Life Down Under

Moved house

2012-02-01T13:02:00.001+13:00

And we've done it again! We've moved house, and as I said we're getting rather good at it. We're even not surprised anymore when things didn't survive the move as they should have, we only just hope when handling each individual item that it's not this item that has damage. But you get a bit concerned when one of the movers says 'Should this flat pack bend so much?'. Well, that was Age's desk top. Now in three pieces.

Boxes in the kitchen

And internationally wrapping items is fine, but the hardest part is to get all the wrapping materials off. The most delicate goods are wrapped in bubble wrap with cardboard around it, and with most delicate I don't mean crockery or glassware, but couches, desks, bicycles, etc. So how do you unpack a couch that's tightly wrapped in bubble wrap? With a stanley knife. And what happens when you aren't very handy with your knife? You go straight through the leather couch.

Our new lazy chairs with footstool on the deck

And so forth. The list is growing slowly as we're still unpacking things. The latest discovery is a hole in one of the doors of our self-shipped-Australian-to-NZ Ikea bookcase that's now back in Australia. At least we won't have troubles replacing that one - one would think... But that bookcase was bought in Sydney, and it looks like they don't stock that particular door in Adelaide. So we need four new doors then!

Everything in the kitchen has found its place

A bit of moaning and groaning to start the day, but it's not all doom and gloom. It's actually really nice to have our own stuff back and to have room to move. This house is big!! Yesterday I met the landlord, who plans to live in it in a year or two, as she needs 'something smaller'. Good heavens.
We decided that we really like Australian houses, they are quite smart with their floorplans, although they take up a lot of space as mostly it's all just one level.

Age watching the Ozzie Open Final on own couch

We are the first people to live in it, so there are a few teething problems to go through:

We didn't have gas, so couldn't use the gas hob to cook. Got connected yesterday :-)
Because we couldn't cook we were so smart to use the oven instead. But we can't find its power switch! My suspicion is that someone tiled over it. We've been looking with four people now and no one knows where to switch the oven on. We'll get an electrician over to find that one out.
We don't have a washing machine yet, as we've sold ours, but even if we had one we wouldn't be able to use it as there's no laundry possibility at the moment. Something for the plumber.
Oh, and we don't have curtains in our bedroom yet.

We have also encountered our first wildlife:

A terribly annoying mosquito that we couldn't slap because it sat on these white pristine walls and had sucked itself full with our blood. Our insecticide was still at the other rental place.
A dead white tail spider in the dishwasher. When I removed it it was actually only playing dead. By then we had been over to our other rental place and retrieved the spray can with insecticide.
And our very first redback spider! That one was hiding in/under our bathroom cabinet. I had spotted spider poo, but didn't see a spider, and thought nothing of it. There is heaps of spider poo spots on the floor in corners everywhere, not being cleaned by the cleaners before we moved in. Then I wanted a new toilet roll, opened the cabinet and there it was, hanging under the door in its small messy web. We couldn't see immediately its red spot, but they have a very recognisable shape, so even without ever seeing one before we both knew that this probably was a real redback. So the spray can came in handy yet again. Time for surface spray to prevent insects from entering the house altogether!
Oh and we had a really funny encounter with three big magpie's (eksters). We were sitting outside, on our lazy chairs on the deck, eating lunch, and there they suddenly were, sitting on the fence not even a meter from us. They started singing! Do you know how loud that is!! Dideloodelaaadilooodeliiii. And then got off the fence and started walking around us. Well, a magpie is actually quite big too, when you are in your lazy chair. Very funny.

Cricket: Australia vs. India on Saturday. Not that you see much from the stands - Age got a free ticket so went on Saturday, but the game was over in not even 1 hour and it was too early to start drinking beer. Apparently cricket is all about drinking all day. No surprises there! Who can watch that game for five days in a row???

Oh and one last thing: I'm still dreaming of becoming this famous (and rich, very rich) writer, so I thought I better start doing something about it then. I am starting a 6-month creative writing course next week :-). I'll tell you all about it soon in a new blog, as we have to keep a journal and do lots of writing exercises. That's what my free Tuesdays will be for too!

Short week

2012-01-25T11:25:00.003+13:00

It's a short week this week, with a National holiday on Thursday - Australia Day! For some people this means celebrating the fact that Australia became a British colony x years ago, some don't celebrate this at all, they mourn the fact that the British took over, for others it means celebrating their new Australian citizenship (a lot of the citizenship ceremonies are being held on Australia Day), others go to the park for a picnic and a bbq, lots of people go and watch the cricket (there is a 5-day test match between India and Australia here in Adelaide and yes, there are people who will be there for 5 days).

We know what we will be doing! We'll get the key of our new rental place early in the morning, complete some paperwork, inspect the property and decide which furniture items will go where. Then we'll go out for breakfast or brunch and celebrate my birthday!! And do some outdoor furniture shopping, and go to the beach for a swim - as we're currently experiencing a week of 33-37 degrees.

On Friday then the movers will deliver our shipment, which has been cleared by customs and quarantine, so we'll be unpacking boxes once again. But we're getting very good at it; De Boer & Bos, for all your furniture removals.

Our new rental place. Left window is the 2nd lounge, and right you'll see the double garage. Blue skies are included in the rent.

Kitchen. We're not sure our fridge will fit in the designated space there - our's is quite high.

Formal lounge (or home theatre, as it says on the floorplan). The furniture you see is not ours, the home was a display home and is now empty.

Dining and Family. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms are all on the left hand side.

Covered deck - that's where the outdoor furniture shopping is for. And small garden.

Coffee and Sports

2012-01-17T22:13:00.000+13:00

Age ordered a coffee machine last week, and Saturday he finally had the time to pick it up from the post office. He also had a second card to call - which basically means that there was another parcel for him/us to collect. It said 'wine' on the card. He thought he could do that easily with the scooter (I had the car in use, transporting myself and my golf clubs to my Saturday golf game), and he thought it all out, taking a very big travel bag with him. However, he didn't count on the amount of wine there was! For our birthdays Lois and Richard got us namely 6 (!) bottles of lovely Canberra wines, in a flat box of 1m long, all 6 bottles neatly displayed in a row. So Age's plan to get the wine and the coffee machine home on the scooter went out the window. He took a taxi home instead. You can't say he isn't creative.

So now we're able to make real espressos and cappuccinos, trim decaf moccaccinos, americanos, long blacks, flat whites, soy lattes, and more! The challenging part is frothing the milk in such a way that you get microfoam, and not big airy bubbles. Need to practice that part a lot more. And because it's such fun to make coffee, we both had a nice and strong cappuccino yesterday evening - which resulted in being awake in bed. That it was 26 degrees still probably didn't help either.

Yes, a hot one today, 30 degrees at 6.30am already, soaring to a 39 around lunchtime, and then a southerly change (phew) with a nice 29 right now (7.30pm). We don't notice the heat that much actually, when it's that hot you just don't go outside much, and inside everything is airco'd. But... today was the first heat of the Santos Tour Down Under (TDU - a Tour de France, but then in South Australia), and I'm happy it wasn't me who had to race 140km on a bicycle with 41 degrees. Not really 'easing back' into the racing season after the winter break.

We hear quite a lot about the TDU, it's on every news bulletin on the tv and the radio, and also via Twitter and the Uni I get a lot of news about it. UniSA is sponsoring a team on the TDU, so that helps in being informed too. Not that I'm that interested in cycling races, but I've never been that close to it. May even be able to get a signature from Eddie Merkx :-)

Also on right now is the Australian Open Tennis tournament. It's great to be able to watch the matches live on tv! This too is broadcasted widely, and we get all the inside information through radio, tv, internet. Australia is fairly proud to have these events it seems. We just heard on the radio that we'll be having the Australian Swimming Champs in Adelaide in two weeks time or so - maybe a good opportunity to see Thorpe in real life?!

Then lastly: a King Crab, displayed in one of the shopping malls in town. Crazy how big they are. Apparently they are a bit of a pest I've heard - I don't know exactly where. Well, you don't want these nibbling on your toes in the water.

Be sure to check out two new blogs in the list of blogs: The Antarctica Diaries, about a scientific mission currently happening on Antarctica. It's not really a blog, so updates aren't detected by blogger, but there is something new every week.
And the Course Superintendent of our golf course keeps a blog too - there's quite a lot to maintaining a golf course!

And... back to normal

2012-01-11T11:55:00.001+13:00

Yeah, it was hard to get back into the swing of things last week, but there is something to say for starting on a Wednesday after the holidays - there's only half a week left then. We didn't do much in the weekend, actually I was fairly active with playing golf on both days, but Age hadn't even showered when I came back from golf on Sunday at 4.30pm!

We had a huge downpour on Saturday afternoon; I saw that it would be 31 degrees that day, so opted to play golf early in the morning, but even at 7.30am it was already 29 degrees and a bit drizzly! The downpour didn't come unexpected, and it cooled down nicely after it had passed. There was enough rain to wash the driveway away from one of our neighbours. They spent some time shoveling up the dirt from the road and put it back to where it came from.

Then some news on the property front: we found a new rental place! It's a lot bigger, brand new, and has been a display home for a builder - never been lived in. Our container has just arrived and is now with customs and quarantine and will probably be released within the next 10 days. We expect to move house later this month - I am quite looking forward to seeing our own things again. It's all very well to be surrounded by someone else's furniture, but our own stuff - of course - is the best! I miss my pots and pans, cookbooks, comfy chairs, my own golf gear, bicycle, clothes, computer, desk, bed (the bed we're on now is much smaller!) and so forth.

Other news: From February onwards I'll be working 36 hours in a 4x9 format, with Tuesdays off. That way I'll be able to compete in the main golf competitions, which take place on a Tuesday, tend to my business, and do other things I might like to do. For Dutch people not really newsworthy, most people I know have some sort of personalised flexible workweek. Down Under (or maybe: in every other country than NL) it's not very common to work less than 40 hours, let alone to arrange these hours in a way that maximises a certain work/life balance. But... working at a university has its advantages, and flexibility is one of the key pillars of employment policy here, so no fuss at all to arrange it. I have to add that I've actually been very lucky with the managers I've had in NZ, who stood up for me and allowed the flexibility I was looking for.

It has been fairly chilly the last couple of days, and we'll have a lousy 22 degrees today. We were saying to each other today that in NL you'd probably wear shorts then, but here it's back to long sleeves and long trousers! Summer will be back soon though, 25 tomorrow and then every day a bit warmer up till Tuesday, where I saw a 34 in the forecast.

Perth

2012-01-03T19:41:00.002+13:00

We spent the second part of our holidays in Perth, with Marc and Marjan. They live the expat-life, working for a Dutch company in Perth, and already nearing the end of their four-year stint. It was about time to see where they work and live, and to see their 1-year old little one, Tirza.

By going to Perth we just escaped the worst from the first heatwave of the season. Australia is currently experiencing some hot weather very early in the year, and it was the hottest start of the new year in a century, with 41 degrees in Adelaide. We arrived in Perth with 38 degrees, and the rest of our time there was reasonably nice with temperatures in the early 30's. It was unusually humid though, which made it still quite warm during the day. But.... M & M were very smart three years ago in finding a nice house with a swimming pool, which seemed like an absolute must in this weather.

King's Park in Perth.

We started the day with a dive in the pool, we cooled down in the pool after an afternoon of doing things, and then often just before dinner or after dinner we spent some more time in the pool :-) That was VERY nice.

More King's Park

We also have had our first Australian surf experience! I have to say that I really liked lying in the water, I don't think that what I did with the surfboard resembled surfing at all, and I still have sore arms and bruised shins from it. I was very pleased to hear that it takes four or five lessons before you're able to stand straight up on the board!

Yes, it's us :-)

On New Years Eve Age and Marc showed off their cooking skills by making us absolutely delicious oliebollen and appelflappen. I don't know why, but they were very good! Must be the new pan we bought for this purpose, as the heavy-base saucepan we wanted to use was gone camping with Marc's parents - they had to leave the house to make room for us!
We also had some serious fireworks to work through as you can see on the pics.

On the first day of the new year we went to Penguin Island (?). Again everyone crammed together into the car with tons of stuff. This island is a very small island in a marine sanctuary with a 2km return walk along the beaches and over boardwalks, where heaps of sterns and pelicans were nesting, as well as little penguins. We weren't the only ones on the island, it was slightly over-crowded actually. But after the walk around the island we found a private spot on the beach in the shade, where we splashed around in the sea a bit and savoured the last remaining oliebollen and appelflappen.

Appelflappen

We're back home in Adelaide again now, and caught up this morning with Pauline and Ian, whom we met in Wellington, and who moved back to Melbourne last year. They spent their holidays in and around Adelaide, and we went to Hahndorf for a nice brunch before they would drive back to Melbourne today.

We'll be off to IKEA now for some new garden furniture (Age's birthday present)! And then back to work tomorrow, that'll be a bit painful in the morning I'm afraid...

Barossa Valley

2011-12-28T23:57:00.010+13:00

It was lovely in the Barossa! Just what we (= I) needed. Very peaceful, calm and quiet, with not too much to do, just the right mix to recover from the flu. I became ill a week ago on Tuesday, nothing special, just a running nose. Quite a bad running nose, when I held my head down the water just poored out of it! So I stayed home from work on Wednesday. And Wednesday night got a fever too. And then I threw up on Thursday, and on Friday I added some diarrhoea to the mix as well!

Lovely story I know. And I didn't have a present yet for Age's birthday, I thought I had more than enough time to get something! My last chance was on Friday, so off I went on my scooter on Friday morning to find something for the man, but I just managed to get into the village and off my scooter, and that was it. It didn't help that it was 35 degrees or something. I went home again, and straight to bed!

Saturday promised to be another scorcher, Age's first 38 degrees here! I've had it before, but Age was in Sydney. Hot weather seems to come with lots of wind, which makes it feel even hotter - the shade doesn't get the chance to cool down or something like that. And then the humidity on those days is only 12%, which makes it hard-going too - you're thirsty all the time, and your eyes and nose dry out, but you probably feel that particularly well when you're having a cold :-)
Anyway, it feels like dangerous weather for the body.

The best thing on Saturday? We drove to the Barossa, which is only 1.5hours away from us, a beautiful scenic drive, went to our hotel, and plonked straight into the swimming pool. Pure bliss! The pool bar was open too, and with our drinks, wedges and views of the valley the holiday had started.

Watching an electrical storm go past on Sunday afternoon

Santa visited the Barossa - yes, he's really busy - and got Evelyn a....... cockatoo!!! Woohooo! Age and I have had some good fun about it, as I'd seen it from day 1 in the Proshop at the golf club (the cockatoo is a cover and you place it on one of your clubs). Then suddenly it was gone! Someone had bought it, a couple of weeks ago! So when I saw Age again after a round of golf when I discovered that the cockatoo was gone, I told him about it. His reply was that I then maybe wanted Goofy? Or the Road Runner? Nooooo, I only liked the cockatoo.

Anyway, I forgot about it, until the night before Christmas, lying in bed, I suddenly figured that Age must have bought the cockatoo for me (as you can see, it kept nagging me), as I couldn't think of anyone else in the whole golfclub (not that I know anybody there yet) who would buy something like that for his missus. And then I got the giggles! And told Age that I knew what was in his present for me!

Funnily enough I was right! And Age kept pushing me towards the golf club on Sunday, and I kept trying to avoid playing golf, as my bowels and stomach didn't really what they were supposed to do, but in the end we ended up on the golf course for 9 holes. I was going to play - I brought my own clubs, and Age was going to caddy for me as he wanted the walk he said (which was strange as Age is never the one to propose a walk). Okay then. So when I turned around to rummage through my golf bag, there was MY cockatoo sitting on A NEW GOLF CLUB!

Santa bought me a brand new driver (yes, he knew the specs exactly), and a new 3 Wood was under way. Which they rang about on Saturday morning, while we were still in bed, Age said. At the time I asked him who that was on the phone, and he said that it was someone from tennis, he didn't have to play tennis that day, he wasn't needed. Which I found somewhat strange, that there would be a competition on on the 24th, as everybody would be busy with Christmas and so. And Age in turn thought that that 'lie' wouldn't go down very well, because we would leave for the Barossa, but I'm probably not every ordinary house wife who keeps her man on the leash on those days, so I didn't think much of it. If he was going to play tennis, I could secretly go out again and try one more time to get a birthday present.

Well, I had the best Christmas ever! And Age didn't get anything. That was not very fair, but he didn't seem to be too hurt actually. Even on his birthday there was no present in sight - all the shops closed, but we did have quite a nice day. We drove back from the Barossa, and later on did a lovely walk along the coast in South Adelaide, see the pictures below. It was the Hallett Cove Walk. Halfway down the walk we saw signs 'Snakes regularly seen in this area'. Just what we thought, we slowly get to know snake country. We haven't seen one yet, but I'm sure we must have walked past some here and there now that it's getting hotter.

The other day we had a blue tongue lizard in the garden, it made lots of noise when cruising through old leaves, and at first I thought it was a snake as I only saw its tail, so I got a little bit of an heart attack :-) They apparently are a gardener's best friend as they feed on snails!

Blue Tongue Lizard

Rock formations formed by glaciers 380 million years ago

Age will get his present, as soon as we've got the courage to dive into the after-Christmas sales. He wants garden furniture! Well, that can be arranged :-)

Looks pretty there on the coast, doesn't it? All those strange structurese have been formed by glaciers and melting ice about 380 million years ago. Insane, isn't it?

