March 2016 - buying land

It is the very last day of March so I am right on time this month. It has been another very big month. Last month I told you about our offer on a piece of land. Now we have gone unconditional on that land and paid a deposit that was pretty much all of my savings. Scary. In another week it will be settlement and we will pay all the rest of the money that we have got together, and the bank will pay even more. In order to get our government Homestart grant for building a house, we need a building contract signed before we settle on the land, and then we will need to pay the first big deposit immediately. So tonight we have what is hopefully the second-to-last iteration of the contract (there are still a couple of things we need changed) - we hope to sign the contract tomorrow, but that will depend on our lawyer confirming something and them agreeing to it. Nevertheless, there is already a sold sign up on the land and as soon as we have gone out to take a photo I will put it here for you to see.

In March we have also gone on a road trip to Christchurch. It was both very quiet and quite eventful. It was quiet in that we didn't really do anything, just hung out with Nathan's family. We didn't do any day trips really, or go see stuff, somehow time just passed. It was also quite eventful though; Cher nearly caught a goose, I got a decent pair of new jeans for $10, we went to the CookieTime factory for cheap broken cookies, and I left my wallet on top of the car on the drive back up (luckily it was found when a truck ran over it and caused it to fly up, and the driver behind the truck saw and stopped to pick it up, and for some reason Mum's phone number was written on a receipt inside it). It was Easter and I definitely fell off of the healthy-eating wagon. I'm trying to get back on, but it's not easy when there are CookieTime cookies at work...

Tomorrow is April Fools day. I hope no-one gets up to anything at work, I am too tired to bother with that. I just want to get this building contract sorted. We have a good lawyer, so we'll see what he says in the morning.

February 2016 - the beginning of something big

Now when I say something big, I mean really big ... about as big as a house!

Earlier this month we made an offer on a section out in Lower Hutt, in a suburb called Wainuiomata. Wainui is sort of to the side of the Hutt, it's a valley that these days is mostly a commuter town, being about 15 minutes drive from the train station and then a 10 minute train ride. It's small, it's far cheaper to buy property than Wellington city, and it sort of reminds me of Invercargill (the flat bit at the bottom that is, not so much the huge hills). Our section is halfway up the hills, with a view over the town and to the hills on the other side. It's big - 1400m2. It's also mostly sloped, with scrubby regenerating native bush, gorse, lots of weeds, and a few nice trees. There is a long flat section, and that is where we plan to fit a house.

As for the house, the plan we are pretty set on is a pre-fab home from a local company called Matrix Homes. We looked at lots of other options, but having a house built on side would have ended up being far out of our budget, and all pre-designed plans from the other companies, whether to be built on site or as a pre-fab in a factory, they were all too wide for the site and we want to do as little in the way of earthworks as possible. The big difference with the company we have chosen is that instead of various house plans they have just three modules, and you can stick them together any way you like. So it's like really big lego...

In the end we will have a long house with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a large open plan living space. There will be lots of floor to ceiling windows looking out over the valley and our wee piece of native bush. Over time we will turn the bank behind the house into a terraced garden for all my flowers (and some herbs and vegetables) and we will turn the messy native scrub into a semi-wild garden of natives, probably with a little bit of terracing and steps so we can maneuver the steeper part of the section. There is another sloped area that will be perfect for a terraced vege garden and a chicken coop, though we may use up half of it with a garage if we can afford it. Which in turn will create shade so maybe my veges won't grow there after all. We'll see. Finally, there is a grassy bit that is actually part of the section on the level below ours - the realtor promised that the owner was keen to offload that big of grass, but now that we are committed with our offer he is of course back-pedalling and saying don't count your chickens, etc. I for one still have my heart set on redefining the boundary and getting that piece of grass - with a big of fill over time it could even nearly be flat, and will be the closest we get to a lawn in this hilly city.

So as you can see it has been a very big month, and things are just getting started. We are halfway through being ready to settle on the land - in fact more than halfway. I have the LIM report, but it's huge so will take awhile to understand. The geotech guy was pretty positive but we need to wait for the test results. We need quotes for earthworks and connecting services, then we need the final quote on the house itself. And we need an estimated valuation. Finally after that we can go unconditional, sign stuff, and become land owners.

It's past my bedtime, I stayed up just for this! And only two days late...

I will add some concept pictures soon, for now I need to go to sleep.

Finally! Update on last three months

Now, before you complain (again), I really think it's reasonable enough to have stopped writing when in the last three months I was down south three times. What more do you think there is for me to say? Especially considering I'm pretty sure I just have the one reader (if there are more out there maybe let me know?). But here we go, and I will write once a month again, I have just been really busy. So what has been happening that has been keeping me so busy?

