New Zealand....Was it worth it????

So my final post of this blog. Our overseas travel (in that chapter) are over and we are now back home in New Zealand. Work has started, the kids are in daycare, and we are now living our new life. So was it all worth it... A good question. There are so many things I miss about England, as there were many things I missed about New Zealand, our life is different and our circumstances are different. Time will tell I guess but I think it was all worth it.

Moving countries is hard. Moving countries with two small kids is harder but also easier as they force you to get on with things. I think when we arrived we were in survival mode, surviving each day without losing the plot with each other or the kids. Sometimes it worked and we had nice days, sometimes it didn't and the days weren't so good. All the time we have the question of "have we made the right decision?"...

So the first few weeks here turned into months, we had some 'holiday' days but mostly time was spent looking for jobs and daycare. We had a lovely week away on a proper holiday up north and the sun shone (for most of it) lovely days on the beach, time with friends, and then a visit to Peter's old stomping grounds. I will remember it fondly as that week was what we moved back for, and it was just as I imagined. Other highlights were days spent at Brick Bay, fish and chips for dinner on the beach, countless beach trips, walking by the sea in the evening after work with the kids, walking to and from work, dinner out after work on a Friday, and finally catching up with my old friends where 5 had turned to 17 in ten years, husbands and kids collected.

My job is an VAST improvement on my last (sorry old colleagues who are still there). It will be a challenge but it is nice to finally say I am an engineer and not feel like a little bit of a fraud, next step is getting chartered (eek). The jury is out on Peter's job, the jury is out on the kids daycare when I picked them up on Friday and they were watching TV!!!! I miss Jubilee so much, but I'm not 100% convinced it's worth moving back to the UK for just that. We are missing two saucepan lids which is highly annoying. All of our boxes are finally unpacked all the cupboards are unpacked and the kids rooms are sorted, just waiting on a couple of sets of draws to put their clothes in. Big achievement for me, I have now done three whole days of looking after the kids on my own (I didn't do that in the UK as James went to nursery) so feeling a bit more like a proper mum. We have even managed to get our UK tax returns done, way easier then I thought and I'm very glad we didn't use an agent to do them.

So on to life here and lets see where it takes us, our next goal/challenge is deciding where to buy a house... hmm this could take a while.

Water and Dust

After Adelaide it was off to the Murray River, the bit in South Australia that is. We were to stay on a houseboat for four days, think houseboat not canal boat. I was freaking out a bit at the thought of driving the boat or securing the ropes but Peter and Max were happy, so after a brief lesson about the boat we were off. Hmm perhaps that sounded like we sped off into the sunset, river life in a houseboat is way more sedate.

After about 3-4 hrs we found a mooring spot and put the kids to bed. Off in the distance we could see lightning and then the rain came, proper "know its raining" rain. Not indecisive English rain. We all headed off to bed and the lightning, thunder and rain continued on and off through the night. Neither child seemed to notice the thunder and certainly weren't afraid. We even had one about 4am that sounded like it was right above us. Later that day we discovered a fork of lightning had hit the ground about 10kms up stream.

The next few days were much of the same, leisurely breakfast and playtime, then middle of the day cruising up or down the river, finding a spot to stop and having dinner. One spot was right near a car ferry which James liked.

Friday came and it was time to say farewell to the river and head to Peter's parent house, the dust part!

I have always wanted to see more of Australia than the cities so it was nice to finally make a start. Peter had said that if you wanted to paint a landscape you would only need two colours, brown and blue. So that sums it up, brown land and blue sky, not a drop of rain in sight.

James loved it! He got to ride on two tractors and helped out with various jobs about the farm. We stayed on the farm for about a week in total. Then it was off to Adelaide to head to NZ...

Adelaide

We spent four days in Adelaide after the flight and we were lucky enough to be there on the hottest December day since 18something, I think it reached 42 degrees. Our apartment was lovely and cool, right on Glenelg beach. After the four days the kids are just about back to normal sleeping routines. Unfortunately James had a virus on the second to last day there so that was a whole day spent in the apartment with lots of cuddles and a trip to the docs to make sure it wasn't an earache or anything else. Olivia was very chilled as per usual and had lots of cuddles with Nana and Pop.

Arrived in Adelaide

Well that didn't go too badly considering how long the flight was and how young James and Olivia were. Given the time of our flight and desired check in time we ended up leaving Eaton Bray for Heathrow at about 3:30pm, we arrived at Heathrow at about 5:15 and loaded all our stuff onto two trolleys. Peter went to return the rental car and Aunty Lyn, Uncle Iain and I entertained James and Olivia. Once Peter returned and we had a coffee and sandwich it was check in time. We tried to use the kiosk machine but we're told we had to go to the desk, once at the desk the lady didn't have enough information to check us in, but that was all sorted after a visit to the ticket desk. Then it was time to go through security (not an easy task with one baby strapped to me and one desperate to run around, but we did it by engaging James in the task of helping mummy to pack the milk back into the bag.

