Small Family in Six Suitcases

Merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T22:10:00.000+13:00

A very merry Chistmas to you! Love from our family to yours.

Timber

2006-05-25T20:35:00.000+12:00

Totara floors -- which I concede sounds like the name of a jobbing showgirl, and probably one who gets men to light cigarillos at the side of her mouth -- are actually what we have underfoot in our little home. Totara is a kind of timber native to New Zealand.

I look after 'em. I have never lived anywhere with polished hardwood before and, even though winter is pretty much here and they are thus not at their warmest, I love them and sweep them and mop them not just weekly but whenever they are even halfway sullied by bootprints or crumbs.

These exposed-wood floors are in our kitchen and hallway. Although the kitchen section is pretty much covered for the winter by a rug, I carefully angle the broom and brush any dust along the length of the exposed borders, and into the dustpan. I shouldn't be surprised if, one day soon, I don't nudge an edge of the rug upwards an inch or three and check underneath to make sure the totara is still there and happy. I haven't done so yet: I just say that I might. Don't let any of the international news bureaux get above themselves and jump the gun.

I have crept past diligence and into being proprietary about our totara's upkeep. I know this because I now use the reverent construction "my floors" when talking about them, in the manner of a school caretaker imploring them kids and their blasted studded bags not to deliver a scorched-earth policy upon "my banisters" or even, in man's darkest days, "my nice linoleum".

Here's how I clean them. I fill the big oblong laundry-room sink with warm water and add a squeeze of dish liquid. Then, leaving this to steep, I go away and sweep and follow this up with the mop and sudsy water. Then the three of us huddle in one room, precisely like refugees, while the wood dries. The totara 'comes up' beautiful after that little lot.

It is my magic procedure, and I leave it with you.

What else in the last couple of days? We had a truckload of firewood delivered on Saturday, one third hardwood to two thirds softwood, and despite his limp Winston helped me stack it in the garage for hours, nay past dusk, until it was all done. And firewood is not easy stuff for a convalescing toddler to lug around.

I think he sticks close to me so that he doesn't miss out on any sun-shattering paternal Truths and Wisdoms, of which my method of cleaning floors is but one instance.

Do It Ourself

2006-05-19T10:33:00.000+12:00

Man, has it been a real homeowner's week here! Teeming with stuff around and about the house. Any week when you end up using the phrases "blue gum", "Khalaf rug" and "10% goes straight out your floors" within a country mile of each other is a gen-u-ine homeowner's week.

I've already hitched up my jeans with my thumbs twice this morning, and the clever money is on my doing so twice more before lunch.

First cab off the rank, we caught our (we think lone, renegade) mouse a few days ago. I had made a humane trap out of an inverted pop bottle, and it worked. I came out to the kitchen late on Sunday evening and heard him scratching around in the bottom of the bottle where I had put crackers and peanut butter. So we carefully covered the trap, transferred him gingerly to the van, then Vera went out near midnight, drove several miles avoiding all road bumps, and stamped on his neck. Just kidding: she released him. And so far, no more droppings or gnawing noises. Not even from me.

Then we had to order more firewood and work out whether the chimney needs cleaning. And, golly, if anyone needs a name of someone good to sweep their chimney in this area, let me know. The guy helped me with 20 minutes of free advice over the phone, waiting on the line while I did flue and burn tests. In the end he said "Don't spend your money on hiring me, just get some really good wood". So we're having a mix of gum, oak and softwood delivered this weekend.

Our polished timber floors are also -- what a surprise -- chilly now that winter is here. So we have been finding out about underfloor insulation options. We did a partial quick fix by buying a huge Egyptian rug, very cheaply, from The Warehouse. It covers the whole kitchen area. That helps a lot, as should the efficient firewood.

Terrifically, we got to know our neighbors Sharon and Alan, and their children, better this week. Sharon is a writer with, among other things, a number of children's books published. They have helped us so much already with tips and encouragement, and this weekend we plan to do a tit-for-tat whereby Alan will mow our lawns with his wonderful sit-on mower and we will trim their garden edges with a weed whacker.

(Now when two writers find out about each other in a small community, it can be what P.G.Wodehouse would call a real Damon-and-Pythias moment, and anyone trying to get a word in edgewise between them is in a position akin to a chimp with clipped toenails attempting to carve a foothold into a diamond cliff-face. Sharon and I had a good chat, and Winston and I went to look round their great family home and property. They have built a laundry chute and Winston was amused to see his shoes suddenly pop out of it seemingly from nowhere.)

Oh, and to cap our whole rugged week I trimmed my beard over the bathroom sink last night and only used one piece of kitchen towel to try to wipe out the bits from the bowl. The rest I just scooshed down the plughole with tap water. I just don't care, slow-blocking hazard or no slow-blocking hazard. My house.

Okay, back to shoving some fingers into the belt loops of my denims. It's hitching time.

Chill

2006-05-14T22:27:00.000+12:00

When was the last time you suffered from an old-fashioned chill? I ask because I think I hosted one last night. It intrigues me when folks get chills in 2006, because I thought that chills more or less went out with zinc buckets and people who put apostrophes into the words bus and pram. (To be honest it would have intrigued me in 1969, let alone 2006.)

But a couple of weeks ago our good friend Louise was rubbing her neck when we dropped in for coffee because she had been sitting in a draught the night before. And now, she said, she had a chill. Thought: maybe only New Zealand still recognizes chills? Could be.

So here I was at home, yesterday evening. I'd had a long and a hot bath which admittedly, if done on a late-autumn night, inserts you into proto-chill territory, although after I got out I put on some sensible after-bath clothes such as one of my fleece sweaters. I wasn't "asking for it", homies. However I then went to the computer, put my earphones on and spent an hour sitting still (mistake?), listening to music. Then I got up and headed for bed.

Man, I was cold. Everything suddenly felt like the inside of the fridge. Everything. Hallway. Bedsheets. Doors. Oxygen. I wrapped myself in the duvet like a taco and fell asleep. For a while.

