A City Oasis

Our city cottage with the Honky Mobile on the forecourt

Yes, yet another move! This time we moved from St Albans, where we were house-sitting for six weeks, back into town, to a lovely 100 year old cottage. Finally, we have a place where we can unpack our boxes and find homes for our possessions. At least, this time, we did not have much packing to do as most of our possessions were still boxed up, from the initial move from the UK.

The cottage is rather like the TARDIS as it is very unasssuming from the front but stretches out along its long entrance hall to two generously sized bedrooms, largish bathroom and cosy lounge/kitchen. It also has a good sized backyard that is just crying out for some green fingered attention. Somebody already has plans to grow a selection of produce and some cottage garden plants!

We were handed the keys to the cottage, on Saturday 28th July. Upon opening the front door, the smell of fresh paint wafted towards us. That was no bad thing as the whole cottage had been very tastefully redecorated. The formerly blue and yellow walls are now a beige type colour. Yes, I know it sounds bad but beige really compliments the polished floorboards (rimu, we think), tiled fire grates and high feature ceilings. It goes without saying that the high ceilings and walls above the picture rails are painted white. Yes we must be getting old to notice and appreciate such things!

Yes. We do plan to buy lampshades!

Anyway that same day, we made a start with cleaning the kitchen cupboards (I don't know why this needs to be done but it is some kind of ritual that always has to be done when moving into a new place. After all everyone else is just plain dirty and you don't know what types of manky food they have had sitting there!) As the cottage had been empty for over a month the power had been disconnected. This meant there was no hot water at the cottage and made the cleaning a little hard. But being ever inventive, we just carried hot water over from St Albans to Salisbury St, in hot water bottles! We could not stay at the cottage all day as the hockey season was still in full swing and playing is important, too! Anyway, with the cupboards clean, on Sunday, we managed to find homes for some of our kitchen items. The kitchen does not have as much storage space as the one in our Redbridge house so it has been difficult to find space for the collections of Kellogg’s and Homepride stuff. (More items that were really important to ship over.) Therefore somebody is a little bit disappointed at the moment!

The Lounge

Of course, during the following week, work got in the way of moving (As the power is off we need daylight, and it is winter here – dark early). Anyway, we finally spent our first night in the cottage on the 11th August and spent the next couple of weeks settling in. I think that translates as setting up the stereo, putting records into alphabetical order, reorganizing the kitchen drawers/cupboards, etc. (Mmmmmmm. I wonder who did each particular job.)

What with moving into an unfurnished cottage we needed to buy our own furniture. Yes we had shipped over wooden fruit bowls, a Yorkshire Tea teapot, a stuffed Nemo toy and many other useful items but we had nothing to sit on or sleep in (Priorities?) Anyway, over the last couple of months, we have been busy buying home furnishings. After weeks of trawling through all the furniture shops, we finally decided on a pine bedroom suite that we both liked. Luckily, this also fitted within our (non-existent) budget. We bought a new, king-size slat bed (which is slightly bigger than kings from the UK so bringing our duvet covers and fitted sheets was a waste of time) as well as two bedside cabinets and a scotch chest (a tall chest of drawers, for those non-kiwis amongst you). With that sorted, the hunt for a decent, affordable mattress started. I am not sure what is harder! After lying on too many beds, which makes you really tired (can you see my joke?), we picked a winner. However, there is always ‘...one more look at this shop...’ and you guessed it, another mattress became the champion. Luckily, this mattress was much cheaper due to a clearance sale, so it was just as well that we did have that quick look.

Our bedroom

We had somewhere to sleep but still needed something to sit on whilst watching our 'new' television. So after searching the Trade Me website we found two lovely two seater couches. One couch is blue, the other is tartan. They do not match, but both look lovely and are in good nick. The blue sofa was delivered to the cottage on a Sunday, by a lovely man, who just did not seem to want to leave! Well, when we viewed the sofa at his house he did have two rather boisterous kids making a racket so who could blame him. With all the purchases, moving into the cottage required more than a few carloads. Yes, now that we have furniture to speak of, we needed a man with a van! We collected the bedroom furniture and tartan sofa, with the help of our friend Connor and his Ute (pick-up truck). A few more purchases from Trade Me have been made (bookcase, washing machine, etc.) which required the assistance of Mark and his car to collect. I guess we now owe a few beers to people!

Anyway, we are now settled in the cottage and really like it here as it is so nice and cosy! As I write, we are sitting in front of the TV (watching Rove), enjoying a glass of the red stuff whilst our rent-a-cat (more about him in another article) is sprawled on the sofa soaking up the heat from the gas fire.

Jelly and Ice Cream, Anyone?

It’s official, Christchurch is 150 years old. So how does a city, or more to the point the city council, celebrate such an event? Of course, in time honoured fashion you throw a party and bake a birthday cake. Not just any old cake, mind you, but a 150m long carrot cake, weighing 2.6 tonnes. I don’t know how many eggs were used or if its length is a record but I’m sure Norris McWhirter would…if he was alive!

If you are interested in such things, Christchurch became New Zealand’s first city on 31st July, 1856 when Queen Victoria signed the Letters patent or Royal Charter. This enabled Christchurch to become a base for a bishop. Later in the year, on Christmas Day, Henry John Chitty Harper was enthroned as the first bishop of Christchurch, (Thanks to The Press for those facts).

Last Saturday, in between moving a few things into our new home (a soon to be published blog article) and playing hockey, we went along to the birthday bash in Cathedral Square. Sure enough, spread out - on what I’m sure were car boot sale tables - over the length of the square was the cake. Being dedicated athletes preparing for a hockey game and subscribing to the mantra: ‘my body is a temple’; we promptly scoffed a deliciously iced, large piece of cake. Mmmmmmmmmmmm! It certainly went down well and luckily did not come back up all over the hockey pitch, 30 minutes later.

Guardian of the Cake

For us the highlight of the celebrations was the cake, and to be honest it was the primary reason for going, but there were plenty of other things going on. There were also 150 flights to Sydney to win if you came in fancy dress. However, I’m not quite sure if the council was sending the right message by giving away Sydney flights, as part of Christchurch’s celebrations! The usual collection of annoying ‘entertainers’ that earn an income travelling the length and breadth of the country attending events like this were there: jugglers, stilt-walkers, clowns and face painters. A passing nod was given to maori culture by inviting a kappa haka cultural group and kids were entertained by The Wobbles (a cheesy, bunch of dancing idiots dressed in bright primary colours). Another activity was the “Tram Jam.” Maybe McWhirter also knew the record for the number of people squeezed into a tram but I can tell you Christchurch managed …Actually, I think I will let you work out the actual number of people. On a tangent here, but in Mozambique we were crammed in (actually some people were only half in) a Toyota Hi-Ace that contained 25 people, lots of bags and two buckets of fish. It was a very pungent journey, particularly when a bucket of fish tipped over, and certainly made me appreciate British Rail’s efforts better.

Luckily, the weather was good for the birthday bash in Cathedral Square, but overall, I thought the celebrations were somewhat unambitious and needed promoting better. After all, celebrating 150 years and being the oldest city in New Zealand is quite a big event! There are not even that many cities in the mother country older than that. But for me, the main disappointment was the fact that there was not any jelly and ice cream at the party!