Well in November I had my birthday. Unfortunately I had a terrible cold! Nathan gave it to me. My third week at my new job and I had an event to plan, I didn't want to take any days off. I may have made some other people sick - but then, there were lots of people with bad colds and infections, so maybe it wasn't me. My birthday was a Thursday and the plan was to go out for dinner - by this stage my cold was quite bad and I was so out of it, I just wanted to go to bed. Nathan convinced me to go out, and I agreed but wanted to go casual, and dress warm in jeans and a jumper. But I was talked out of it. And despite not being able to taste my meal fully we had a really nice dinner. The great thing about going out to dinner with the restaurant manager is that you get special treatment. We got a surprise extra course of oysters - and I think it might have been my first proper try of oysters, as I've always assumed they would be icky. They were really good though. But I should try them again as I couldn't taste properly that night.

My Aussie/Irish mate came to visit for three weeks. Unfortunately because he'd changed his plans so often, I already had a lot of plans plus my new job so I couldn't spend as much time with him as I would have liked. But we managed to do some stuff, took the dog on some nice walks, things like that. On one big hike we got stuck in gorse and then I slipped on a rocky slope and broke my phone. But overall we survived. It was nice to introduce him to my friends and have a dog sitter in the house. But he's gone back to Ireland now, won't see any of my friends from there for ages now I reckon.

In November we also went to the Fleetwood Mac concert. It was amazing, best concert I've ever been to. But the trip up was torture. The deal was that I would organise the trips to Invers and this one was on him. I kept asking if he'd booked flights and he finally looked into it a month before the concert - they were so expensive! So we had to drive. We left after work on Friday and the weather was awful. We tried to leave early but it seems to beat traffic you'd have to leave at lunchtime. We were in crawling traffic for about two hours, with torrential rain for about half that time. We finally got clear of it and were making a bit of progress, we were more than halfway to Taupo, our stop for the night. Then the car starting handling poorly and making a lot of noise - we look out the back window and see smoke. We pull over as fast as we can and find that one of the tyres is completely destroyed! It must have gone flat slowly, and then driving on it flat tore the rubber to pieces. Luckily we weren't quite down to the rim. And it had stopped raining. We managed to change it, but it took ages, the nuts were so tight that it took the two of us hauling on the tyre iron to get them loose. It was awful. Plus the spare is a space saver so for the final 200 km we were stuck at 80 km/h. We didn't arrive till 11 and we had planned to arrive at 9. We were exhausted and it was dark. But the next day was sunny and it all seemed to be OK, only 3 hours to Auckland, a discount tyre place around the corner and a free hot pool to wallow in while we waited. We got on the road at 10, everything went smoothly for an hour, and then we hit traffic again. It didn't stop till Auckland, a 3 hour drive took over 5 hours. It was rainy and muggy in Auckland, I was exhausted and hungry. But it was finally over. Did you know there is Velvet Burger in Auckland? I had forgotten how good it is, I wolfed mine down so fast I got a tummy ache. And then it was time for the concert. Like I said, it was amazing. There was a bit of a thunderstorm but even when it was raining, people were packed closely so only the tops of our heads got wet. They played for so long, and did 4 encores! By the end of it all we were completely exhausted, it was time for bed, but it took about an hour or more to get there. Then the next morning we had to drive home again. What an intense weekend! At least the drive home went smooth, sunny and no traffic, stopped at the Taupo hot pools again, home in time for dinner.

December was all about Christmas. I worked right to Christmas eve, except for my short trip down south. But then I had 10 days off which was nice. Or at least it was meant to be. But Nan died - we knew it was coming but it was pretty sucky timing. Luckily Air NZ offer compassionate fares so I could afford to fly down (only just). Christmas wasn't ruined though, because it's not like it had been unexpected. And New Years wasn't ruined. Just the in between was not very fun. So we had a Christmas tree, stolen as usual. This time we took it from down the road, it was growing wild along the bank, pretty much out of the middle of another tree so I thought I would do a favour to the other tree and take the pine tree off of it. Of course, it was right outside of some houses, across the road from the bus stop and underneath a streetlight, but that didn't deter us. All in all it was pretty funny. I also made my first gingerbread house, which worked out pretty well. Didn't dress Cher up Christmassy this year, but she got in the spirit of her own accord and kept napping under the tree. Christmas day was hot, we had a big late lunch and then went down to the beach, and played in the waves. Cher likes to get in the water but whenever we do she stays on the beach and just waits for us - strange dog. So it was a pretty good Christmas day.