At 3.35am I woke up with that rotten feeling you have when you suspect you're going to be physically sick. To vomit, in other words (sorry). It's awful, isn't? It's one of the very few times when your whole mouth and face, in mime-grade silence, devoutly and exactly utter the expression "Oh, no-oh-oo..." And as they do so, you shiver. You almost quake. Now I'm so skinny (try being married to a ballet chick and be the half of the duo that people refer to as "the really thin one") that I can hardly afford to shiver for more than about five seconds a year. As it is I look a popsicle stick, for goodness' sake, without any Richter moments.

Anyway, then I went -- as we all do when faced with this -- into fight and flight mode. This is that strange, here-and-now, pins-and-needles-y phase you get into whilst you're trying to work out really, really earnestly whether you truly are going to throw up. You put on the radio. You peer at the night light. You change radio stations. You switch back. You straighten your toes confoundedly under the covers and, here's the clincher, you try to think about whether any food you've eaten in the last half-day makes you feel particularly nauseous and then about whether you can even entertain the notion of eating anything ever again. Oof. Oh. Oof.

I didn't vomit. I had a fairly lousy night's sleep followed by a full day looking after Winston -- which turned out, as it always does, to be wonderful -- but my tummy stayed where it was. But what I did do, and what made the night's sleep fairly lousy, was to keep on shivering even in the 6am-8am slot, and I had to cocoon myself so tightly in the duvet that I looked like I was getting ready to mail myself. And, again, putting even a toe outside of my wrap felt as cold as an iceblock. When I did get up I made a fire and had a mug of tea and felt a bit better, though I had to keep layered all day to feel okay. Right now I feel pretty much 100% again.

So there we go. A real, genuine chill. Not a cold, not food poisoning, not flu (unlike our pal Helen on the South Island... hope you are feeling better, Helen!) but a chill.

I feel like offering myself to the local museum, to be put on a perspex stand next to the Settler Days Embroidery and the restored penny-farthing.

The Monarch

2006-05-08T10:51:00.000+12:00

This Monarch butterfly hatched in the cottage yesterday. Our neighbor had cut down a tree that was interrupting 'phone service, and he found the chrysalis and gave it to Vera and Winston a few days ago. Vera put it on the sofa on a greeny branch and -- here's a thing -- I didn't even know why the branch was there until I shouted to her just moments ago to find out where she and Winston had stored the chrysalis, so I could write this. With all the lifting and plonking-down of Winston that we have done recently, I'm just delighted that it stayed in one piece. I had known, nebulously as it were, that we were hosting the little chap-to-be somewhere here at Six Suitcase Towers, and I think I vaguely imagined that taking in a chrysalis somehow entailed Vera standing on a chair and hanging it up like a set of wind chimes.

Anyway Vera noticed the butterfly had emerged when she got up yesterday, but couldn't find it an hour later. When she got home from work at 5pm she found it in the laundry room, poised aeronautically on one of Winston's nylon sleeper suits.

It stuck around here for about a day. We all thought the little chap was doing the old 747-wing-test bit yesterday afternoon, ensuring all cabin doors and food trays were secured for takeoff, so we gently lifted the sleeper suit and carried it outside and onto the still-warm hood of our van so his feet would be warm for the virgin flight.

I have to say that the three of us then gave him a bit of well-meaning but unnecessary peer pressure. We hoisted Winston onto the hood and generally stood around with beer cans saying "Go on, my son! Off you pop! Gertcha!" and other comments of a like nature. Monarch, in turn, turned his head, his eye rolling from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, with one little leg curled off the sleeper suit. Surely he was getting ready for the off. His set jaw put me in mind of Orville and Wilbur Wright.

But no. So a few hours later, when it got cold, we brought him back in for the night.

This morning Winston and I put him out on the front step, and he hung around just long enough for me to take the above photo. W. had just gone to get some of his toy emergency vehicles to show the butterfly when he suddenly flew off (the butterfly, of course, not my son). Winston saw it but I didn't as I was fetching one of the toys.

All the best, little chap! You were a model house guest and as you wing through life let it always cheer you that, whatever else may happen, you're not likely to get slung into jail for not being symmetrical enough.

Cast off!

2006-05-04T18:26:00.000+12:00

Winston's cast came off today! This happened a day later than had seemed probable because the Te Kuiti docs wanted us to double-check with specialists at Waikato Hospital. So we went to Hamilton today for fracture clinic.

The clinic folks were friendly and efficient and concluded that his spiral-fractured tibia has healed enough to give him an opportunity to re-start walking on it. (Incidentally, this is at least the second time this week that we have had excellent, fast service from a public organization. A few days ago I phoned the NZ Inland Revenue's 0800 number with a tax question, had the phoned answered by a human within seconds, and a straight answer about a minute later. Cheers! (Goodness, I'm starting to sound like a letter to a local paper)).

Just ten minutes ago he stood with both feet on the ground; I supported him under the arms.

He and I had a lovely morning in Hamilton together. The weather was sunny and warm with blue skies. We went into the city centre after we had finished at the hospital and bought a couple of treats. He deserves them. Golly, has he been patient and adaptable during the last six weeks, insisting on getting around my himself during his play... such as one memorable morning when he moved each of his toy tractors in turn from bedroom to living room, scooting there and back I don't know how may times on his butt!

Vera picked us up from Hamilton on the way back from her teaching in Auckland -- it had been an early start for all of us this morning! -- and we were back home by 1.30pm.

So thanks to Te Kuiti and Hamilton hospitals for helping Winston so far, thanks to everyone for your get-well support and wishes... and thanks, Winston, for being so terrific!

Fescue to the rescue

2006-05-01T22:17:00.000+12:00

Right: Winston with our local pals.

Grass seed should come with a sachet of scarecrow seed taped to the pack. You'd rip the sachet open a couple of days before using the main product, tap out the contents onto the ground, poke it down. Sprinkle it with a little water. Done. And by next weekend you'd have three weird sisters spiked in nasty relief against the skyline to put the wind up all sparrows who would think to scarf down the lawn hopes of honest men.

