now the proud holders of new stickers in our passports.
These stickers prove we are allowed to reside in New Zealand indefinetly. Pretty cool!

It's been a strange week. We feel a certain amount of pressure is gone now because we don't have to cram in everything we wanted to see before June! But a whole lot of other pressure has increased....like the need to get a mortgage, find a decent house, get permanent work. Although, as a wise man has said to me (unfortunately he did not bear the gift of gold!), we have all the time in the world now, there is no need to rush, we should enjoy getting there!

We have a few social things lined up. We were out with the people I am currently working with (and that Graeme got his job through) on Friday for a drink. And yesterday, we met up with some people I previosuly worked with for a BBQ which was fun! Coming up this week, we are going Bowling with Graeme's work and next week we have a Housewarming/Engagement party to go to.

It's amazing how cool everyone is being. We have had lots of responses to the email we sent out saying we got residency and everyone that we have told here so far has congratulated us.

We are able to leave New Zealand now we are resident, for holidays etc, which we wern't sure we were able to. But at this point in time, we have no plans to venture further then Oz as there is still so much we want to see here!

Permanent Residents of New Zealand!

So we submitted the final stage of our application for residency on Tuesday 24th January and were told we should have a decision within 2 months.

You can imagine our surprise when a letter arrived yesterday (not even 3 weeks after the forms were put into the office) saying we had been approved!!!!

We are so excited! We still have to go along and pay the 'migrant levy' and get a new stamp in our passports but once that is done, it is all official, we will be Permanent Residents of New Zealand!

Wow!

It is definetly a strange feeling....its so great to have an answer but we have realised how much stuff we have to do now!

There has been so many things where we have said 'We will do that IF we get residency'. Now we do have it and we have to arrange a mortgage, get money over from the UK, get our stuff from dads loft, buy a house, get our NZ drivers licenses....phew! We will be very busy I think!

So I hope you are all looking forward to a holiday in New Zealand because we are planning to be here for a while and it would be so great having you all over for a holiday! We will let you know when we get a house and most importantly, a BBQ so that you can come over to see us!

Kate and Graeme's new house perhaps?

Post No. 97 - Galloping towards post 100...

..okay, maybe not so much galloping and more of a stroll at a slow pace being nosy at everything as I walk past!

Tirau, famous for corrugated iron

So it's Friday evening and we have cracked open a bottle of wine to celebrate (as if we need a reason!) another public holiday here in NZ. Meaning another 3 day weekend - only 2 weeks after the last one - woo-hoo! Monday is Waitangi Day which celebrates the day that the Treaty of Waitangi was signed founding New Zealand. Sometimes also known as "New Zealand Day" which is an easier mouthful for us 'poms' that haven't gotten used to the lingo yet!

The nights are starting to draw in and while February is supposed to be quite warm and summery, the temperatures are more bearable now then they were last weekend (it was too hot!).

We don't have anything particularly special planned for the weekend, just some relaxing and enjoying being here!

Please note: I did write this post on Friday night and intended to post it then but had a slight glitch with Blogger and only able to post now