New Years was also quite a lot of fun, though it didn't go according to plan. After going through Taupo on our Auckland trip we decided we should go again, properly, on a camping trip. We couldn't leave until New Year's day, and we were unfortunately a bit hung-over and tired (New Year's eve was a lot of fun though). The 1st of January was stinking hot up here and my poor old car doesn't have good air conditioning (it doesn't really have any actually). We got about an hour out of Wellington and started to wonder if this was such a good idea, especially considering that we were winging it and had no campsite booked. I said keep driving, in half an hour we'll find a beach to stop at. We kept going and maybe an hour and a half out of Wellington we couldn't take it any more, it was just too hot, we were all miserable and I was grumpy. We got to Levin and stopped for lunch, as there is a lake there. However, it turns out that it is not the stony, clear, go for a swim kind of lake. It's the marshy, full of birds, stinky, can't go in the water sort of lake. Cher didn't like it either, the birds were too big for her to feel confident chasing. So we got back in the hot car and kept driving till we got to the beach. It seemed far away but it was only really about 5 minutes. We immediately went for a swim, and that was good. Then it was time to eat, and we were too tired and hungry to think to reapply sunscreen. So you can guess what happened. This little beach was called Hokio and there was a tent pitched right near it. We decided we definitely couldn't drive another 4 hours to Taupo and maybe we should just stop. But we kept going just to see what the next couple of beaches were like. I thought maybe Foxton would be good. Should probably have just stayed there and relaxed because we couldn't find any other suitable spots - I think most places are not open to people just pitching tents, but in Hokio someone already had so we felt a bit more comfortable just going for it. We BBQ'd and walked on the beach, and went to bed when it got dark. Of course, the next morning it was raining... We went into Levin for breakfast, went back to the beach and packed up the tent. Then I insisted on a last swim. We drove right onto the beach, but it's more suitable to 4-wheel drives, not like Oreti beach. Nathan hasn't really driven on beaches before and next thing you know, we're stuck in the sand. So there's nothing else for it but to start digging, and lay driftwood under the tires to get some traction. Luckily, as we were making slow progress a kind stranger came along and towed us out of the sand, and we were more careful after that! We definitely deserved a good swim then, and despite it being a bit rainy earlier it was warm enough. We were super-careful on our way off of the beach, and drove home, because sometimes it's just nicer to be at home.

Now, if you're not tired of this novel yet, I'll tell you about January. It's been full on, we have both been working a lot, the weather has been hot, and every weekend has been packed. It was Nathan's birthday, there was the wedding down South, last weekend we went to the circus and this weekend it is Rugby 7's so I am home alone this Saturday night while Nathan works extra shifts. I managed to crash the car again, I mis-judged how much space I had pulling into a parallel park and scraped the side of the car against a pole, smashing the indicator and making a big dent. And just a few days before the warrant was due! Absolutely sucked. We were going to try fix it ourselves but the only car with the right parts at Pick-a-part had already had those lights removed! So I gave in and took it to the panel beater, and probably would have had to anyway because of the dent making the indicator not fit right. But parts would have been way cheaper if we could have found the right thing. Anyway, when I took it back to the mechanic it still didn't pass - turns out the other headlight was broken too, and his handwriting is so scribbly that I couldn't tell from the warrant sheet, and if he told me I must have forgotten. So yesterday I was feeling pretty crap because I'd have to fork out more money. I decided once again to have a go at it myself. Went back to Pick-a-part, and nearly gave up again but on our way out we saw the right car (in fact, the same car from last time) and what would you know but the only light left on it was the one I needed! It was the exact right model, and we managed to remove it easily because all the stuff around it was gone. However, getting it into my car was a mission, because the old girl is so rusty! The broken light came out but not all of the connection came with it, and we couldn't unscrew the bolts because they were so rusty and the plastic bits they were bolted into just twisted under the pressure. In the end, we reverted to a hacksaw and hammer, and just bashed them out. Bent the metal back into place with some pliers, put the new light in, put newer, un-rusty nuts on and she's all fixed! Very proud of myself, though my poor scratched up hands aren't thanking me.

All of our free time has been filled with house research - we have found a section that we really love, we're pretty convinced that pre-fab, transportable homes are the way to go, we're going to talk to the city council on Monday to make sure there are no surprises with the section and then we need to choose a building company. Oh, and make an offer of course. There is a competing bid on it, we're hoping that that falls through. The real estate agent doesn't seem to have much confidence in it, so we've got our fingers crossed but it's been an anxiety filled couple of weeks. I won't put up any pictures until we know what's happening, but it looks like this is going to be a pretty big year.