Some digging-machine work was done in our back yard recently. The guys put the earth back very nicely, contoured it well, and brought us a big scoop of topsoil besides, but grass needs to be put back over the brown earth strips and excavator marks. As this is mid-autumn, ideal grass-planting season, I was out there yesterday with my rake and my kilo bag of Hardwearing seed.

This morning, of course, I wiped a finger of condensation from the inside of the kitchen window and looked out to see a small advance column of birds out there. Ah, well. Good on them. The stuff is begging to be their food: it's tiny and tastes good. (That's my other idea, by the way: make each individual seed the size of an accordion and tape noisy foil ribbons to it. Wake up, manufacturers).

Funnily enough, though, they were about the only birds I saw out there for the whole day. It has crossed my mind that I might have bought a brand of seed that was coated with bird repellent, and that those early scouts winged home like beaten Chicago hoods. But I don't know. Personally I think the whole concept of a chemical bird repellent is a bit outlandish and clumsy.

Something else we did this weekend was to write and deliver nine cards to the neighbours we have not yet met personally. I bought some bright yellow blank cards, each die-cut with a single circle in the middle front, then borrowed a blue felt-tip pen from Winston and wrote a jaunty "Hello!" inside the circle. Then I opened the card and wrote a few lines in ballpen, introducing ourselves. After lunch Winston got into his wheelchair -- his leg cast comes off this week, hopefully, by the way -- and we all went out and popped the cards in mailboxes.

We came home from a shopping trip next day to find a huge bag of fejoas on the verandah. No note, just the bag of fruit. It was really nice. And it prompted us to hop up the steps, turn frontwards kinda sorta obliquely to the whole neighborhood -- in case the donor was watching -- and make the exact brand of "durn-kid's-a-mite-slow-in-the-head-is-all-thass'up-y'all" grin you see on a child who has just opened his main gift on Christmas morning.

Today Winston and I took a walk around the streets to see the local animals again. We were on our way to visit the pigs when we saw a man, the pig owners' opposite neighbor, striding over to them with a white bowl piled with vegetable scraps for their brunch. We got talking. What a nice guy. He worked as a train driver for many years and is now retired. In passing I told him that, the previous day, Vera, Winston and I had been watching the pigs and had heard one of them crunching and crunching on somthing very hard. Then we saw a chunk of glass bottle on the ground. We looked at each other: can pigs eat glass? Was this pig eating glass, or was it just an aural coincidence? Should we tell the owner? Anyway we strained our eyes for several minutes and could see not a trace of blood in her mouth as she chewed, so we just reached in and fished the glass hunk from their mud, threw it onto the verge and walked on. And today all four animals seemed in tiptop, Empress-like health.

Lots of phone calls today to the tax service and bank, because it's the time of year to start getting that sorted. Meanwhile Vera recovered from her morning drive to and from Auckland to work.

Tonight I told Winston three bedtime stories. He said "Just one more, Daddy..." but no, I said, that was three and enough for tonight. "Then I'll tell YOU one", he replied. And he did.

Farming people

2006-04-26T20:20:00.000+12:00

When we go up our street a few yards and turn right, there is a bare section between the houses where four pigs chew grass, bathe in mud puddles and, if you stop to say hello, trot over to the fence to do the civil thing. Round the corner from them is a big corner lot with piled-high firewood and a... what? Cow? Bull? It has horns but that's no decider of its sex, apparently. Anyway, round the next corner are some cows, for sure -- so we're on safe ground there -- and from our own living room we can see sheep in the paddock just beyond the house opposite.

But to say that we are in farming country is quainter than, though not as accurate as, saying that we are in a farming country. I could be describing hundreds of towns and villages in NZ. In Te Kuiti one evening we were strolling home along a very residential street... parked cars, playpark, neat lawns, Sky dishes... when we saw what looked like two big dogs milling around in a front yard a few feet from us. As we drew level we saw that they were not dogs but calves, who were presumably saving the householders money on a mower.

Our local paper carries ads for tractors and 196-hectare rolling contour properties. In the jobs pages, farm-assistant-wanted classifieds talk in terms of "420 cows through a 38 bale rotary... Option to live in/out" (not for the cattle, probably, unless Housing New Zealand now accepts hoofprints in lieu of signatures on their tenancy agreements. Come to think of it, though, and on the assumption that if Housing NZ did accept cows as clients they would have to provide cows among their staff, I'd love to see one of them at their desk on their lunchbreak: just that steady sideways cud-chewing as she stares into the middle distance trying to remember if she set her cow video-recorder to tape South Park in case karate class runs late...)

Are we going to get the hint and put livestock -- a goat, anyway, say, or chickens or runner beans (are they livestock? Ed.) -- on our 1/4 acre? I dunno. Sounds like a challenge for a fellow who is just beginning to master the reality that a boyhood spent cutting his mum and dad's lawns does not actually work like an interest-based savings account, sparing him from having to do his own lawns now on the 'previous-prudence-pays-today' principle.

Vera did organize our little composting bucket this week for our kitchen scraps, though, and yesterday I saw outside the local hospice's charity shop a rack where folks have donated the spare lemons from their own trees and the shop sells them for 20 cents a bag. And as we have a very productive lemon tree -- will we ever shut up about it, for crying out loud? -- I think that doing the right thing would pretty much entitle us to hitch up our jeans with our thumbs and look any 38 bale rotary roundly in the eye.

If it has an eye.

ANZAC Day is today

2006-04-25T09:00:00.000+12:00

http://www.rsa.org.nz/remem/anzac_intro.html

Riveting reading

2006-04-19T12:03:00.000+12:00

Tuesday was very wet and cloudy right after the sun and blue skies of the Easter four-day weekend. Today is warm with cloud cover and sunbreaks. Winston is next to the front door on the lime driveway scooping the stony chips into his toy digger, because yesterday's heavy rains made the lawn too wet. Vera is out training for her new, second job, which is a lot nearer home than her Auckland work.

Winston and I are both pretty nearly recovered from the throat bug we have both had for a couple of weeks: blimey, it did stick around.

