willsken
15th March 2007, 02:28 PM
Thought I would do my 3 month in post even though I’m not quite there. Can’t see anything changing in the next week or so!
Well, it was hard at first that much I will admit. I loved being here but I couldn’t get my head around not having a home. Even though we had said all along that we were going to rent for a year, secretly, I never intended that to be the case. I’ve had my own home since the age of 18 and I just didn’t like not owning one. Security I suppose. The school house we were in was OK but not a place you’d want to be in winter. Garden shed qualities are how I would describe it! We moved in and had to wait and manage for about 2 weeks until our container was delivered. Camping was not great but we had all we needed and I bought a TV (even though there was hardly anything to watch! We even started looking forward to Black Adder and while there is nothing wrong with Black Adder, we would never have bothered putting it on in the UK.)
The most frustrating thing was being without a home phone for so long. When we were up in Auckland we went into the Vodaphone shop to sort out sim cards. While in there I saw a great deal to be had by signing up with ihug for the home phone and the Internet. I signed up and was told there would be a wait of 5 days to be connected. Long time I thought but by the time we got down to Hawke’s Bay it would only have been a couple of days without one. Hmm I wish!! After waiting 6 days and still not being connected I rang ihug to be told sorry it would be a couple more days. After nearly 2 weeks I was getting a bit cross. (only mildly of course!) When I rang and complained again they finally admitted they didn’t know when I would be connected as I was on a Telecom list and ihug had no control over when they switched my phone on. They tried to tell me that Waipuk had run out of broadband connections and that was what the wait was all about. To finish a long story, I cancelled with ihug and went to the Telecom shop in town, signed up with them and was connected the next day!! (This was the worst and most irritating thing to happen since arriving in NZ, which I suppose can be seen as a good thing!)
We found and bought our own home quite quickly and are now nicely settled. The house feels solid and is well insulated. We should be fine in winter but only time will tell. We have managed to source some free logs so that’s helpful. We are going to change to a pellet burner next year, once money things have settled a bit. The amount of money we went through setting everything up was within budget but it still felt at times that we were haemorrhaging cash!
Work. Well, easy for me as I had a job to come to. OH took a couple of weeks to find a job and it was a bit disheartening for him. He came here with the impression that he would find a job really easily being a carpenter. We think that arriving just after Christmas was one of the reasons. He set himself up as a sole trader and now he has as much work as he wants.
We are earning a decent wage between us so money won’t be an issue. I feel very lucky to be in this position as some things seem quite expensive. I really think I am starting to get my head around the cooking from scratch business now. When we were here at the start, cooking a meal every night was a bit of a chore. It’s not now so either I’m just getting used to it or it’s not as hard. I am also finding cheaper places to buy food and this is helpful as our food bills for the first couple of months were huge. I have to go into Hasting to the Mad Butcher but in all honestly Woolworths do regular specials on meat and I buy and freeze it as and when.
I brought some Bisto gravy out with me but soon ran out. I asked mum to send me some out and also some makeup wipes which are expensive here. She didn’t tell me the price to post them until after or I would never have allowed her to send them. 52 pounds!!! It was only a shoe box! I nearly died. I will have to make a very big shopping list for my friend who is on her way over in June so it can go in her container. I think in reality the sooner I run out and learn to find alternatives for things the better off I’ll be. It’s like sausages. I went for a couple of months without eating them because they were awful. I now get them from a certain award winning butcher and they are OK. I say that because they still aren’t as good as the ones in the UK. I am waiting until the time comes when I forget what they tasted like.
School life for me and the boys has is good. The boys both enjoy school and all the activities that go with it. So many I won’t list them. They also play golf and have a lesson on a Sunday morning ($1 each!), football and swimming, scouts and cadets. I always wanted Matt to do cadets in the UK but the kids who did got teased as they marched around. Basically this side of life is a vast improvement than we had in the UK. The school were replacing their Kayaks and we have bought 4 of the old ones. Looking forward to getting them down the river. I have also joined the gym. I have time to use it here as I have no commute time and the boys come with me and go swimming.
Making friends has been quite easy really because of both mine and OH work. I don’t have close friends in the town but I don’t feel as though I suffer for that. We have socialised far more here (BBQ’s). The boys have friends in school but haven’t yet brought them home. I’m sure now we are more settled in our home they will start inviting them for tea.
To sum up. Is NZ perfect? No, not by a long way. Am I happy? Very. This move has worked out for us and apart from leaving people behind none of us has any regrets. We have a much much better lifestyle than we had in the UK, in every way.
