Somehow, since the
last entry not only have I failed spectacularly in my efforts to blog (though
it does mean I have done at least one thing spectacularly this year) but I have
found myself unemployed, of no permanent address and living in the wilds of west
coast of the South Island in New Zealand.
That’s always a solid career move, moving to where less than 1% of the
NZ population live isn’t it?
For the record, so far
I have seen more cows than sheep I think, or perhaps we are break even. Either
way, here I am. How I got here
takes a bit longer to tell. We can
condense it if you like, or you can take the longer version, like a choose your
own adventure if you are old (like me) and remember them.
Condensed version:
LOML (love of my life,
keep up - you never read the old entries or old blog did you) randomly said one
day “want to move to NZ and become gold miners?” Okay I say – after checking
furry pets could indeed cross the high seas and that cranky furry cats could
pass go and gain entry, yes lets. So we packed up our belongings, put them in
storage, rented our place and came to find our fortune in the (cold) ground.
Longer version: (You
might need a drink)
LOML (love of my life
refer to above), randomly said to me one day “want to move to NZ and become
gold miners?” Okay I say – after checking furry pets could indeed cross the
high seas and that cranky furry cats could pass go and gain entry, yes lets.
So it began. What no one tells you though when you
say “yes lets” is that you think you will fly away with a cat tucked under your
arm, a dog on the lead and merrily walk into your new home. No tears will fall,
there will be no angry words spoken and somehow you will arrive without wanting
to divorce the love your life approx 25 times in that last week. For a start you can’t really arrive
with the cat tucked in your handbag.
If you’ve met my cat, or heard about my cat you’d probably think me
bonkers to try that anyway because he has killed small dogs, small children and
probably a large brown bear if he could get his claws near one. But my god, do
I love that cat. LOVE THAT CAT. (I
joke about killing the small children…maybe) Also, the dog too wasn’t allowed to just you know, sit next
to me on the plane. They were also going to cost over $3000 and not even get a
window seat. I was fine with all of this, but we couldn’t line a house up
before we arrived for them to fly over anywhere near when we were. In fact we are here now and still can’t
line a house up, but I’m getting ahead of myself (do you want to break for a
drink? I know I do…)
We did arrange to stay
with a partner in the mine though, which was fantastic, but no pets
allowed. LOML assured me this
would be short term as we would find a house quickly and the pets would be with
us lickedy split or however the saying goes. I don’t know about you, but I can
lick an icecream freaking fast, but my pets still aren’t here. CUE TEARS. Getting ahead of myself again. Drink!
Anyway, there was
close to ten years of stuff to pack up at home, I might add STUFF in capitals
cause where there’s shed there seems to be a lot of STUFF and that seemed to
take some time. We had also done
some renovations to the house that we thought we had finished, but LOML realised we had a
list a mile long that really, really needed finishing before we could rent the
place out. Also, throughout this
deciding to go to NZ and actually going it took ooooooohhhhhhh twelve months.
So long that I kind of forgot about it.
We both did.
Until two
weeks before departure and all of a sudden we had a shit load to do and not
enough time to do it and I all of a sudden really, really did not want to leave
my home, or my pets, not when I didn’t know when they were coming over. DRINK!
Cause I might cry thinking of them.
What the hell, I might
just go and have a drink now and come back for the “leaving home” entry after
the drink. Cause its always advisable to write when emotional, ya know? On the upside, we have landed safely in
Hokitika, a beautiful little part of the world. I wake up, look out the window and see snowy covered
mountains and walk down to a truly wild beach. Snow and beach, all in one
view.
Down side, no fur
kids. DRINK!