Had a nice visit yesterday from the real-estate company who dealt with selling us the cottage. They brought the spare key and a wicker basket that was full of lovely relishes, choc eggs, bits and pieces and a card. Very nice but it makes a bloody big key ring :-)

That's about it so far today. We really set the blog alight some days with these thrilling entries, don't we? ;-)

Oops, hang on. Stop press. I've just posted today's entry but felt obliged to come back to report another chapter of rollercoaster excitement:

have you ever had a pair of disposable kids' training pants split open on you? Not that you'd be wearing them, I mean, but you might -- like I -- have been changing your child and had to deal with it. As you know, Winston was just outside playing and I noticed a wet spot on his trousers that shouldn't have been there so soon after he'd put a fresh pair of disposable trainers on (we sometimes have him in these during the day because keeping him dry is important right now even though his broken-leg cast is waterproof). So I investiagted and, golly, it was a bit as though a bean bag factory had exploded... the covers had split apart at the seams and some of the absorbent stuff had spilled out over him. I've heard dark things about what happens if you prise open one of those magnetic sketch machines, and I reckon that these training pants run them a close second. I think -- I hope -- it was just a rogue pair. Anyhow, I suppose it's an excellent track record that this has never happened to us before. Er... yay.

Easter, Kawhia, and a list

2006-04-16T17:57:00.000+12:00

Above (click to enlarge pics) Winston opens his Easter gifts and, later, digs on Ocean Beach at Kawhia.

We waited until this morning to give Winston his Easter gift from his Nanny and Granddad in England. It was a toy recycling truck and containers and, man, was it a hit! Thanks so much, Nanny and Granddad!

Later we drove to the west-coast ocean town Kawhia, where Winnie dug in the black sand for an hour. The drive to Kawhia was much, much more full of severe bends and dips than we had imagined although, on the way back, turning off to Pirongia seems to make the drive a bit milder. Anyway, a lovely day for the journey and it's a magnificent part of the coast. On the way home we chatted with Winston about what Easter is and why it is celebrated. You have to take quite a bit of care to explain the concepts in an okay way. He's three but he listens and asks questions, as you might expect. Fantastic.

For a bit of an Easter laugh, and as we have been in NZ for pretty much exactly nine months, we thought we would jot down a few of the differences and NZ idiosyncrasies we have noticed since we arrived. Anyone who wants to drop us a Comment with more very welcome... maybe we'll post in a few days' time with any additions. Here goes:

We dry our clothes outside, on rotary and straight-across drying lines. We have no drying machine. We usually start with the rotary line, dashing out and switching the clothes to the straight lines under the carport if rain threatens. We have a good old familiar 'Gentle Annie' washing machine made by NZ favorite Fisher & Paykel.

Our only loo -- as in almost all the Kiwi homes we have seen -- is in its own little room just off the laundry room. Talking of toilets very many Kiwi loos have two flush buttons: the one on the left is for shorter flushes, the one on the right for longer flushes.

We have stopped buying juices for Winston because he now has a drink made from lemons from our tree (boy, aren't we proud of that tree?!)

We have no central heating but our wood stove heats the cottage nicely after 20 minutes or so.

Our light switches get flipped down for 'On', and up for 'Off'... opposite to what we were used to in the USA.

DVD players here are powered by votive candles. (Sorry, this one's not true.)

We buy officially stamped garbage (rubbish) bags for NZ$1-2 each, at the local supermarket. This is how garbage collection is funded around here. If you put out an unofficial bag, they won't collect it.

Underneath the slot for letters in NZ mailboxes is a bigger space. We think this is where the milk used to be put to give it a bit of shelter from the sun.

Some public libraries charge a small upfront fee for each book borrowed. But this does not seem ever(?) to apply to children's books, and even among adult books some libraries charge only for, e.g., very new fiction. Videos, CDs and DVDs, though, almost always attract a fee, up to about NZ$5 per item. But I'm sure this is just to make these items available: it's necessity given the library's funds, not opportunism.

It really is true that some houses, some days, can seem a lot colder inside than outside. This isn't just a wry joke: it exists. Our new cottage is carpeted in the bedrooms and living room and is insulated quite well, so we think it probably will not happen here. But other places we have lived in (including an Auckland house) could sometimes feel very cold first thing. Getting outside was quite a pleasant surprise. Put on an extra t-shirt at bedtime, or have the heater no more than a sleepy arm's reach away for the morning!

Vera was looking through a clothes-store flyer this afternoon. It was advertising its late-Autumn goods. She laughed at one panel that showed "Winter School Shorts"! Hmm... are those akin to a summertime parka?! Nice oxymoron. Anyway, Kiwi children do wear school uniforms and, yes, shorts are often worn by boys even at draughty times of year.

A couple of favorites

2006-04-15T21:54:00.000+12:00

Photo on right is a nice one from a few months ago. Winston and Vera in Queen Street, Auckland.

A quiet couple of days after the rush of Thursday.

Good Friday and today were very warm and sunny. We stayed at the house all day Friday and today the only trips were for Matt to take Winston to the library and, later, to go by himself to buy a few groceries and Easter eggs.

NZ libraries tend -- amongst a healthy range of other books -- to have many hundreds of NZ titles, especially autobiographies and fiction. That's noteworthy because relatively few NZ books seem to be easily available in other countries. (Tip to folks interested in NZ: contact one of the thousands of NZ public librarians to get an inkling of what I mean, and jot down some author names. If you really need to do your reading before you get to NZ you will thus be able to order via an international online book-buying site or arrange an inter-library loan.)

Today, looking for a book for Winston, Matt stumbled on a book about the making of a NZ film that is revered in our home.

The film is Alex and, as soon as I've typed that, a generation or two of Kiwis are nodding in familiarity. Many of them read the book by Tessa Duder on which it's based, as adolescents. Alex is about a 1950s Kiwi teen girl who is working for a swimming place in the NZ team for the Rome Olympics.

We love Alex, us.

