A Change of Routine

We have been in our new house for just over one week now and we are still very much unpacking, sorting and organising our belongings.  It’s very reassuring to have a place to settle into and when I place something down I know that it can stay there forever if I want it to.  For such a long time things have been temporary and “it’ll do for just now”, at last we can make things permanent!  However, I am neither pressuring myself to get things right the first time, nor am I throwing things into cupboards with the thought “I’ll sort that out later” - best effort is the current mode.
I am quite happy with my closet, and with a recent purchase of shoe racks I think we have the beginnings of a happy relationship, but I’ll know more once I have the rest of my belts and scarves in there!
So far we have taken a walk around the neighbourhood and visited the local pub. We have met with several of our neighbours and they have been friendly and welcoming and have all said nice things about the street and the area.  I am surprised by how quiet and countryside-like it is, there are sheep in a field near my house and just the other day I had to stop my car to let a line of ducks cross the road – how cute is that!  I know this is more common on the outskirts of the city, but I live in Auckland city!  I just love that I have city life and country life.
I’m now creating some new routines and trying to revive some old but good habits.  I’ve gone back to Pole Fitness who have moved to a very cool new location in the CBD and I’ve started jogging in the evening.  Soon I’ll be back at skating too and lately I’ve been feeling the urge to pick up those knitting needles.
Overall I’m feeling happy and positive.  I have the occasional moment of doubt, or fear that the plumbing is about to disintegrate or the roof is going to fall in (but that’s what insurance is for right?).  I knew we shouldn’t have watched The Money Pit after we won the place at auction!

We're in a Magazine

Back in November when we celebrated our one year anniversary of moving to NZ I posted an update to a forum I used to frequent.  Before the move I read lots of blogs and forum posts and I loved reading peoples experiences, good and bad.  I think that really helped us get a balanced idea of what life might be like for us when we moved.  I thought it might help others thinking about making the move to post about my own experiences.  Here is my post on the British Expats forum.

After that I was contacted and asked if I could be interviewed for an emigration magazine.  I agreed and submitted my answers to the questions along with a few pictures.  It proved too much of a challenge to find pictures of the two of us together as usually one of us is taking the picture so we ran about taking pictures of us in the garden!

I didn't hear any more from the interviewer and had forgotten about it when I got a facebook message from my friend Claire who had been to an Emigrate expo and picked up a copy of the magazine to find me and Kane in it!

Claire kindly scanned a copy for me and you can view the article here > Emigrate article

In the article I mention my Sci-Fi peeps so I wonder if we will be seeing any new expats soon (assuming anyone has read the article!)

It's neither myself nor Kane's first time in print but it still felt kinda weird and a bit silly.

Home Auction

During the Auckland Anniversary weekend we had visited a few open homes and saw one that we had we liked.  Over the following Waitangi weekend (yes! two long weekends in a row – it doesn’t happen often) we decided that we liked it enough to try to buy it.
Kane worked hard in those 4 days to get mortgage approval, valuations, builders reports and insurance all sorted out before the auction day that Saturday.  We knew what the house was worth and how much we willing to pay for it and we nervously headed out.
There was a lot of people there, some were the sellers family and some were neighbours curious what the house would sell for and I think some others were just there to see what happens.  There were about 5 bidding parties in the end.

The auction took place on the driveway of the property and we noted that it was just like those old episodes of Neighbours.  Kane bravely and confidently started the bidding off and another couple similar to us bid against us.  We reached the value of the house and the other couple paused to look at each other, I thought we were in with a chance but they bid again.  We bid again.  The couple shook their heads and for a second the house was almost ours, but then came a bid from the back and we had reached our max and had to bow out gracefully.  A new bidder put their hand up then another new bidder put their hand up and the bidding wars continued with fresh players.  In the end the house sold for $47,000 more than the valuation which surprised everyone involved in the sale and I’m sure the sellers were delighted.

We immediately went to the pub for a stiff drink after all that excitement, and disappointment.

