Living in Kiwi Land

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Creature Comforts


It's a Saturday night and we are both sat, happily, in our lounge! Yes there is a world of partying going on in Christchurch but we would rather be in...tonight. Maybe, we are beyond that 'going out thing' or maybe we just want to spend some time in our new home. It's probably a bit of both, really, but we certainly have not spent enough time relaxing and enjoying our home comforts. In any case, that is what we are doing tonight so as I write the log fire is roaring, the cat is sat on the settee beside me and a bottle of wine has been opened! Oh, and I scored a last minute equalising goal in our hockey game. Life's not bad!

So what is life like in our new home? Pretty grand really. It's certainly a lot bigger than our Redbridge house! Chantal is really pleased with the spacious kitchen. I'm not sure why really as curries and pasta bakes taste the same no matter what. Seriously though, we do have gas cooking; were left a huge, shiny double-door fridge-freezer, a dish washer (a first for us) and a decent microwave.

Once the food has been prepared we can enjoy it in our dining room. It is a versatile room as it has french doors that flow on to the patio and also connects to the lounge, via sliding glass doors. It is also the first time we have had a dining area large enough for a table to be placed in the centre of the room.
One of the things we like best about our house is the shower. If we had more time in the mornings, we could spend hours under it. It is hot and powerful; another first for us! Fantastic! We will repaint the walls a colour that is more complimentary to the wood pannelling but that is a long way down the jobs list!


Of course, we are both lookingforward to summer! Not only do we have a good indoor/outdoor flow but we also have a good sized garden. Even though, the double garage takes up a good chunk of space, we still have a good sized private back garden. Not only is the garden mature with plenty of shrubs, a nectarine tree, feijoa bush, lemon tree, huge walnut tree, asparagus patch and rhubarb plant but there are also plenty of interesting little white markers dotted around the bare patches of earth. Obviously, there will be some perennials popping up in the spring. I can't wait to see what appears. Rather wrongly, though, there are some bulbs pushing though the mid-winter soil already!
Finally, the bedrooms. Like most kiwi houses, we don't have central heating and as the bedrooms are either south or west facing, they see less sun than the rest of the house so are the coldest rooms in the house. That's not a big problem as once we are snuggled up in bed with our hot water bottles we are warm enough. Having said that, we are thinking of investing in an electric blanket. As you can see, the rooms do have a couple of character features, such as the art-deco fireplace and the box window seat. And yes, redecorating our room is on the jobs list as the lovely, floral wallpaper does give the room a B&B feel!So that's pretty much our house apart from the fact that we also have a laundry that leads to the original toilet. At the moment it's just a room that we dump things in and close the door!

Sunday, June 03, 2007

And...we're in!

As the house buying process in NZ is slightly faster than in Britain, it meant that we were able to bring our move forward three weeks to Friday 1st June.
Packing up again!

The first weekend of June is Queen's Birthday Weekend; for which we have the Monday off. So, we thought, why not move in then, as that would give us an extra day to get settled into our new abode. However, we both forgot we had entered the Christchurch SBS Marathon event. Pete entered the half marathon, and Chantal entered the 10 km event. This race was on the Sunday, with the start and finish being at the Town Hall, only minutes walk from the cottage.

Yesterday (Saturday), Mark, Lisa, Ryan & Emily helped to move most of our possesions from the cottage to our 'grown-ups' house. Thanks again! Because of the run we decided to spend the Saturday night at the cottage. Yes, we have not yet spent a night at our new house! Anyway, moving house the day before running your first half marathon is not such a good idea, but Pete finished in a great time of 1.34.21. Lisa finished near enough the same time and Mark came in at 1.33.39. See www.sbsmarathon.co.nz for the results. Chantal ran the 10 km in a great personal best, of 56.40. Already thinking ahead, Pete is hoping to be able to run the full marathon and Chantal will try the half marathon next year.
Our cosy lounge

Anyway, this running event only temporarily halted the moving in process. After the race we went back to the cottage, emptied the whole house of our remaining possessions, loaded the truck and off we went, back to Avonside. As I am writing this, at midnight (Sunday), the kitchen and one of the spare bedrooms are full of boxes. The lounge is box-free and so is the bedroom, we will just ignore the rest for now!

Putting a roof up is already on the list of jobs!