Amphitheatre - limestone

More limestone structures

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-20T16:09:00.001+13:00

Christmas frenzy

2011-12-19T00:28:00.000+13:00

I still find it hard to believe that Christmas is already knocking on our door again, but all the signs are there:

people who have end-of-year road rage - we have to be really alert when driving to work as a lot of people seem to have forgotten how to drive;
lots of Christmas do's - we've already had Christmas drinks at Age's work, drinks with my team, and this week we had a Christmas lunch with my team, and a Christmas dinner with Age's team. And somehow it feels like we haven't touched a pot or pan in our own kitchen for weeks, we've been out for lunch and dinner continuously the last two weeks!
really busy in the CBD, it's buzzing!
me doing a lot of Christmas shopping during lunchtime. It's quite annoying that the shops close at 5.30pm, so there's never time after work to get things done, only on Thursday and Friday. Last weekend we got this nice parcel at the front door (and you know how we love parcels at the front door) - and yes, it was a box full with little presents - but that made us have to kick into action!! So gone were the lazy walks along the river after a Malaysian, Thai, Indian or whatever lunch! Evelyn had to hunt for presents to send away (Age escaped his obligations as he was in Sydney)!! Four lunch breaks later we finally thought we had some nice little packages.

Then yesterday we had one hour to drop everything off at the post office. Well, that hour clearly wasn't enough, considering the queue that went through the doors up till the kerbside outside. So the only thing we got done was buying the boxes (in every size and shape) to put it all in. Then Age dropped me off at the golf club, and he finished the job - writing addresses - and found another post shop that was still open (also very annoying - post shops that close on Saturday at 12pm). It cost more than $300 (!!) to send our nice little parcels away! Every year we say 'this really was the last time' because of that and because we are always too late with these kind of things and never prepared, but probably the best thing to do is just to quickly forget about it. The nicest thing is buying the gifts, placing it all on the floor in the lounge and look at it :-)

Oh, and they won't arrive before Christmas - we knew that already :-) People who think they might be eligible for a gift from Santa shouldn't start running to the front door just yet.

And lastly, we have our South Australian drivers licence! Within three months of arriving we needed to exchange our NZ licenses for an Australian one. Of course we were late arranging this too, mostly because it's all so bureaucratic, you need forms, identification, and evidence of residential address (what on earth does it matter where you live???). Anyway, we've got it now, and can't use our NZ licenses anymore. And we found out that every state has its own drivers license. So we don't have an Australian drivers license, no it's a South Australian license. A nice milk cow for the government - don't know if this saying makes sense in English, but you get the point.

Socialising

2011-12-11T21:01:00.002+13:00

Golf Adventures
Last weekend I went to my new golf club to try out the set of golf clubs I borrowed from Roger and Fran. When I was just about finished I saw this lady on the practice putting area, and I started chatting with her. She was there to play 9 holes with a friend, and they invited me to come along, which was a very good idea indeed! One of them regularly plays with the business women on Sunday, which was the group of ladies I was going to play with the next day (that's why I was practising).

With golf you always end up in the bar afterwards, for a drink and a bite to eat, usually together with the people you just played with. The golf club has a bar downstairs and a big restaurant/bar upstairs with great views over the course. There is a fully equipped kitchen, with chefs, there is bar personnel, and there are waiters! And an extensive lunch and dinner menu too. Yummmmm.

On Sunday I played with the business women, a small group of about 12 ladies who tee off together and have their own competition. The actual day for the women to play and have their competitions is Tuesday, then there is a field of about 70 ladies - obviously those women don't work on that day, or are retired. The ladies were lovely, took care of me during our round of golf, and invited me for their Christmas get-together that same Sunday evening, which was very nice of them.

Planning Day at Work
Then at work on Tuesday we had this 'planning day', a whole day with our division to ''plan the year ahead', but it wasn't really clear to me what that meant. Looking closer at the invite, we were advised to wear comfortable clothes and shoes and bring a hat as the organisers thought it would be much nicer to spend the day with colleagues, do something active, and get to know each other better, than to sit in a meeting room and work. An excellent idea indeed :-)

The day started with a healthy breakfast and a short lecture about the pros of starting your day with a good breakfast (after all I'm working in the Division of Health Sciences), and then it was revealed that we were going to be split up in teams, walk to the Adelaide Zoo and spend the day there scavenger hunting, taking photographs for a 'best picture' contest, and completing heaps of other assignments! The zoo is about 500m away from work, it looks very modern, park-like and leafy, and it was going to be a terrific day with 31 degrees. And it has two giant pandas!

Our team won movie tickets with a contest of creating a zebra from tin foil in 10 minutes, and a yummy chocolate panda bear from Haighs Chocolates with the scavenger hunt. There were actually some really good prizes, and the team that won the overall prize for their assignments got a voucher for one day off plus a $50 voucher. The team that came second received four hours off work and a $25 voucher. Quite neat!

More Golf Adventures
On Thursday there is Twilight Golf at the golf club, meaning a 9 hole competition, where you can tee off between 4 and 6pm with a meal afterwards. We found out that it is quite a race to get away from work early, to get home, get changed, and be there before 6pm ready to tee off! Age dropped me off and he went straight to tennis, and I was just in time to play my 9 holes with two blokes who were about the last ones to tee off (teeing off after 6pm means that it gets too dark to be able to finish - even in mid summer it gets dark here around 8.30pm).

Xmas Drinks @ Work
Then on Friday we had the Christmas drinks at Age's work, to celebrate the year that was and all that has happened with the company: a new office, new employees, new clients, a new name. It was a very nice evening with a group of about 15-20 people.

Even More Golf Adventures
Yesterday I played golf again, really early, at 8.17am. You think you're the only one getting up and so, but no, you can start at 6.30am if you like! The course was packed, as Saturday is a popular day. Usually there are then 250 men in the field and about 2 or 3 women. I played with two men, again, they took care of me during my round, even raked the bunkers for me :-)) And I got into heaps of bunkers, as I don't know my borrowed golf clubs that well - what distances I shoot with them, so there was a lot of raking to do. Afterwards we had lunch in the restaurant, and they invited me for next week :-)

That morning when I looked out of the bedroom window I thought it looked rather cloudy, a bit foggy even. Well, when I drove to the golf course, which is further up in the hills, I couldn't see a thing! It was seriously foggy! The fog made our round rather interesting, as you didn't see the group in front of you, the group behind you couldn't see us, and we couldn't see where our balls were going. There was a lot of yelling going on between groups: 'anybody on the green??', 'are you past that bunker yet?', I can't find my ball, I'm coming back!'. It was really funny! One of the men I played with lost 4 balls on the first 9 holes - then the fog cleared and it became all sunny.

Out for Dinner
In the evening Age and I went out for dinner with Roger and Fran (from the golf clubs - we met them through Lois and Richard) and another couple,good friends of them. We went into town to this organic pizza place, a nice looking eatery, and very busy. I should say: very very busy. And therefore incredibly loud! The acoustics were terrible! That was quite a shame, as we couldn't hear ourselves and our conversations were going nowhere. We finished our pizzas quite quickly and decided to have our coffees somewhere else, which was a very good idea.

Looking Forward
There's only two weeks left before Christmas, and that is very noticeable; people are in a festive mood! The students at Uni left two weeks ago for their summer break, staff is busy marking work and there is a lot of 'holiday' talk. We'll be in the Barossa Valley with Christmas, followed by a trip to Perth to see Marc and Marian :-)

Stitches

2011-12-05T15:50:00.000+13:00

Last week Age made a lasting impression at his new tennis club. He tripped over his own feet when diving for a ball, and tried to set his chin alight on the surface of the court. The result was that at 9.30pm at night he needed stitches. So where do you get stitches on a Monday night? At the emergency department of a hospital.

So two guys who played with Age had to get him to the hospital, one to drive our car, as Age had to keep a towel or something like it against his chin, and another one to drive a second car, so that they could go home after dropping Age off. Apparently the driver of our car hadn't driven a manual for a while, so the ride must have been quite entertaining.

I was at home, doing nothing much, and I got this phone call, and I thought it rather nice that Age let me know he was about to come home from tennis, but it was a bit different: 'Hi, it's me. I fell on the court. Now I need stitches'.
'You did what??'
'I fell, and now I need stitches'
'O, you idiot!'
'Yeah'

So he got his stitches, and his anti-biotics, and a tetanus injection. And came home around midnight.
It's healing fine, the stitches have just come out today, and now he needs to be careful for 2 months. Careful with what, I wondered, well, apparently it's shaving! So I may get a wild looking beardy guy soon, rrrrrrrrrrrr.

Our first walk

2011-11-27T23:39:00.001+13:00

A while ago we bought a book with 'Adelaide's best bush, coast & city walks'. We were planning on doing one of the walks this weekend, and it happened to be today. The weather was gorgeous, and I selected a walk for the 'beginning Australian walker', as we've classified ourselves. So on our first walk we didn't want to go too deep into the forest or walk through high grass (snakes!) or do anything too daring. Also because we don't have our hiking boots here yet. We just wanted a semi-urban safe walk. So the 'Stirling Parks' walk sounded just what we needed. A 2hr walk nicely through the park-like surroundings of Stirling.

Stirling is the hilly version of the Dutch Veluwe, very leafy, very green. We drove to Stirling, which is a 15k drive or so, and then parked our car somewhere in a street, which supposedly was the start of our walk. Just what we wanted, nicely between the houses, tucked away in the bush. After 100m our book said to cross the road and take a walking trail somewhere through a park, and walk towards a swampy area, and then through a closely mowed area onto a service track. Etcetera etcetera.

We got lost at step 1 of 10 steps of the description of the walk. And the parks aren't parks as we thought parks would be, parks are to be interpreted as 'reserves'. And that means walking through high grass, sometimes up till your armpits through the boysenberries, eeeks! We were fairly scared to encounter snakes to be honest, with our short trousers (don't have long hiking trousers, so our next mission is to go to Kathmandu and get some! - and we thought we would be walking through 'parks'), no one else to be seen, and some of the trails looked like they hadn't been used for a while. And we weren't even in the middle of nowhere, really between gardens and houses on large blocks of bushland.

Our book says this about snakes:
Venomous snakes are widespread in and around Adelaide's suburbs and the Mount Lofty Ranges. It is possible you could encounter a snake on most of the routes in this book. Keep an eye on the track ahead and if walking through grass make plenty of noise - if they hear you coming they'll get out of the way.

So it wasn't this easy-peasy walk I had planned, but it was actually a very nice walk once we'd left the really high and wild grass behind us. We saw some great birds along the way and walked around a lake that had been excavated in 1922 to provide a reliable source of water for the long gone steam-locomotives.
At the end of our walk we went to Hahndorf for some authentic German food, sausages and kartoffel salat, yummm.

Here a selection of the birds we saw on our walk:

An Ibis

Blue Wren

Red Capped Robin

Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo - magnificent bird!

Kookaburra

Almost finished in New Zealand

2011-11-22T22:09:00.000+13:00

A lot has happened last week. While I was working here in Adelaide, Age went to Wellington for work. That was an excellent reason to organise the movers and get our house empty and clean. So Age added three extra days in New Zealand to his trip, and was in charge of the removal this time. I had organised the last two removals and was totally sick of it, especially as one of these moves was quite disastrous with a lot of damaged goods due to total incompetency of the removal crew.

Age kept me informed throughout the week, but I was sooooooooooooooo glad not having anything to do with it, and just be at the office. The weekend beforehand we went out for a coffee to create our removal to do list. The main things on there were:

to sell the car (I had sold it when I was in NZ last time, but the buyer had second thoughts on the day he was going to pick the car up, which was the day before I left for Adelaide. I spent that last day driving past dozens of car dealers, but no one needed an extra Subaru as they all had full car yards)
to get rid of 9m3 of goods. That way everything would fit into a 20ft container, otherwise the move would become a lot more expensive. We had been given a list from the removal company with all our items and the m3's per item, and based on this list we decided what we wanted to give away, sell, or throw away. Nine m3 doesn't sound like a lot, but it is! So Age had his work cut out for him!

While I was sweltering in the heat here with 34 and 37 degrees (actually, you don't notice anything from the weather at all when you are in the office - but I can tell you that sitting on a plastic seat on my scooter was rather uncomfy), Age was working very hard for us in Richmond.

His achievements:

He sold the car and got $100 more than what I sold it for :-)
He arranged for the piano to be picked up by Mr Music (!), who will make a theatre company happy with it. Finally we've learned our lesson: never go on a world tour with a piano, especially when you both don't play.
He sold our garden furniture, the single bed, the table saw, the book cases from IKEA in the study. We were pleased to sell these book cases, as only just a year ago Age bought them in person in Sydney from IKEA and shipped them to NZ (There is no IKEA in NZ, and there is no other shop that comes even close to the price/quality IKEA delivers.). We really didn't want to bring them back to Oz again!
He put the bistro set (two chairs and a table, which we used on the verandah) with a price tag on the street, and within a couple of minutes a lady drove past, and wanted to buy it, as she had been looking for months for something like it.
He sold the washing machine
And then made someone happy with a bulk lot of cabinets, odd chairs, and a wheelburrow, some pots and pans, our Senseo coffee maker, and probably more.
And finally the movers brought some leftover boxes away to the Salvation Army, with goods too good to throw away.
Ah, and let's not forget four shopping bags full of food! We can't import opened packages with food, so there goes my collection with herbs and spices, oils, flower, sugar, pasta,.... You know, all those basics that you immediately need on the other side, and which we have started to build up again.
And there is probably more. So we left a bit of a legacy :-)

Organising all of this required all Age's negotiation and networking skills, but he did a fabulous job.

Then of course there was the removal itself, on Thursday the packers came to pack most items, and on Friday they would lift it all up. So all around you it becomes quite a mess, and quite unclear as well: there are items that stay with the house, things that go, things that need to be put in a separate corner of the house, things to take to Oz on the way back, and things that needed to be taken apart (lots of furniture). Age said that he was so tired on Friday that he wanted to lie down on the floor all the time, but he never got the chance as there were continuously people around to say goodbye, or to pick things up, or to ask for directions (movers).

We let the movers organise the final cleaning of the house, and that was probably quite smart. For starters: you just don't want to do it anymore, we also didn't know beforehand if there would be enough time to do it (Age had to catch a plane on Friday), and how do you clean if all your stuff has just disappeared with the removal truck anyway.

Friday afternoon it was all over and done, Age had a bit of time for a beer somewhere, and then was dropped off at the airport to catch his plane to Auckland. He treated himself to a luxury hotel, an evening meal with venison and stuff, and flew to Adelaide the next morning.

And that was 5 1/2 and 6 1/2 years in New Zealand for us! The last thing that's left is settlement day, where the purchasers become new owners of the house.

We have to go out for dinner soon and review the past years with a good glass wine!

Midlife crisis?

2011-11-17T12:49:00.000+13:00

Look what I've got since yesterday! It's yellow, it's wooshing past in great style and with a lot of flair - is it Superman???

No, even better, it's an 39-year old commuting to work!

Lunchtime walk

2011-11-15T15:01:00.001+13:00

The river is just behind the Uni.

Animal noises

2011-11-12T21:07:00.000+13:00

The last couple of nights in bed we heard the strangest animal noises. A low grunting of some sort, very guttural. We had no idea what it was, but it sounded either like a mating call from an over-excited kangaroo somewhere on the hill (not that we know what that sounds like), or a smaller animal very close by - under our bedroom window for example.

We both thought it could be a bear of some sort - but there are no bears here, just koalas. Then Age remembered reading something about the noise koalas make, and that they sound rather unattractive.

Well, after hearing this we knew that it had to be a koala! And very close by too. So today Age had a look around the house to see where the nearest eucalypt tree was, and there is a very big one just across the road from us. And tadaaa! It had a sleeping koala in it!

I know, it's hard to see, but if you do your best you can actually see 'our' koala wrapped around the trunk of the tree.

It looks further away on the pic than it is in reality - he's sitting halfway up the big tree

Lots of news

2011-11-10T21:56:00.000+13:00

Sooooooo, I've survived my first four days at work! The daily routine is totally different from my previous life as a self-employed worker who works from home. Now the alarm goes off at 6.30am (crisis!). Age and I get up together, have breakfast and hop in the car at 7.30am. A few minutes past 8am we arrive for our early bird parking spot in the CBD. Then it's a short walk to our respective workplaces, and if we want to we can be at our desks at 8.10am. We can also start the day with a coffee somewhere in a cafe. The thing is that if we leave a little bit later, we'll arrive a LOT later and miss our early bird parking for $12 per day. Arriving later than 8.30 in the car park means paying $30 and up for the day. By sharing the car we keep our transport costs managable, although we are looking at other options too, like cycling to work and purchasing a scooter and/or a motorbike.

University building (University of Adelaide)

Another University building (UniSA)

And yet another University building (University of Adelaide). All these buildings (and more) are situated next to each other. Quite an impressive sight.

Cycling sounds attractive, but it's 17k's from door to door, and not flat - Adelaide city is as flat as a pancake, but it's seriously hilly where we live. I have good shower facilities at work, but Age doesn't - so he's looking into joining the Uni's gym for this purpose. And.... we don't have our bicycles in Ozzie yet.

But that's going to change as WE JUST SOLD OUR HOUSE in New Zealand! How amazing is that!! We have been under offer for a week or so, but weren't very excited as the offer was conditional upon the sale of our purchasers' home. You never know how long it is going to take before they sell. But out of the blue another couple appeared, had a look at our place, and put an unconditional offer in. We signed it, and now the first couple has got 3 working days to make their offer unconditional - by selling their home, or by arranging bridging, or whatever way they find to do it. Either way, the place is sold! Both parties wanted to settle mid December, which means that it needs to be empty by then.

Huge hothouse in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, which is around the corner from where I work.

Coincidentally, Age has to be in Wellington at the beginning of next week, so he's added a few days to make our home ready for the removal company. They will pack and lift our stuff up on Friday next week, and will do the final cleaning as well. We still have to get rid of 9m3 of furniture to get it all in a 20ft container. That'll be Age's job too :-)
The container will be shipped to Adelaide, probably arrive late December, checked by customs / biosecurity, and then partly unpacked for storage. We have a furnished rental place till June'12, so don't need much.