It was quite the experience though.  I’m not sure my heart could cope with too many auctions because it’s such an adrenaline rush!  Poor Kane had worked so hard to get everything together and it was quite disappointing to not have anything to show for his efforts but at least most of the ground work has been done now and we know what to expect if we attend another auction – I just hope next time we win!

One Year In

Today is my one year anniversary of arriving in New Zealand. In fact I got a text message from my mobile carrier telling me I have been with them for 1 year and saying thank you.

In many ways it doesn’t feel like it’s been a year already. It certainly doesn’t seem like a year ago since I last saw my family and friends, but then I suppose that’s the beauty of the modern age where I keep up-to-date on the gossip through Facebook and Twitter and I see and chat to people on Skype.

When I think about all the things that we’ve done and achieved in this last year it feels like there is a few years worth of activity in there!

We’ve settled in really well here, we have some awesome friends, regular activities that we do, plenty of R&R, and lots of future plans. We like our jobs but we’re thinking ahead, we love where we live but we still want to buy a house at some point.

Auckland is a great place to live, there is so much to do here! There’s shopping, beaches, theatres, galleries, sports, music – everything. In fact, yesterday it was brought to my attention that in the last year I have not left Auckland once. Even Waiheke Island is part of Auckland (a very nice part it is too!). Perhaps in this next year I will venture further a field, but there is still many, many parts of Auckland I haven’t seen and explored yet. Kane (who’s been to Wellington twice on business) mocks me, calling me a JAFA and saying that I think nothing exists beyond Auckland. I’ve been up to Dairy Flats, there really doesn’t seem to be much out there!! :P

First Quarter

Looking back my last few blog posts, I can see that I have left some pretty big gaps in my activities so here is what I’ve been up to the last few months.

The first was the Big Day Out where we saw some awesome bands. I particularly enjoyed Rammstein and Wolf Mother. Iggy Pop and the Stooges were good and had loads of energy and I also enjoyed Lupe Fiasco.

I was sad to have missed Steriogram and I think it was mostly laziness that meant I missed their gig at a local venue too. I’m bad :( Walkie Talkie Man is an awesome song.

A week after the Big Day Out our container arrived from the UK and it was unboxing time. Finally I was reunited with the football inflator adapters, lint rollers, a couple of screws and the bubbles I was given in Pisa. I don’t know how I coped all those months without them :\

Then we decided it was time to be more sociable so we joined up with a local sci-fi group and met some cool people.

At the start of the month we went to the opera Xerxes which was awesome, very colourful and quite funny. This was held in the Civic theatre which is a very pretty theatre. Inside the main auditorium looks like an ancient greek amphitheatre and the ceiling above has glistening stars. People get very dressed up for the opera here and I saw more than a few tuxedos and even someone with opera glasses! I’ve got tickets for a couple of ballets and I’m wondering if they will be as dressy.

We’ve been to a couple of Blues super rugby games which have been really good – helped by the Blues winning both times! I like the whole experience of going to the rugby games. There is usually some kind of show before hand with competitions and cheerleaders that actually do cheerleading. There’s more of the same at half time with opportunities to win stuff or get freebies like t-shirts and mini rugby balls.

a few weeks ago we went to a friends house for his birthday and ate cake and watched movies. From Dusk to Dawn was not what I expected!

I particularly liked his shelving unit make out of cardboard and styrofoam. We don’t need IKEA with kiwi ingenuity like this!

And that brings us to last weekend when we went to the Stone Temple Pilots gig. This was brilliant and they played all their best songs.

So that’s more or less the first quarter of the year!

One Month In

We have now been living in New Zealand for 1 month!  And what a month it has been :)

In the first few days we picked up our rental car and had all the flurry of buying kitchen appliances etc.  Once we had the essentials; food, cooking implements, something to eat from, something to sit on and something to sleep on, we were good to go.