So that's all for now, hope this epic post has put any complaints about my absence here to rest. I will leave you with a view of my garden, I've had lilies blooming constantly since before Christmas and I can't wait to have a proper garden for them.

October 2015

Well I have been in my new job for two weeks now, but the entire first week was an induction course so I've actually only had one week with my team. Induction was good though, it was tiring, like being back at uni, but we learnt a bit about the ministry and even went on a couple of field trips. Surprisingly, the best one was to parliament. We went for something called question time, and it is when all the MPs are in the great hall arguing with each other. The various ministers ask questions of the other ministers about policy and stuff they said, trying to find weak spots and get the better of each other. But they all interrupt each other and it just turns into a yelling match. It was really fun to watch.

My job itself is so far pretty slow. I am just slowly being given bits of work, so I am certainly not in over my head yet but I can see it will take a long time to really get to know the place and the people and my role. I should probably ask for more work but everybody seems so busy. Today I was invited to a meeting of the directorate events committee, which is like a mini-social club organising small events for our directorate. That's our team plus some other policy teams, basically all of us on the same floor. So it's a small group of the younger people on our floor. It was nice of them to drag me along and I like organising stuff so I'll probably remain a part of it.

The rest of the month has been busy finishing my old job, getting ready for my new job, and all the usual stuff. We did Halloween on a very small scale and we had a leaky pipe problem and had to get a plumber in. Mum came up to Wellington and we watched WOW, which was pretty cool but exhausting. And we bought expensive shoes and looked around a cool new steampunk shop. And we looked at more open homes and went mini-golfing :)

Now it's about to be my birthday and I'm not impressed about being older. Then Christmas, which I am looking forward to. I'll be in Invercargill for 6 days at the start of December, then maybe (only maybe) for a long weekend in January.

Now here is Cher:

September 2015 and long awaited happenings

It is the first of October and I am not late in posting! I had good intentions to write a couple of days ago but they flew out the window at some point. Plus these days I don't have a computer, just a tablet with an awful touch-keyboard thing so typing is hard, I'll keep this short.

I finally got a real job! Not that my current job isn't real, but it isn't permanent so a couple of months ago I applied for the position of science adviser at the Ministry of Primary Industries. I had an interview at the end of August, before I came down to Invers. Then I found out that there would be a permanent place for me in my current team so I wasn't too worried, I had gone from being at risk of being unemployed and poor again, to have a definite permanent job waiting for me. And it had been about three weeks, maybe more since my interview. So I was actually really surprised when I got offered the job. I thought there would be more steps involved, more checks, maybe psychometric testing again. It took about a week to get the contract, read it and fill in the forms and take it back. And that's it, I start on the 19th of October. I'm meeting up with my new boss next week for coffee and a chat.

So this is a permanent job, a junior role in a policy team that will give me opportunities for further courses and training and to work on lots of different projects. I hope to do some writing and project management courses, and in the future just management in general. There will be opportunities to move up, and secondments to other teams, and all the benefits of a permanent government job. Might even go to the expense of getting health insurance and finally going to the dentist. Maybe I'll join the union. I don't know. I did put up my kiwisaver contribution though. Because while it's not a huge pay jump (I was already on good pay for someone from my experience), it's enough that I won't notice that extra percent or two being taken out.

In fact, they say you should blow your first pay check on nice new stuff, but I've been doing quite a bit of shopping lately so I don't think I'll be doing that. I've got new shoes, new dresses, a new trench coat and new fabric! There was a pop-up fabric sale so it was super cheap, nice wools for $5 a metre! I don't sew enough though so my collection just grows.

Anyway that's enough from me, I've still got to get ready for work tomorrow. Two more weeks at my current job, so much to do in that time!

August 2015

I forgot to post again! I actually remembered on the weekend but then later forgot. But it's only the 2nd, it's not too late! The great thing about having a decent smartphone now is I can post from the bus! And what a bus ride it has been. I got on outside work only to find it was one of those horrible broken down old buses with serious issues. It was making a loud high pitched noise constantly, the drive tried turning the off and on a few times but it didn't help. Then the bus stopped and wouldn't go again so we were told to get off and wait at the next stop for the next bus. Then our bus started again and drove past us! So I reached the next bus stop with the rest of the stranded passengers and we all got back on. A few blocks later we stopped again, and had to get out again, and wait for another bus to come get us. And now we are finally on our way, and the later bus just drive past us. Should have just stayed at work longer today!

