After so many of you mentioned this blog when we came over to visit, we decided to give it another go! Sometimes it feels like you’re repeating yourself using email and facebook etc, but here goes anyway!!

The trip over was very cool, and we were so happy to see you all, but wish we had been able to stay for longer. There were lots of you we wish we could’ve seen more of, or even once would have been nice!!  Most of the places looked the same, only a few things were new, (buildings etc) what was most striking was how green and bushy all the trees were.  New Zealand is very green, but the trees are more like pines or ferns, and the English countryside definitely trumps it!

Obviously, the shopping was also excellent, and I have to admit I spent much more than anticipated…oh well at least Im stocked up until next time! Mark bought random new things like snowboarding boots ( which were interesting to pack in the hand luggage…) and about 60 pairs of socks.  I think he has missed M&S more than he admits!! 

The flight back was ok really, just long and boring.  Because we flew on Emirates we actually had loads of leg room and those little tv screens you can control, so we were entertained for the trip.  I watched half of about 8  films, falling asleep for the endings, but it passes the time I suppose!

Auckland was bright and sunny for our return, but has done nothing but rain ever since. It is pretty cold  as well, we are planning our next ski trip to Mt. Ruapehu in the next few weeks, seeing as the south is full of snow at the moment. We are slowly getting back into the work routine but have been falling asleep in front of the tv at 8.30 most nights ( how sad) Hopefully this week will see us a bit perkier, and doing something in the evenings. 

This weekend I was working on Saturday, so on Sunday we went to see the new exhibitions at the museum in the Domain and topped up our caffeine levels drinking NZ coffee ( very strong!) We also started looking at new places to live, as we are ready for a change now.  will keep you posted if we see something good! I will be spendin lots of productive time on the internet finding some nice houses!

Take care,

Gill & Mark x

hello everyone!

Just wanted to jump on and say hi – nothing really exciting happening here though. The weather has been improving lately and we have both been a bit sunburnt on the last two weekends when walking along the beach. It was even warm enough for icecream on Sunday so of course we had one!

Mark is still working down at the vaduct for his Croatian friend. They seem to be really busy and he comes home having learnt something new about boats everyday! Our living room floor currently has about 8 books about boats, an engine filter and some wood and tools things strewn around, like a boat shed. O well.

But I have to say he has been busy making us some mosquito blinds for the windows at home. Last summer we got eaten alive by them and sandflies ( the bites of these nasty things make me swell up and and scar – like very small ordinary flies that bite. horrid) So this summer we are prepared! Its too hot to sleep with the windows closed and we don’t have air conditioning here so these will hopefully work, fingers crossed.

My work is still fine, there are many less bald men in Auckland now, and yes it does work before you ask! Anyone fancies a cheap deal for some hair let me know!!

We went to an indoor rock climbing place a couple of weeks ago with my boss and a girl that used to work here, Mark and my boss were really good at it, and tried the really hard walls, except I was a scaredy pants and only went up the easy ones and not quite to the top! I still enjoyed it though! I think we will probably go there again soon. It s really cheap ( 8 pounds) for as long as you like.

This weekend is a bank holiday here ( Labour Day) to celebrate the 40 hour working week being introduced to New Zealand – funny how we all still seem to work more than that though hmmm…..so we are both off on Monday, but got no plans as yet. The rain is supposed to be coming over from Sydney ( thanks Australia!!) and saoking us on Monday so I bet we will spend it in a pub or two. this time last year we were here… crikey thats gone fast.

Anyway what have you all been upto?
love from us xx

Well, blogger locked me out of my account for awhile then, as my old email address at the hosital was the account holder, and the NHS must have finally deleted my email after I left there um… 18 months ago!

Anyway, we are both well, I think I have caught up with most of you on Facebook, but for those of you not addicted to facebooking madness, we have had a fairly busy few weeks.

Mark was supposed to be starting a job working on the fire engines for the council, but days before he was due to start they called to say they had a budget cut and they coudn’t start him. Needless to say we were a bit mad because they hadn’t exchanged contracts yet, so we couldn’t do a thing. Poor Marky was gutted, seeing as work is quite hard to come by at the moment. He managed to get some work in a warehouse for a few weeks but it was back-breaking and boring, and as I keep reminding him, he isn’t 18 anymore. I was still working so it wasnt a big deal money-wise, we didnt have to live on beans all week!!