Then the fun really begins, how to entertain James in an airport for a few hours? Soft play, yay for the great play area in Heathrow Terminal 2. We then had two flights with a stopover in Singapore. The first was just over 12hrs the second was six hours. James was really good and we didn't need to use many of the plane presents we had bought him so we have some left for the flight to NZ or for Christmas. He was mainly entertained by the iPad, playing cars with Daddy on the floor, and phoning Grandma and having pretend conversations with her using the inflight entertainment remote. That was very sweet to see, the conversation generally always went... 'Hello Granma, it's me", "yep", "yep", "see you later". He had his first proper conversation with Grandma a few days before our flight, which obviously made an impression. Olivia was her usual chilled state and apart from a few hungry woke with a start cry was generally pretty happy.

We had 4-5hrs stop over in Singapore and James did lots of running and driving his cars along the airport floor. I think if the stop over was any longer we may not have survived, within moments of getting settled on the plane James was asleep. The second leg was shorter but about halfway through I got very cold with a bad headache and a bit panicky and shaky, luckily there is nothing like having to look after a baby to pull you into line, so once Olivia woke up I started to feel much better.

Peter's mum and dad were there to meet us and we are staying in a three bed apartment in Adelaide by the beach. Luckily we managed to get both kids asleep at the same time and we managed to get a good few hours sleep before an early evening trip to the beach to play with Peter's old sand trucks etc. James loves them! Anyway, all feels a bit surreal but no regrets yet...

Last night in the UK

So it has come at last, our last sleep in the UK. The last week has been a whirlwind...

The packers/movers arrived an hour earlier than expected which caught us seriously on the hop. We have since discovered a few bits we should have saved from the packing and lots that should have gone in! But its now all gone and in a container somewhere off the coast of France. The packers were super quick and hopefully it all comes out OK the other end. But in the end it is just stuff, all the important things (people) are with us.

Friday was a day of cleaning, the cleaning people also arrived an hour early which also caught me out as I hadn't tidied up the kitchen of our last little bits. While the house was being cleaned I went into Reading and picked up a few little bits. Went to the bank to pick up my new debit card, it had been sent to the wrong branch, so annoying! But they did change £20 worth of coins we had lying around the house and all our foreign currency so it was worth the trip. After my almost useless trip to Reading I went to a friends house and enjoyed sitting on a couch again.

Saturday morning was check out day and our landlord also arrived an hour early. Luckily all went well and there were no issues.

The last few days have been spent doing not much other than spending time with the kids. So nice not to have to worry about cooking etc while we were at my Aunts....

.....

We are now on our way to the airport, farewell UK!

It was the night before...

Here I am at 23:58 the night before the movers come. Our bed is dismantled and stacked up in our room, plastic boxes of sports clothes Peter and I haven't worn for 3 years surround one end, our temporary fold out bed the other. Somewhere in there is Olivia's cot, does she know she only has 4 more sleeps in the room she was born in?

Downstairs the lounge is full of flat pack furniture and toys. We haven't quite made the decision of which ones James will say goodbye to for three months. In his mind that is forever but he does know he has to say goodbye to some. The garage has piles, some for charity, some for dump and some for shipping, let's hope they don't get mixed up. We were supposed to be given labels, don't pack etc, so only Peter and I know what's what. The kitchen is amazing, Peter did the final push on that and its great, no eating in there until Thursday night.

Both kids are sick, hopefully just getting over colds. Olivia sounds like she smokes 40 a day and James is complaining of a sore ear. The doctors have said it is not an ear infection, phew! Let's hope it stays like that. Peter and I are knackered. Sleep time....

The move back to NZ

So I thought I would resurrect our blog to keep anyone interested up to date (as I can be) with our move back to NZ.

The packers arrive in two days! We still have a heap to do and we haven't even started to pack our suitcases. We have piles of stuff around the house that need to go to the dump, to the charity shop, to nursery, to get cleaned, etc...

So far the two spanners in the works have been... Selling my car without the parcel shelf in it so Peter having to miss some of his leaving do to come home and take it to the new owner. And... The hotel we were booked to stay in had a major fire yesterday. This hasn't turned out as bad as I first thought. We are going to camp at home with some borrowed stuff and we will get a full refund on our booking, so we will save ourselves a few hundred pounds plus the food we would have had to have bought.

The next two days are going to be manic, lots of to do lists. Hopefully Olivia finds it amusing and doesn't get bored!