Things are suddenly moving very fast! By the way, even with the rigid current routine, we are enjoying our new lives quite a lot. It's nice to be in a city again. It's also nice to be in such a leafy and green area. A lot more trees here than in New Zealand, strangely enough. Another thing that is amazing is the climate. We've had rain almost every day (I don't know whether that's normal), but also temperatures in the high 20's and early 30's. And balmy evenings - just like you're on holiday all the time. Then there's all these tropical fruits, yumm, especially the mangos at the moment, they are devine!

[pics below: impression of Melbourne, where I was with Age a couple of weeks ago. Left: the best street in town. Centre: Melbourne Station. Right: CBD.]

Almost missed my own immigration!

2011-11-03T23:05:00.001+13:00

This morning - seems ages ago - Anne picked me up from home to drop me off at the airport. She was highly amused by my little black bag of only 18 kg's. People who immigrate should have tons of bags and stuff. Well, not me. I did, however, pack the strangest things, like my golf umbrella holder, Age's cycle shoes, lots of books for work, my favourite cookbooks, some kind of internet cable, an adaptor for the iphone for in the car, my brilliant headset, ... This just means that I need to shop for clothes this weekend. But that's easy enough.

The flight from Nelson to Aukland was fine, but we were about 10 minutes late, and when I checked my schedule I actually only would have an hour before I had to board my next plane. After checking my schedule again, as I found that a bit tight, it became even worse, as departure would be within the hour, and boarding at least half an hour before that.

Crap!!!

Of course I never got my bag, the baggage handlers had a coffee break or so, and what normally takes only 2 minutes now took 20 minutes. So I had 10 minutes left to get from the Domestic terminal to the International terminal, to check in, to clear security, and to go to the gate to board. In other words, I would probably miss my flight to Australia!! Aaarghhh.

As soon as I got my bag I started running and ran all the way to the international terminal with my trolley - that is about 10 minutes. So my advice to all of you is to keep fit. You never know when you need your lungs. The first thing I saw on the board was that the Check In had closed. CLOSED. Aaarghhhh.

But I saw this queue still standing there for the counters, so I thought I'll just join the queue too. After 10 seconds in the queue I asked the lady in front of me where she was going to. Los Angeles, she said. Hmmm, that queue wasn't going to get me to Australia. There were two ground staff still sitting at their empty counters, processing a pilot or something like that, and I jumped over the fence and asked if they could check me in to Melbourne. O lalala, check in was closed, so they had to make a call. While one of them made a call, the other one told me to jump the queue, bring my bag over and she would check me in. Woohooo.

Then, I suddenly seemed to have landed in one of those airport documentaries, they got me my personal stewart, who had to run me through customs, security, and then to the gate, which was of course miles away in some corner of the airport. When we arrived at the gate, sweating like a pig, I'll tell you, they hadn't started boarding yet :-) And I desperately needed to pee, so when they started boarding I sneaked away to find a loo. Pfew.

Oh, and another tip: it may not be so smart to put your umbrella holder in your hand luggage, as customs in Auckland as well as Melbourne was highly interested in it. 'What are those big bolts you have in your bag there?' 'What the hell is that?'. I have to say, if I was working in customs I would be suspicious too. It looks a bit like a machine gun.

The rest of the trip went fine. And now I'm home.

Champion of Champions Hokitika

2011-11-01T22:41:00.001+13:00

I have been terribly busy last week, with work actually and getting ready for my move. I got a bit in a state of panic early in the week, as I couldn't oversee all those little things that had to be done besides my work commitments, but after I'd made a bit of a schedule it became clear what I had to do and when. And that there wouldn't be a spare hour till I hop on the plane on Thursday.

Anyway, in the midst of it all would be this heaven of tranquillity: my trip with Anne to Hokitika, to play in the 'Champion of Champions Golf Tournament' (doesn't that sound great). A tournament played in one day over 36 holes. Anne was going to be my caddie, she would push the trolley with golf clubs, wet weather gear (it always poors in Hokitika), and lots of food, while I would swing some clubs around to try and get this ball from A to B.

She picked me up half an hour late early on Saturday morning (Anne is always late) - I could have slept an extra 30 minutes! - and after a site visit with some prospective clients (Anne is an architect - anybody in need of architectual plans for a new home, renovation or extension??) we were on our way.

Chat chat chat chat chat chat - coffee in Murchison - twitter twitter twitter - lunch in Reefton and another coffee. Reefton was packed with golf ladies from all sorts of other clubs who were traveling to the same tournament. We were spotted by a lady who somehow recognised us as being golfers, which was interesting. After a visit to the loo, off we went again - chat chat chat chat - arrival in Hokitika, that was quick!

We were planning on having a look at the golf course and play 9 holes together, but somehow we weren't really in the mood to play. Maybe it was getting too late or so, or perhaps we just wanted to chill out on the couch with tea, chocolate, and chippies. The threathening clouds didn't help either. So we just kept it at having a look at the golf course and getting my registration done.

Anne had made her famous curry, which we had for dinner that evening. Some more chatting, and then to bed! You won't believe it, but the tournament would start at 7.30 the next morning! That reminded me of old times, where we had rowing regattas with a start at 7am. And if you didn't manage to win your heat you could be out of the regatta at 7.10am. Now that's encouraging. At least golf takes a whole day.

Somehow we managed to fall out of bed at 6am, do our things, get organised (yes, even Anne) and go to the club. I would compete in a team thing, with two other players from our club, and in an individual Nett and Gross competition in the Bronze division, for players with handicaps 18.5 - 24.4.

It always poors in Hokitika, and the forecast was terrible. So we were prepared for swimming on the course. We also heard that we possibly were going to play only 18 holes, and not 36, because of the wet conditions. To make a long story short - we were prepared for everything, but not for FINE weather. We needed MORE sun lotion, and a lot LESS clothes, as there was no rain to be seen - yeah, somewhere in the distance. We were cooking!

We had a lovely time on the course, Anne even enjoyed being a caddie, which was a new experience for her (and for me), the course itself was incredibly different from our own course, which is a lot more closely mowed, and has much faster greens. The grass here tried to eat my clubs all the time, so I had a lot of crappy shots. Luckily in my group we all seemed to have that problem. Putting was something else - the ball just didn't roll at all! I guess after 36 holes of this kind of putting I will completely over-shoot our own greens.

To make a very long story short: we had a lovely meal afterwards, and there appeared to be a prize-giving ceremony as well. Put a room full with cackling women and you don't hear a word of what's being said, so we just clapped when everybody else clapped. Miraculously, somehow I picked up my name in the cackling - I had won a prize!!! I was second in my division with my Nett score. I was baffled, I still am actually. Isn't that cool :-)

Afterwards, Anne and I crashed back on the couch with tea, chocolate, and chippies. And then to bed. To wake up the next morning feeling like we had been hit by a train. My goodness, we were quite knackered.
We took our time to get up and so, checked out of the motel, and started our journey back home.

Chat chat chat chat - Coffee in Reefton - twitter twitter twitter - Murchison: shall we play some golf here? Yes, let's do it. Okay then. Off we went to this pretty 9 hole golf course and had a nice game of golf. We each had our own cloud with sandfly-groupies that travelled the whole nine holes with us. Funny that they are swarming around your butt most of all. We wondered if farting would keep them at bay. Our golf was pretty atrocious, but we both ended with the 'drive of the day' and the 'fairway shot of the day'. So that's good :-)

Chat chat chat and we ended up in Nelson again! Anne dropped me off at home, I had a quick lie on my bed, a shower, and was off to Anne's mum, who had cooked a lovely dinner for us. After that I literally crashed back into bed again. And one of the first things this morning on my agenda was..... a whole body hot stone massage from my Dutch neighbour. Pure bliss!!

Tomorrow is my last day in New Zealand - on Thursday I'll fly to Adelaide (if Qantas cooperates nicely), and work starts on Monday!!

Rugby madness

2011-10-24T11:29:00.002+13:00

Finally we've come to the end of six weeks of Rugby World Cup 2011 here in New Zealand. The average New Zealander probably has no idea what's happened in the rest of the world during this tournament, because there was nothing on the news or in the papers that was NOT rugby. And there will probably be a couple more weeks with 'analysis'...

Anyway, the final between France and New Zealand was an unexpected thriller and great to watch. I was literally jumping up and down on the couch, texting with Age, who was watching the game in Adelaide, and texting with my brother Maarten in The Netherlands, who apparently also watched the game there! The All Blacks won with only one point difference.

Here a report of these txt conversations during the match, which started at 9pm.
(A Try for NZ - 5 points to NZ)
9.17pm - Age: Try!
9.18pm - Evelyn: Are you watching the game, eh? Those French made a blitz-start, didn't they?
9.18pm - E: He missed!
9.19pm - A: Yes, shit
9.19pm - E: That's already the second one he's missed

9.30pm - E to M: Rugby final now: try for NZ
9.30pm - M: That kicker Leepu missed already three penalties
9.30pm - E: Yes, that's not very good, isn't it. Weepu.
9.40pm - E: Aaargh overextended knee
9.40pm - M: Softie, he's just tired
(When NZ's number 10 got carried away from the field after his knee bent the wrong way)

9.40pm - E to A: Aargh overextended knee, eeeeks
9.41pm - A: Yes, couldn't see it properly, but doesn't look good, eh
9.41pm - E: Yuk yuk
9.44pm - E: Ooooowwwwww
9.44pm - A: Woooeaaaaaa
9.44pm - E: Pfewww
9.45pm - E: Ow, punching each other now
9.46pm - A: Just a bit of teasing and provoking, eh

(Halfway Break)
9.56pm - E to A: Cup of tea, dishwasher is running, cookie
9.56pm - E: Finished my cookie
9.56pm - A: Tssssk.
9.57pm - A: I still have to have dinner - I can't cook right now
9.57pm - E: Yes that's impossible now. I had chicken and satay for tea
9.59pm - A: Yummm

9.59pm - E to M: Second half now.
10:00pm - M: Predictions from the analists here: France is going to win
10.00pm - E: Awww really? That wouldn't be good for NZ's self-esteem.

10.01pm - E to A: I'm texting with Maarten, he's watching the game also. Comments during the break in The Netherlands: France is going to win!
10.01pm - A: Nah, that's not going to happen

10.01pm - A: Wow, that looked quite good, eh
10.03pm - E: What, from France? (no idea what he's talking about really)
10.03pm - A: That kick
10.05pm - E: Different kicker
10.05pm - A: Donald
10.05pm - E: Duck
10.05pm - E: Whoooaaaa
10.06pm - A: Goal!
(8 points for New Zealand now)
10.07pm - E: Aaaaarrrgghhhh
10.07pm - A: Shit
(Try for France, which makes it 8-5)

10.07pm - E to M: Eeeeeks a try!

10.12pm - E to A: They're getting a bit nervous here, the commentators. They think France is currently performing better than the AB's. They're running just that little bit faster and seem to want it more.
10.19pm - E: The commentators aren't very happy anymore

(Somewhere here the French scored 2 more points, which made it 8 to 7 for NZ)

10.25pm - E to A: Olala
10.25pm - A: Yes, that wasn't very good
10.26pm - E: It's not very good at all anymore

10.31pm - A: Nice kick
10.31pm - E: Yes! He's making his World Cup debut here in the final
10.33pm - E: Ooowwww
10.33pm - A: Hahaha
10.35pm - E. Six minutes left
10.36pm - E: The commentators are expecting a dropgoal from the French anytime now
10.36pm - A: The AB's got to show them something soon
10.37pm - E: Sonny Bill Williams, Sonny Bill Williams

10.37pm - E to M: Ah hotshot SBW in the field now
10. 38pm - M: Is that Kiwi slang for Handsome Maori?

10.43pm - E: Aargh
Final whistle - New Zealand won 8 to 7
10.44pm - A: Pfffff
10.44pm - E: My goodnesssss

Cosy together in the bathroom

2011-10-18T21:46:00.002+13:00

Age has a nice new friend in the bathroom. He does hide and seek now and then: one day he's sitting quietly in the corner and the other day he's gone. And the next day he's back!

This one doesn't fit in the category 'slap with a shoe'.

- Evelyn

Bye Ziva!

2011-10-14T21:31:00.001+13:00

Today I've brought Ziva away to the vet to be put down. I just couldn't face it anymore seeing her all day long and thinking 'I have to bring you away soon'.

Her back end wasn't getting any better and she ran out of time.

Very sad, although Ziva's been really happy all along.

- Evelyn

Got the job!!!

2011-10-10T13:59:00.001+13:00

Yes yes yes!!! Got an 8-month contract at the University of South Australia as Instructional Designer at the Division of Health Sciences.

I will be responsible for the design, development and implementation of an education model in the context of Aged Care.

For insiders, this means:
1) setting up a training and mentoring program to enhance clinical supervisory capability;

2) developing a structured orientation program that inducts students and staff to aged care inter-professional placements;

3) and developing the contents of the Aged Care programme.

All in all a broad range of tools and resources will need to be developed, including online.

Woohoo, start 7th November.

- Evelyn

Plaszakken

2011-10-08T01:06:00.001+13:00

Ik heb de hele avond al zo'n lol over die NS plaszakken!
Ieder uur komt er weer een nieuwsberichtje bij met een mening van een of andere betrokken groep en verdwijn ik onder de tafel van het lachen!

- Evelyn

New blog added in links

2011-10-08T00:21:00.001+13:00

Now and then things change a bit in the right-hand menu. I've just added another blog, which may be interesting to follow. It's from Maaike, someone I know from rowing, who has sailed the world, met a farmer and lives with her farmer in France. Her life on the farm can be followed on her blog.

Her blog is written in Dutch. Maybe the google translate module can help a bit :-)

Sleepless night

2011-10-06T21:58:00.001+13:00

Yes I know, we kept to ourselves the last couple of days, but that had its reasons:

Age is working now, and is the one with the mobile internet connection. Long story short: I'm not so well-connected at the moment :-)
We have been busy with our new car
We have been busy with a lot of other things, you know, like cooking, reading a book, walking along the beach...

This sleepless night I mentioned in the title has to do with 'the perfect car buying scam'. The scam works as follows:

Look for a car on the internet. Find one you like from a very kind private person, not a dealer. Make sure the car is as far away located from you as possible, in a tiny village. Test-drive the car on the weekend and be really happy with its performance. Agree on a price with the owner and pay a $200 bond that you arranged beforehand from the bank, where you just opened a bank account because you are new in the country; because of that you haven't got the money yet, as it is still underway from New Zealand to Australia.

Receive a receipt that you have paid the bond. Then the long weekend starts, and banks don't transfer money on holidays, so the first possible day you can pick up the car is the day the money comes through, which is Tuesday. Arrange with the very kind owner to pick the car up on Tuesday after work. Because you have found this car as far away as possible, it will be a trip of 1 hour to get there, but you are looking forward to that too, as you get to drive back in your new car, and even have dinner somewhere on the way back.

Arrange with the rental car company that you will return the rental car you have been driving all the time that evening. Get yourself picked up from work by your girlfriend with the rental car and start the pleasant drive to your new car's destination. Your girlfriend has been busy all day getting the money sorted. This precious cargo sits safely tucked away somewhere in her handbag. The very kind owner preferred cash above a bank cheque, so the handbag is a lot heavier than usual.

You are enjoying the ride very much, as you are reading the map and just found a lovely scenic drive down to the coast where you are going to. You arrive at the destination, the car shines beautifully and is ready to be picked up. The very kind owner has arranged the necessary form, and together you'll fill this out. The money is handed over and finally the car is yours. The owner is sad to see the car go. You can't wait to get in the car and go. So off you go then, with your girlfriend driving the rental car. The girlfriend thinks the car looks rather cool, when driving behind the new car.

You and your girlfriend are quite hungry, so you decide to have something to eat near by, in fact about 1km from where you picked up the car. You both have a hearty meal of home made hamburgers and fries, with something to drink, and then decide to go home, but get some petrol first. Your girlfriend gets in the rental car and drives to the nearest service station, about 500m away. She gets her petrol, pays and finds it strange that you haven't showed up yet. She digs in her handbag for her phone, where she finds your message: 'the car is dead'.

Hmmmmmm. That doesn't sound all that well, does it? So I drive back to find Age sitting in the BMW, which does absolutely nothing, not even the interior light works, while everything just worked fine before dinner! In the dark (it's evening after all), we try to read the owner's manual, you know, that lovely booklet that comes with your car, which you only touch when something is not quite right. Our first thought is the battery of course, but that would be really strange, as there were no signs at all before that there would be something wrong with the battery.

So then we thought of the key. We had the feeling the battery in the key (and we only got 1 key) was flat, and we figured that the key communicates with the electrical circuit somehow, so maybe that was it. So off we went to the service station again (with the rental car), where an ultra friendly staff member helped us out. Yes, they had a battery for our key, yes they had the tools to open the key. All fixed within a minute, we would be underway soon.

One thing we found in the manual was that after changing the battery in the key you have to reset the key with tons of difficult steps like pushing the left button on the key 3x in a row, then also the right button, then turn the key in the ignition while you press those buttons, turn it back, release pressure from the right button, etc. And then the central locking mechanism should click into place and it would all work again. So Age, our master programmer, tried it 20x, but the car was still dead. We looked under the bonnet, but couldn't find anything wrong with the battery and/or the fuse box. Everything looked lovely under the bonnet (in the dark).

Hmmmm. What next?? We rang the very kind previous owner, but he had never experienced anything like it before, and is not a mechanic, so couldn't help us further. Fair enough.
Then we rang roadside assistance. We weren't members yet, so had to sign up on the spot for assistance: ka-tsjing: $280. As we were in this beautiful far away town, roadside assistance would be with us hopefully within an hour - they had to come from Adelaide. It was only 8.45pm, so not that late...

Fifteen minutes later (!), a local tow truck suddenly appeared. The friendly faced tow trucker had a battery pack with him, and hoped that that would help. It didn't, our battery was just fine, but the car wasn't doing anything. Very strange, he thought, but he could tow us away to a nearby yard, where they would repair the car first thing in the morning. We had no other choice, as we were stranded on a parking spot on the main road in this village, a parking spot where you were only allowed to park for 2 hours.