We were then looking at moving to a place called Whangerei, about 3 hours north of here, where there were a couple of possible jobs for him. We have been there before ( where the photos of the waterfall were taken) but I didnt really fancy living there to be honest. It was quite a small town and miles from the beaches so we were hoping something would come along. Lucky for us a job came up in Auckland 2 days before we had to decide whether to go! So we are still in sunny Auckland at the moment. He seems to like it so far, fingers crossed they keep getting work through. Everywhere seems to be struggling at the moment, probably due to this mini recession we are having. Good job for me there will always be baldy men!!

Otherwise we have been enjoying some excellent weather, getting down to the beach for walks and even an icecream or two! It is still too cold to swim yet, but it shouldn’t be too long until we can. It is shark season soon, so I will be trying to avoid being eaten as well.

I don’t know if you saw on the news about the ‘whale vomit’ thing they found on the beach here, everyone has been going mad about it, as it is a valuable ingredient of some perfumes and things. It looks horrible, like a big lump of fat! People were sneaking down in the night to steal a chunk off it, and now it has all gone! We see some random things on the beach all the time tho – last week we found either a horse or cow skeleton (hard to tell) but it was enormous. I overheard a mum and her children talking about it later, and the mum was arguing and saying it is fish bones, and the kid was like “some big fish mum” made me laugh for ages!!

There were even a few coconuts floating around on the beach at the end of our street the other day when I was on my way home, I bet they had come from somewhere nice and tropical like Fiji or Tonga! I love how you can go to the beach and find all sorts of things. I think I would miss the sea if we moved away now. you can smell it all the time and hear it at night (when the cicadas finally shutup!) It’s lovely!!

I have a long weekend off this weekend, as I worked my day off last week, and will spend it cleaning the flat – how exciting!! Spring cleaning time though – the sun is showing up how dirty everything is and its bugging me!! how sad I have become…

Hope you are all well, lots of love to Auntie Beryl and Uncle Jim. I hope you got our card and email and hope to hear from you soon.

Love from the kiwis xox

Yes, well the english speaking person is back now, this is what happens when you give other people the passwords..o well we dont call him special for nothing!! hope you enjoy our silly pics!!!

We are both fine, still working away with the baldy men, Mark is going to be starting work at a place that makes fire engines in a couple of weeks. It seems that the boat fixing is very seasonal, so it is probably for the best that he gets work on land type vehicles. Hopefully he will enjoy it but I will let you know.

The weather has been lovely the last few days, quite chilly in the morning ( 2- 3 degrees) with a bit of frost on the road, but then sunny all day. We managed to get down to the beach at St Heliers yesterday to enjoy a coffee and a stroll up the sand. It was very nice to catch a bit of sun again, seeing as we are all pasty and white again!!

We have actually been here for a year on the 21st, so Im sure we will have a little celebration – we will be having a christmas in winter celebration on 24th, so will probably tie it into that. I am planning christmas pudding and a roast dinner, and can borrow xmas decorations from work, so it will feel like a proper xmas, not like it did in December!! My australian friend thinks we are bonkers, but still wants to join in the roast dinner of course.

Mark has just taken his driving test here too, our British ones are not valid after 12 months, so I still need to do mine, but am scared to after the last time I took my test aged 17…all 5 times that is!! Im sure I will pass, but they do have some different road rules here to do with who has right of way…will keep you posted!!

I have been looking at flights over to australia for August/September to get a little weekend break in Brisbane/Sydney and hopefully bump in to Mark’s Auntie Nellie and cousins Belinda and Garry who will be visiting there at that time. I am hoping it will be a bit warmer there too so the shorts can come out!

anyway I better get back to work, hope you are all well xoxo

hi peeps its the other one here ,appology for spelling and grammer are bad. not grand mar’s ( grand mothers they ok ).

speaking of grammer,bumped into a dislexik gangster  t’other day , he made me AN OFFER I COULDN’T UNDERSTAND. cue laughter.

Any way weather was crazy last night ,just found out we had two typhoon thing’s ,the house was shacking,felt like we were in the eye of the storm.

