Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Post 105 - a couple of pictures for you

For those of you who have been eagerly awating more pics here are a couple for you:

This is the front of the house


And here is one of the back garden


We will get some more up on the Kodak galleries once the broadband connection is back on (hopefully tomorrow). For now we are using slow and expensive dial up so 2 will need to do!

Post No 104 – We’re In!

Well, I am writing this on Easter Friday at 2.30pm into Word so we can upload it once the internet connection is on in the new place.

We are here! And so is all of our stuff!

We got the call to say we could pick up the keys at 12.30 yesterday, whilst standing at the kebab van in the centre of town would you believe! So we grabbed the kebabs, drove over to the agents to pick up the keys and then headed back to the flat to eat and pack up the car.

We headed over with the first car load, managed to disarm the burglar alarm without to0 much bother and took it all in! Finally, almost 7 weeks after seeing the house for the first time, we were in!

We managed to unpack most of the kitchen stuff and Graeme headed back to load up the car once again while I carried on with emptying the boxes. We made sure we were both here after 3pm as there were 3 deliveries due: the sofa’s, the white goods and the bedroom furniture.

At 5.30pm we were feeling very tired and starting to wonder where everyone had got to. Graeme decided to head back over for the TV so at least we could sit on the floor and watch some telly. A few minutes after he arrived back, the guy arrived to deliver the bedroom stuff. Then as that guy was making up the bed, the sofa’s arrived…we were on a roll! We had somewhere to sleep, drawers for our clothes, couches to sit on and a telly….what more could we need? Oh yeah, a fridge freezer, microwave and washing machine might be nice!

We were getting hungry at this point so I headed up the road to the local takeaway for a couple of sausage suppers – yum! We gave up on the white goods around half 8 and lounged all over the new couches!

Went to bed about 9.30 bone tired but so happy that we were in!

Today, so far, we hired a van and brought the rest of the stuff over from the flat, unloaded it and spoke to a lovely lady about the white goods. She was very apologetic and the goods came at midday. We have them all installed and have done some more unpacking. Had MaccyD’s for lunch and browsed through the many photos we have taken so far. And now, we are about to head back to the flat to do a final clean and hoover before handing the keys in tomorrow morning.

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Post No. 103 - Happy Birthday Blog

Well, on the 11th April 2005, I posted the first of many posts on this blog....here is a refresher for you all:

Monday, April 11, 2005

The journey has started....
....and so it has begun.
Here we are less then 11 weeks before take off.
Life is somewhat chaotic but exciting!

So - 24 June - the big day, we fly from Heathrow to Auckland via LA.
We have our working holiday visa's, we have our flights booked and we are halfway there to having our accommodation on arrival booked.
What else is there to do other then put our feet up?

Oh yeah....pack all our stuff, empty our flat and vacate it by this Friday, move to a room temporarily, sell the car, ditch the sofas, buy some travel insurance, say goodbye and go.....
*****

How excited we were then....and how stressful the move ended up being!
The good news is we learnt our lesson and this move seems to have been a lot less stressful. We have almost finished packing and are due to get the keys on Thursday - 2 MORE SLEEPS TO GO!!!

We will be offline over Easter as we can't get the broadband connection activated until Tuesday in the new place. We will be taking hundreds of pictures of the new place once we were in and may post 1 or 2 here once we are back online.

Sorry - no photo's today as Blogger isn't loading them!

Monday, April 03, 2006

Post 101 (I think!)

Gorgeous evening sky

Hi everyone, sorry its been a while.

There has been quite a lot happening lately.

We are still on track for moving house over the Easter weekend and are both bouncing around in excitment! We have bought and ordered everything we possibly can before moving in and are now concentrating on packing and cleaning (yuck!)

Graeme has been busy with soccer training and his team had a second friendly today - they won 8-4 (go the RSM Thrashers!)

I have started an extramural course in Journalism and have been working hard to get through the tutorials and assignments. I am thoroughly enjoying it!

We had some sad news from back home and the distance between NZ and the UK seemed to quadruple overnight. One of the worst feelings I have ever experienced is wanting to give someone a hug to let them know you care and not being able to. This all triggered the home sickness but due to how busy we have both been I think we have got through it.

On a happier note, we have heard from several people that are hoping to get out to visit in the next 12 months which is great news! Can't wait to see you all.

And one last thing - now the clocks have gone back here and forward in the UK, NZ is 11 hours ahead of UK time.