While we were going through the months of applying to NZ for residence, we watched it time and again:

"I can beat Maggie Benton!" Lauren Jackson, the ex-Auckland-Girl's-Grammar pupil who plays Alex, probably didn't realize that that line, which she pushes out though tears as she sits on her bed with a broken fibula after being whacked by a hockey ball, would be chanted with all its intonations a buh-zillion times by an idiot couple living near Seattle.

And if there's a more winning, cuter ten seconds in film than when Alex is treading water in the practice pool, mischievously cuckoo-ing "Si, senor... Si, senor... Si, senor" to her coach's goadings, we want it brought to us on wholemeal toast.

Back to the Easter weekend: Winston and Dad found at least half a dozen books for Winston, including one all about excavators. He loves construction and wants to know all about each vehicle. And at the moment there are diggers and loaders crawling all over our neighborhood. As you might know, we had one in our own backyard a few days ago.

Come to think of it, if you could fit a digger with a beer holder and a mini DVD player showing Alex, you could leave the three of us happily for about six months.

Installed

2006-04-14T10:34:00.000+12:00

Photo on right is of our new house, with Winston and Vera discovered sitting.

Have a wonderful Easter, everyone!

Here, we have daily home Internet access again after several weeks. Yesterday, when it was installed, was also the day that we closed on selling our Te Kuiti house and buying our new cottage 45 minutes further north. Today is a sunny public holiday and so we are typing this blog entry happily and gratefully, in what is now officially our house.

Lemons wait to be gathered from below the tree on our front lawn. Winston is playing cars in his new room. Vera is busy deflating the trusty queen-size air mattress that has been our bed for six months. The lady who lived here before us has left us some single beds, and we also now have our own queen frame and 'proper' mattress that we received -- wrapped and brand new! -from a second-hand store in exchange for a fridge that we had to spare. (That's enough about beds. This isn't a side alley in Siam. Ed.)

The last few months have been a little tiring, although in terms of the house deals things have gone pretty much as smoothly as we could possibly have hoped. We felt so strongly that we wanted to buy this cottage -- it was the first and only property we inspected after it crossed our minds to move nearer to Auckland -- and we are extremely grateful that we found a buyer for Te Kuiti so soon after making the offer on this address.

By the by, having a crunchy stone driveway is working a quiet but powerful effect on Matt. Hearing that resonant sound under his feet as he walks is making him feisty and squire-ish. After snapping the photo you see above he was striding up the drive to download it.
"Get some good shots?" asked Vera sweetly.
"Apparently, as I'm walking back into the house" spat Matt back at her, and probably with a sneer, although Vera couldn't swear to it as the sun was in her eyes.

Well, it's time for that imposing gentleman to go and sit outside with Winston to play. Community opinion is that Matt should take things easy this Easter anyway. He has been Ingenuity personified this week, and it has taken its toll. On Tuesday, embarrassed for an iron to press some clothes for a job interview, Matt glanced around the house for a substitute device. He spied a saucepan and a hob and a tap, heated a splash of water in the pan, and used the hot metal underside on his trousers. After taking them off, of course.
After that piece of swift thinking and swifter action he finds himself needing rest, rest, a modicum of rest. He might even parley up Pant-Pressing Tuesday -- as it becoming known -- into a book, he says, or at least a novella. Either way, airy nothing will be given a local habitation and a name that it won't forget in a hurry.

It'll all depend on how the mood takes him.

What's Been Keeping Us Out of the Pubs

2006-04-07T11:45:00.001+12:00

Thanks so much, everyone, for taking the time to wish Winston all the best with his broken leg. Here is a photo of him sitting on a digger that was parked in the back garden a week or two ago!

What has been keeping us off (or, rather, on) the streets is that we have been moving house again. We love Te Kuiti, and our house there was sound and tidy. But on our way up to Auckland a few weeks ago we found a smaller house -- though on a neat 1/4-acre plot -- in a village near Te Awamutu and Hamilton. It seemed to click so well for us. Although this was a bold move so soon after moving into Te Kuiti, we feel that it makes sense. Indeed, moving more or less straight out of a property is quite practical as things are still pretty much packed and there has been little time to put down roots.

So we have been getting the move underway and looking after little Winston. He is too young to use crutches, and for 4-6 weeks is not to put his weight on the leg, so we have been helping him get around. But now he has his 'permanent' red cast he has, typically, adapted wonderfully and now scoots himself around the house and garden. Also, ACC (the NZ accident-care system) sent him a wheelchair this week which is great: his leg rests on the seat nicely and he does not get the pins-and-needles he did when sitting in his umbrella stroller with his broken leg.

This week has also seen some encouraging signs re. work. Might have more to report soon.

Last weekend Vera's parents, who live in the US, were able to stay with us for a night in the middle of their NZ tour. Their trip started in Northland and the weather there and in Auckland/the Waikato was very good. On Saturday we all went to the Te Kuiti Running of the Sheep event, when 2000 sheep run along the main shopping street (Rora St.) as part of the annual Te Kuiti Muster. A great weekend.

A quick NZ-migration thought:
As I (Matt) write this blog entry I am listening to my beloved UK-based radio shows via the Internet. Although, with the house move, our Web access is a bit difficult at the moment, it remains very important to me to stream or save some shows by Tommy Boyd, Bob Mills and Danny Baker. It's not so much a touchstone as a real love I have had since I was a lad.
I mention this because it seems to fit with an inkling we had as we went through the move to NZ in the first place: which is that part of knowing oneself reasonably well is knowing what small selection of possessions or pursuits to bind to yourself with hoops of steel during the process of relocating to, and settling in, NZ! Migrating is not the time to cut yourself off from the one, two or three most enduring and important parts of personal furniture for which you know you always reach. Migration has enough huge changes of its own. While I think it's probably v.dangerous and daft to try to lift and drop every feature of pre-NZ lifestyle into NZ, there is a strong need to keep a couple of choice interests or items in your personal 'belt kit'. Discover what they are and protect them. And if you really don't value them anymore, deep down, you'll slough them off easily and naturally anyway.
(Obviously, being physically away from family and pals is what we'd most like to remedy. I'm talking above about an individual's own passions and possessions).