My advice to anyone else doing this – register for FlyBuys, we could have gotten so many points :(

Furniture here seems very expensive at first glance.  I’m an IKEA girl and I feel at home with veneer and fibre board and a cheap price tag.  However, things are actually made of solid wood here, mostly New Zealand pine with a nice stain or super glossy.  Once we got our heads around that, we started to see furniture as an investment and not just something that will do short term. 

We took our time figuring out what bedroom furniture we wanted, shopped around and managed to get a really good deal on a bed and mattress.  We got a duvet, pillows, covers and sheets as part of the package deal.  We were really happy to find our IKEA double duvet fits our queen size bed snuggly, which was something we were concerned about.  I think standard UK double duvets would be too small.  I managed to get some money off a matching chest of drawers too.  I also asked how long they are likely to have that particular furniture set.  They have had it for the past 10 years and are not planning to stop or change it, so I hope this means once we’ve saved up some money we can get more matching chest of drawers and dressers.

Another thing that is very expensive here are second-hand cars.  They hold their value very well.  I’ve only ever bought a second-hand car once and that was the 1977 Volkswagen camper van.  We had good times in that van, but also too many break downs!  I think it put us off second-hand cars for life!

We shopped around and decided to buy the cheapest new car available in New Zealand!  We have a Holden Barina Spark CDX (in cocktail green).  It’s definitely not in the same league as our old car but I do love my new baby :)  The salesman was just awesome and if you are ever looking to buy a new car you should find Richard Thomson at Schofield Holden in New Market and talk to him.  He reminded both Kane and I of Dick Van Dyke.  He is such a nice man, kept me updated with the progress of my car, I picked it up on the scheduled date and he introduced me to the staff in the service centre, made sure I was familiar with the car and then a few days later called just to check everything was ok and I was still happy with my new purchase.

I’ve found people in the service industry much nicer here.  Even I’m nicer here.  The other day a man dropped something and instead of giving him a kick when he bent to pick it up, I picked it up for him!

Anyway, the day I got to pick up my nice new car, I got offered a job!  I applied for a number of jobs and got replies back from 2 agencies which I registered with.  Colin Munro from MTR took me under his wing a bit and gave me some excellent advice on my CV.  CV’s here are really long!  In the UK you shouldn’t go beyond 2 pages, but for someone of my experience I probably should have a 5 page CV!!  I totally reformatted my CV and I now have a 3 pager.  This seemed to help and I had 2 interviews very quickly, the next week I had a second interview and started my new job almost straight away.  Colin and Andy at MTR are awesome!

I’ve also found a new pole dancing class that I go to on Saturdays and lately I’ve been spending the weekends sourcing new clothes for work.  I packed a small work wardrobe which was good for interviews but a bit too formal for work.  I’m disappointed that my belongings haven’t yet left the UK and I’m looking forward to being reunited with them … eventually.

It would seem that Tesco’s have ruined me when it comes to my price expectations of tights.  A single pair of tights here costs about … hey there’s no pound sign on my keyboard! and I thought it was just the @ sign, the “ marks and the \ that was in different places – I never noticed the absence of the pound.  Anyway, a pair of tights costs about 2 GBP and in Tesco you can get a value 5 pair pack for that price.

To provide some balance though; avocados, mangos, pineapples and the good NZ wines are all cheaper and tastier I think :)

So tonight, after work, I’ll drive home, have some dinner out on my deck with a nice glass of white wine and then later either watch the Event, go to the cinema or watch a DVD if a new one from Fatso has arrived.  So not too different from normal, but different enough for me.

Take care everyone xxx

The Big Move

We’ve been talking about it for so very long and have taken our time over the process of moving, it feels so good to finally be here in Auckland, NZ.

Prior To Leaving

Before we left, we visited Kane’s parents in Orkney for a few days.  It was nice to see them and Kane enjoyed being home for a few days.  Leaving was a little strange because although we all know it won’t be our last visit to Orkney it will the last for a while and we have become more regular with our visits over recent years (mostly due to having such a good car).

We then had a nice visit with Kane’s Grandparents, who made us feel guilty for leaving it to the last minute.

