Jim & Karen

We have had our daughter Julie and her partner Andy staying with us for the last three weeks. While they were here they hired a camper van and did a short tour round the top of the south Island. While they were away in the Van Andy proposed to Julie and she accepted. They are hoping to get married in the summer of 2009. They have been together for a while, but it was a nice surprise. Julie has got a lovely souvenir of Christchurch, an engagement ring from a shop across the road from where I work. They had a good time while they were here, saw lots and did lots of touristy things.

We were very sad to see them go at the airport and this caused a bit of an emotional time for us with Karen getting a bit homesick as it made us remember that we are a long way from the UK and everything that was familiar. Reality soon kicks in however and we are getting back to the state that we laughingly refer to as normal. And the fact that it was Karen’s birthday this Sunday gave us something else to think about.

We spent Sunday morning at Riccarton Market and bought a Lemon Tree for the Garden. We then went to Riccarton house for our lunch, We had a proper Sunday Roast Beef dinner, and very nice it was too. While we were there we saw that there was a tour of the House just starting so we joined in. It was very interesting as it was built by the first Europeans to settle in the South Island. The woman giving the tour was related to the Deans family and could remember visiting the house when it was still the family home. The tour certainly gave us the sense that New Zealand is still a very young country with only a few generations between the people here now and the original settlers.

In the evening we had Ben and Claire round for a birthday tea! No jelly but we did have ice cream for pud.

We have almost finished unpacking all the stuff now – only a few boxes of tools and the rowing machine left, only two insignificant breakages out of the whole shipment, so we are really pleased with that.

So it’s back to normal-ish now for the next 6 weeks until Michelle, Phil and the girls arrive to turn us all upside-down again – Can’t wait !!

More soon

It has been all go here this week. First, Julie and Andy arrive on Monday for their holiday here. Then on Wednesday Morning Crown delivered all our belongings from the UK, and in the evening we had a new Dining table and chairs delivered as well.

I took Monday off work and Karen and I met Julie and Andy at the Airport. They have survived the journey quite well and are doing the “Tourist” thing. They have been into Christchurch and Akaroa and next week are hiring a Camper Van for 5 days to drive around a bit of the top of the South Island.

The house is full of boxes and wrapping paper and every so often the cry of “look what I’ve found” can be heard. It will be really nice to have pictures to put on the walls so that the house does not look quite so bare and even something as simple as being able to print from the Laptop is good as well. It will take us quite a while to get everything sorted out. Also, I now have to start changing lots of electric plugs from the UK type to the NZ type although things like phone chargers, where the power supply is built into the plug are going to be a bit of a pain to sort out.

The new dinning table looks really good, it is a big solid table made from Mango wood with a parquet effect on the top.

I have been working at Ballantynes now for 4 weeks and it is going pretty well. Still feel very much the “new boy” but that will get better with time and as I get used to the new systems. All the people here are very friendly and it certainly feels like it will be a nice place to work. Karen is taking some time off now to be with Julie and Andy, so she is enjoying her break.