Post 109 - One year on...

...on the 24th June 2005 we boarded a plan at London Heathrow headed for Auckland New Zealand via LA. We had no idea what was ahead of us, we were extremely excited and sad that we were leaving everyone behind.

And here we are, 1 year later...the time has flown by! I can't quite believe its been a full year since we left. We have managed to do so much this last year and we have seen some lovely sights here in New Zealand.




And we haven't even been to South Island yet!...thats the plan for the coming year and also to have lots of people come visit and stay with us and also to plan a wedding and trip back to the UK in July 2008! So book that month out in your diary everyone - it'll be a ball!

And here's a link to a cool blog - all about NZ mailboxes! Enjoy!

Post 108 - In Hibernation

So it's been a while and I really have no excuse. The weather here is cold and wet and I find myself sleeping a lot. And walking the dog in the rain. And watching re-runs of Friends to get some laughs.

I have been hugely neglectant on all fronts and would like to apologise. Homesickness has kicked in over the last couple of weeks, its almost a year to the day when we left the UK (24 June) and I have had a rotten flu bug and can't get rid of the cough that came with it.
So now you all feel sorry for me and hopefully forget I have been lax with phone calls, emails and being online to chat!

Seriously though, I miss you all very much and hope you are all taking good care of yourselves. I hear that summer finally arrived in the UK and hope you are all enjoying the long, warm days.

Its very strange with a reverse in seasons. Its Graeme's birthday on Tuesday (the 20th) and since he has been born his birthday has fallen on the day before the longest day of the year. Now we are in reverse and Wednesday is the shortest day. We are coming home in the dark and its dark when we get up. And its still hard to believe that there will never be snow at Christmas (while we stay here!). Methinks it will take a good few years until it all starts to make sense!

And here's a photo for you:

Post 107 - Rhett

Meet Rhett, our new dog. In fact, he is the best dog in the world!

Here he is:



He was part of a litter abandoned when they were only 6 weeks old. They went to an animal shelter in the district they were found (not Palmerston North) and most of the litter were re-homed. Unfortunately, Rhett and his brother Raffles were not homed and ended up with foster parents. The foster parents have given him some basic training - he sits when told, seems to understand 'no' when told and so far no 'accidents' in the house (although its early days yet!).
Rhett and his brother were brought to Palmerston North SPCA about a week ago as there are more people looking for dogs. We loved him and his brother and after a week of ooming and ahhing decided it was about time we got a dog! Raffles had been homed earlier this week but we were lucky Rhett was ready to come home with us! Apparently he has been around a 2 year old child and livestock without problems but had a scary encounter with a horse so is now afraid of them.

More photos later...if you're lucky!

Post 106 - No monkeys allowed

Turtles - it seemed appropriate!

I went down to Wellington this week for a work thing. It was a talk by the Immigration Service on how recruiters can use people from overseas and how they can get them here. It was fairly interesting and I feel I learnt a few things.

Being an 'imported pom' myself (which my boss decided to declare to the room of 40 or so people, cue Kate's rosy red cheeks!) I knew a fair bit about the visa process. I was fascinated by a booklet we got in our info packs - aimed at those wanting to immigrate to New Zealand, lots of useful facts and interesting statistics. And a booklet I hadn't yet seen. (Hard to believe with the moutain of literature I had on NZ prior to coming...it must be new!)

The one thing that has fascinated me the most is that if you immigrate to New Zealand you cannot bring your monkey with you. Or your turtles or birds come to that. What a tough decision that must be - the monkey or the new life in New Zealand....what would you choose?

It was an early morning...in my opinion - I got up in the middle of the night! We had to leave Palmy at 6.30am to ensure we got through the traffic to Wellington in time. The drive to Wellington (and back) is a gorgeous one though. For part of the journey you drive right alongside the sea. And we could see South Island as it was quite a clear day.

We stopped in Otaki on the way for a Hot Chocolate (lovely and comforting at 7.30am) and I got my lunch in a nice cafe place before we headed back so all-in-all not a bad day. I have no idea how people travel with work on a regular basis though. I was a zombie on Friday!

Luckily they have monkeys at Wellington Zoo so if you did have to give yours up, all is not lost

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.

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!

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.