So that is the life of a commuter. I've been very busy this month, with work and life. My usually non-existent social life has reared its head and my weekends are getting quite busy, but at least I'll have plenty to write about for the next couple of posts. For this one though I think I'll just keep you all in the dark and see how a few things pan out before giving a complete life update. I think it's enough that I'm coming down south for a couple of days and bringing N with me. Should be fun despite the awful weather forecast! I have a dogsitter lined up and I got through a really crazy half week at work with my sanity intact, now I deserve a four-day weekend!

July 2015

So, four days late. Did anyone notice? I have my excuses - work has been super busy, life outside of work has been busy, lots happened over the weekend, the weather sucks and I've been feeling ill. Time for bed nice and early soon, see if that helps (though it's unlikely to help with the bad weather). You know what's worse than having to hang all the washing inside to dry? When you then go and spill juice on the nearly dry washing and have to go wash it all over again!

So what as been happening to keep me so busy you ask? Well it seems sort of hard to remember July right now, I'm pretty tired. Let's see, I'll work backwards from last week ... I have started job hunting again, but this time with the knowledge that when my contract ends there'll almost certainly be another one waiting for me. Yet I'll job hunt anyway, because maybe an opportunity to take a step up will come along. Plus Nathan started a new job and I can't have him catching up to me in the wage department - I do have a PhD after all. At work things have been busy because the meetings that I was hired to coordinate all happened in the first three weeks. So last week was nice and quiet but the three before that were hectic, with longer days than I usually work, long hours spent setting up meeting rooms, packing down meeting rooms, guarding the catering (and then helping eat it at least) and running around on all sorts of silly errands. I'm glad it's all over. Now I have to try and get all of our assessment panel members paid, but we're having issues with our financial processes so it's slow going. And when the decisions are made about what research is going to be funded, my job will be to help get the contracts all arranged. So that will be new for me, hopefully it will be interesting.

Outside of work I have been struggling to keep up with my tutoring, with the long days I have been working. We have been doing somewhat lazy lessons, making and colouring in our own periodic table. Now back to physics, but my being a biologist leaves me at a bit of a loss to answer all her questions. We did take a weekend trip to the observatory though, that was pretty cool. Got to look through the big telescope - I have to say, Saturn was not what I expected. I guess I expected to see something that looked a bit more like the pictures you can see on the internet, but then they are probably from fancy orbiting telescopes or something. Through your usual telescope Saturn looks like a tiny stamp or cutout, of a planet with a ring around it glowing white on a black background. So a bit underwhelming.

And despite a heavy workload this month I have actually had a bit of a social life. Nathan's new job means more nights home, even on the weekend, so I made him go ice skating with me at the temporary rink they put up on the waterfront in winter here. It was fun but a small rink and so crowded, even at 9 pm. Full of kids with those frames to push on the ice so they don't fall down - they definitely shouldn't offer those, how can anyone skate while trying to avoid a traffic jam of plastic frames supporting children? This rink also had an ice-slide alongside it, that you went down on inflatable rings. It didn't look very high but for me it was still scary and I screamed a bit on the way down. All five times. It was more fun than skating on a crowded rink.

Then to keep the skating theme going, I went rollerskating for a friend's birthday. She saw 'roller disco' and assumed it would be for adults (in Europe they refer to nightclubs as discos so I can understand her confusion). So there the four of us were, at an event definitely aimed at children. There is a roller rink in one of the suburbs that does lessons and fitness classes and stuff, and sometimes opens up on a Friday night for a 'disco', for just a gold coin donation. It turns out it's not just roller skates either, there were roller blades and kids on scooters, and even one small child on a little bike. Roller blades are clearly the most popular so there were none of those in our sizes, we had to choose roller skates. Which none of us had used before. It is sort of the same, but entirely different way of balancing, and turning and stopping. So in an hour of roller skating, I knocked two children over. Luckily neither cried, but the first had a scooter and I landed on it - the handle jabbed me right in the belly and it hurt! There's even a little bruise. After an hour we were definitely ready to leave, and the few other grown ups on the rink turned out to work there, and be the MCs and DJ, who started to get the kids to try and focus on playing games like freezing when the music stopped. It was difficult both because it is hard to stop, and most of the kids weren't much interested in the game. We definitely had to leave before another started.

So it's my bedtime now, I guess I'll have to regale you with stories about the dog another time. See you all soon I reckon.