After we arrived back at my parents house we had a very short time to finish anything outstanding and then we sold our beloved car.

On the Saturday we had nice visit from our friend Craig followed by a fancy dress hallowe’en party at my sister Jacqueline’s house.

The next day we were frantically finishing packing our stuff before we went out for a big family dinner at the local pub.

We still had some packing to do after the dinner too and we had to make some tough choices about what goes and what stays.  We had phoned to find out about the excess baggage charges as we were only allowed 1 bag each of 23kgs and any extra on our Edinburgh to London flight would be £9 per kilo plus £10 per bag!  Additionally Air NZ would charge us £35 per extra bag.  We had 4 bags between us and had grudgingly accepted that we would have to pay lots of money to take these things so we spent some time trying to weigh up if each item was worth the money.

After we finished packing we enjoyed some champagne with my family before heading to bed for an early night.

Day of Leaving – Monday

We were up early-ish to finish up packing and to check we had everything we intended to have.  My nephew Sandy had come to give us a hand and to see us off (although I think he just forgot to adjust his clock for daylight savings and that’s why he was early!)

My sister Elizabeth, my BIL Jim and my niece Hollie then came to say goodbye to us at the house before we jumped into the car and headed for the airport.

At the airport I said goodbye to my parents and to Sandy and Hollie and it was a bit weird again because I knew I would see them via the computer and talk to them all the time and we would all visit when we could.

After they left, we got checked in and surprisingly we weren’t charged for excess baggage!  I even queried this (how honest am I?) and was assured we were allowed 2 bags each.  I’m not so stupid as to question it any further so we were very happy with that! Probably could have taken more stuff.

Then Kane’s sister Alison and her husband Ross arrived at the airport and we had a drink and a chat with them before we went through the final security checks and on to our gate.

Flight 1

Edinburgh > London flight was good and uneventful.  I think I dosed for a little while and was disappointed that they didn’t feed me.  We arrived a little earlier than expected in London and got ourselves to the next gate for our Air New Zealand flight to Auckland via Los Angeles.

Flight 2

London > Los Angeles was a very good flight and I tried to set myself to New Zealand time by trying to stay awake as much as I could during this flight.  I had the middle seat so Kane could have the window whilst it was daylight.  I watched plenty of movies!  We got given a snack of some vege crisps and I got an L&P and then a little later we got a nice meal and I had some white wine with my meal.

Someone near us, and I think it was the man I was sitting next to, kept farting every 20 minutes or so and it was disgustingly smelly.  I nearly choked once.  I started putting my nose and mouth under my jumper after a while.  I really hoped he was leaving us in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles In Transit

I have a love/hate relationship with Los Angeles.  They always seem to do their best to scare the crap out of me but this time it was really nice and easy.  We got our passports stamped and grabbed a packet of crisps and some juice and got the free wifi password and updated facebook :)

Flight 3

Unfortunately the phantom farter had returned aboard, however it did get less as the flight went on.  I had swapped seats with Kane so I could get comfier to have a sleep and after I finished watching my movie and had some more food, I had a nice long sleep.  I woke up a couple of times convinced that I had missed a meal but Kane assured me that I hadn’t missed any meals.  I was so glad to get my breakfast because I was so hungry but at the same time I was worried that this would start off the phantom farter again.

Arrival Day – Wednesday

We arrived a bit earlier that scheduled into Auckland we got our bags and headed through customs and bio-security.  I was disappointed that there wasn’t any Border Control camera crews about.

We got through and then we bought ourselves 3 mobile phone sim cards and top ups.  One each for Kane and I’s mobile phones and one for our mobile broadband dongle.  That was really easy to set up and we did that over some hash browns from McDonalds at the airport.  We then saw who I think was the rowing team do a haka at the airport before we grabbed a taxi to our B+B.

We checked into our B+B and had a cuppa and chat with our host Bryan before we headed out to get the keys to our rental house. 

