A new home in Wanganui!

There is quite a lot of news in the fact that we have said our goodbyes to lovely Hamilton and all the folks who were so incredibly good to us in the four months that we were there - and have moved into a 'new' home in Wanganui.
This post could become very long-winded with all the gory details - suffice it to say that once again we have found ourselves in the right place at the right time and are safely installed in Parkes Avenue, St John's Hill - more than we hoped we would be able to achieve in the time available to us and given that apparently homes to rent in this area are very hard to come by! The fact that we got this home before it was 'on the books' at the agency, speaks for itself! Things are seldom absolutely perfect and there are of course things that we could improve on with regard to personal preferences with the house, but it has both a double garage and a carport so when all the belongings arrive from Auckland, there will be somewhere to put them all - we are of course referring to all the woodworking and other varied hobby related things that one doesn't necessarily want in your home! An older home with central heating and completely refurbished and renovated kitchen and bathroom - a managable sized and established 'section' (garden) with a couple of fruit trees and a lovely deck running along the length of the house giving the impression that we will be able to entertain in great style and comfort - especially for all the folks from Hamilton who have sworn faithfully that they will be making the just over 300 km journey to come and see us - we will not be expecting anyone in the very near future since winter has arrived and although Wanganui apparently has frost about four or five times in a year, there has been impressive frost twice in the past week! The house is of the Art Deco style - quite popular at one time in Wanganui and we are hoping that we will start to feel at home soon. Although we don't actually have a view of the sea, if we should feel so inclined it is probably about 10 minutes away! Wanganui is evidently known internationally (?) as having one of the top ten most temperate climates in the world, with temperatures varying between lowish single figures and the upper twenties in summer. Yesterday morning the temperature was apparently minus 1 so there it is - whoever makes these sort of sweeping statements clearly wasn't in Wanganui yesterday having all their facts and figures messed up by nature. We were without gas for heating water and running the central heating since the arrangements which we made with such confidence from Hamilton for some unknown reason, failed to materialise and we had to wait until Monday to get the right guys out here! No matter - when you are in the process of an adventure, things like these are just part of the whole experience! The 'gas man' turned out to be an immigrant from Edinburgh Scotland and so we yapped on for a while about Wanganui versus Edinburgh versus South Africa - but with particular reference to the weather and rugby - he left Scotland initially in the eighties for rugby and weather (in that order) and has found himself still in Wanganui after all this time. Frankly, it was all academic since I was really only seriously interested in his ability to get the gas going - warm water for a shower and a cooker top that worked and some central heating to banish the frosty breath in the house! I guess it doesn't hurt to be on goodish terms with someone who can achieve all these things with the flick of a couple of switches and dials and whatnot, when it's cold and damp outside!
We have both had colds over the past couple of weeks - neither of us has been anywhere near as sick as some of the folks we know and clearly both have fierce immune systems, fighting all the dreaded lurgies that are rife here at the moment. So apart from a couple of residual sniffles, we are fine and 'getting on with it' - the container was delayed somewhere between Australia and New Zealand and is expected to reach Auckland harbour in the course of the day today(!) - we are awaiting the call to say that they need the delivery address in Wanganui - hopefully within a week or so.
We attended the Johnny Clegg concert in Auckland last Monday on one of the Queen's Birthdays - for those of you who don't know, Her Majesty celebrates six different Birthdays every year - the one in NZ happened last Monday and gave the whole country a day off - we spent it ambling up to Auckland and thoroughly enjoying the fact that we don't live there! Beautiful city and all that - just not for us unless we absolutely have no choice in the matter! Johnny Clegg was all we hoped he would be and more and we sang at the top of our voices and stomped and cheered with the best of them - a huge dollop of 'home' - Afrikaans being spoken in the audience all around us! It was absolutely fabulous - he did nearly all of the favourites and some new numbers and we just couldn't believe it was over when it was! - always a sign that the show was good! For a man of about our age, Johnny Clegg's energy on stage is still quite incredible and his mastery of 'combination-hybrid' music is brilliant - I was thrilled to see that he's been awarded an honourary doctorate of music from Wits ( I know it's not called that anymore but whatever) - for his contribution to the genre! Good on ya Mate!
We have taken a whole lot more photographs of the trip down to Wanganui to give you an idea of the surrounding countryside and once we have doctored them for the blog, will post them up here for you to see. So watch this space - again!
Work wise, it looks as though the move was indeed the best thing to do since we have found out that since we departed Hamilton, two more guys from that office have been made redundant and a third one north of Auckland (in a similar position to ours) will be returning to the UK even before his container arrives from there. Things here are a whole lot more secure and the prospects are very good - so we don't even think about what could have happened if we had refused to take the transfer offered.
Apologies for the delay in getting some new stuff up on the blog - things have been a bit disorganised and hectic with plenty of very touching farewells in Hamilton and many promises of visitors to come. Once our 'stuff' finally gets here we will not know ourselves! but will be able to entertain anyone who cares to visit!
Our e-mail addresses remain the same and so you can still contact us just as easily as before!
Dis al!