(laughing) Glenda! your description of Spring in Northland did start to well up the ol' tears! You guys don't know how good it feels (or maybe you do!) to find others who appreciate those weird subtle differences of the smell of rain or mud! :-)
I had an odd experience in a garden centre here, there was an over-powering smell of nz (a damp musky green smell ?) , I couldn't tell where it was coming from and went around sniffing all the plants and mulches hoping to find out what it was so I could buy a truckload of it! I have never smelled that anywhere else except in nz (maybe its a pesticide or herbicide ha ha ha) .
Motherbear we do have trees (I live in the middle of the woods!) but they aren't pungas, or pohutukawas or macrocarpas and the mud does smell different as does the rain! Our winter mornings are artificially warm and very dry with central heating on, we can't open the windows in the winter and we breathe the same indoor air we live in most of the year (with air con on in the extreme hot humid summers)
The only flowers in winter here are the ones wrapped in cellophane at the grocery. I love to garden, Autumn arrives early and everything dies and then gets covered with four feet of snow for six months. In Hawkes Bay, we had roses and bougainvillea blooming all winter and lavendar hedges up to my knees...sighs sighs sighs
So what is OH ? (old husband? ) I looked over his application last night and one question was are you able to legally work in nz---he wrote 'not yet' --I think that may be the question that lands the whole thing in the waste-basket! Its early days though, and I'll find more. Feeling optimistic! Especially knowing I'm not crazy!
---or at least there is a mad house for me to join if I am!-- ha ha