More very soon! Thanks for reading.

Quick post!

2006-03-30T16:18:00.000+12:00

We have been very busy with a few things. Not least, Winston broke his leg last week but is doing terrifically. Will post soon with our news and details. Sorry about long absence! All the very best.

Road and home

2006-02-24T15:45:00.000+13:00

An eventful, busy and exciting week.

Two nights ago we had our welcome BBQ organized by our opposite neighbor and her family.

They had invited some family members they hadn't seen for a good while and we all had a great evening. We're the only pakeha family on the street and we talked a lot about our reasons for coming to Te Kuiti.

Winston had fun with the family's three-week-old puppies and their proud mum, although we think he had a bit of an allergic reaction to them so Matt took him home early to wash him and give him a tablet.

A terrific evening and a lovely welcome.

Next morning -- yesterday -- we were up at 6am to drive up to Auckland (we had already spent three nights there a few days ago for work reasons). Vera watched Royal NZ Ballet class as they were using university studio space. Winston, who had a bit of a cold this week, had developed a cough overnight so Matt parked and walked him through Albert Park and down Queen Street to the doctor. Matt walked in unannounced but the clinic kindly agreed to see Winston straight away. They gave him antibiotics and an asthma inhaler system because they detected a little wheeze in his chest. He remains in excellent spirits, tearing round the Te Kuiti playpark today... five minutes after he visited our local clinic for his meningococcal-B-vaccine starter! Brave boy!

Vera has been invited by the local Rotary Club to talk about her role and training as a dance educator. She speaks at their weekly dinner next Wednesday. Next week is also her first week 'proper' teaching at the university in Auckland.

The rest of the day -- and most of the rest of the week -- have been taken up with meetings and discussions about something else that has taken our attention and energy since last Friday. We'll post about that in the next day or two. We're excited but it could lead to one or two changes for us here.

Here is a picture of Winston with Dad and one of the puppies (and their proud mummy!) at the welcome BBQ!

Getting to know Te Kuiti

2006-02-15T17:44:00.000+13:00

We are enjoying settling into Te Kuiti so much.

Several people, including Winston's senior kindy teacher who has been in her role here for 27 years, have said that it is a lovely small town and great for children.

When Matt was driving home this afternoon from buying a bottle of whisky for the new decanter -- the extent of our range of drinks to offer guests! -- he turned a corner and saw a lady walking in the street next to her horse, guiding it gently by the reins, holding a big empty water bottle in her other hand as she talked quietly to her companion. Matt slowed to about one mile an hour and quickly reached for the radio to turn down Boston's More Than A Feeling which -- if it has a fault -- is not a track perfectly cut out for keeping an ambling horse on an even keel on a quiet Wednesday afternoon!

It was a slightly strange sight on a residential back street, but only slightly... and not at all odd down here.

A minute later a little road-wide row of barefoot Maori youngsters, who had probably been swimming in the river, parted to let Matt's vehicle pass. From what we can tell so far our house is in a part of town where a lot of Maori families live. We've been on waving-and-smiling terms for these first days here and want to have an open house soon so that we can meet folks properly. On our first evening, as we were leaving for a stroll to the pub, a couple of children from next door came to the corner of our garden because the younger boy, a three year old, fancied a play with Winston's construction toys. His big brother was looking after him, and they were having such a good time that we left them to it and went out for our walk. Winston had been a little unsure of other guys playing with this things to start with, but he came along with us quite happily as they stayed and played for a few minutes.

One or two local folks are starting to recognize us by name (so to speak) when they see us, which goes a long way as we try to make friends with the town.

Some bargains

2006-02-15T17:19:00.000+13:00

First blog post for a few days: we have been busy during our first few days as a family in Te Kuiti. We had a much-appreciated message from Trena, one of Matt's ex-colleagues from Seattle, saying that she enjoys reading the blog... this reinforced our realization that we haven't posted since the weekend!

We have been buying a few pieces for the house. Chief bargain among these was a two-piece buffet hutch for the kitchen. It's brand new and stands over six feet tall. It was originally priced at NZ$399 at a furniture store at the north end of town, but it was the last one and was marked down to NZ$99 (about US$60, or 39 GB pounds)! It is terrific for stacking and hanging our crockery.

We also bought, for NZ$40, a part-mahogany cabinet the top of which folds out into a mirrored drinks cabinet. Matt spent an hour cleaning and waxing it and it looks rather smart. We also found, at the recycling shop at the local landfill, four tiny glasses and four etched metal coasters for it and, in town, a $5 old decanter.

We are also looking for a queen-sized bed.

All three of us have been working in the garden, too. Winston is good at watering the plants and helping Mom to prune. Matt's excitement was that he bought, at less than half price, a palm tree at the garden centre of the local hardware store. The palm (see right) is known as the wine/jelly palm because both wine and jelly can be made from its fruits. He also bought a New Zealand native -- a rare species of the good old cabbage tree -- and has planted both over the last 24 hours with Vera's guidance. The other thing Matt wants is a citrus tree.

In line with what we have thought from the start, our priorities inside the house will probably be sanding and finishing the Rimu floors and doing some room painting. The current colours are okay but there is a fair bit of wear and tear (poster-pin holes, Scotch-tape marks, and so on). We are looking for a good off-white with a hint of lemon or orange.

We are looking forward to doing the floors and walls. Until we do, it is hard to choose and position furniture and other items without thinking that we will have to shift them all out and about when the work gets done! Ah, well. We will do it bit by bit!

Here We All Are

2006-02-11T21:51:00.000+13:00

We all drove down to Te Kuiti today, having left our rental cottage in Auckland.

Our Mazda MPV was packed with our things. We have been in a bit of suspense for the last couple of days because after Matt's return from T.K. last week the MPV started overheating badly and had to spend over 48 hours being repaired. We found a terrific garage who ferried Matt everywhere while the vehicle was being fixed. Eventually, at nearly 6pm on Friday -- after our home telephone had been cut off, the carpet cleaners had been and we were waiting to hand back our cottage keys, the MPV was fixed to the reasonable satisfaction of the mechanics who, even so, have told us to keep a very close eye on it at least until we can get it properly pressure-tested.