The friendly faced tow trucker said that he understood our concerns, but we could trust him, as he was police vetted. And we could drive with him to the yard, to see where the car would stay for the night. So we gave him our one key, and he got to work and placed our car onto his tow truck. We started to make some pictures, as somehow this started to feel like the perfect scam to us.

We followed the truck to the yard, where a car repair workshop was, and the tow trucker unlocked the gates and reversed in. Before he got our car off his truck, he asked whether we had insurance on the car. Not that anything would happen to the car, it would definitely going nowhere behind the gates, but you never know. No, we only had third pary insurance, which we thought was enough. It would be a bit strange to insure the car at 10pm at night. Luckily for us the tow trucker offered to ring a family member who worked for an insurance company who may be able to do something. But no thanks, we didn't think insurance was necessary.

So he got our car off the truck, locked it, and placed a note for the mechanics under the wipers. We also got a business card so that we could call the repair company the next morning. And Age asked a business card from the friendly tow trucker.The towing bill was $55. Then the tow trucker left and we went in our rental car back home to Adelaide.

But not really. Either everyone in this village was incredibly friendly, or they were all involved in the perfect car scam. We drove away... and took the first left after a few kilometers, and again, and again. And were convinced that we would see the tow trucker again, with a bunch of other friendly locals, busy getting our car whisked away from the yard.

But our car was still there when we arrived back, and there was no one else. So reluctantly we drove back to Adelaide, where we had a bit of a sleepless night, well, what was left of it.
The next morning, Age is taking his shower (a loooonggggg one to wake up) and his phone rings - at 7.15am or so. The mechanic: they had found the BMW with the note, they had had a look and found out what was wrong: one of the contact points of the cable from the battery to the fuse box was corroded and so the cable was split in halve (if I understand it correctly). We could pick up the car in half an hour if we wanted to.

Plain bad luck. No evil locals!
The previous owner of the car felt really sorry after he heard the story and offered to contribute whatever we wanted to compensate for the expenses we made.

Koala!!

2011-10-02T21:32:00.001+13:00

We almost missed this Koala, as it wasn't sitting high up in the trees where we were looking, but quite low at our height!

Age's busy making a pic of the Koala.

Sunbathing turtles

Evelyn in Glenelg, reading the news + email on phone.

And... our new car.

It's a long weekend here now: labour weekend. We're all a bit confused at the moment, as since today we have daylight saving too (missing an hour!). Tomorrow is Age's last holiday before work commences on Tuesday. That means that I'll have to sort myselves out from then on :-)

Besides buying a car we've been busy opening a bank account here, and sorting out how buying a car works, insurance, and getting an Australian drivers licence. We found out that the temporary work visa we have at the moment is quite restricting in some respects: we can't get a credit card for example, or buy a house. It looks like working towards permanent residency will be one of the next things on our list after we're a bit more settled in.

Work-wise for me there are some things happening too: I have been asked to do some more instructional design work for a distance polytechnic in NZ, and on Thursday I'll be having an interview with the University of South Australia for an 8-month instructional design project, starting early November. Exciting!

Our first spider!

2011-10-02T00:37:00.001+13:00

So we're sitting on the couch in our new apartment (next door from our previous apartment), where we have this antique fire place. Painted black, with a white border.

And suddenly, while watching tv Age says 'o'. And there is our first creepy crawler: a white tail spider. Crawling from the blackness onto this bright white boarding.

We recognise it, as we have them in NZ too. Of course this particular one is a lot bigger than any of the white tails we've seen before. Doesn't surprise us as everything is bigger here.

Anyway, a slap with a shoe and then some prodding with a kitchen utensil and it's gone to white tail heaven. That's what Age promised me, as I wasn't sure he actually hit it - i was sure it disappeared back into the blackness.

Age said that if it survived this treatment he'll immediately go back to NZ.

- Evelyn

Old timer experience

2011-09-30T01:24:00.008+13:00

Finding a second hand car for not too much money turns into quite an experience. Yesterday was spent on testing the quality of a 2001 South Australian Holden and a 2003 Peugeot 206, today it was all about the BMWs.
What's interesting about mentioning BMW is the amount of responses with well meant advise we got! But stubborn as we are, we always have to try it out for ourselves...

Early afternoon we drove a 1994 BMW 3-series. Yes, quite a bit older than the Holden and Peugeot, but only slightly cheaper.
While Evelyn always promptly hands in her driver's license as security for the owner, I take the steering wheel. Evelyn then has the additional task of finding a test route on the iPhone with GPS. Since this dealer was situated next to the motorway, we thought we should make use of that and include it in our test (we're getting the hang of it - could almost join the Top Gear crew).
So, we take off and I notice my window is fully opened so I start pressing all buttons but none works. Turns out that there is no button for raising the window: you just have to turn the handle... Luckily Evelyn points it all out, and starts navigating us through our test round.
I have to say, never driven a car before that's so direct in it's steering. Great experience till Evelyn realizes that the route we've taken doesn't actually enter the motorway but goes underneath it... At the same time the fuel indicator starts lighting up, so turning back seems the best option. (In a previous episode we stranded on the motorway near Wellington whilst testing a VW Golf without any petrol).
So, whilst initiating the three point turn we both realize that before we started our test ride we were unable to determine how one actually puts the gearbox into reverse. Oh oh...! And so we end up parked at a 30 degree angle against the curb. And no way to get that gear box into reverse! We both know how to do it in a VW: you press it down before putting in reverse. We've also had a car with an O-ring that you had to lift. But how is it done in a BMW? There's no O-ring, so perhaps you have to lift it by the knob? So I lift the gear handle by its knob but the next second I'm left with the knob in my hand separated from its gearbox... I've just put it back on; as you do.
And what do you do if you're basically blocking the road and can't reverse? You just drive straight ahead: so up the curb across the grass and... accelerate!
Once back at the dealer we thought we should ask how to put it in reverse. Turns out it's done just like a VW; but this one needs a bit of 'wiggling'. Doesn't sound good, does it?

Tonight the BMW experience got even better. A 7-series for sale in 'excellent condition'. All Internet sites will tell you that these cars are hard to fail: they keep going and that's exactly what the owner tells us as well. So we make our way to an address in North Adelaide and find ourselves looking at a... tank. Big and heavy, and that's what it feels like. I don't know what happened to the power steering, but taking a roundabout was like a workout in the gym. And that wasn't the only thing not working. Because it's a European car I keep hitting the screen wipers rather than the indicator and that told us immediately that the engine driving the wipers was still functioning, but the wipers clearly weren't attached.
Being quite an exclusive model, the dashboard was full of indicator lights but also warning lights, and messages: 'coolant low', 'check owner's manual', and many more interesting literature. Because of the handling difficulties I described before, and all the worrying noises the car makes, I probably missed a number of other alarming messages.
We both soon agreed that this wasn't going to be our bargain of the night.

Nevertheless, we've had the experience of a life time - all in one day.
The search continues.

Aaarghh, cars are difficult!

2011-09-28T23:44:00.001+13:00

Finding a car is really hard! There are soooo many and it's soooo easy to keep looking for more features, bells and whistles.

My idea was to buy a crappy car for under $5000. That's not easy as there is a lot of very boring crap. And we don't want boring. So suddenly we found ourselves looking and test-driving $7500-$9000 cars.

We drove a VW Golf cabrio: nice, but not handy. And actually quite hot when you're waiting for a red light in 30 degrees.

We drove a VW Golf from the same age as the one above, to compare driving characteristics. After meeting the dealer and driving the car we both felt the huge urgency to sanitise our hands and take a shower.

Then the third car: a Holden Commodore. Boring!!! But value for money and made in Oz.

Tomorrow we're going to try a Peugeot.

My eyes are constantly drawn to old Beetles, in those sunny bright colours! So nice! There are a lot of oldtimers around, I guess Adelaide probably has the right climate to conserve cars.

We just saw a BMW 5-something for under $2000. Sounds interesting too. To be continued...

- Evelyn

We found a little house for the next 8 months

2011-09-28T01:02:00.002+13:00

We have been rather productive today and yesterday. We applied for a unit in Norwood (which is very close to the CBD), but didn't get it, because we didn't want to sign up for a lease of 12 months. And that's not what the owner had in mind.

Any spare minute we have is spent browsing the internet, looking for furnished accommodation, also unfurnished because there is so little available for a reasonable price, for cars, and other information. We had one other property on our sleeve that we liked, a bit further from town, in Coromandel Valley. It had an open inspection on Wednesday, but we didn't want to wait that long and managed to arrange an appointment today through the real estate agent. Good for us the owner was at the house and she liked us :-)

It was a very nice and suitable place for us, furnished too, and well priced. We closed the deal more or less on the spot there and then and after the agent checked us out with our references we got it! Good news, and one major thing that we can remove from our list.

The next days we'll be busy with:

Finding a car. That's not easy, as we still have a car in NZ, so we don't want to spend too much. Rather as little as possible. But there is just too much choice: a 1973 Volkswagen Beetle old model? A VW Golf cabriolet? A Landrover? An Audi? A horrible Mercedes? Or an MG?
Opening a bank account
Finding accommodation for the coming week.
Arranging flights and hotel in Melbourne, as Age's first job in his new job takes place in Melbourne.
Enjoying Adelaide :-)

We are actually really enjoying ourselves, driving around in our car, criss-cross through Adelaide, today in 31 degrees! Very nice. Our new rental place is quite close to Belair National Park, which we visited today for a quick walk around a small lake. We saw lots of different duck species, lorikeets, parakeets, cockatoos, and turtles! So nice! And we ate our lunch in Blackwood's botanical gardens, where we saw lots of birds too - a shame all those colourful birds fly so fast and so high in the canopy.

We also regularly walk along the beach here in Glenelg, and go for a stroll in the neighbourhood. It's amazing how many people live in a mansion (a huge characterful house), how do they do that?? Not only here, but everywhere, there are so many very nice houses; we'd like to know how to get one too!

House hunting has begun

2011-09-25T19:54:00.001+13:00

After a nice breakfast in Glenelg we headed out in our rental car to drive by a few possible furnished rentals we had shortlisted.

First we went quite far North to Mawson Lakes and found the two properties we were looking for. We didn't like it very much, it's a major development area and looked pretty much the same as those cramped new developments in The Netherlands (like Stadshagen in Zwolle). It didn't feel like Adelaide at all and the commute to the CBD wouldn't be very nice either.

Good knowledge to have, we can delete that area from our list.

Next was a property far South. It took us an hour to get there, and this property on our list happened to have an open inspection time today. But we also found it too far from the city - the commute would be an hour one way according to the real estate agent.

We drove back via a scenic road to a third property that was on paper our favourite. This one was more in the foothills. Very nice, and it looked like a nice place too. But still about 30mins by car to the city over quite windy roads.

We're now looking for more rentals (unfurnished) much closer to town, so that cycling can be an option too.

For the first time in five years: delicious crusty dark bread. We can't stop eating!!!

Evelyn

In Adelaide!!

2011-09-25T00:33:00.001+12:00

We have made it - we're in Adelaide, in a rental place that resembles a run-down apartment in Amsterdam :-)

Adrian picked us up this morning, while we were still hoovering and mopping the floors. Our house has to be open home ready at all times... He dropped us off at the airport and we flew to Chch. Of course they just had had another quake there this morning!

As Age is a Quantas club member we got to use those fancy lounges! Excellent, there's no other word. So convenient! Especially when your next plane to Sydney departs 1.5hrs later than planned!

The delay was caused by a mechanical fault in one of the engines (sometimes you get too much information), and they had to start one engine first, then tow us backwards into the right position and then start the other engine?!

All went okay and we arrived in a very wet Sydney, too late to catch our connection flight to Adelaide. We went onto the next flight, barely had time to enjoy the Qantas lounge in Sydney.

Another 2.5hr flight and now finally we're here where we need to be.

- Evelyn

Getting ready for take-off

2011-09-22T16:26:00.005+12:00

[Me and my mum shortly after her arrival a couple of weeks ago, basking in the sun on our verandah. Those huge thick black pressure socks she's wearing came off almost immediately (but not in time for this photo :-))]

Yesterday we had our goodbye-do. We invited people we got to know here in the last 1.5 years, and it was a great success! People could pop in any time they liked from 5pm onwards, we would serve fingerfood, and they'd bring their own drinks. After contemplating what to serve, we chose a hearty meal with dessert, for those who would be here around dinner time.

That worked really well; I made Osso Bucco - a slow-cooking stew - and it was terrific, also thanks to Age's meat finding abilities! My new nickname: domestic goddess :-) Not sure if I'm happy about that!

Somehow we ended up with way more wine than we started; we figured because of our 'do' being mid-week and people holding back? We served loads of coffee and tea, chocolate and home-baked cake :-)

Today I spent some time in the garden weeding. Imagine how it will look like in three weeks time! A wilderness I think! Age worked on de-installing someone's computer today, and getting his motorbike ready for pick-up. He has sold it!

Tonight we'll be playing tennis, with some more drinks afterwards and some more goodbyes. Tomorrow I'll be playing golf in some sort of team challenge, and Age will mow the lawns and start packing his bag(s). Hmm, me too I assume. And do some washing.

Did I tell you already that we've found accommodation for our first week in Adelaide? It's a basic sort of cottage in Glenelg, near the beach. That will give us some time to sort something out that's more permanent and probably furnished. 'First week in Adelaide', sounds like it's months away, but we're flying out this Saturday :-)

[Glenelg]

We have people looking after our house, and I'll be back in about three weeks time to see how things are going. Also to work actually - instructional design work.

By the way, now that I'm typing it's funny to see that my right hand is a lot more tanned than my left hand. That's because of golf and wearing a glove!

Less than a week to go...

2011-09-17T18:26:00.002+12:00

Apologies for the video clip announcement in my previous post: it didn't work from outside New Zealand. I do have a 1 minute summary of the programme :-)

It's less than a week before we head off to Adelaide! How strange is that! The coming days will be filled with looking for accommodation for the first days, with saying goodbyes here and organising drinks, with me playing a golf match on Friday, with looking for a cattery for Ziva for a couple of weeks, with doing the garden (weeding!), and so forth.

I'm already busy selling lots of clothes through TradeMe. Age is selling his motorbike at the moment. And when the house is sold there is more stuff we're going to sell, as we still want to get rid of 7m3 of stuff.

Now off to James and Gill for dinner! See you later :-)

I played a 27-hole tournament today, so will probably nod off sometime during dinner. We had a beautiful day today, sunny and about 16 degrees. Adelaide hit 30 degrees today - as Matt (from Adelaide) was saying: spring is in the air!

Sneak Peak of Adelaide Surrounds

2011-09-14T21:52:00.002+12:00

Have a look at this episode of 'My kind of Place', about South Australia, and Adelaide's Barossa Valley and the Murray River in particular. There are a few ad breaks - even in TV on demand, grrr.

It could be that this video is only available for two more days, so no time to waste! Presented by one of McLeod's daughters - you know, those Australian cowgirls :-)

Two weeks to go...

2011-09-09T20:24:00.001+12:00

No bites on our deadline sale, unfortunately. No panic though, we get the numbers through, so there must be a buyer somewhere.

The Rugby World Cup 2011 has just started! New Zealand is hosting this event, and it's total madness. The first match is the All Blacks vs Tonga. We're ready for it :-)

Tomorrow another open home.

We have had three different movers around for a quote, and they all say that we have about 7m3 too much stuff for a small container. So we have been busy with our inventory list to identify items, which we could give away or sell. Piano or no piano? Single bed? Table saw? Clothes dryer?

- Evelyn

Feng Shui

2011-09-07T10:16:00.002+12:00

Okaaaayyyy..... My mum discovered my Feng Shui book. On one of the pages it says:

"Feng Shui for a quick sale of your home".

"To speed up the sale of your home, do the following:

Fill a red envelope with:

A piece of metal from the kitchen
A piece of wood from a skirting board (plint)
A bit of dirt from the garden

and throw the envelope in a fast-streaming river."

Hahahaha, you'd think. But.... you never know. So I was certain I'd seen a red envelope somewhere, and I found one (with a stamp :-)) in Age's desk. Then we took a fork from the kitchen, I broke off a little piece of one of the skirting boards in the bedroom, and my mum dug up some dirt from the garden.

And then she took off to a fast streaming stream on the hills behind us. There is a path there, going uphill through the bush, and you really think you're the only one on earth when you walk there. So my mum was walking there, alone, and found a good spot to throw this envelope in the stream. After she'd thrown it in the water, it didn't sink immediately, so she pushed it down with a stick or something. When she looked up there was a girl standing behind her!! The girl said: "hey a red envelope!" And tried to fish it out of the water. "No No, hands off," my mum said, "this is Feng Shui".

Anyway, the girl walked away, and my mum too, a little bit behind. When she came around the corner, there was this girl, talking to a man! Anyway, my mum had to pass them, and actually nothing happened. We'll never know what they talked about, but the envelope probably has been fished out of the water already. And my mum might be happy not getting fined for trying to contaminate the stream with a red envelope :-)

3 weeks to go!

2011-09-05T08:44:00.003+12:00

This weekend we had the last of our three open homes before the deadline sale on Thursday. We had 9 parties through this time, and it flushed out one prospective buyer. We accumulated 3.5 possible parties who might go and do something on Thursday. The .5 is a couple where the man had set his eyes on our house 18 months ago, and when he drives past it he always thinks 'when this one comes on the market I want it', but his wife isn't so keen as he is. And according to the real estate agent: 'the wife always wins'.

Today is Age's last trip to Wellington! I just dropped him off at the airport for the last time! Goodbye-drinks on Tuesday, and then Wednesday a slow day and coming home again. He initially planned to have two weeks off after that until we depart to Adelaide, but one of those weeks has already been filled with work in Canberra.

