Remember my blog about Balloons Over Waikato - well, I'm excited about something else now! Last night, we went to the local observatory in Hamilton http://www.has.org.nz/index.html (bit of a basic site, but you get the idea). Never been to anything like it before, so was just expecting to hear a short talk and maybe see the moon and a few stars through a telescope - how wrong was I?! It was one of the most fascinating things I have ever been to in my life - we saw Mars, Jupiter & Saturn (and...

Our boiler engineer was supposed to come today to replace the part that they 'think' is causing the leak. Lo & behold I got a phone call at 9am to say he wouldn't be coming as his van had broken down - could he come next week instead . I was very calm and didn't raise my voice too much and agreed as I had no choice. OH just keeps saying forget the whole thing as we are leaving soon but I don't really want to hand over the house with a leaky boiler. I do have some pride
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It was nearly a year ago that Jon and I made that momumental decision to try and emigrate to New Zealand. After lots of frantic surfing, reading and researching we had not only decided to "go for it", but also that we loved the idea of living in Christchurch.

We sent off for new passports, and submitted out EOI, all the while gathering as much information as we could. Our cunning plan was to buy a campervan, tour and travel New Zealand and somehow magically get a job, and...

Boiler still leaking. Engineer called out again!!!! S*** law means that it stops leaking before he arrives. He can see where the water has been and thinks he knows the bit that needs replacing - REPLACING??? The boiler is 2 months old!!! He needs to order the part and will make another appointment to install it.

We are just getting used to things not working properly now that it is nothing new. The toilet has now sprung a leak and OH insists on trying to seal it himself...

I've been trying to sell our furniture and other worldly belongings over the last week or so. I thought I was really prepared cos I emailed the local paper and got the lead-times for insertion of adverts, so was quite confident about getting my ads into last weeks paper, did it happen - NO. Apparently they had problems opening the photos for the ads, they let me know about these problems after the paper had gone to print. I took a deep breath and re-sent the photos and prepared myself for an...