Anyway, our cottage landlord, seeing that we were a bit tired, very kindly let us stay a free extra night in the cottage so that we could set off for Te Kuiti fresher this morning.

The MPV (called Green Max) was terrific on the way down and we got here on a lovely, part-sunny-part-cloudy Saturday lunchtime to unpack.

After that and several hours of work in the house we each had a bath and walked into town to the Riverside Lodge, our local pub (see picture on right... this was Winston there last week), then popped into The Warehouse -- an inexpensive Fred-Meyer-style store -- for some surge protectors, extension cords and a Matchbox car for Winston. Then home via the playpark. On the walk home we saw some Maori guys trying to chase two escapee dogs back into their car (the guys' car, I mean, not the dogs'). They got the Jack Russell back in but not the Rottweiler. They screeched to a halt to grab the Rottweiler and Vera murmured "Don't leave that car door open: the Jack Russell will get out!" As she finished her words that exact thing happened, the J.R. hopping out like a shuttlecock off a badminton racket! Another couple out walking cracked up laughing as, in our sympathetic and helpful way, did we!

We are now at home. Winston is asleep, Vera is pottering in the house and Matt is typing this.

A great day.

A good week in T.K.

2006-02-05T13:38:00.000+13:00

Matt and Winston are about to leave Te Kuiti for a few days. They are going back to Auckland to finish things off there and to bring Vera back to Te Kuiti.

As well as working on the house this week they have registered Winston to start kindy later this month. They also joined the library and picked up our year's supply of new rubbish bags (how do they manage the excitement?!) from the council.

Matt felt in a bit of a vortex as they prepared to leave to day - lots of little chores to complete and several hours of Danny Baker to listen to before they left town!

Back in Auckland Vera has been teaching dance summer school.

Matt and Winston spent some time at the local pub yesterday afternoon. It's been there since 1910 and is right next to the river (Winston loves to play chase and hide-and-seek on the bank). Winston spilled his bubbly raspberry drink, because he is a troublemaker when he's in the boozer. Ah, well.

Ripping and sweeping

2006-02-02T18:39:00.000+13:00

Winston and Matt have been in Te Kuiti for two days. When they arrived there was a lovely 'New Home' card waiting for them by the kitchen sink, from Matt's Mum and Dad in England. The first night the guys had to cope by candlelight, as the electricity was not due to be switched on for a day or so.

The weather has been very hot and muggy there.

Today was a really productive day. Matt and Winston tore up, cut and loaded all the house carpets into the van, in about three hours. They took them to the local landfill who said they were in good enough condiiton to sell as scraps at their small recycle centre. Matt found two Rimu wood tables at the recycle shop for NZ$13 total!

Then Matt chose a second-hand fridge freezer which was delivered 30 minutes later. Later on the lads visited the shop it came from and bought a washing machine, too, and got a deal on the two items.

After playing in the park and meeting the owners of the local dairy, whose son is in the UK right now for a year, Matt and Winston went home and Matt cleaned a few other parts of the house and got the computer working while Winston played in the logpile outside.

The rest of the time has been shopping for essentials for the house, sweeping dust and rusty nails, and talking with Vera by 'phone.

Matt also found some 1989 NZ Herald newspapers unded one of the bedroom carpets. 'Prime Minister (Lange) survives (no-confidence vote), but pays a price' was the headline of one!

Homeowners!

2006-01-27T14:05:00.000+13:00

Our solicitor phoned today and told us that we are now homeowners. (He, by the way, has been terrific and has earned every penny of his fee).

This was also Matt's last day in his job in Ponsonby. They gave him a morning tea, a huge card and music gift voucher, and this evening there are boardroom drinks for him and another staff member who is leaving this week.

People are wishing us all the best in Te Kuiti and we are very excited. It's funny, though: Matt thinks that another round of farewells and good wishes such as this, as we move and leave jobs yet again, can almost make us feel like frauds in some way... as though we were scooping up all the goodbye chocolates and scuttling onto the next bus out of town.

Of course that's not what's going on -- we only found Te Kuiti a month or so before Christmas and the decision to move there was a fresh and un-premeditated one.

Matt's feeling is just the result of saying so many thanks-yous and goodbyes very intensely six months ago, and now doing the same in a city that does not know us nearly so well.

Vera and Winston are coming to boardroom drinks tonight, so we shall have to keep Winston away from the stronger lagers. We are responsible parents.

Bristling

2006-01-26T21:50:00.000+13:00

Matt is starting, a la an athlete before the 10,000-metre race, to waggle his hands and rotate his neck so that his chin tangoes with each side of his collar bone. He is in warm-up mode.
For Matt knows that in a few days he will be entering our new house for the Big Clean... and possibly the Big Paint.

A couple of years ago, Fleetwood Mac sang "there's only one brush we need/ It's the one that never leaves a trace". Matt is on a quest to find it. The last time he had a shot at painting was in tipping-down rain at Winston's Auckland kindy, during their work party. He was given the task of painting the exterior of one of the outdoor toy bins in a sprightly blue. But the combination of the weather and his, er, prowess with the nylon bristles led one of the kindy teachers to view the work-in-progress with the fearful, hollow eye that one normally sees in viewers of world tragedies.

At least he is excited. He talks of extracting carpet tacks and of Vileda supermops with the same fizz in his voice in which '50s balladeers crooned about Sixteen Candles.

Meanwhile, Winston (pictured here in another context) is being quietly briefed about actually doing the job: working clockwise round the house; mixing the bleach in the bucket in the nice proportions; and so on. Everyone seems to see him as being the source of salvation for the new place. But if he's feeling any pressure, he's making a good show of the careless heart: today he spent several hours nominating his mother as a "doggie" and chasing her round the house trying to attach a "collar" -- as it might be a red carabiner key-ring -- to her index finger. We have it on strong authority that Spartacus relieved any tensions in the like manner, on the ring road just aft of the Coliseum.