My mum is still here, and has unbelievably good weather. There hasn't been a cloud in the sky these two weeks she has been here. She is enjoying the garden, the house, the outdoor furniture, and the scenery, and we've been driving around a lot. We also played golf on a 9 hole golf course, on the Kina Cliffs. The name says it all, 'cliffs'. It's quite steep! But beautiful, with incredible vistas. On one of those steep slopes my golf cart decided to go the other way! It took off on it's own, downhill. We couldn't even see it anymore, and we laughed so hard that it hurt. It came to a standstill eventually, upside down, with clubs and stuff everywhere.

Yesterday, after we cleaned the house for the open home, we went to Mapua for lunch, and then to Abel Tasman National Park to sniff the seabreeze and walk the first 500m (!) of the famous track. It was getting late and cold, that's our excuse :-)

Age played tennis with James, who had just returned from a 4-week holiday to the UK, and who wanted to check whether he could still play tennis.

An eventful week this week, with Age's finish with The MetService, our deadline sale on Thursday, and my mum going home again, also on Thursday.

Only 4 weeks to go...

2011-08-28T09:33:00.003+12:00

And then we're winging to Adelaide. Sounds ridiculous.

We've had our second open home yesterday, and there have been 6 groups of people through. My mum (who arrived last Thursday) and I were on the golf course, were I played golf, and she attended the flag stick, raked bunkers, and pushed trolleys around.

Age cleaned the house and mopped the floors in the meantime :-)

Sooooooooo..... yes, only four weeks to go.

By the way, we have the most beautiful weather! We've even watered the garden a couple of times because it became quite dry, and the plants were looking a bit sad. Not something you'd think of when it's winter.

House'n things

2011-08-21T15:31:00.003+12:00

This week I have been busy working on the redesign of a course, for a distance learning organisation here in NZ. Very nice, and there may be more work on the way.

I also started a golf rules course, held at the Nelson Golf Club. My friend Anne dragged me along! She mentioned that the previous week it was a very cold 2 hours in the clubrooms, so I came prepared for this week's session. As I've told you on this blog numerous times, New Zealanders have something against heating their homes and other premises. I haven't figured out yet why that is exactly, but in winter when you go out for dinner, go to the pub, go to a golf rules course at your local club, or go to someone's house, you need to be prepared to get cold. The strange thing is that kiwi's complain about the cold too!

Anyway, this time the clubrooms would be even colder, as a bitterly cold southerly blasted us almost from the carpark, and during the day we'd even seen some snow here! Luckily for me Anne brought a blanket to put over our legs (she wasn't the only one!). After the course, when I got home I had a very hot and very long shower.

Age, meanwhile, was in Wellington - see our previous post - where they had a real wintery blast with snow at sea level, which hadn't been seen for over 40 years. A wonderful short movie clip about the snow in Wellington can be seen here. Yes, people wear t-shirts year round.

What else... ah, we witnessed something fabulous: Ziva who started pooping, and then suddenly went to her litter tray, dug a hole, pooped in her tray, and walked away. That she wasn't finished yet was just a minor glitch.

And we have had our first open home today. According to the real estate agent, who left a quick note on the table, we had 10 groups of people through. Good news! He'll ring those people tonight and will then brief us on the feedback he's got.

O, and just when we wanted to leave for the open home, we got into the car, reversed off the driveway, and something didn't feel quite allright: a puncher! Really great, one of the rear tyres flat, grrrrrrr. Age got the air thingy for our bicycles and pumped some air in it, and then we suddenly had a mission: going to the service station to get some air. There Age found out that something was stuck to the tyre, a piece of metal or so. Anyway, after a cup of coffee (with cake), we came home again, and had a good look. Yes, there was definitely something sitting there. Age got a tool and pulled it out of the tyre. Halfway through: psssssssssjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj. Our tyre was now really empty, and there was an enormous screw, something that can absolutely hold your house together on its own. Well, we rang the AA, they came round, and fixed our emergency tyre. So tomorrow I'll be on a mission to get the bloody thing repaired :-(

Winter weather

2011-08-15T18:28:00.001+12:00

Quite the extremes yesterday: snowstorm in Wellington, where they haven't seen so much snow in over 40 years, and a lovely sunny beach in Nelson.

Snow shower seen from Metservice today

Snow on the Makara hills near Wellington.

Today we had some snow flurries here in Richmond as well. Very unusual. And cold!!

- Evelyn

Getting ready for sale

2011-08-14T16:25:00.002+12:00

Last week we've finished almost everything that was on our to do list to make the house ready for the market. Our to do list was rather small, which felt a bit strange really. We even added some things on the list that weren't very necessary, like touching up the verandah. That particular one ended up to be the biggest job. I had to paint the whole verandah, because the colour of the paint I used was clearly different than the original paint. I used the correct pot with leftover paint, but the verandah was a bit discoloured by the sun!

On Tuesday I spent the morning tidying up and styling, because the photographer would come along. It was the most beautiful day, so we're very curious at how the pics are. We'll know in a couple of hours, as we'll go to the agent to select the pics for the website, advertisements and sign.

Age was away last week, he went to Wellington and then to Adelaide for business. He said it was really strange to go back to NZ again! It is all coming closer now, we're busy house hunting for example, and where this started off as a taste of what you can get for your money, it's becoming a bit more serious now. The properties we have in our shortlist at the moment may very well be still on the market when we arrive.
We have also found some really nice furnished rental properties for the short term - we have to live somewhere when we arrive, don't we?

What else? Ah, job opportunities for me! I'm keeping an eye on the job boards, and now and then something interesting comes along. But it has to be very interesting will I give up on my business or put it on the backburner. There should be a lot better perspective for my business in Adelaide than here, so I'm looking forward to spending energy in building it up further.

Next week the advertisements for our home will be written, the first ad will appear, and we'll have our first open home. I can't wait!

Full steam ahead

2011-08-05T15:03:00.002+12:00

Last Friday when we opened this nice bottle of wine, we made a planning for the things to do to get us to Adelaide. We also set some crucial dates. Although you never know how things will work out exactly, you can't think too much about all the if's and when's - otherwise nothing ever gets done.

So we used as our starting point the scenario of getting ourselves as soon as possible in Adelaide, because that's what this is all about, isn't it? Long story short: we booked our one-way tickets and leave New Zealand on the 24th of September.

Now that we have a departure date we also know how much time we have to sell our house. Not that much, but we just heard on the news that in the last month or so the market has turned around from a buyers market to a sellers market :-)

Anyway, we had some trouble with the decision of 'selling privately' or 'selling with an agent'. We went to Green Door, a company where you can sell your home privately - you buy marketing packages from them, and don't have to use their agents. Green Door is widely used here in the area, and seemed a good option to save money. The lady who discussed with us their packages wasn't one of my favourites, but I agreed with an appointment to let her have a look at our house, because 'that's what they usually do'. Well, she didn't turn up! So after that, plus the fact that their marketing packages were totally inflexible, we thought they could stick it in their @$#^$&^.

One of the things the lady pointed out to us was that the difference between the rating valuation (RV - what the council uses to base their rates on) and the price we bought the property for was very big. So we may want to consider to get a re-valuation done. We thought the same, so made an appointment with a valuer. The thing with the RV is that potential buyers often use that as a starting point for offers. The RV gets updated only every 3 years, and a lot can happen in those years, like major renovations, or just an increase in value in a booming market. In our case the property had been improved by major renovations. Long story short: the valuer was totally impressed, wanted to buy the place himself if he just hadn't bought a section to build on. And brought the value up with a jaw-dropping amount.

Very good news indeed! Now we have to find this buyer who is willing to pay more for the house than we did :-) We left Green Door for wat it is, and signed up with an agent from Bayleys. We opted for a Deadline Sale on the 8th of September (unless sold prior of course). To be continued I guess!

Celebration

2011-07-29T20:13:00.001+12:00

Celebrating our visa for Australia with a very special bottle of wine from McLaren Vale in Adelaide.

Mat gave us this bottle when we were out winetasting and we managed to get it to NZ in one piece. It's the Dead Arm Shiraz 2007 from d'Arenberg.

More information on this particular bottle of wine: http://www.darenberg.com.au/products/the-icons/2007-the-dead-arm

- Evelyn

Okay, a little bit more music :-)

2011-07-26T16:48:00.003+12:00

One more Elbow song, because they're just great!

Visa!

2011-07-26T15:38:00.001+12:00

Our Australian visas came through today!!!
I know, strange spelling; in English it's one visa, two visas. Doesn't sound quite right, does it? Anyway, great result and rather quickly!

The next hurdle is our house, we will put that on the market soon. And make a bit of a planning - when to leave New Zealand?

- Evelyn

Music!

2011-07-25T09:15:00.005+12:00

Are you bored? Haven't heard a nice piece of music lately? Then listen to the band Elbow with the BBC Orchestra!

Okay, and here their latest single :-)

Woohoo!

2011-07-23T18:40:00.001+12:00

I've won the club champ finals in my division!! Played well, was up from the start and just had to keep my cool. I was very happy with my new big umbrella and umbrella holder, great to have your hands free and stand dry under it when waiting for your opponent's next shot.

The final was played over 36 holes. I was 3 up after the first 18 holes. After a quick lunch we moved on for another 18 holes, and finally won on the 14th of that round. Chuffed to bits :-)))

- Evelyn

And finally the snow came!

2011-07-15T11:22:00.003+12:00

We had a lot of rain with cold temperatures the last couple of days, but a few k's further south, east and west (everywhere around us really) the rain became snow! The desperate people at the ski fields will be happy now. So are we, as it makes for great scenery now that the sun finally arrived. The pics are made from our bedroom - zoomed in to the max, which makes it look like we're living in an alpine village and that's not the case, we're in a sunny seaside village :-) Mt Arthur is probably about 40mins drive from us.

And there is wombat Ziva, keeping an eye out on the fence.

Finals!

2011-07-09T15:40:00.002+12:00

So we have the Club Championships on at the golf club at the moment. There are three divisions: Gold (handicap 1-18.4), Silver (18.5 - 24.4), and Bronze (24.5 - 40(?)). I'm in the Silver division and won my match (it's matchplay off the stick, so your handicap doesn't count) last week. I was quite pleased about that, especially because my opponent got really grumpy!

Then today I played the topseed of our division, and I won this match as well! Woohooo, I'm really chuffed! My winning streak started on hole number 1, where I had an awful chip, you know one of those screaming ones over the ground - and I yelled 'hit the pin, hit the pin'! Well, it hit the pin and went straight into the hole! That was a nice par and my opponent couldn't do a thing against it, she wasn't even on the green yet.

The next round in the club champs is the finals, which is a matchplay round over 36 holes. And apparently the finalists are to go on 'tour' to Hokitika later in the year, to play in the 'Champion of Champions' tournament.

Freezing

2011-07-04T08:43:00.002+12:00

And.... It's winter!!

Frosty this morning.

Beautiful camellia's are in full bloom.

Even this fuchsia is going strong!

A clear and crisp afternoon on the golf course.

- Evelyn

Visa application and poo-fest

2011-07-03T12:33:00.002+12:00

Age has the impression that we're quite far in the visa application process already. He is trying to make sense of what kind of visa we need, what we need to do and what Matt (prospective employer) needs to do. The fastest way to get to Australia is through a 4-year temporary visa. Opting for a permanent visa straight away will take a few months longer, as there are health checks required and more paperwork (like character checks, birth certificates, English language proficiency, etc.) involved. So for us a temp visa will do for now. We can always start the permanent visa application process after we've arrived in Australia, something we might do as there are certain benefits of having a permanent visa, like being able to study, or using the state health care system.

Matt has to go through a nomination process, and needs to get permission to nominate Age for the role he has on offer. Sounds complicated, but he thinks it's all very easy and his part is almost done. So it's our turn now to fill out some forms and upload certain documents, which is what Age is doing right now. A timeframe for the visa to come through? We have no idea, a couple of weeks? Sooooooooo, that means that we need to make our home ready to put it on the market!

I've been doing some DIY (do it yourself) last week to finish the leftovers of a wall we've removed a while ago. And I'll replant half of the vege garden again with shrubs, as that particular part is a bare patch of land at the moment.

And then the poo-fest.... Ziva wasn't feeling very well on Wednesday and Thursday, and I went to the vet for her acupuncture session, and the vet said: "O, there is a big chunck of poo sitting here. I'm going to remove that." So he put on some gloves, and removed quite a bit of poo. Immediately after that her bottom was half the size of what it was before! Quite remarkable. He recommended adding some fatty substances to her food, to help her digestion. So I bought something and added it to Ziva's food the next day. Well, she was still not very happy, a bit grumpy on Saturday. She was lying on the armrest of a chair (on a tea towel, yes), when she stood up and went upstairs. I saw a piece of poo stuck in her bottom, so I thought I'll help her and get it out. I got a tissue, and Ziva was on the bed in the spare bedroom (on a towel, yes), and I pulled on this piece of poo. Well, it came out with a 'plop', and that was not all of it: suddenly my whole tissue was filled with poo, and my hands and arms, and the towel, as I don't know how much more came out of her! I had no idea such a tiny cat could poo like two grown-up men! I had to flush the toilet three times, it was insane! Poor thing, she had just been very constipated! After that, she was happy as! Never seen a happier cat, purring and cuddly, and clean.

She is still incontinent by the way, but the numb area is getting much smaller according to the vet. Fingers crossed!

Design!

2011-06-24T14:51:00.003+12:00

What do you think of this Isamu Nugochi coffee table:
And this Eames / Saarinen chair:
And this Grant Featherson chair:
Yes, we like it too! Delivery is next week :-)

Conversation

2011-06-19T20:06:00.001+12:00

E: is Australia bigger than Russia?

A: Russia has 17million square km of land. And oz 7.5million. So Russia is much bigger.

E: geez.

A: and the number of inhabitants is 3:8. So 3 people per square km in oz and 8 in Russia.

E: ah. And The Netherlands? Densely inhabited, so what do you think? Twelve? Twenty? Per square km?

A: (searching in iphone). Netherlands? Four hundred people per square km!

E: !!!- Evelyn

E: and New zealand?

A: do I really have to look that up too?!
16...

More strong quakes in Christchurch

2011-06-13T21:39:00.002+12:00

Pffff, happy that I don't have a house to sell in Christchurch. Those poor people there must be mentally exhausted by all those 'aftershocks' - I wouldn't call them aftershocks anymore, they're big enough to just call them 'quakes'. Today a big 5.5 and a 6.0 an hour later, with a lot of damage to the buildings that were already damaged and probably a lot of added stress.

Wine and Ash Cloud

2011-06-13T11:36:00.002+12:00

Yesterday we played a tennis tournament here in the countryside, in the Moutere Hills. We were invited to participate, as "we don't have kids and therefore probably had the time" to spend a Sunday doing something trivial as playing tennis. We went from our club with two other players, James and Trish, and after picking them up we drove together to Upper Moutere (pronounce Moe-tuh-rie, or, Moetrie).

Age and I sailed through (not really) the first three matches, then won the semi-finals and then had to play James and Trish in the finals! So the invited guests were going to run away with the prizes!
We lost our finals after a good game, and won two bottles of wine each from a local winery, and then some spot prizes: two real fruit icecreams, which we had on our way back home, and a kilo of grass seed for the lawn :-)

Then in the news is this volcano in Chile, spewing ash into the air. The ash cloud has arrived here, causing airlines to cancel almost all flights between Australia and New Zealand. It seems we arrived just in time back in New Zealand, although Age is planning to go to Melbourne either this week or next week - he doesn't know yet when, and packed a 'just in case' bag for Wellington today. Slightly complicating things for him is the fact that his bag got lost today...

What else... O yes, in Auckland the other day, on our way back from Adelaide, we boarded our flight to Christchurch. The pilot said that 10 minutes earlier we weren't going to depart due to fog in Chch, but things seems to clear up, so we were 'going to take a look'. Off we went, and from the air you could see that in chch it was a clear night, except for some foggy patches here and there. Well, as soon as we were just about on the runway to land we hit the fog and the plane accellerated and off we went again! O dear...

Then we made a bit of a circle, and the pilot announced that we were going to try the other runway! Looking out of the window it didn't look that flash, still patchy fog here and there. But this time luckily we made it, the fog wasn't that thick here, and it appeared that our flight was one of the only ones to land - other services had been cancelled or returned to where they came from. Really, that's a waste of time, isn't it?

Adelaide - part 5 (Thursday and trip back)

2011-06-11T14:54:00.007+12:00

Already our last day in Adelaide! To summarise our decision process in a few words: YES, Age accepts the job offer, and wants to use his time with Matt today to discuss the details of the offer.
Together we went to town to have a look at the new office space, after which Lois, Richard and I left him alone to do his thing. The office is located in the yellow building on the photo, which is an old and heritage type building with retail on the ground floor and many web 2.0 businesses on the first floor, and looks very similar to the Old Bank Arcade in Wellington.

By the time Lois and Richard dropped me off at Roger's for golf, Age had finished his chat with Matt over a coffee - we all thought he would spend his day there, but no, not at all! The negotiations went rather quickly :-) Everyone very excited!

I played golf on a golf course with fairways that could have been our greens, which was a totally different experience. I hardly dared to touch the grass at all to be honest. I was also now and then slightly distracted by all the birds, just like you're walking in the tropical bird area in a zoo, with Galah's, lorikeets, parakeets and God knows what else. All VERY common in Australia, but hey.

In the evening we went out for dinner with Lois and Richard, and Matt and Sarah, to a tapas and pizza place. Again, the food was lovely, and it was nice that everyone was so excited for us to come to Adelaide.

It won't be a matter of just changing one country for the other. We have to go through the whole visa application process from scratch, with health checks, etcetera. For Age's new employer it's the first time they're hiring someone from another country, so we all have to work together to find out what the best route is. Then we also have to sell our house of course, although we could choose to keep it and rent it out and blahblahblah, but we'd rather just start over again.

