Universal Suffrage

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I think the most exiting event this week has been the General Election. These happen every three years here in NZ, and on Saturday we went off to the polling station when Claire got back from work and had our say. NZ uses MMP not first past the post, so we get two votes, one for the party we would like to govern, and one for who we would like to represent us in Parliament. It was all quite low key and informal at the polling station, and we were not the only family having an outing. With not having access to NZ TV yet we started monitoring the results on the web but went off to bed before they were all in. By Sunday morning however we knew we had a change of government, from Labour to National (Tory's).

Nicky has been off having medical tests on her shoulder this week, ultra-sound and x-ray. The medication the doctor provided helped but didn't cure, and Nicky sees him again this week.

Work has been much the same for all of us, and we are getting much more settled in our new home. Most of the stuff we need is now unpacked, but the garage still has all the books and loads of other stuff that we need to make decisions about. The weather has been cool at times this week, but the weekend has been sunny though windy. It's really nice to be a few minutes walk from a good range of shops, and I still can't get over the feeling of being at the sea-side even though we can't see the sea. Getting to the railway station has proved not to be a problem, which was our only real concern with moving here.

We have Linda Speight staying with us again for a couple of nights this week before she returns to England on Wednesday, and we have our two week holiday coming up, which we are really looking forward to.

Thanks for reading,

Rick

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