We were a little disappointed with our rental place initially because it didn’t have any carpets down just some vinyl in the kitchen and bathroom, the power wasn’t working and the front and back doors weren’t opening and closing properly.  We did the inspection and our landlord said he would get the power sorted for us and get the doors fixed.

We then headed out to find the shopping centre where our bank is and on the way we were asked by a nice old lady to help her sort out her washing line.  She had a super friendly cat called possum.  We chatted with her for a while and then headed to the shopping centre.

We went to the bank to get our accounts sorted but the personal banking person wasn’t there so we made an appointment for the following day and we checked out the other shops that were in.  We then went to the library to use their free wifi and then checked out some other shops at the retail park across from the shopping centre before heading back to our b+b totally knackered.

Day 2 – Thursday

This was a very productive day.  We had breakfast at our b+b and chatted to the German couple that were staying there also.  Then we headed out to get a bus to Parnell to pick up our rental car.  The google maps app on my ipod touch is great, it told me which bus to get on and when it was due, everything!  We got to the car rental place picked up our little car and then I drove us back to the b+b.  We then got our cases and checked out and headed to the new house.  We were very pleased to find we had power and that the doors had been fixed and after faffing about with the water we found out how to get us some nice hot water too.

We headed back out to the shops and again checked the prices of everything we wanted to buy.  Farmers had a one day half price sale on so we bought a whole dinner set.  We got our appointment at the bank and got that all sorted out and I was amazed that they could give us bank cards right there and then that we could use in the shops!

Naturally we then went to the shops and bought lots of stuff!  We got an air bed, pots, cooking utensils and some groceries and then we went back home and sorted all this stuff out.  We then had dinner quite late, about 8.30pm and then we crashed out for the night.

Day 3 – Friday

We phoned our parents in the morning and then we set about getting more furniture.  We tried Target and the Salvation Army shop but we couldn’t see anything we really liked.  We then went to Noel Leamings and Dick Smiths to look at TVs and we bought a new TV from Dick Smiths and I was cheeky and asked for a free DVD player and I got one!!

We bought a fridge freezer and a washing machine from Noel Leamings and I asked for a free vacuum cleaner, but I wasn’t so successful that time.  We did get 3 pairs of socks for free though :)

We also got ourselves some chairs at Farmers that were on special, buy one get one free so were were able to relax in the evening and watch the Mentalist on DVD.

Day 4 – Saturday

After some initial set up hiccups, I had a very successful skype video call with the pickle party this morning.  And since then I’ve just bee lazing about.  There are road closures today because of the rugby match that’s being held at Eden Park and because we fall in the zone, we have 2 free tickets!  So we’re going to that soon.  It will be cool to go into the new stand that they’ve been working on.

What’s Next

I’m going to chill out this weekend and then on Monday start the job search.  I’ll let you know how I get on!

The Move

Myself, my husband and my cat have now moved in with my parents. We took a week off to complete the move and tie up loose ends in the flat. We packed everything up on the Friday and then the move took place on the Saturday and was very straight forward. My nephew had borrowed his works van and we roped in a few extra bodies and the whole thing took about 1 hour. It took longer to sort everything out again at my parents, but by then end of Sunday we had a replica of our sitting room and a mostly tidy bedroom (with fully functioning drum kit!) set up. The rest of the week was spent getting rid of junk from the flat and doing little DIY jobs we hadn't noticed.

We still have a few jobs to attend to. I hadn't appreciated all the things that need to be taken care of when a person moves.

We are still settling into our new routine. The commute is no problem, my total journey time is about 1 hour 10 minutes and it just flys by. I may need to upgrade from my iPod nano to an iPod classic though.

The differences between living in the centre of the city and then living on the edge of a small village are fairly obvious, but some have still surprised me as I've been a city girl for a long time now.

1. The supermarkets are eerily quiet on Sunday evenings.
   
2. Lawns get mowed
   
3. There is an ice cream van that makes an appearance 4 or 5 times a day
   
4. Children play outside
   
5. Cats wander about the streets
   
6. People know their neighbours and talk to them
   

There will be other things I'm sure I will notice in time :)

Scottish summer vs New Zealand winter?

