Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Thunderbirds ARE GO!!
Hi everyone
Well the last 2 weeks have been pretty busy for us. Things have been shifting finally on the home moving front;
(1) Our flat in London eventually completed (after lots of early morning phone calls!)
(2) We put an offer in on the cable car house (up against 2 other offers) last Monday (11th March) - it was accepted
(3) For the last week we have been working through the "conditions" of sale with our solicitor and it went "unconditional" at 5pm yesterday and I've just got back from paying the deposit to the estate agents
(4) The settlement date is the 28th March (day before Good Friday).
(5) Our shipped over stuff has arrived and has got customs clearance although there will still be a MAF (Ministry of Agriculture & Fisheries) inspection
(6) Our removal company confirmed today that they can deliver our container to the new house on the 28th!
..... up to now things are tying in pretty well so here's hoping it continues that way. Gra's working over the Easter Weekend but he's off on the Thursday and Friday so we should be able to get fairly sorted.
Graham started this week on the proper forecasting roster at the MetService. Shifts are quite different to the Met Office in London when he always did 12 hours either a Day 8am - 8pm or a Night 8pm - 8am. His shifts at the moment are 4 on followed by 2 days off and they are only about 8 hours long but get this - they can start at 05:20 in the morning ! Tee Hee! Although I don't know why I'm laughing coz I always wake up too so that we can say goodbye to each other. So for the first time in our lives, the other night, we both went to sleep at 9:30pm! He said that it was rather strange on his first proper shift. For the last 6 weeks he had been practising drawing his isobar graphs etc... these were analysed on a 21 inch monitor and he had several attempts to get it right. Within the first hour on his first ever shift he had to do one - it was typically much harder than all the ones he had done in practice (because there were so many isobars on this particular day) and when he had finished he had to print it on A0 (A zero paper - which is mega huge) and it was then handed round to all his fellow forecasting colleagues - aarrgh! Scary or what?! Still Gra is enjoying the new challenge and is pleased to now be working in the forecast office. As he gets to know his colleagues, we're hoping that our social life may pick up!
Now that we don't have to devote our spare time to looking for houses (and cars) we have been doing a bit of gadding about sightseeing etc.... It is pretty cheap to do this as it only costs us about $30NZD to fill our petrol tank up (that's about GBP10 equivalent!) A couple of weekends ago we drove up Route 1 (there are only 2 main motorways in New Zealand :o) and visited places like Porirua (good for shopping as far as we could make out) Paraparaumu (very pretty, by the sea, reminded us a bit of Eastbourne though as there were lots of Saga type holiday makers - sorry Nan!) and on the drive we found a shop that we will definitely be visiting again - "The Chilli Patch" - this was our idea of heaven - you could pick your own chillis at only $5.95NZD (works out just under GBP2 per kilo - wow!) and you could buy pretty much every variety going or you could buy huge chilli plants - this is what we plan to do very soon.
I'm now concentrating more than ever on my infant massage stuff. I am doing my training with IAIM - International Association of Infant Massage. I have arranged to meet with the Head of the New Zealand Chapter (aka branch - Graham says that "Chapter" sounds like we're part of the Hells' Angels!) this weekend in Paremata. This lady lives in Auckland but is down (not far from Wellington) doing a training course so I am going to meet up with her for a chat so that hopefully I can gain a few more contacts in and around Wellington. I also contacted the local womens' prison near Wellington (Tawa) to ask if I could offer my services voluntarily (as I did with Holloway prison in London), so I am hoping that something will come of that too.
So things are gradually starting to pick up and that means that my "lady of leisure" time is nearly over! Oh dear! Still I will be busy for a while getting our house sorted and then I'll be finishing off my IAIM papers so I've perhaps got a month or so's grace!
You know how much I like to create silly websites, well Graham and I collaborated at the weekend and came up with this one if you fancy a peek - http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/vidagrah/ - it is very sad we know but we thought it would give you a good idea of where we have been and are!
I think we mentioned previously that we would possibly be changing ISPs (Internet Service Providers). So far we have tried Paradise and Xtra and we are not that happy with either of them. For this reason the website probably won't be around that long. Also it is best for people to only send us emails to our usual freeserve address (vandg@rye5.freeserve.co.uk) as we will continue to pick those emails up whatever service provider we use to do it.
