good sport

There are two main topics of conversation in the office, discussed at length in the kitchen area between coffees.

The first is the weather, which makes me feel right at home, and is easy to agree and sympathise with. Apparently it's the worst winter for years and - as I'm sure I've whinged about before - it's cold. And when you're living in a country where most houses appear to be made out of carboard and tissue paper, it feels even colder. But that's okay because, and there is no hint of sarcasm here, it's still a lot better than the usual winters at home. I don't think I'll ever get used to having Christmas in the summer - it's just plain wrong - but we were mostly prepared for what winter can throw at us.

The second topic of conversation is that of sports, or more specifially kids sport - events that usually take place at some point over the weekend. Mondays are filled with tales of woe regarding disrupted plans and long travelling distances, fridays with hopes of cancellation fuelled by excessively cold or wet weather. Inbetween there are constant murmourings when viewing the projected weather forecast, both positive and negative.

This was at first something unknown to me as there didn't seem anything similar at home - at least not for something our kids really wanted to do. However it took a matter of weeks before I was joining in the same conversations and making the same noises. Saturday morning netball for Katie and - at first at least - football for Hannah had changed things.

The truth is that the positives massively outweigh the negatives. In fact there are many positives but only one single negative.

Katie really enjoys both being physically active and being part of a team, and one that is made up from children spanning two school years and four classes. It's a social gathering that participants, siblings and parents all enjoy. There's no pushy parents and it's nice to meet people and feel part of a community.

Hannah enjoyed some of the football, but felt slightly insecure at the prospect of having a kickaround with boys, some older by 18 months or so. However it's something we're sure she'll persevere with. The first session is especially memorable for me as it was part of the worst hangover I've had in as long as I can remember. The night before was the first social night out that I had organised with work, and a combination of some free beer, a 4.30pm start, and a collective forgetfulness in remembering to eat any food, conspired to make my eventual bed-time merely 4 drunken hours before having to get up for sports.

On a working weekday, the alarm goes off at 6.45am. It's horrible, yet we're getting used to it, work being a means to an end all that. Mondays are hard but things ease up a bit as the working week winds down. Saturday morning netball, and a meet-up time of 8.20 at Hagley Park, means that we need to get up roughly at the same time. That wasn't meant to happen!

I know it's selfish to moan about something that is positive in so many ways, and we certainly don't begrudge doing it as it's the first thing we can do as a family during a busy week. It's nice that we're all together cheering Katie on, and the increasingly wintery weather is held at bay with scarves and hot chocolate.

All that being said however, there was something enjoyable about hearing the news that there is a 3 week winter break. The fact that this weekend is the first weekend off in 10 weeks makes it all the more sweet. We'll miss it in the meantime, but we've got 3 saturday morning lie-ins to look forward to (where 8.30 is the maximum we can push it) and I can't wait.

katie at netball
image © not known

i like: travelling time

When I first arrived at the new job in October before we all moved over together, the inevitable questions were politely asked and I was very quickly made to feel welcome and at home (well, as homely as any job can be at any rate). The main query raised however was "where are you planning to live when you get here?"

On our previous trips to New Zealand - and specifically the South Island (or whatever it's real name is meant to be) - we always knew that we would settle in or around Christchurch. We had already decided that the lesser populated island was the one for us, taking the hopefully not unreasonable view that there was little point in leaving the UK to live in another large and busy city such as Auckland or Wellington. We wanted space and a bit of freedom, and most importantly - for our livelihood rather than for quality of life - I needed a job. There are plenty of IT jobs in Christchurch, less so elsewhere on the South Island, and certainly not many in our preferred destination of Nelson. Rest assured, choosing Christchurch was - and has proven to be - no hardship; it's a nice city to be in.

Except we don't actually live in Christchuch, we live in Sumner, a seaside town to the east of the city. Sumner - or Pomner as it's known locally due to the proliferation of British migrants who have made the place their home - is around 11k from Christchurch centre and has a nice village feel to it. We never planned to be part of an ex-pat community (which conjures up images of obscenely tanned essex wideboys on the Costa del Sol), but there must be something about living near the sea - and it's hard to be more than 5 minutes walk wherever you live on the flat (the area not in the hills) - that obviously appeals to many people here.