A Very Busy Weekend

I love doing things on a Friday night because it always makes the weekend feel longer don't you think? This Friday I went to visit friends of mine who have recently returned from Australia and are currently living in a caravan in Linwater, although they move into their new house today.

Friday night was a lovely night for sitting out in the countryside in the last bit of warmth from the sun. It was a very chilled out an relaxed night and it was great to chat and catch up.

On Saturday I played Haze most of the morning, was disappointed that there isn't any trophies in Haze. There doesn't seem to be any trophies for playing multiplayer capture the flag in Unreal Tournament 3 either.

Capture the Flag in Unreal Tournament is my most favourite multiplayer game. I used to play this years ago with the rest of the Systems team at Realise when we would take on the Programmers in the next office. I used to be fairly good. My husband can sometimes have difficulties with motion sickness when playing first or third person games. Recently he had to take a break from playing Mirrors Edge and has had to do the same with Tomb Raider. So I suppose I thought I'd be able to kick his ass at this game – WRONG! I totally got my ass handed to me over and over. My new plan is to practise secretly and then get him to play Mirrors Edge or something for a while before I challenge him again!

Also on Saturday I carried on with my knitting and I'm now at the arm hole shaping. It was a bit tricky since the pattern says to bind off at each end, but as I discovered, you can't cast off at the end of a row without cutting your yarn, you need to cast off at the start of the next row. So I've made a slight error with it because of the pattern, but hopefully all will come right in the making up.

Whilst knitting I also finished season 4 of Greys Anatomy, which was very good and I'm looking forward to season 5. This also means I can finish playing the Greys Anatomy NDS game that I have. I started it but got worried it was giving away too much of season 4 before I had watched it, but now I can play – yay :)

Saturday night was party night. It was Kane's boss's birthday party at his house and it was a gorgeous house. I really hope I didn't drive over the roses attempting to get out the drive way!

I managed to resist the urge to play games on Sunday and actually started packing. After all it's only a week before I move out of my flat. So I packed up the bedroom. I left a weeks worth of clothes and stuffed everything else into big black bin bags. I also packaged up my DVD and CD collection. When I got to my parents house, I discovered that they are not yet prepared and thought they had a further week. My stress levels are close to through the roof! So I spent the rest of Sunday sorting out the rooms there. My Mum is going to contact a company to come and take away the remaining furniture that has been cluttering those rooms for some years.

The rest of this week will be spent packing. Maybe I will video from the thick of it.

Looking to the future

I'm pretty happy about selling our house. We move on the 20^th June with the official handover date as the 26^th June. We're taking over 2 rooms in my parents' house and I hope I'm not causing them too much disruption!

It will be strange living with my parents again and it will be strange and sad to leave the flat that we've been happy in for the past 11 years. It's exciting too because this is the beginning of a new chapter in our lives. Many people are curious of our future plans and I am not being cagey or coy the truth is, we don't have any firm plans yet but the loose plan is that once we have settled in to my parents house, then we will start making plans for moving to Auckland, NZ.

We would like to save up some money before we go, because the money we make on the sale of house will go towards buying a new one in New Zealand. It's not cheap moving to the other side of the world, we have to decided on what stuff to ship over and what stuff we'll just buy when we're there, and then they'll be the costs of getting set up with rent, utilities, changing driving licenses, buying a car etc – that'll take a lot of planning! When my parents did it, they arrived with 3 children, a few suitcases and a weeks rent money!!

Right now the task in hand is to decide what gets packed for NZ, what we need to keep handy, and what we need to get rid of - and then actually do these things. We procured some boxes and bubble wrap at the weekend and since then they have sat in the middle of our hovel we call home (ever since we no longer need to show the flat it's cleanliness has gone into decline).

So an industrious weekend is planned, however our new PS3 is due to arrive any day now ...