Will write again when we have any more news.
Love
Vida and Graham
PS. Just for your info, we are now 12 hours ahead not 13 as the clocks went 1 hour back at the weekend. Once the clocks go forward in the UK though (Easter weekend?) we will then be only 11 hours ahead.
Saturday, February 16, 2002
New Kiwi address........
Dear all
Just a quickie to let you know our new address for the next few months;
Moved in yesterday (Friday 15th) whilst G was at work (which was fun - not!!) Then realised that I had a flat tyre on our wonderful rental car so did the really girly thing and phoned Gra at work and asked him to come and help me sort it out!
It will take a while to get used to the new place. Very different from the hotel/apartment that we were in. Good to know too that utility companies are as unhelpful as ever the world over! (I've probably just offended someone else now generalising about another industry!) Spent most of yesterday afternoon hanging on a telephone (which is so antiquated that it will only pulse dial) trying to get our electricity, gas etc... connected (properly!) You can imagine how effective it was when all the companies have touch-tone options when you ring them up!
Friends of Helen and Phil (Graham's sis and other arf) are out here at the moment and we are going to meet up with them for a drink tonight so that should be fun.
We have just managed to have 2 fairly successful webcam sessions; one with Vida's sisters, bruv-in-law and nephews and one with Vida's Aunty Lorna and Uncle Terry. We are now off on a shopping expedition and here is roughly what's on our list;
Milk
Bread
Toilet rolls
Fresh coffee (we don't want Gra getting withdrawal symptoms)
Claratin max (my hayfever has really kicked off!)
Tissues (for aforementioned hayfever!)
Car
House
Printer
Mmmmm not your everyday type of shopping trip as you can imagine!
Will write again soon when we are more sorted.
Lots of love
Vida and Graham
Just a quickie to let you know our new address for the next few months;
Moved in yesterday (Friday 15th) whilst G was at work (which was fun - not!!) Then realised that I had a flat tyre on our wonderful rental car so did the really girly thing and phoned Gra at work and asked him to come and help me sort it out!
It will take a while to get used to the new place. Very different from the hotel/apartment that we were in. Good to know too that utility companies are as unhelpful as ever the world over! (I've probably just offended someone else now generalising about another industry!) Spent most of yesterday afternoon hanging on a telephone (which is so antiquated that it will only pulse dial) trying to get our electricity, gas etc... connected (properly!) You can imagine how effective it was when all the companies have touch-tone options when you ring them up!
Friends of Helen and Phil (Graham's sis and other arf) are out here at the moment and we are going to meet up with them for a drink tonight so that should be fun.
We have just managed to have 2 fairly successful webcam sessions; one with Vida's sisters, bruv-in-law and nephews and one with Vida's Aunty Lorna and Uncle Terry. We are now off on a shopping expedition and here is roughly what's on our list;
Milk
Bread
Toilet rolls
Fresh coffee (we don't want Gra getting withdrawal symptoms)
Claratin max (my hayfever has really kicked off!)
Tissues (for aforementioned hayfever!)
Car
House
Printer
Mmmmm not your everyday type of shopping trip as you can imagine!
Will write again soon when we are more sorted.
Lots of love
Vida and Graham
Monday, February 11, 2002
NZ News......
Hello to everyone
Well would you believe it, I am sitting here looking out of the apartment window and it is teeming it down with rain!!! We have been assured by several Kiwis that this is extremely unusual weather for their Summer. It has been like this probably 70% of the time we have been here! I just can't believe that, of all the hot and sunny countries that Graham could've picked to get a job in, he's chosen one where the weather appears to be WORSE than the UK!! So if you were at all envious of us being out here in beautiful countryside bathed in glorious sun and heat, there is no need to be after all.....(although the countryside still is amazing!!)
Firstly, a big THANK YOU for all the emails that we have been receiving. You don't know how good it is to get messages! Especially for me (Vida) - it is my lifeline out to the world at the moment because it seems that my face-to-face contact with others currently consists of estate agents, plus I get some telephone contact with personnel at banks and utility companies - Mmmmmmm.
We knew (and had been forewarned) that Wellington was all hills, but you can not imagine what it is like until you get here. The backs of my calves are soon going to be disproportionate to the rest of me (and that is saying something!) I counted the steps in our route down to town the other day and there were 210 - so you can imagine what fun that is on the walk back up!