Driving rain

2006-01-24T11:02:00.000+13:00

Pouring rain and wind after days of sunshine.

The three of us had to get up and trudge through it all together to get the same bus today. As Matt is partly mute because of his lip injury we near-presicely resembled a scene from The Piano, always excepting that Matt doesn't look much like Holly Hunter. And we were carrying sandwiches. Not a piano.

Anyway, on the way down Onewa Road we saw something funny. The carpool lane accepts vehicles carrying a minimum of three people. So two young lads have painted a placard and walk up and down the length of Onewa. The placard says "$5 will get you in the fast lane". They dive into willing cars to help the driver beat the traffic by suddenly having the requisite number of passengers to use the carpool lane. Then they hop out and walk back up to the top. And so on.

This is all very charming and confirmatory of NZ ingenuity but -- and never mind the tax questions of it all -- Vera and Matt foresee competition for their cheerful scheme in the female form. We reckon that it's only a matter of time before two pretty Kiwi teens offer the same service for, say, double the price, and who will argue with us that they'd get more cars screeching to a halt than the finish line of a Lombard rally?

We shall see.

Vera taught dance at the university while Matt and Winston had a coffee. Then Industry beckoned Matt sternly, so off he went to work using the Link bus. A dynamic lifestyle.

About Te Kuiti

2006-01-23T18:56:00.000+13:00

Initially we looked for a house in Te Kuiti because we wanted to be in a small rural town with reasonable access to bigger centres, and because of our budget. Visiting and house-hunting in the area has also led us to meeting some great folks, and now we're itching to get down there to get to know the town better.

Our hope and plan is to be able to take a little time to shape our Winston-care and work patterns in the way we want, because we will have a manageable home loan. We might be able, in part, to work from or near home in Te Kuiti. But even if so, the town's two-to-three-hour drive from Auckland will be something a challenge because Vera will commute twice a week to her new dance-lecturing post in Auckland. However, each of us has skills that make working around Te Kuiti or Hamilton a reasonable option.

Te Kuiti (there's a photo here) is a town with a population of about 4500. It is in the Waitomo district, where dairy and sheep farming and cattle raising are key to the economy. Hamilton is an hour to the north, Rotorua about the same to the east, Auckland and New Plymouth a couple of hours north and south respectively. The ocean is about 40 minutes west. The original Maori settlement was near the Mangaokewa Gorge portal and was called Te Kuititanga, meaning "the narrowing" or "convergence". Modern Te Kuiti was probably started as a railway-building camp about 120 years ago. This site has more about the history of the town: I got my information chiefly from there.

Te Kuiti is still a stop on the Auckland-Wellington train, which runs once a day. It might be that Vera gets a few super-saver tickets on this to get up to work! We'll see. It's an easy enough timetable to remember, so we're that far ahead of the game for starters. :-)

NEWSFLASH: this evening, in the heat of a game, Winston threw a flashlight at his Dad and pretty much rang the bell, splitting Matt's top lip impressively and causing scenes that wouldn't have looked out of place in the seconds' corner during a heavyweight bout. Vera's emergency skills with a handful of frozen peas, a rubber band and a washcloth were the talk of Auckland (probably). Thirty minutes later, the sight of Matt gingerly sipping a can of Victoria Bitter through a drinking straw was an affecting one, though slightly pathetic.

Preparing for the new house

2006-01-23T18:24:00.000+13:00

The house we are buying in Te Kuiti will, of course, be empty. Although we have very little furniture and few effects, we are quite looking forward to the opportunity to choose one bed, table or applicance at a time!

We have only seen the house furnished with the current residents' things, so we expect it to look pretty big and empty. We really want to see the hardwood floors under the carpets.
Winston loves construction and DIY tools, and we really think he will enjoy the process of moving in and helping get the house ready.

The garden has a peach tree and two plum trees. Matt's only strong want for the garden is to plant a citurs tree while it is still summer! Then, he feels, he will pretty much have shot his horticultural bolt.

From Auckland to the Waikato

2006-01-21T17:31:00.000+13:00

Getting ready to move to Te Kuiti prompts us to look back at our half-year in Auckland.

These months, and our preparation to move to NZ before them, have gone so well on the whole -- aside from the hard fact of distance from family and friends -- that listing any quibbles seems a bit miserly, like a puppy needling St. Francis for not pinching her a nylabone from the pet shop.

We like this city:
Auckland people have been helpful and encouraging, giving us little breaks like a few hours' free Internet access or laundry discounts. One of our landlords-to-be, a terrific guy, we met on the airport shuttle as we arrived. Our current landlord has been very pleasant, too.

Winston seems to love NZ, enjoying his kindy. Matt soon found a part-time job in a company that has been understanding about the effects that settling in and caring for a child can have on work schedules. Vera has just secured a longed-for role teaching university-level dance courses.

And it looks as though we've just bought a little house that suits us in Te Kuiti, shearing capital of the world.

Background

2006-01-21T14:33:00.000+13:00

We moved to New Zealand six months ago. We came over with what we could carry in six suitcases -- eight if you count the two Matt had brought on a solo trip a few weeks earlier and had stored under the Queen of Tonga's old Auckland house -- with nothing else to be shipped later bar maybe a couple of boxes of books. We sold our townhome near Seattle, gave our lovely family and pals lots of hugs (as far as we could, reluctantly having to make do with words to Matt's family in England), and travelled in July.

The NZ government gave us permanent residence upfront because Vera is a ballet & dance educator, and that is on their list of okay trades. Our dealings with the NZ Immigration Service were very straightforward and pleasant. The nine hurdles of the application process took five or six months, but that was just fine with us. We had no job offers and NZ did not owe us a living or a visa! They let us in chiefly on the basis of Vera's work experience and degrees, and also on a trick Matt does with a matchbox and two laundry tokens. That last bit isn't true.

We live in a small rental cottage near the edge of Manuka Reserve, north of Auckland city. But we hope, by next week, to be starting a move to the Waitomo region where we are set to close on a neat Huntly-brick-and-Rimu house we found late last year.