No pictures for a while, gill’s put our camera in a really safe place, so safe we can’t access it either. I’d say it was lost but , then i might be in trouble. ;-p

just checked this is really short so          just         thought                 of             a               trick                i   used                                       to                                                               do                                             on  my                english              homework   the              reaction       was       something    like       IN RED  ( cant use red pens now its abuse or something)                 ” Mark five words per line is streeeecchhing it abit , started off well but rambled off at the end C+”       ,        buts that’s my best feature rambling off at the end, ask anyone in the corner of my local who thinks i can’t see them hiding in the corner;     that teachers grammer was rubbish and streching was spelt wrong! even i no that.

well thats it for now, thinking of you all-even the stangers (friends you’ve yet to meet) reading this .

Hello everyone, hope you are all well. We are both fine, still working away in our jobs.

We have had some really nice weather the last few days, it is still really cold but the sun has been shining this week, which is lovely, and have been able to go for long walks on the beach wrapped up in our scarves and hats! There has been a lot of snow further south, and we are expecting the closest ski field to open in 2 weeks, so will book some time off work then.

I think we are going to go to the indoor ski place this weekend and get some practice in, provided Mark’s old knees are up to it! We always end up being rubbish for the first couple of days when we are out of practice!!

Last weekend we went to another free rugby match from work, this time it was Auckland versus another local team from Hamilton ( about an hour south of here), it was quite an important match for Auckland which they won, so it was a lovely atmosphere. We even treated ourselves to a few pints in the Irish pub afterwards! The buses are free when you have a match ticket so we could get around easily afterwards.

This afternoon we are off to lunch in town ( Mark always meets me on saturday afternoons after work) then probably a bit of a rest back home. Not much excitement today. I got an $11.74 refund ( about 4 pounds!) today which is about as exciting as it gets this week! Let me know what you have all been up to!

love from the kiwis
xoxo

when it rains it pours…

Finally pictures of our little house and other random Auckland pictures please click *here* !!

Hallo again,

Just loaded a few more piccies on here if you fancy a nosy. Mostly baby pics, as my mum has sent us some more photos ( yes she does love photos!!) also I have put on a picture of my new blonde hair.

Decided one rainy Sunday afternoon to bleach it! Was not much fun and had to have orange/green hair for two weeks to rest it until the hairdresser would do it properly! And no I will never learn before you ask! Still a bit orange at the front but that will come out the next time I get it done.

Auntie Beryl – new job is good thanks, I am still enjoying it. They have given me some training here, still no word as to when they will send me to Sydney. I am starting to think that was something they told me at interview just to make me start!
Mark starts at 6 but finishes at 4pm, so is usually fast asleep on the sofa when I get home at 7.30pm!! I do get Fridays off as well as Saturday afternoon and Sunday so I don’t mind really.

The house on the pictures is the backpackers where we were staying. I have taken pictures of our new house but someone (ahem ..Mark) has lost the cable to connect it to the pc, so at the moment I can’t load them. Hopefully I will get to put them on a disk soon.

The weather is now really cold, we have had some snow in the North island, and lots of snow in the South island, and we are itching for a ski soon, just waiting for the snow to really build up and then we will be off!

We are going to a comedy festival tonight and then there is a sausage festival in Aotea square, so hopefully will get a few sausages for tea!! Tomorrow I am meeting up with friends from my last job for lunch, then Mark and I will be off to the cinema I think. We are on an alcohol detox this month and are trying really hard not to have anything, as it feels like that is all we have done for the past 9 months!!

Other than that I havent got much news I afraid, we are both quite homesick still, and I like to read the bbc website every week to keep me up to date! If anyone fancies sending us some teabags again I would be grateful!! I will pay for them!! ( 33 Richmond Avenue, Northcote, Auckland, NZ)

***Perhaps not you Laura, as you nearly gave yourself a heat attack last time, naughty smuggler that she is wrote ’soft toy’ on the envelope when it was tea bags in, then got worried about being arrested as a drug dealer when the xray the bag hehe!!***

Hope you all ok, lots of love from team kiwi!

have a click on these pics, only a couple of days old and world famous already!

 New Baby

xox