We are really enjoying ourselves looking at the houses. Our estate agent contact, Tim (the one who originates from Chelmsford!), has been a very useful person to know. Estate agents here are NOTHING like the ones you get in the UK (I'm desperately trying to think now who may get this email that is an estate agent or is related to someone who is before I generalise big time and offend them - can't think, so here I go....) They seem very genuine (or it's a good act), not slimey/sleazy at all and they really seem to put the work in. Tim drove us around for about 2 hours on Saturday afternoon (his supposed day off) and took us to see about 6 houses. He's also popped over to see us quite a few times and kept in contact by phone. Given that there are several estate agents that we are in contact with, the likelihood of us finding the house that we want via him, is quite small, but he has been brilliant. We suppose that he is working on the basis that we will recommend him to other people and that's how they build their businesses up.
The Open Homes that I mentioned in an earlier email have also proved very effective in us trying to get a feel for what's available on the market. They are held every Sunday, so I think I said that we whizzed round 12 on our first weekend and then yesterday we saw another 8 and checked out a couple more areas to live. Some of the harbour views you can get from the houses are fantastic, but wherever you go there is usually something pleasant that you overlook. We have seen quite a few houses that we both like and, a couple that we could see ourselves living in, but we don't want to rush into anything. We obviously also have to wait for our flat sale to go through in London. Things move so quickly here in NZ re: house selling. It is similar to the Scottish system in that as soon as you have signed to agree to buy and the seller signs to agree the sale, that's it - it is a legally binding contract.
One house that we liked had this cable-car-type-thing to take you up to your front door. This is supposedly quite common in Wellington, although it is the first one we have seen. You can imagine what a fun job some of the removal companies based in Wellington have.
I had greatly enjoyed the house auction that I went to last Thursday. A house that I had really liked (but that needed quite a bit of work) was first up and it was one of those itchy times when I did have to make sure my hands were securely planted in my lap so that I didn't give any misleading signals to the auctioneer! Especially as at one point it nearly went for a bargain price. It finally managed to make it up to its reserve price, but we had been advised beforehand that they thought that it may fetch about 20-30,000 NZD over the reserve.
Graham has now been in his job a week today. He is finding it a bit of a challenge he says. At the moment he is going in from 8:30am - 5pmish. Much of his time is taken up with getting used to the differences, quite a bit of background reading and learning place names and NZ geography. On Friday he was doing free-hand curve drawing (isobars and fronts) under time-test conditions, which is something Gra has not had to do for many years so I think that he found that interesting.
Because we have got to vacate this hotel/apartment on Friday, I have had to find us a rental place for a while. Our shipped-over stuff doesn't arrive until mid March, and as we are unsure at what point we will buy we were hoping to get a place with a standard 21 days notice. Unfortunately all the good flats had longer periods of tenancy and as we wanted a furnished place (so that we don't have to go and buy duplicates of stuff we have coming over) it has been a little difficult. However, just before the weekend, I found a place which is a bit more expensive than we had hoped for, but that is very well equipped, closish to town and, even better, right near to where Graham works (although the walk to work is up an extremely steep hill - ha ha!) We have had to take on a 3 month tenancy (until 16th May), so it means that we will definitely have to pay for our stuff to be held in storage for a couple of months which is a shame but then again we don't know what will happen re: buying a place so it is all a bit of a gamble anyway.
I can't really see me getting involved in doula work until we are settled in our bought home, so until then I am going to concentrate on the house buying and finishing off my dissertation-type theory exam for my IAIM qualification (International Association of Infant Massage). I had planned to complete that before I left the UK (by the end of December) but I think that I had been a little unrealistic as to how much time would be spent preparing for the move and seeing family and friends before we left for NZ. I now have until the end of March to submit it and as some of the material that I need is in the shipped over stuff, that will not be an easy deadline.
Well I will finish there for the timebeing. Please do let me know if I have put you on our regular NZ News mailing list and you would prefer not to be...... :-) Perhaps I should do one of those unsubscribe message thingys!!
Will write again soon.
