Rick, Nicky and Claire in NZ

The last full week of the year has been challenging for us, physically and emotionally. We have left Auckland. This is my first blog posting written from Whanganui, though not from our new home. We made the decision to commit to moving at the end of last week. In conversations with Dawn (our landlady) we discovered that she had new tenants lined up who were currently renting a house which had just been sold, so would be wanting to move into our house after Christmas. A number of phone conversations with Bert the Project Manager also indicated that important things were coming along at a good pace. After months of delays and uncertainty we decided enough was enough and we committed to our arranged dates with just one change: we would go to Whanganui a day early on Christmas Day. Packing of our things ready for Crown Relocations to collect on Christmas Eve continued apace. Along with this and the hot sunny weather I took all my WKDS accounts for secure destruction, we cooked meals and...

We started the week off in Whanganui, having driven down last Sunday. On our usual quick visit to the build on our way to the holiday park, our now regular accomodation, we got overly excited. When we had last seen our house the gib was still going on. Now, it had been plastered, painted inside, and the stained glass windows fitted!  We were so thrilled with the windows and the colours, we stayed as long as our bladders would allow. After checking in at the holiday park and eating a pre-prepared chicken and pasta salad, we walked back to the house to try and take it all in again. Back at the house on Monday morning, Nicky spotted that the tiler was using the wall tiles on the floor of the bathroom so we hastily informed him of our colour choices (black on the floor, grey on the walls). We asked Joel to make the south patio a little bigger, ready for the concrete to be poured, and we had visits from two companies for window coverings. One for the Roman blinds in the bedroom, war...

Most of this week has been spent in the garage, as we start to sort out what we take with us when we move, and of what we dispose and how we dispose of it. Quite a few things are items that we brought with us for when we next owned a home. However, 13 years on our tastes and requirements have changed, so disposal reflects our downsizing. Much of the sorting has been through the books which Nicky has found quite difficult, but has been very good at making selections. I haven’t helped as much as I had planned with the garage.  This is due to my having a busy week with work.  It has been good to earn some money and I have now closed MacOnSite for Christmas. Nicky had a Christmas lunch with Blockhouse Bay Seniors on Monday. On Tuesday we were taken out for lunch at Deco in Titirangi by Kelly and Valera from my Deep & Meaningful MeetUp group. Afterwards we had wander along the beach at Cornwallis. Both events were greatly enjoyed. What with the garage and being busy, it ha...

The week started with a positive note on Monday morning. While Nicky was at Seniors Church I started finalising various things with various suppliers for our new home. Nicky made some shortbread when she got home, and we went and collected some boxes from a fellow parishioner after lunch. I did some remote support with a customer and then we received an email from Bert The Project Manager. Another schedule change, ie: delay. We had a chat with him on the phone and agreed to have another conversation on Friday afternoon to see if the week’s deadlines had been achieved. The change in dates made all the organising I had done earlier in the day redundant, and Nicky and I had long conversations about the implications of the date change. On Tuesday we implemented the decisions we have made on Monday in terms of dates for the removal company and our next trip to the build. Nicky made more shortbread and we spent some time in the garage sorting though things that we haven’t used since leavin...