Jim & Karen

We are now in our new home and starting to settle in. We have bought some new furniture – leather suite, bed, bedroom furniture, – and have borrowed some bits and pieces like pans, utensils and a TV. Apart from a dinning table and chairs we almost have enough to be going on with for now. The suite and bed were delivered the the afternoon we moved in so we spent the first night in our new house in our new bed. The view from the bedroom is so good, we are sleeping with the curtains open, and it looks like we are flying over the city. I will see if I can take a usable picture of the lights this evening and add it to this post later.

We had a new fridge/freezer and washing machine delivered on Saturday so we can keep our milk cold and wash our clothes as well now!

Our neighbours from both sides have been round to say hello, one of them bearing a Fruit Cake fresh from the oven – Karen was most impressed! They all seem very friendly. Joanne and Derek visited on out first night and Ben and Claire have been round as well so hopefully we will have plenty of visitors as we both like it when our home is a place for people to visit and have a good time.

The phone has been connected (I will send a mail with the new number and address to everyone) and we should be getting the Broadband connected up tomorrow (Wed) so will be able to update and email a bit more often soon.

It really is a lovely feeling to have our own home again. After 7/8 months of rentals it is great to be able to sit in our own place and be able to plan what we might do or change. I already have a hankering to put in a water feature, there are a couple of trees/big bushes that need to be cut down, and I can’t wait till I get a chance to light the log burner whooohooo!!

The garden is surprisingly big and because we are on the hill there are different levels all round the house. Most of the plants are big established bushes/trees and there is even a small veg patch tucked away at the top of the plot.

All we need now is for me to get a job and we will be sorted. Ah well, back to the classifieds then.

More soon…….

Well we have been here 5 weeks now. Since the last update we have been to a free “Classical Sparks” concert in Hagley Park, a Cricket Match and should soon (anyday now) go unconditional on the house.

The concert was held in the evening and had various performers (one of which went on a bit too long) and finished with an absolutely brilliant Firework display which was set to Wagner. Absolutely fantastic.

The Cricket match was an evening 20/20 match between England and NZ – England won, but we did not know who to cheer for, so ended up supporting both sides even though Karen was not really sure what was going on.

We have also been out for a couple of walks, one up around the Port Hills just up the road from where we are now. The other was about an hour away from Christchurch at a town called Oxford. Well, we thought it was at a town called Oxford. It actually was 10k up a dirt track that itself was 10k outside of Oxford but once we got there it was a lovely spot in a forest on the lower slopes of the Southern Alps. The walk was pretty hard going and finished at a Waterfall. After the hard work we treated ourselves to Fush & Chups on the way home.

I have uploaded the next lot of pictures, they are in the Photo Gallery as usual.

Karen has started at the Hospital this week. The first three days were induction days and today (Thursday) is her first day on the Ward. There was a cock-up as to which ward she was going to be on, with her being told that she would be going on a different ward to the one she had been promised. She was not happy about this so put her foot down and told them so. That has been resolved and today she has started on the Oncology ward. The episode has shaken her up a bit though and we have had a couple more emotional days as the realisation that we are a long way from the UK is starting to sink in.

I am still on the job-hunting trail, have sent several applications out and now waiting for closing days to come round to see if I get anywhere. I have also registered with an agency to see if that helps.

Still having to go to the Internet cafe now and then, but now I can do it on the way in to pick Karen up from work so at least it is not making a special trip.

Thanks to everyone who are putting comments on this blog. It is really nice to know that people “are” actually interested in what we are doing. Sorry I have not replied to them but once we get a permanent setup I will start to update and reply on a more regular basis.

More soon…..

Well, we have now been here in Christchurch, New Zealand, for three weeks.

It does not seem that long as we have been quite busy all the time. The first week we were settling in and starting to find our way round the city. We also bought a car. The second week was spent looking round for somewhere to rent as we were only planning to be in Joanne’s flat for a month. However once we started to look we realised that rentals were quite expensive for the sort of place we were looking for so we decided that the rental idea was not the way to go. If we were going to have a real chance of feeling that this was “home” then we needed a place of our own. this meant that the emphasis moved to somewhere to “buy”.

Our original dream location of Governors Bay was kicked out after we went to look at a house there on Sunday afternoon. The house was lovely, the views were stupendous, it was only 20 mins from town, but, every twit with a loud car or motorbike was out for a Sunday drive round the bay and the local Hotel was having a “live” music session. The noise would have driven us mad – so “computer says no” to Governors Bay.

We then moved back to looking at the Port Hills area which consists of Cashmere and Huntsbury. We found a lovely place nestled in a nook of the hills with lovely views, a nice garden and the potential of a seperate flat that could be rented out. However, it needed a lot of work to bring it up to the standard that we would have liked.

After the Gov’s Bay experience we decided to park up near this house to see what the traffic was like. So we parked up at the top of Huntsbury Avenue and as we sat there, purely by chance, I noticed a woman putting up a sign for an “open house” further up the road in Vista Place. As we were just sat there we decided to go and have a look. BINGO – this is the house for us. It is in immaculate condition, has views all across the city to the mountains in the distance, a big patio, a bit of garden, etc, etc.. There are some pictures of the house in the Photo Gallery.

So, one day short of being here three weeks, our offer on the house was accepted and all being well we should move in on the 22nd Feb. The house buying process here is very much better than in the UK it only takes 10 days for a sale to be finalised and legally binding, so hopefully there will be no problems. Apart from the minor inconvenience that we have no furniture !!

The only major thing to sort out now is a job for me. I did not get offered an interview for the teaching job I aplied for – was not expecting to really as I have no qualifications. I am waiting to hear if I get a second interview at a big civil enginering firm. I feel like I need to apply for “anything” but several people have said do not take anything just for the sake of it. Better to wait a bit longer than be stuck in a job that is not really suitable as it will only make it harder to move to a better one.

So things seem to be slotting into place, we have had a couple of “emotional” days, but because it all seems to be falling into place nicely, and we can see that we will soon be in our “own” place I don’t think we are doing too badly at the moment.