Well, it was hard at first that much I will admit. I loved being here but I couldn’t get my head around not having a home. Even though we had said all along that we were going to rent for a year, secretly, I never intended that to be the case. I’ve had my own home since the age of 18 and I just didn’t like not owning one. Security I suppose. The school house we were in was OK but not a place you’d want to be in winter. Garden shed qualities are how I would describe it! We moved in and had to wait and manage for about 2 weeks until our container was delivered. Camping was not great but we had all we needed and I bought a TV (even though there was hardly anything to watch! We even started looking forward to Black Adder and while there is nothing wrong with Black Adder, we would never have bothered putting it on in the UK.)
The most frustrating thing was being without a home phone for so long. When we were up in Auckland we went into the Vodaphone shop to sort out sim cards. While in there I saw a great deal to be had by signing up with ihug for the home phone and the Internet. I signed up and was told there would be a wait of 5 days to be connected. Long time I thought but by the time we got down to Hawke’s Bay it would only have been a couple of days without one. Hmm I wish!! After waiting 6 days and still not being connected I rang ihug to be told sorry it would be a couple more days. After nearly 2 weeks I was getting a bit cross. (only mildly of course!) When I rang and complained again they finally admitted they didn’t know when I would be connected as I was on a Telecom list and ihug had no control over when they switched my phone on. They tried to tell me that Waipuk had run out of broadband connections and that was what the wait was all about. To finish a long story, I cancelled with ihug and went to the Telecom shop in town, signed up with them and was connected the next day!! (This was the worst and most irritating thing to happen since arriving in NZ, which I suppose can be seen as a good thing!)
We found and bought our own home quite quickly and are now nicely settled. The house feels solid and is well insulated. We should be fine in winter but only time will tell. We have managed to source some free logs so that’s helpful. We are going to change to a pellet burner next year, once money things have settled a bit. The amount of money we went through setting everything up was within budget but it still felt at times that we were haemorrhaging cash!
Work. Well, easy for me as I had a job to come to. OH took a couple of weeks to find a job and it was a bit disheartening for him. He came here with the impression that he would find a job really easily being a carpenter. We think that arriving just after Christmas was one of the reasons. He set himself up as a sole trader and now he has as much work as he wants.
We are earning a decent wage between us so money won’t be an issue. I feel very lucky to be in this position as some things seem quite expensive. I really think I am starting to get my head around the cooking from scratch business now. When we were here at the start, cooking a meal every night was a bit of a chore. It’s not now so either I’m just getting used to it or it’s not as hard. I am also finding cheaper places to buy food and this is helpful as our food bills for the first couple of months were huge. I have to go into Hasting to the Mad Butcher but in all honestly Woolworths do regular specials on meat and I buy and freeze it as and when.
I brought some Bisto gravy out with me but soon ran out. I asked mum to send me some out and also some makeup wipes which are expensive here. She didn’t tell me the price to post them until after or I would never have allowed her to send them. 52 pounds!!! It was only a shoe box! I nearly died. I will have to make a very big shopping list for my friend who is on her way over in June so it can go in her container. I think in reality the sooner I run out and learn to find alternatives for things the better off I’ll be. It’s like sausages. I went for a couple of months without eating them because they were awful. I now get them from a certain award winning butcher and they are OK. I say that because they still aren’t as good as the ones in the UK. I am waiting until the time comes when I forget what they tasted like.
School life for me and the boys has is good. The boys both enjoy school and all the activities that go with it. So many I won’t list them. They also play golf and have a lesson on a Sunday morning ($1 each!), football and swimming, scouts and cadets. I always wanted Matt to do cadets in the UK but the kids who did got teased as they marched around. Basically this side of life is a vast improvement than we had in the UK. The school were replacing their Kayaks and we have bought 4 of the old ones. Looking forward to getting them down the river. I have also joined the gym. I have time to use it here as I have no commute time and the boys come with me and go swimming.
Making friends has been quite easy really because of both mine and OH work. I don’t have close friends in the town but I don’t feel as though I suffer for that. We have socialised far more here (BBQ’s). The boys have friends in school but haven’t yet brought them home. I’m sure now we are more settled in our home they will start inviting them for tea.
To sum up. Is NZ perfect? No, not by a long way. Am I happy? Very. This move has worked out for us and apart from leaving people behind none of us has any regrets. We have a much much better lifestyle than we had in the UK, in every way.