Lots of love
Vida and Graham
Well would you believe it, I am sitting here looking out of the apartment window and it is teeming it down with rain!!! We have been assured by several Kiwis that this is extremely unusual weather for their Summer. It has been like this probably 70% of the time we have been here! I just can't believe that, of all the hot and sunny countries that Graham could've picked to get a job in, he's chosen one where the weather appears to be WORSE than the UK!! So if you were at all envious of us being out here in beautiful countryside bathed in glorious sun and heat, there is no need to be after all.....(although the countryside still is amazing!!)
Firstly, a big THANK YOU for all the emails that we have been receiving. You don't know how good it is to get messages! Especially for me (Vida) - it is my lifeline out to the world at the moment because it seems that my face-to-face contact with others currently consists of estate agents, plus I get some telephone contact with personnel at banks and utility companies - Mmmmmmm.
We knew (and had been forewarned) that Wellington was all hills, but you can not imagine what it is like until you get here. The backs of my calves are soon going to be disproportionate to the rest of me (and that is saying something!) I counted the steps in our route down to town the other day and there were 210 - so you can imagine what fun that is on the walk back up!
We are really enjoying ourselves looking at the houses. Our estate agent contact, Tim (the one who originates from Chelmsford!), has been a very useful person to know. Estate agents here are NOTHING like the ones you get in the UK (I'm desperately trying to think now who may get this email that is an estate agent or is related to someone who is before I generalise big time and offend them - can't think, so here I go....) They seem very genuine (or it's a good act), not slimey/sleazy at all and they really seem to put the work in. Tim drove us around for about 2 hours on Saturday afternoon (his supposed day off) and took us to see about 6 houses. He's also popped over to see us quite a few times and kept in contact by phone. Given that there are several estate agents that we are in contact with, the likelihood of us finding the house that we want via him, is quite small, but he has been brilliant. We suppose that he is working on the basis that we will recommend him to other people and that's how they build their businesses up.
The Open Homes that I mentioned in an earlier email have also proved very effective in us trying to get a feel for what's available on the market. They are held every Sunday, so I think I said that we whizzed round 12 on our first weekend and then yesterday we saw another 8 and checked out a couple more areas to live. Some of the harbour views you can get from the houses are fantastic, but wherever you go there is usually something pleasant that you overlook. We have seen quite a few houses that we both like and, a couple that we could see ourselves living in, but we don't want to rush into anything. We obviously also have to wait for our flat sale to go through in London. Things move so quickly here in NZ re: house selling. It is similar to the Scottish system in that as soon as you have signed to agree to buy and the seller signs to agree the sale, that's it - it is a legally binding contract.
One house that we liked had this cable-car-type-thing to take you up to your front door. This is supposedly quite common in Wellington, although it is the first one we have seen. You can imagine what a fun job some of the removal companies based in Wellington have.
I had greatly enjoyed the house auction that I went to last Thursday. A house that I had really liked (but that needed quite a bit of work) was first up and it was one of those itchy times when I did have to make sure my hands were securely planted in my lap so that I didn't give any misleading signals to the auctioneer! Especially as at one point it nearly went for a bargain price. It finally managed to make it up to its reserve price, but we had been advised beforehand that they thought that it may fetch about 20-30,000 NZD over the reserve.
Graham has now been in his job a week today. He is finding it a bit of a challenge he says. At the moment he is going in from 8:30am - 5pmish. Much of his time is taken up with getting used to the differences, quite a bit of background reading and learning place names and NZ geography. On Friday he was doing free-hand curve drawing (isobars and fronts) under time-test conditions, which is something Gra has not had to do for many years so I think that he found that interesting.
Because we have got to vacate this hotel/apartment on Friday, I have had to find us a rental place for a while. Our shipped-over stuff doesn't arrive until mid March, and as we are unsure at what point we will buy we were hoping to get a place with a standard 21 days notice. Unfortunately all the good flats had longer periods of tenancy and as we wanted a furnished place (so that we don't have to go and buy duplicates of stuff we have coming over) it has been a little difficult. However, just before the weekend, I found a place which is a bit more expensive than we had hoped for, but that is very well equipped, closish to town and, even better, right near to where Graham works (although the walk to work is up an extremely steep hill - ha ha!) We have had to take on a 3 month tenancy (until 16th May), so it means that we will definitely have to pay for our stuff to be held in storage for a couple of months which is a shame but then again we don't know what will happen re: buying a place so it is all a bit of a gamble anyway.
