Have we never recounted the sagas we had with car seats???? When we went over to NZ in June 2006 we didn't take our car seats with us as we had been told that the NZ were of a much higher standard to UK ones (yeah right!!) - so we hired some from the car hire place but to be honest they were in such bad condition that Ken actually went out and hired some from (I think) Babyfactory or BabyCity. These weren't actually much better - they didn't fit properly in the car we had hired, and we were advised by the girl at the shop to "wedge them in with towels, that's what everyone does!!!"
We then bought some NZ ones when we bought our own cars, but to be honest we still weren't particularly happy with the way they fitted - we were told that the problem was because we had bought European cars, and car seats were designed more for cars from the Asian countries. We had been used to buying seats which used the ISOFIX system, but these seemed very hard to find in NZ either in the shops or online, so in the end we got Granny to buy us some in the UK and send them out to us, and they fitted perfectly (phew!!) When we decided to come back to UK, we wanted to bring the car seats with us on the plane so that we could use them immediately in the hire car from the airport - we had to check them in as luggage as they were far too big to take in the cabin with us, and to be honest there is no way the kids would have sat in them on the plane. They formed part of our luggage allowance, so bear this in mind if you are limited with luggage - worth checking with the airlines before you book as it could add a serious amount in excess baggage costs (Air NZ do not allow you to take them "free" - we were lucky that we were allowed 8 pieces of luggage between us on the return flight as we had travel cot, pushchair, car seats, as well as 3 suitcases!! The Hills never travel light!!!
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Hope all is going well - any news on the house going on the market yet?
Maggie