After dinner we said goodbye to Matt and Sarah, went back to our hotel, set the alarm for the following morning as we would check out and return to New Zealand. We had breakfast with Lois and Richard in their room, muesli and yoghurt, which was really nice for a change, and then said goodbye and see you soon to them too.

All went well on our trip back, and we're back home now! Picked up Ziva from the cattery - no change, no improvement, still incontinent :-( - and need to do some grocery shopping for dinner.
Tennis tournament tomorrow!

Adelaide - part 4 (Wednesday)

2011-06-11T13:59:00.005+12:00

Our plan for the day was to do an extended tour of the Adelaide Hills, as tourists. The hills are quite popular with day tourists, as there are little villages to visit, and (I can't remember...) probably also wineries (?). Adelaide has a big German and Italian community, and it shows in villages as 'Hahndorf', and 'Lobethal'. A good thing about that is that we had great German sausages and kartoffelsalad in Hahndorf!! Yummmmm. And there are also heaps of Italian restaurants and cafes - more yummm! The pictures are from Hahndorf.

You wouldn't want to live there though, too touristic, not a 'real' town. But the first village when you go over the hill is Stirling, and there it was actually quite nice. Very green and bushy too, and a 3-lane freeway brings you there in minutes. Lois and I found a fashion store (of course) in the village centre and we both went on a shopping spree!

Back in Adelaide we didn't have much time to change for dinner; Lois and Richard had made arrangements with friends and we would go to their place (the house pictures in one of the previous Adelaide posts feature their home) for drinks and nibbles and then go out to a Vietnamese restaurant. It was really nice to see one of those old houses from the inside, do some putting in the garden (Roger, the owner, had made a putting practice area in the garden :-)), and to ask them questions about working and living in Adelaide. There was another couple as well, so should we decide to move we already have 3 couples (including Matt and Sarah) where we are invited for dinner :-)

What did we learn about Adelaide:

tap water is gross. Most people either filter their water or drink bottled water.
this year they didn't have many flies, but last year they had a lot of flies.
nobody seems overly concerned about spiders, snakes, scorpions, crocodiles, and all those other lovely creatures that we don't have here.
... and probably more. Can't remember.
golf seems really expensive, both couples play golf, and pay a $6000 joining fee, and then 'just' $2.500 annual subs. Eeeks! I pay $750 or so per year and found that ridiculous! Luckily there are lots of golf courses in Adelaide, so I have to check them all out, should we move.

The Vietnamese restaurant was great, the food very good, and we had a pleasant evening. Roger invited me for a round of golf the next day, so we all were going to go our own way: Roger and I would play golf, Age would catch up with Matt about his job offer and have a look at the office, and Lois and Richard would have some time for themselves.

Adelaide - part 3 (Tuesday)

2011-06-11T13:22:00.008+12:00

On Tuesday we found a nice cafe for our breakfast, and decided to head out to yet another suburb, one that Matt and Sarah particularly like, before we would meet Lois and Richard. They drove from Canberra in a couple of days to Adelaide, with a bit of sightseeing on the side. The recommended suburb was picture-postcard perfect, but the houses there are probably 4x over our budget. Also we saw a lot of lawn bowling clubs, which means that the average age of the population there may be close to 80 years :-)

Age was really good in finding his way around, racing from one suburb to the other. I just can't seem to handle straight streets and square blocks, and got lost everywhere I went. I am much better at curves and hills. What we found is that you can get around really quick from beach to hills, from CBD to suburbs, etc. There are enough roads, and the main roads are all 2 lanes or more. I've never seen so many traffic lights though, that's what you get when you plan a city with a grid-like streetplan.

We met with Lois and Richard at our hotel, where they would stay with us for 3 days, and headed straight to Glenelg on the beach for lunch. After a walk on the pier we thought we'll do some more sightseeing, so we drove to the Adelaide Hills to Mount Lofty, the highest point of the area (which really isn't that high). We noticed that the closer to the hills, the more bush there is in the suburbs. People living in the foothills live more or less in a gumtree forest, which might be quite nice when it's close to 40 degrees in summer. We also read that the average temperature in the hills is 2-4 degrees lower than in the city, and that they have 4 distinctive seasons. So we definitely wanted to check out the hills area, and see how long it would take to get there.

Mount Lofty was really cold! We spent 3 minutes outside and headed straight for the summit cafe with hot chocolate.
On the pictures you'll see over Adelaide, the CBD in the middle, the suburbs around the CBD, the hills close by, and the sea in the distance.

In the evening we went out for dinner, again a pub meal, this time with rather burnt steaks!

Adelaide - part 2 (Monday)

2011-06-11T12:01:00.005+12:00

On Monday we had the day to ourselves. My first impression of Adelaide was that I didn't like it very much; the colours of Australia are totally different from New Zealand. Where NZ is fresh, very green (at the moment), white and blue, and with houses in every colour of the rainbow, Australia seems to have every earthy tone there is: brown, beige, yellow, red, and everything in between. And in first instance they only seem to have one tree species, the gum tree (eucalypt).

So on Monday if we were to choose between Adelaide and Wellington, it would definitely be Wellington. I mention Wellington on purpose here, and not Nelson, as it is Wton (or Auckland, or Christchurch for that matter) where the opportunities are. And we decided that we would like to be closer to those opportunities than we currently are. So before we went to Adelaide we sort of decided that we were going to move anyway. But where to wasn't really clear, and the plan was to use this week to sort ourselves out.

What we wanted to see from Adelaide was probably a bit different than what a tourist would want to see, as we'd like to get an idea whether it would be a nice city to live in. So we wanted to check out the suburbs, the landscape, house prices, how quickly you get around through town (Adelaide has over 1 million inhabitants), the quality of the coffee (hugely important), etc. So after a hearty breakfast, a stroll through the main shopping street, a walk along the river Torrens, and finding a great delicatessen foodcourt where we got ourselves a wonderful lunch for a picnic, we headed out in our rental car to a couple of suburbs of which we'd heard that they were particularly nice. The pics below are from Glenelg, a popular beachside surburb.
Adelaide is situated on the South Coast of Australia, so has beaches (and beachside suburbs), and is on the Eastern Side enclosed by hills - the Adelaide Hills, with more hilly and leafy suburbs. The houses are not made of weatherboard, but mostly of sandstone or brick, and there are many houses that look like the NZ cottages or Victorian villas. Besides the small CBD there are no high-rise buildings or flats. Most people live in a house with a garden.

One big difference with NZ is that cafe's and restaurants actually heat their places! I didn't expect that at all, but I also didn't expect just 14 degrees and rain :-)
In NZ you often sit in the cold in winter, but I guess that all those airco's in Adelaide are used in winter to heat the place up. Very comfy!
We had a nice pub meal somewhere after driving around, and a lot of impressions to digest. Also a little bit of a jetlag (Adelaide is 2.5 hours behind NZ), so we went to bed early, and would meet Lois and Richard the next day.

Adelaide - part 1

2011-06-10T23:33:00.002+12:00

Saturday a week ago we were just zipping up our suitcase for our trip to Adelaide when the taxi to the airport arrived. So we left a bit in a hurry and forgot our present for Lois!!

We winged to chch on Saturday, had a good meal in the Workingmens Club (a kind of mensa for families, where I believe the majority of the kiwi's has a membership), and left in the middle of the night to catch our plane to Auckland. In Akl we hopped on the plane (with new interior!) to Adelaide, which was a 4.5 hr flight.

All went well, and in Adelaide we picked up our humpy bumpy little rental car and had just enough time to check in at the hotel and a quick shower, before Matt and Sarah picked us up in a huge American tank with chauffeur.

A little inside information: Matt is the owner of an IT implementation and consultation business and he hires Age's services regularly. Sarah is Matt's wife.

Adelaide has some great wine regions, like the Barossa Valley, and McLaren Vale and another one of which I forgot the name. They were going to take us on a wine-tasting tour!

It was great! We definitely have never tasted so many different wines on one day. In NZ you taste 3 or 4 wines, but I think we may have tried at least 30 different wines at 3 wineries. Not that you can tell the difference after 4 wines or so :-)

We had lunch at the second winery, a great platter including some beautiful cheeses, also made at the winery.
The weather was changeable, some rain, some sun, and about 14 degrees.

In the car back to the hotel (and after tasting all those lovely wines) Matt presented Age with a job offer - we definitely had something to think about in the coming days.

- Evelyn

Trying to delete a message

2011-06-03T20:58:00.001+12:00

I'm trying to delete a blog post but can't find out how that works through the app on my phone, grrr.

By the way, it's a long weekend here (queen's birthday), the last long weekend before there is another one in October.
We're also nearing the shortest day, which in New Zealand is not bad at all as the days are never so dark and short as in NL. There is already one daffodil blooming in the garden, which seems a bit early to me :-)

Brought Ziva today to the vet's cattery, as she wasn't well and had a fever. Thought she may have a bladder infection or so, but that wasn't it. The vet thought it looked puffy under her tail stump, there might be an infection brewing. Not good news at all, hopefully they'll get it under control.

We just went out for dinner, very nice, and I am now busy getting the fire going. It was 15 degrees in the house all day, brrr. Am in need of a warm and toasty room!

- Evelyn

Poo and pee but otherwise fine

2011-05-25T20:15:00.001+12:00

A quick Ziva update:

- she's doing great with her shaved bottom and rabbit tail. The vet thinks she's healing very well.

- Age as well as I are now managing reasonably okay expressing her bladder, hurray :-)

- As we're talking about nerve damage it could be that we have to deal with poo and pee for the next three months, if it heals at all. But I'm prepared to take this amount of time. Fingers crossed!

- Evelyn

Rabbit in da house!

2011-05-21T18:23:00.001+12:00

Ziva's tail was about to break in two, so this morning she's had emergency surgery. She's high on drugs and the happiest cat ever. Never seen anything like it.

- Evelyn

Grrrrrrr

2011-05-20T19:24:00.001+12:00

Still haven't managed The Squeeze. Ziva is starting to eye me suspiciously when i enter the room, as i'm either trying to squeeze her bladder or to treat her damaged tail, or clean her bottom. Although i have to say she's quite clean thus far.

But what i'm most worried about at the moment, apart from my incompetence, is a gaping wound in her tail, where the internal pressure probably just got too much which caused the skin to split in such a way that the tail seems close to breaking in two pieces! Have an appointment with the vet to look at that again on Monday, but i think that it can't wait that long.

Very glad that Age will be back tomorrow from a week in Canberra.

- Evelyn

And another Ziva update

2011-05-17T20:02:00.001+12:00

Ziva is doing quite allright. She is causing me some headaches by becoming more mobile. Today in the garden she was suddenly halfway up the trunk of a tree, while I was keeping an eye out.

And she has found all her favourite spots again in the house to lie down. So that's all good. Still going to the vet every day to get her bladder squeezed as I still haven't managed to get that part under control.

A complication is her tail. Blood keeps seeping out of it, and yesterday the vet shaved some more hair off to see what's going on. It looks like a bigger part of her tail is wounded than we thought. Not that she feels anything there - but today outside she attracted a lot of flies, and her tail has become smelly too: probably infected! And that means that the tail will go sooner rather than later, possibly this Thursday, if we don't get this under control.

I personally wouldn't mind to get rid of it, as I am constantly worried that the tail gets stuck somewhere and do more damage.

- Evelyn

Ziva update 2

2011-05-15T20:08:00.001+12:00

I came up with a new theory about what caused Ziva's damaged rear and think that I'm not far from the truth: she liked to walk on our fence, which isn't easy as the top edges of the individual planks are pointy. I think that she fell off the fence and that her tail got stuck between the planks, so that she hung on her own tail for a brief moment. Enough to create the pulling damage to her spinal cord.

At the moment she is mostly asleep, eats well, likes cuddles and she purrs. But she can't hold her poo, which appears continuously in little bits. The vet is teaching me to manually express her bladder, as it is important not to overstretch those muscles by letting the bladder getting too full. It is not clear if she lets her urine go as well.

Over time it will become clear if her nerves are just overstretched or broken, and I read that cats with no anal feeling sensation, which is what Ziva has, have a 50% recovery chance.

Note: i wrote this 2 days ago. Haven't seen poo since then, and we really have trouble expressing her bladder. And yes, when her bladder is full she drips! So go to the vet each morning to let them empty her bladder properly and teach me some more. Learnt a different grip today from a male vet (the first male!) with hands four times bigger than me, and I got a few drops out!
Take Ziva in her basket with me to where I am to give her some change of scenery: lounge, sunroom, study, our bedroom. Today she hasn't left her basket at all, she had a bit of a temperature this morning, and she hasn't purred. Still attacking her food when I feed her in her basket. Hope she's so quiet because she's busy healing!!

- Evelyn

Ziva update

2011-05-12T15:34:00.000+12:00

Ziva is doing so-so. She sleeps all the time, and every hour when I check up on her she licks water from my fingers and eats some soggy food from my fingers as well. She had some foul-smelling stuff on her behind, but she was busy washing that off. And then she tried to get up, apparently to pee, but she moved like she was just coming out of a coma, very unstable. That was the point that I thought we need to see a vet.

So off we went again, to the vet. Diagnosis:

tail seems paralysed and might need to be amputated
after shaving some hair it appeard that her whole behind is bruised and thick
there might be nerve-damage to her bladder and bowel. If that is the case she will be totally or partially incontinent, which means we'll have to put her down!
there are no fractures, according to the x-rays
the vet thinks that someone in our neighbourhood has molested her, pulling at her tail and at the same time kicking her. If that's the case (not that you can prove it) I'll move immediately, even just thinking about it makes me sick and furious. I heard a cat screaming on the evening she disappeared, and it was close by. I even went outside and called her, but she didn't come.

So at the moment it looks 50/50. We'll know the real damage only when her bruising has healed. Tomorrow morning another appointment at the vet, to squeeze her bladder empty, and to get an update on possible medicines that will bring back the 'I have to pee'-feeling.

Things would be easier if they could talk

2011-05-11T13:12:00.003+12:00

What a horrible evening, night and morning yesterday and today. Ziva went missing! She went out her pet door at 7.30pm for a last stroll yesterday and then she never returned! Shortly after 7.30 I heard something that looked like a screaming cat, which is nothing unusual as Ziva is often busy with the cat from the neighbours.

But she didn't come home that evening. And stayed away for the night. That is so unusual, that I've been up and calling her in the garden and on the street almost every hour of the night. And then this morning - no Ziva! Boohoooo!

So I rang the SPCA, all the vets in the area, and made flyers for the neighbours. My feeling was that she probably got stuck somewhere or had been locked up in a garage or garden shed. I even drove round the area a couple of times. No sign of her anywhere. I got to the stage where I was ready to sell the place up there and then and leave, it is sooo empty without my darling pet, just not worth it.
Then I decided to take a nap, as I hadn't slept all night and was really tired. Age woke me up with a txt message asking if Ziva was already home. Nope, nothing. And I got up and checked up on the guest room, to see if she somehow miraculously had returned and maybe was asleep on Age's hoodie (Ziva's big time favourite). I had to look twice, but there she was! On, or better, in Age's hoodie. Battered and bruised, at first it looked like she had no tail (haven't had a second look, but I think the tail is still there), and too tired to eat or drink or purr.

So she's back! And can't tell us anything! So I rang the SPCA again, and all the vets, and made 'Ziva is back' flyers for the neighbours... If she wakes up we'll have to examinate her closely.
What a day.

Nothing much

2011-05-09T16:09:00.003+12:00

Hot news from our news desk:

Ziva has her own bean bag (zitzak) for cats. It came with a bag of cat food, and although the bean bag makes noise when she steps on it, she actually seems to like the thing a lot. Very handy, as she now has her own designated spot in our study too, just like us :-)
Ziva had troubles peeing the last couple of days. She tried to pee every 2 minutes or so, but of course there was nothing left! Went to the vet, she got 2 injections and I have to collect a urine sample. Very nice... and always at the start of the weekend! Today she actually seems normal again, and to demonstrate that she caught 2 birds. I was able to rescue one, but wouldn't be surprised if she finds that one back as it was a young sparrow (mus) and they are notoriously clumsy.
I found out what's eating my veggies: caterpillars! I might have left spraying too late, but couldn't do much last week as it rained continuously. My cauliflowers may be lost :-(
I harvested our beetroots yesterday. They weren't very large, but good enough and I thought it was about time to harvest them. I came across a nice recipe for beetroot dip, and processed them all with my new stick mixer. Age thought that was the stupidest thing ever to do with our beetroots; he was really looking forward to a nice succulent piece of chicken, oven fries, and beetroot :-)
I also harvested radishes, left them a bit too long and they were as big as tomatoes. I know why I left them too long... I don't like radishes that much actually, and mine are sooooo peppery! They also keep coming back after eating them (burp burp). So I think we'll do without radishes from now on. Did you know that their leaves are very prickly?
Swedes and fennel are looking good. Not sure about kohlrabi (caterpillars), and parsnips are quite slow. Leeks also slow. Half of the kale looks good, the other half has been eaten (caterpillars), and broccoli might be lost (caterpillars). Sprouts look okay, and endive is coming up. Ziva keeps digging out my carrots, and loves to lie on my young lettuce seedlings. Onions look good. Lemons are doing GREAT, lime tree too, and orange and mandarin might need another year to establish. I hope to get one orange :-)
Tennis was cancelled last week, due to rain. On Friday afternoon there was suddenly a gap in the clouds and I played 9 holes of golf, which was great! If the sun shines and the wind doesn't come from the South, all you need is short trousers and a t-shirt, as the temperature can easily reach over 20 degrees still.
And... we booked a trip to Adelaide, Australia, for early June. It's only for 5 days or so, but we're quite looking forward to it. We might be ready for new adventures, who knows? We'll get a tour of the city by Matt, a guy Age does some work for now and then, who has his business in Adelaide. We'll also spend a couple of days with Lois and Richard, who heard from our trip to Oz and thought it a good idea to visit relatives in Adelaide and meet us at the same time, so nice :-)
Travelling to Adelaide isn't that straightforward actually, it costs us 2 days in total to get there and get home. A while ago I told my dad that we were going to fly to Adelaide, and he asked how long that would take, and I said that it was at least 5 hours in the air maybe more. Well he commented that "it would not even take a submarine that long!".