I'll expand upon Sumner itself at later date, but taking you back to the start of this entry and the question asked by people in work. "Sumner, " they'd reply, "that's a bit of a way out!" And in Christchurch terms I suppose it is. I drive (or car-share) to work each morning as it's too far to walk or cycle, and it takes anywhere between 18 and 25 minutes each way. That's right, it takes considerably less than my old commute from York to Leeds (anywhere between 60 and 80 minutes on a morning commute) and is just the right amount of time for my shell-shocked mind to recover from it's rude awakening and ready itself for a day's honest toil (or cutting and pasting as Cathy likes to disparagingly describe software development).

I really enjoy the drive to work, but it's fair to say that I always enjoy the drive home more.

what we didn't pack

Between gaining acceptance on the 18th November and leaving the UK on the 21st December there was an awful lot to cram in, both figuratively and literally. Of course we had been expecting/hoping that the final confirmation was imminent, but there had been a number of frustrating false starts re medicals that meant that we were in a semi-limbo state, albeit one that involved writing a large number of cheques to private consultants in order for them to tell me what I already knew (well, mostly).

So there were leaving-drinks to arrange, family visits (to Liverpool and Middlesbrough), flights, accomodation in and around Christchurch, money to transfer, paid work to finish off, house-cleaning for any new tenants, and the new tenants themselves. And we had to pack.

Kiwi friends who had migrated back home 5 or so years earlier had regularly told us that they wished they'd brought more possessions back with them. However over the years we had - like 99.9% of the population I'd imagine - accumulated a vast amount of what can only be described as crap. We had been together for over 12 years and there were still suitcases and boxes from our first rented flat back in 1996. Boxes full of photographs and 'treasured' possessions rotting silently caked in years of damp and neglect. Surely never a better time to take stock and organise.

Personally I sold, gave away or destroyed many things I kind of, sort of still wanted, but realised that I would never use. This included 25+ years of comics, an unused-for-5-years guitar, books, clothes (patiently waiting until I could once again fit into a 34inch waist), shoes, vhs videos and assorted technical and electrical goods and paraphenalia such as phone-chargers, modems, manuals, cd-roms and routers.

As a family we gave away our lovely piano to friends. I bought it for £10 (plus £100 delivery) 4 years earlier, and Katie - my eldest daughter - and I were taking lessons at the same time with the same teacher. We knew it couldn't come with us as there was 100% chance the MAF would condemn it as a health risk, but I do miss walking past and playing the first few bars of 'Hark The Herald Angels Sing' to the continued annoyance of the rest of the family. (There may be something inherently wrong in playing christmas carols in the blazing sunshine, but that's a gripe for another time...)

If I was honest, there's not much materially that I regret leaving behind. Most things can be bought here, New Zealand being, after all, a pretty civilised nation. However there are two items I regret not stocking up on, and it's only now - and too late - that I realise how much a creature of clothing habit I have become over at least the last 8 years.

Next Jeans - 36 inch waist (yes, I know) long leg, boot-fit. It took me years to find jeans that I loved wearing - and I really did experiment for many years after leaving university and entering the realm of the moderately paid - and once I found them I never let them go. Except I left one pair in Middlesbrough, and the two remaining pairs I brought with me are pretty 'well-worn'.

Adidas Superstar II trainers - size 11, white (mostly), stripe colour negotiable, shell-toe mandatory. Again, my love affair with these classics took a while to take off, and I'm vaguely aware that there is a slightly chav-like element to wearing them, but I'll enjoy them until the transition to cardigan and slippers becomes inevitable.

So instead of paying £20 for jeans and £25 for trainers back home, buying them in bulk to fill the empty space in the container, I have just paid over twice as much in total through ebay to have one pair of each shipped over. I don't get much post, and I have to admit I'm really looking forward to their arrival.

our possessions arrive at last
image © Paul Allan White