I can't really see me getting involved in doula work until we are settled in our bought home, so until then I am going to concentrate on the house buying and finishing off my dissertation-type theory exam for my IAIM qualification (International Association of Infant Massage). I had planned to complete that before I left the UK (by the end of December) but I think that I had been a little unrealistic as to how much time would be spent preparing for the move and seeing family and friends before we left for NZ. I now have until the end of March to submit it and as some of the material that I need is in the shipped over stuff, that will not be an easy deadline.
Well I will finish there for the timebeing. Please do let me know if I have put you on our regular NZ News mailing list and you would prefer not to be...... :-) Perhaps I should do one of those unsubscribe message thingys!!
Will write again soon.
Lots of love
Vida and Graham
Saturday, February 2, 2002
Our Kiwi contact details for the next 2 weeks
...... well we've landed in NZ at last!
We've had a really lovely 2 weeks holiday in Singapore and then Australia and, as usually happens, we can't believe that the time flew by so quickly.
Yesterday was very weird. We arrived at the apartments and everything felt a bit odd. However, within about 2 hours, we had been busy bees - we'd unpacked, put some washing on and then changed the lounge around to suit us better (typical Hargreaves trait that one!) and have set up a little office area with our laptop and the phone. We then went to reward ourselves with a cold beer that the MetService kindly provided for us (!!) and unfortunately the fridge and freezer had decided to defrost themselves. So we were then sitting here with warmish beers, me looking up rental car companies in the yellow pages, and Gra flicking through the cable channels!!
Last night we went into town, found an internet cafe and managed to find a really good local internet service provider - called "Paradise" - rather appropriate we thought! We contacted them and within just 12 hours we are now able to log on to the internet and send/receive emails (and use our webcam!!) from our apartment. However, for the timebeing we are still just going to log on and retrieve our rye5.freeserve emails though, because we don't know whether we will be changing provider once we move to more permanent accommodation.
Today we picked up a car from a Scouser who owns his own rental car company in Wellington - he came to NZ 30 years ago for a holiday and stayed. We then cruised the streets in our fabulous brown-interiored toyota corrolla (bit of a change from the landy) looking for areas that we thought we may want to live in! We have also just been visited by a local estate agent who we had contact with whilst we were still in London, and it turns out that he is originally from Chelmsford!! He came to NZ in 1987 to stay for a 3 month visit and has been here ever since! He is also a real ale fan and commiserated with us that they don't do bitter in NZ, but said that our palates would soon change (oh dear!) He has left us loads of bumpf about property available which we are about to trawl through.
Will write again soon.
Lots of love
Vida & Graham
We've had a really lovely 2 weeks holiday in Singapore and then Australia and, as usually happens, we can't believe that the time flew by so quickly.
Yesterday was very weird. We arrived at the apartments and everything felt a bit odd. However, within about 2 hours, we had been busy bees - we'd unpacked, put some washing on and then changed the lounge around to suit us better (typical Hargreaves trait that one!) and have set up a little office area with our laptop and the phone. We then went to reward ourselves with a cold beer that the MetService kindly provided for us (!!) and unfortunately the fridge and freezer had decided to defrost themselves. So we were then sitting here with warmish beers, me looking up rental car companies in the yellow pages, and Gra flicking through the cable channels!!
Last night we went into town, found an internet cafe and managed to find a really good local internet service provider - called "Paradise" - rather appropriate we thought! We contacted them and within just 12 hours we are now able to log on to the internet and send/receive emails (and use our webcam!!) from our apartment. However, for the timebeing we are still just going to log on and retrieve our rye5.freeserve emails though, because we don't know whether we will be changing provider once we move to more permanent accommodation.
Today we picked up a car from a Scouser who owns his own rental car company in Wellington - he came to NZ 30 years ago for a holiday and stayed. We then cruised the streets in our fabulous brown-interiored toyota corrolla (bit of a change from the landy) looking for areas that we thought we may want to live in! We have also just been visited by a local estate agent who we had contact with whilst we were still in London, and it turns out that he is originally from Chelmsford!! He came to NZ in 1987 to stay for a 3 month visit and has been here ever since! He is also a real ale fan and commiserated with us that they don't do bitter in NZ, but said that our palates would soon change (oh dear!) He has left us loads of bumpf about property available which we are about to trawl through.
Will write again soon.
Lots of love
Vida & Graham
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