Conversation

2011-05-03T21:52:00.001+12:00

Txt from Age in Wellington: there was an earthquake under our house!!
Evelyn's brains: @)&(//$&????? What house? Not here as i'm here. Ah he probably means our previous house in wton. I wonder if it still stands on that steep hill then. (visualising a lot of damage).
Txt from Evelyn to Age: our house in wton?
Txt from Age to Evelyn: no, OUR house!
Evelyn's brains: @(:)@"$(???? What's he talking about? Better give the man a call.
Evelyn rings Age: what do you mean 'earthquake under our house'!
Age: Well, didn't you feel it? There was a quake not even a km away from where you are, a 5.0 (!!), at 6.55pm.
Evelyn: no, didn't feel a thing. Was watching the news, sat on the couch.

I looked it up on geonet.co.nz, and there it was, a nice dot almost exactly where we live, a 5.0 at 110km depth. It was felt in wellington, marlborough and nelson. Can't believe I missed it!

- Evelyn

On a roll!

2011-04-30T17:26:00.001+12:00

Both Age and I had our first tennis winter competition matches. His team won, and my team too! A team consists of 4 players and you play doubles with each of your team mates. In total a team plays 6 matches, and we won 3 of those matches. I was in all 3 matches that we lost!!! Weakest link????? On countback we won with 29 games over 23. It was a very cold evening by the way, still, crisp and almost freezing.

Then today I played my Sloss Cup finals with golf, a matchplay event. Jean and I won 2 matches sometime in March, then the rest of the field had to battle it out in all sorts of flights during April, and finally today was Finals day.

I was playing crap the last couple of weeks, but luckily for me I really like the tension that comes with matchplay. Anyway, we went down 2 holes, then square for quite a few holes and on the 9th hole we had those 2 holes back, so all was even again.

Then we went square till the 13th or so, where we lost a hole. Finally on the 18th we were able to win another hole, so after 18 holes we were all square again!! That meant we had to keep going, so off we went from no1 for the second time. That hole was a shared hole again, so we had to battle on. Finally we won the next hole, which means that we won the finals, yayyyyy!!! I am very proud of us :-))

And then the weather, just couldn't believe it. It started off frosty, but we reached 23 degrees, all sunny, no wind. Bliss!!

- Evelyn

Easter weekend in Golden Bay

2011-04-26T08:50:00.006+12:00

We went away with Easter to Pohara, Golden Bay, with James and Gill. We loaded everything in their van on Friday morning and off we went! The weather forecast wasn't very flash, it was supposed to rain the whole weekend, from Friday afternoon till Monday morning!
On Friday we made the most of the weather by playing 9 holes of golf at the Pohara Golf Club. That is a scruffy old golf course, where Age managed to hit 4 balls out of bounds on the beach on the 5th tee. On the beach he found a woman whose dog had a field day with all those golf balls coming over from the golf course!
After playing golf we settled into our bach (holiday home - pronounce 'betsj'), and I think if I remember well that not long after that the rain started. We made dinner and had a nice evening in.

Saturday started wet, wetter, wettest. It was so wet that it didn't make sense to go out and try to do something. We actually did go out and tried to do something :-) We thought maybe we could do a short walk at the Pupu Springs, Australasia's clearest fresh water springs. A nice short drive, but too wet to get out of the van. Instead we went to a nearby gallery and after that had an early lunch at the Mussel Inn. When we got home from our adventures we played cards, enjoyed the enormous amount of food we brought with us, and suddenly, late in the afternoon there was a break in the clouds - just enough to go out for a beach walk. Great to sniff some fresh air and to watch the threatening clouds around us.

Sunday was wet too! But again at some stage during the afternoon the rain became a bit less persistent. So we took our chances and did the walk to the Wainui Falls. According to James and Gill usually a nice walk with along a gentle stream with a lovely waterfall at the end. Well, the gentle stream was now an angry river and the lovely waterfall was a raging and thundering wall of water coming down. Quite spectacular!

We couldn't believe it, but by Monday morning there seemed no more rain left, and it became actually quite sunny. We vacated our bach and drove once more to the Pupu Springs. As said before, these springs are fresh water springs, where fresh water comes to the surface with an amount of 4000 bath tubs of water per second if I'm correct. The water is very clear, you're not allowed to touch it in any way, as they are afraid that the springs will get polluted in some way, for example by transferring toxic algae or bacteria. And the springs have a high spiritual meaning for Maori.
There is a nice walk around the springs - as a lot of water bursts from underground through the surface, it creates quite a large river and other waterways.

The water is crystal clear! And the pic on the right below shows the whirls in the water where it comes up to the surface, this is the actual start of the springs - quite a lot of water here.

And to finish our weekend off we went for a picnic to Kaiteriteri, near Abel Tasman Park, on the way home.

A nice weekend

2011-04-17T21:11:00.001+12:00

We had a nice weekend. The rain poored down from Friday morning till Sunday morning, which made for a good time indoors reading books, baking a cake, playing around with computers and making nice fires in the woodburner.

There was a dry gap on Friday afternoon, and I played a couple of holes of golf. Conversation with my golf buddy Anne: hi Anne, are you coming this way or what?
A: you're not waiting for me on the golf course, are you?
E: uuuh yes
A: but it was pooring down at 1pm!
E: uuuuh yes, but it's 4.15 now...

Anyway she put golf out of her head earlier that day because of the weather :-)

Today I played golf again, a proper round with my regular buddies, and Age went for a game of tennis. I am actually going to enter the tennis winter competition, we practised last weekend, it was a long time ago, but I still kind of like it.

And surprise surprise, Age booked a high tea for this afternoon :-) Isn't he just the man!

- Evelyn

Vege garden update

2011-04-13T11:04:00.004+12:00

Although autumn is definitely here, there's a lot going on in the vege garden!

Kohlrabi is doing fine, after a bit of a difficult start. Has probably something to do with me letting the tiny plants dry out earlier in March :-) According to my 'plan' we should be able to harvest this month.
Cauliflower finally shows some enthusiasm to grow too. Seems a slow maturing plant! We should be able to harvest next month, but I have difficulties believing that really.
Ah, then my leeks! They are doing very well, we might be able to harvest the odd one this month, but definitely next month. That'll be chicken and leek pie for dinner!
Beetroot should be ready to harvest soon. I can see the beetroots, and I can also see that I accidentally planted two of them together a couple of times, so the beets might not have a lot of space to grow.
Radishes! They are a great crop, and ready now. I have multi-coloured radishes: red, purple, white, yellow :-) I bet you didn't know they existed!

Borekale and Fennel should also be ready to harvest this month, but they may need a bit longer. Borekale is doing great after a hesitant start, we better start looking for rookworst (smoked sausage???? sounds ridiculous) soon! That's why I planted it, to eat with rookworst, although I haven't seen rookworst anywhere in the supermarkets here. Don't send us a couple from Holland, you might get arrested :-)
There is more, but nothing else ready for harvesting. Had some troubles with my carrots, you would think they were the easiest crop ever, but I figured that maybe if I give them some water (!) they'll actually might have a chance, instead of disappearing when they're 2mm tall.

Temperatures here currently 18-22 degrees, and at night 8-14 or so.

Another conversation

2011-04-06T19:38:00.001+12:00

(listening to Ray Charles)

A: so, do you suddenly like Ray Charles?
E: yes, had enough of all that other crap
A: ah
- silence-
E: haven't we seen a movie about Ray Charles?
A: yes
E: can't remember what the name of that movie was. What was it?
A: uhhh Ray Charles?
E: (delighted) yes! That was it!

- Evelyn

Conversation in the car

2011-04-06T18:37:00.001+12:00

In the car, just after picking Age up from the airport:

E: by the way, i'm gonna have a haircut tomorrow!
A: me too!
E: oh? Where?
A: Salon Ursula
E: me too!
A: oh? When?
E: 9 in the morning. And you?
A: 10 in the morning
E&A: this is ridiculous!
A: you need to be quick then, because I need the car too to get there
E: can't, am meeting with a client afterwards. Take the motorbike!
A: grmbll (translation: not good for my hair)

- Evelyn

More watercolours class

2011-04-06T09:41:00.007+12:00

Here a few more paintings from my watercolours class. Next week is the last week already, can't believe that 10 weeks went by so quickly!

I'm not overly enthusiastic about the painting below, although I really like the yellow and orange wash. The photos don't do the colours justice! The pier is done with charcoal, as I needed something very dark. I think I just rushed it too much, and I don't like landscapes very much anyway.

I thought I lost it, but found myself and my own style back again when I moved away from those landscapes, seascapes, trees and flowers, and started to work on painting glass and transparency - now we're talking :-)

Love my bottles! Age doesn't, he prefers 'boats at sea', sooooo 1986 and boooooorrrringgggggg.

Wintertime and wireless doorbell

2011-04-03T17:37:00.002+12:00

It's that time of the year again! Daylight saving has ended :-(
To celebrate winter Age has been doing some DIY to close off air vents to the sunroom's foundation, and I just made a roaring fire in the woodburner. With a cup of tea, Caro Emerald and home baked cake all is fine with us here.

A while ago we ordered some bits and pieces over the internet and it finally all arrived last week: a wireless doorbell, a movement sensor, and a box that makes doorbell sounds. So now people can actually press the doorbell, and we are able to hear it in the study (if we don't forget to take the soundbox with us to the study :-)). Same with the sensor - sometimes you really get a heart attack when working in the study and someone decides to walk around the house to see whether there is anybody home. They can't do that anymore now, the sensor will pick it up when they're near the house and a second doorbell-like sound will go off.

It also works on the car and the cat! Very funny, if I leave the house by car - ding dong- Ziva goes to the neighbour and comes past the sensor - ding dong - and when I come back - ding dong - ziva comes back too - ding dong.

Earthquake humour

2011-03-31T11:26:00.001+13:00

YOU KNOW YOU LIVE IN CHRISTCHURCH WHEN.....

Geonet / ChristchurchQuakeMap is your homepage
The rest of the country offers you a place to stay
“Munted” and “buggered” are official technical terms
You go 'pfffff' when Wellington has a 4.5 earthquake that's 40km deep
You sleep in one suburb, shower in another and collect water from yet another
You are happy two Policemen came for a visit
When your bike becomes your best friend
You think it's fine for a soldier to be stationed at the end of your street
You see armoured vehicles driving down the road
It’s normal to greet people with “do you need a shower?”
A bucket of sh*t is no longer that old car you drive
Every house is a crack house
Instead of rushing to the clothes line to get clothes in when it rains, you put dirty washing on the line in the hope that it will rain enough to clean them
Going to Wellington to escape earthquakes makes sense
Your doctor recommends having a few stiff drinks before bed to help you sleep
You know how to start and refuel a generator
You have tied the pantry, liquor cabinet and all the cupboard doors closed and it's not to keep kids out
You prefer to sit under the table instead of at it
You know and actually understand the terms and conditions of your House and Contents insurance policies
Your en-suite has a vege garden, dog kennel and grass
Your teenagers are only too happy to sleep in the same room as their parents
Discussing toilet habits with total strangers is an everyday norm
Wee boys don't get excited when they see (another) digger or a dozer - but all the adults in the street cheer wildly
Voluntarily staying in Timaru for five days seems like a good idea
You know what that extra gear lever on your 4X4 is for
You can use the term "liquefaction" in everyday casual conversation, even your 3-year old can
When a massive group of students appears in your street, you feel overwhelmed with gratitude instead of calling the Police. What’s more, the students leave the street in better condition than when they arrived
The answer to where anything is .... it’s on the floor
You smile at strangers and greet people like you’re one big family

(written by a Cantrabrian)

Watercolours class

2011-03-22T21:32:00.005+13:00

Pffff, it's not easy, watercolours!

Here a few pics...

Only now after 6 classes or so do I get more confident with the paint and all that water :-)

The veggie garden

2011-03-15T12:43:00.006+13:00

Just a few images to show what the veggie garden looks like at the moment...

It's only just 16m2 or so that we have availabe, not huge, but enough to play around with veggies :-) Pic above: just after our gardener had cleared the lot. In the distance grapes, a lime tree, lettuces and conifer balls (!).

As I said: grapes, lime tree, tiny orange tree, lettuces and conifer balls.

Tiny cauliflowers in the background under the lemon tree, and kohlrabi at the front. Kohlrabi is war-food, according to Age.

From the other side

Ah, now we're talking.. This is broccoli.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is radish - sown 2 weeks ago!

And here... is Fennel :-)

Also showing at the moment after being sown 2 weeks ago: rhubarb, endive, brussel sprouts, swedes and onions.

And another week gone!

2011-03-13T17:37:00.004+13:00

If you get in a bit of a routine the time really flies past, another week gone! Nothing too exciting happened here to be honest. We've played the last game in the golf business house last Wednesday (it's getting too dark now too early to keep on playing late), and ended up 12th or so with our team. Luckily there are always prizes for almost everybody, so I got a box with new golf balls :-)

I'm almost inclined to say 'and that was it for the week'... let me think of some more exciting stuff...

we ate our first home-grown lettuce: with a few additional extras - some ants, a bird feather, and an earwig (spelling?)
the bugs and insects in the garden love our cauliflower and broccoli
the radishes came up, and I've thinned them
the sprouts are coming up too, as well as parsnips
the weather is still glorious, 23 degrees or so, blue skies, light breeze. We just went to Tahuna for an iced coffee with Anne, Adrian and her mum and did a bit of a beach walk, watching the kite surfers.
on Friday we had fish 'n chips with Jill and James - that's quickly becoming a tradition. We're thinking of going to Hanmer Springs with the four of us with Easter, but there's hardly any accommodation available! We might have to change our destination.
I played with a golf partner in a certain competition for a certain Cup and we won - it was the 2 best rounds out of 3. We'll get our prize at the end of the year (?!!).
I'm not mentioning Age much, am I?? He's just doing his thing really, playing tennis, going to Wellington each week, having fun with his computer(s), building websites for various sports clubs, ordering things from the Internet - like shoes, he really has a shoe addiction, it's crazy. We made the deal that if he buys a pair, he has to sell a pair as well. That works - he just sold a pair for $90.
And we had this tsunami alarm - although we live close to the sea and can actually see the see from where we live, we should be high enough up the hill to be safe. Very strange is it that Nelson gets the tsunamis the last of all New Zealand, while it's situated in the middle of the country. Say for example that Northland would get the waves at 8am, Wellington at 9am, Invercargill at 10 am, then Nelson gets them at 11 am. Not sure why that is! Nothing happened here by the way, the tsunami coincided with low tide, didn't see anything unusual.
And did I mention earlier that Age secured our bookcases to the wall? We don't want those to topple over in an earthquake and get buried under them, that's why. We also talked about having our 'get through' kit ready - everyone is advised here to get a get-through kit, in case disaster strikes, with food and water and other stuff to be able to get through on your own for at least 3 days after the disaster. In places like Wellington (where they expect a big earthquake, just like they do in LA) every organisation has those kits and lots of households too. There are regular ads on tv and in newspapers to get your kit ready. So what do you do? You only think about it and never get round to do it really, because it's such a hassle. You not only need to buy non-perishable food, but also batteries for your torches, a gas bottle or so, a stove, pain killers, first aid kit, loads of rubbish bags (for pee and poo), anti septic stuff, rubber gloves, etc. But after the quakes in chch we're now more in action mode. We're talking about the details now :-)

Autumn, golf, and a Southerly blast

2011-03-06T22:04:00.003+13:00

It surely is getting colder now! Yesterday during the day when I was playing golf we felt the temperature drop a couple of degrees when the predicted Southerly kicked in, and when I drove home it was only 16 degrees! That takes some getting used to, as we haven't had these temperatures since October I think. This morning it was only 5 or 6 degrees outside (and 8 in the conservatory...), but luckily during the day we'll reach the 20's again.

The sun is definitely much lower in the mornings, it's even quite dark now around 7am, and the leaves are slowly turning yellow, brown and red. We are still on water restrictions, which means that we can't water the garden automatically with our irrigation system, but are only allowed to use a hand-hose on even days of the week. That surely is a pain in the $%#. I hand-hosed the garden once and it almost took me all day. Luckily for me and the garden we've had a good amount of rain the last couple of days, so hopefully the water restrictions will be lifted soon. By the way, if you ever are going to do some work on your garden - get an irrigation system! Pure bliss! It's attached to a little computer and you can programme when and how long you want to water the garden for, and indicate which sections need more watering than others (for example the lawn, or the vege garden while the rest of the garden is ok.).

And now that it's autumn a few of the summer golf competitions I'm participating in will come to an end too. I've played lots of golf in the last two months or so, and my handicap has nicely come down to a 26.2. On Friday I won half a dozen of beer (!) in the Twilight competition in Nelson, as well as $75, because I had shot a nett eagle. Had no idea what that was, but it had to do with a par 3 hole that I completed in 2 shots. That was actually the best 2 ever! I teed off and got somewhere in the rough, miles from the pin, and then chipped it out of the rough on my second shot, plop on the green, past the pin, and then the ball decided to roll back to the pin and drop into the hole! So I'm hoping to be able to live from my prize money soon.

Age played tennis, and he was literally the last man standing, as more or less one after the other in his own team and the team of the opposition got injured and transported back home by their wifes. Age's opponent told him that he had pretty sore and bruised ribs, while his mate had his arm in a sling (how you can play tennis with that is not clear to me to be honest). Age then added to the misery by hitting a ball straight into the ribs of his opponent, after which the guy dropped on his back to the floor, gasping for air!

Vege Garden

2011-02-27T21:36:00.006+13:00

Yes yes, I'm quite excited! Plans for the vege garden are moving fast-forward at the moment. We've had the landscaper in who cleared all the shrubs and bushes in a certain part of our back yard. It's insanely different now, the garden looks bigger and lighter there. He also secured the fence, as that was about to fall over to the neighbour's garden - due to the heavy weight of their climbers on the other side of the fence.

Everything I planted so far is doing well: leeks, beetroot, cauliflower, lettuce and kohlrabi. But I've got bigger plans. I'd like a mandarin tree, we need lots of climbers and other things to cover the fence - passionfruit will do, and I'm thinking of a fan-shaped pear tree, maybe an apple tree (fan-shaped as well), and an apricot. I also wanted a peach tree - so exotic!- but they are actually not very pretty and often suffer from diseases.

Then lots of veges! I've made a list of what I'd like to have, sowing time, harvest time, how much space it needs, and how many plants I need for just the two of us. Some things won't be practical as it needs too much space, so I can take these off my list again, and other veges can be very rewarding. Definitely tomatoes, capsicum (paprika), zuccini (courgette), green beans, onions, cucumber, ... etc, all the basics really. Yummm.

Carrots, Parsnip, Fennel.

Corn, garlic, herbs.

Broccoli, borekale, ... brussel sprouts.

eeeeehhhhh. Need more room I'm afraid.

Strawberries? Raspberries? Yoghurt icecream with fresh berries.

aaaarrrgggh.

I might start a vege blog, as I can see it coming in the next couple of months, vege this, vege that, mulching, pruning, watering, harvesting, cooking, ...

Another earthquake in Chch - fatalaties

2011-02-22T14:39:00.002+13:00

Another major earthquake in Christchurch this morning, more buildings collapsed and this time fatalaties have been reported.

See: NZ Herald and Stuff for latest news.

Launching a business and other stuff

2011-02-12T18:33:00.002+13:00

Last week I've said goodbye to my colleagues at NZ Police in Wellington. I've resigned from my job and worked very hard to launch my training and development business! Have a look at www.centreboard.co.nz and tell me what you think! It'll keep me busy for a while :-)

Because of me being busy and Age as well we have neglected our house and garden a bit - except for vacuum cleaning. But we desperately needed to spend some time on the 'wet' work and weeds. So today we've been really busy. I bought a cobweb broom (ragebol), to eliminate a million webs, and a window cleaning thing on a stick to do the windows, as we haven't done them at all since we moved in the house last year March.

And... plans for the veggie garden are taking shape. It's very nice to swap greens with others, so yesterday I got tomatoes from Anne's mom and I gave Anne a load of lemons. Our grapes are almost ripe, but I don't know if they are any good. We've had early plums ourselves in December and got a box with a later variety from someone else. And we have limes and a tiny orange tree, that looks like it's not very happy.

We've been given green peppers, spring onions, onions, spinach and red cabbage (rode kool). In a Dutch cookbook I found a recipe of red cabbage with apples, and that was really nice to eat! So yes, I'm a convert now, and Age is coming round slowly, very slowly. So today I bought some seedlings of lettuce (sla), leeks (prei), beetroot (rode bieten), cauliflower (bloemkool), and broccoli. It was just too tempting... but quite good in a way, because to put these seedlings in the garden, we need to do a lot of work first. Like getting someone in with a chainsaw and cut 3 tree-like shrubs down, taking a few plants out, and building 4 veggie beds. Can't wait!!

Magical vacuum cleaner

2011-02-01T16:31:00.004+13:00

Let's talk vacuum cleaners for a minute! Especially green metallic upright ones with a handheld attached - cordless.

It's the strangest story ever and it went like this:

Age: "If you go to the Noel Leeming store and wave with your Flybuys card, you'll get a vacuum cleaner".
Evelyn - thinking: What the heck do I need a vacuum cleaner for, we already have two, certainly not an ugly free give-away thing from Noel Leeming. I wonder if it will be one for on your back, no we definitely don't need that. "No thanks, but if you really want one, you go".
Age - thinking: huh?? A while ago she really wanted one of those free-standing vacuum cleaners! Women!! "Okay, I'll go, see you soon".
Evelyn - totally forgetting that Age is going to get one of those ugly free vacuum cleaners for on your back does some more work on her website.
Age - went to the Noel Leeming and back, put the vacuum cleaner on the table, and yells that he's home.
Evelyn - does some more work on her website. Then is going to make a cup of tea or whatever and finds this big box on the table!! "That's not an ugly vacuum cleaner for on your back, it's a lovely free-standing green metallic one! And it cost $250!! What the heck?"
Age - "You wanted this, so I got it from our Flybuys points! I told you!"
Evelyn - "You told me?? I had no idea! I thought you were going to get us an ugly vacuum cleaner for on your back".
Age - totally bewildered: "What on earth are you talking about????"

A couple of hours (!) later it became clear that I had done some research on these vacuum cleaners a while ago, Age had remembered this, and waited till we had enough points to get it. So he ordered it in and could pick the vacuum cleaner up from the store...

In between the holidays and work

2011-01-16T20:19:00.003+13:00

Not a bad place to be in: in between the holidays and work. Pottering around in the garden, playing lots of golf and working on getting my handicap down, spending heaps of time at the computer doing all sorts of stuff, enjoying summer - walking around bare feet, eating outside, going for a swim at the beach. Etcetera.

Summer here is lovely, really different from Wellington, where you always had the feeling that you had to make the most of the sun while it lasts. Here I can sit in the study with the french doors open and work, not having that urge of catching all that sunshine and drop everything I was doing.

Another great thing about summer is freshly made strawberry yoghurt ice cream, from the berry farm nearby. A large chunk of frozen yoghurt is mixed with frozen strawberries from the farm in a typical machine and pressed in a cone, just like soft serve. Very close to the golf club too, so after a long round of golf one of those irresistable ice creams is going to come my way!

Dunedin, Christchurch and back home

2011-01-08T21:31:00.002+13:00

The thing to do in Dunedin is exploring Otago Peninsula, watching Albatrosses and viewing Larnach Castle.

From 201012 Down South

Well, the Albatrosses weren't around as it wasn't windy enough, but the Castle and gardens were very nice. And what does one do when visiting a castle? Starting off the day with a cream tea!

From 201012 Down South

Actually the whole peninsula was beautiful, with great beaches.

From 201012 Down South

We did a bit of shopping for Age, the gentleman got himself some new clothes in the summer sale, and that while most shops in town were closed because of a public holiday.
We also played a nice short round of golf on a very steep golf course. Age lost his ball after his first tee shot, which was a promising sign of what was to come - it's always a bit of a gamble playing with him, but he didn't do too bad :-)

After Dunedin our trip led us via Twizel to Christchurch. I figured that the mountains from the Eastern side would be just as great as from the West Coast, and around Twizel you have those heavenly blue lakes too. But the weather wasn't in our favour, again - on this trip I haven't seen much of the famous NZ mountain vistas, and because of the rain the lakes were grey and not blue. We did have a great studio in Twizel though, so despite the rain we were happy with our accommodation and watched lots of tennis, the ASB Classic Grand Slam in Auckland.

En route to Christchurch the weather cleared, and we went from 13 degrees in Twizel to 27 in Christchurch. We stayed here for three nights in a great hotel, went to Hagley Park, the Botanic Gardens, and Sumner Beach, and had a bbq with Wanda, Ellery, Jakob and Hanka. Oh, and now it was my turn to do some shopping in the summer sale :-)

From 201012 Down South

Today we drove back home (wooohoooo, always nice to come home!!!) and picked up a very happy Ziva from the cattery. She can't stop purring and cuddling! Funny story, the owners of the cattery are Dutch, and clearly spent some time during our holiday thinking of where they had seen us before, as I was asked where I went to school when I was young. "Apeldoorn", I said. "Epe", they countered - apparently they thought I had been a classmate of hers, as she recognised my name. But that could not be true, her name didn't ring a bell and I had not attended her secondary school. But the strangest thing ever was that I did grow up in that town! We weren't able to nut this out any further as other people arrived to collect their cats and dogs.
Both Age and I at the same time thought that we somehow knew her husband, and we figured that one out: he was the Dutch waiter at one of the restaurants we've been in Mapua.

So we're home now, had our first meal outside in two weeks (except for yesterday's bbq), done all the washing and cleared our holiday rubbish away. Tomorrow will be golf for me and tennis for Age, and there is an interested party in our Peugeot. And later on we'll have an all Dutch bbq at the neighbours', with 13 cheeseheads on cloggs and 1 Kiwi.

From Queenstown to Dunedin

2011-01-02T20:44:00.005+13:00

Glenorchy was beautiful, we ended up on the best boardwalk ever and because of all the rainfall the water levels in all the lakes and rivers was very high, which meant here and there wet feet! Stunning weather that day, so great pictures and burnt shoulders.

From 201012 Down South

The next day en route to Te Anau we had a look at lovely Arrowtown and the Shotover river where they do all the jet boating stuff in the gorges there.

From 201012 Down South

We stayed two nights in Te Anau, mainly to give us some time to drive to Milford Sound, do a cruise on the Sound and drive back. I thought that Milford Sound would be a bit of a village, but the road just ends there literally. There is absolutely nothing, except for a boat terminal where you can start your cruise, which is what all the tourists do. Milford Sound is tourist country! The road from Te Anau to Milford is fantastic and amazing, what a scenery! We had a great encounter with a Kea, who decided to mimic a cuddly cat.

From 201012 Down South

The cruise was nice too, the sheer cliffs and water falls in the Sound can indeed only be appreciated from a boat. Very impressive.

From 201012 Down South

A quiet new year's eve for us after all that sight-seeing, we were fairly exhausted of all those impressions. We had a nice meal, listened to some live music in the park, played tantrix in our hotel room and suddenly the new year was there. We spent one minute reflecting on the year that was and then went to bed!

After Te Anau the Southern Scenic Route was waiting for us, which would bring us to a Kiwiana Cabin in the Catlins. Again beautiful scenery, and we were happy to see the sea again. We did like the lakes of Queenstown and Te Anau, but sea-scape is more energetic.

From 201012 Down South

We drove through Invercargill, which didn't bring us a particular lasting impression. The fairly open landscape changed again and it became more hilly and prettier towards the Catlins. We did a few side tours along the way, and one was to a fossil forest on the coast, with petrified wood (versteend hout) of 160 million years old. This was also a place where yellow-eyed penguins come to shore to breed. And we were lucky as in the middle of the day there was one penguin sitting there, grooming its feathers! These penguins are much bigger than the little blue ones, which are the size of a cat.

From 201012 Down South

Our Kiwiana Cabin on the camping was lovely!

From 201012 Down South

And then today we drove from the Catlins to Dunedin, where we will stay for three nights. The coastline was beautiful and we did another side-tour to Nugget Point, another site to spot seals, sea lions, elephant seals, dolphins and penguins. Fantastic scenery, beautiful beaches and heaps of seals.

From 201012 Down South

Wet, wetter, wettest

2010-12-28T18:39:00.003+13:00

Our visit to the glacier at Franz Josef was greeted with some drizzle, but luckily we were still able to shoot some nice pictures. Both from the glacier and one of the nearby lakes, once formed by the glacier when it retreated.

From 201012 Down South

But as MetService predicted a 'significant event', we drove from Franz Josef via Haast to Queenstown. Around 500mm of rain was expected for the day and we've got some footage that will give you some idea of the road conditions following this deluge...! But, the currently available Internet connections are not up to scratch and do not allow us to post it at this stage. More later.

Here's another impression instead - a more poetic one: a wharf building at Okarito lagoon.

From 201012 Down South

So, it was yesterday that we arrived in Queenstown, and although this morning it was still wet, we braved the elements and walked to town centre to have a look around. On the way back however the weather Gods were relentless: we got soaked and one of our umbrellas did not survive the trip back. An Irish lady gave us a ride for a few hundred metres which reduced our exposure to the cold and wet by a couple of minutes. Nevertheless the clothes are still hanging in front of the oil heater.

Our accommodation is great though: warm and spacious - it even has double glazing. A real safe haven for when the weather doesn't want to play nice.

This afternoon it really cleared and so we went for another attempt and this one succeeded! And tomorrow is promising to become a real fine day. Probably one for a trip to Glenorchy.

--Age

Road trip through S-Island

2010-12-27T09:26:00.001+13:00

A quick update: we're in Franz Josef at the moment and will drive to Queenstown today with exceptional rainfall - they're expecting up to 500 mm in 24 hours or so. We'll see how far we can get - from our hotel room to the car we definitely need our swimming gear as the lawn in between resembles a pool.

Happy Christmas everybody!!!

2010-12-23T12:07:00.003+13:00

Logburner

2010-12-20T09:38:00.006+13:00

Ordered mid-winter and installed mid-summer: our new logburner! Not that it usually takes this long to get the thing installed, but our installer's business went down. Luckily for us we didn't buy the woodburner itself from him, otherwise it would have been byebye to our money and burner!

As explained previously we had to get a new clean green burner, as the burner that was present in the house when we bought it didn't comply with the new emission regulations. So we weren't allowed to use it. We couldn't decide whether to get a woodburner, pellet burner, heatpump or other form of heating, but finally decided on a woodburner again. It's such a nice heat that comes out of it, doesn't make noise and is cheap to run. And people love their woodburner, it's a popular form of heating.

So, after the council inspected and approved the installation of the fire last week we were allowed to use it! The manual of the fire told us that for first time use it'll be necessary to open all doors and windows, as any paint and other residues inside the firebox would burn off. Better not leave that for a cold wintry day, so we thought let's try it now! Okay, it was about 20 degrees in the house, but it had been raining all day so it didn't feel very pleasant inside.

It was the scariest thing ever, I really thought the house would burn down! The new fire and flue (chimney thing) are definitely way better than the old one, so we hardly needed matches to light the fire. It's also a bigger firebox and the fire is much better to see because of the big clean glass door, the fire itself was all very impressive. And then the paint started to burn off, I was in the kitchen and turned to look at Age in the lounge and could hardly see him because of the blue smoke coming from the burner. So yes, we really had to open all doors and windows. And even then we could feel heat radiating our way.

After a while I got less nervous about our bright fire, the smoke subsided, we had it all under control, we could close a couple of doors and windows, and when we noticed we'd made it 26 degrees inside we unanimously declared that our fire passed the test.

Golden Bay

2010-12-06T09:49:00.006+13:00

Below an impression of our few days away with Age's parents in Golden Bay. Stunning scenery!

1) On Takaka Hill - a lookout over the Tasman Bay
2) We had a nice unit in Pohara and enjoyed a light meal on our deck

3) Farewell Spit seen from the visitor centre
4) We went to Farewell Spit to have coffee and cake at the visitor centre, but our main goal of the day was a walk to Wharariki Beach, on the Western coast of Golden Bay.
5-10) Wharariki Beach was the most fantastic unspoilt beach ever! Unsafe for swimming, but otherwise superb!

Besides Farewell Spit on the Western side of Golden Bay there is also the Abel Tasman National Park on the Eastern side. Abel Tasman Park is accessible from two sides: Tasman Bay (the Nelson side) and Golden Bay. So on our last day in Golden Bay we went for a little drive towards Totaranui, one of the bays in the Abel Tasman Park where you can pick up the Abel Tasman coastal walking track. We didn't have enough time to get there, so we checked out Wainui and Tata beaches instead. Funny how the sand on these beaches is similar to that on the other side of Tasman Park (Kaiteriteri and Marahau); very golden and quite coarse. And how different this sand is from that in Pohara (only a few kilometers away), which was grey-ish, and from Wharariki Beach, which was incredibly fine and white.

We definitely need to go back to Golden Bay as there is much more to see and do! We totally understand why it is one of the popular holiday destinations for Kiwis!

Around the house

2010-11-24T16:40:00.003+13:00

A lot has happened since Age's parents arrived here, ranging from taking care of us in terms of cooking, cleaning, gardening, washing and so forth, to a lot of DIY (handyman-ity). Besides all that the garden has exploded, especially the flowers! And to top it up we have worked hard to incorporate all our IKEA stuff in the lounge and study.

1) The pots on the verandah are doing great!
2) Insanely huge and great smelling peonies in a bunch of flowers from my colleagues. I'd like to have these in my garden!
3) No piano in the lounge anymore, but a new and fresh looking bookcase.

4) Cute piece of art 'A moment adrift'

5) Hanging basket, lots of roses on the pergola; just a piece of garden
6) We've shifted the dinner table, made it bigger and added three bar stools in the kitchen. Sooo much better!
7) Lovely bunch of flowers on the table, with another insanely huge peony

8) Ah well...
9) A gazillion roses! The whole bunch is humming and buzzing with bees and bumble bees
10) Another version of 'A moment adrift'

And finally we're soon off for our 'short break', just before Age's parents fly back again to a cold and dark Holland.

Short break coming up!

2010-11-15T08:45:00.003+13:00

We're looking forward to a short break this week, where we'll be packing our cars on Thursday (yes, two cars, one for Age and myself, and the other one for Age's parents) and decide there and then at the end of our driveway whether we'll turn left or right. In other words, we don't know yet where we'll be going.

Why two cars? Age and I need to get back to work at some stage and Age's parents would like to visit relatives in the Christchurch area, so they'll add a couple of days.

They've been really spoilt thus far with the weather in those two weeks they've been here. Summarised: sunshine! And last weekend we hit the 25 degrees; excellent for beach walks, bbq and dozing in a hammock.

Age's parents have arrived

2010-10-31T12:26:00.000+13:00

.... In sunny Nelson!! Everything went well during their trip, and after a nice meal and drinks and nibbles they crashed into their bed.

We have just had a lovely breakfast with pancakes outside in the sun, will have a look at the beach later on and fire up the good ol' bbq. All good :-)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone