Gail Dickson .. my blog from Down Under

Been a much better weekend … Kyle is feeling much better now and is almost back to normal. He’s still a bit tired and is not eating quite as well as he normally does but considering how bad he was it’s a great improvement. He managed well at nursery on Friday but his teacher said that she thought he’d lost a lot of weight … we didn’t notice it so much as we see him all the time but she definitely said she saw a difference.

He asked us to take him to a playpark that he’d never been to before on Saturday but as he asks that quite often, we’ve run out of playparks that are in this area (that we know of anyway!). So we took him up to the local regional park (http://www.arc.govt.nz/auckland-regional-parks/northern-parks/long-bay.cfm) and let him run around for a while. He wasn’t happy that he’d been before but soon forgot about that once he was playing. It’s nice up there … it’ll be a great place to go after work in the summer … take a picnic and eat at the beach.

Work is a bit better now that I’m back … don’t feel quite as vulnerable now. However, during one of those pre-meeting times on Friday, I learned a shocking piece of news!!! I was always under the impression that NZ was a friendly place with no deadly things at all (unlike the neighbours). However, it turns out that the neighbours have been sending their deadly bugs over here. Not happy! Seems that NZ now has a white back spider .. the kiwi equivalent of the red back (the Auckland rain probably washed the colour out of the red back which is why it’s been renamed!). Anyhoo, I have now started looking under toilet seats again .. which wasn’t supposed to happen. Pamela - if you’re reading this, don’t worry I haven’t seen any yet and if you come to visit then I’m sure you won’t either!
Two responses to Better Weekend:

1: Catriona
Let us know if you find any Wayne doesn’t like the little ones you get here who knows how he will cope with those. I have now sat and read all your blog that I have missed and feel like I have caught up with your life again. Lots of love to you all Catriona, Wayne, Rachel & Daniel XXXXX
2: Pamela
Oh my goodness!! They don’t sound good!! I think I might have a small issue with visiting now… Maybe Chris could guard me while I sleep so they don’t go in my mouth and eat my tongue out or worse go up my nose and start eating my brain, I need that!! and also I’ll need a thorough check of the toilet seat, I agree that is essential!! XX

Had word back from the doctors today …. Kyle had campylobacter food poisoning!! Seemingly, it’s quite common in NZ with very high rates of the bacteria found in chicken stocks. Studies have shown that New Zealand has the highest rates of campylobacter food poisoning in the developed world – three times higher than the UK and ten times higher than the States.

Whenever I mentioned it to anyone at work, they all nodded knowingly so it’s obviously very common … they also all said it was a really bad one especially in children (we found that one out ourselves!). Bobby said that the nurse mentioned that we may get a call from the Food Standards people as they are trying hard to bring the rates down and are trying to find out how people are catching it. As Kyle was the only one to get it, we are not sure how he got it but have a couple of ideas where it might have been.

Anyway, he’s feeling much better now … still a bit tired but the real Kyle is back again which is great to see! We’re going to take him to Pre-School tomorrow and see how he goes … he’s getting stir crazy so I think being back will help alot. Hopefully he’ll last a whole day.

Quick update on how the kids are doing …

Regan is fine again … antibiotics are almost complete but she is eating as much as ever again and is back to her normal smiley self.

Kyle on the other hand is still a bit under the weather .. his tummy bug is definitely on the way out but he’s still complaining of pains in his stomach and is still suffering a bit from an upset stomach. He’s really tired and drawn and not eating well so is still off nursery.

Which is causing Bobby and I a bit of worry as neither of us feel comfortable asking for time off/working from home when we’ve only just started. As I mentioned in a previous post, my new boss isn’t too keen on me working from home so I have to take a day off which means no pay. This is day three and a half since last Wednesday that I’ve been off between the two of them being ill … so I’m beginning to feel a bit worried about the health of my contract. Still, there are plenty of jobs out there so if they were to cut the contract short or just not extend it due to this, then I wouldn’t have too many problems finding something else. Hopefully it won’t come to that.

Not the best weekend ever …. as I said in an earlier post, Regan was off nursery on Thursday and Friday with an ear infection. She had a really high temperature, wouldn’t eat and was just not doing very well. Thursday night, I started to come down with a flu type bug and ached all over and shivery. Friday night, Kyle wouldn’t eat and woke up during the night with a temperature and feeling sick. He’s had a really upset stomach ever since so much so that we were worried enough to take him to the out of hours doctor today who said that it’s probably a virus but to take a sample in tomorrow so that they can check it’s nothing more serious. He’s still no better this evening so one of us will have to take tomorrow off …

So as well as worrying about the kids being ill (although Regan is now much better), we’re also worrying about taking too much time off since we’ve just started work. With me being a contractor, if I’m off I don’t get paid and my new boss doesn’t think that PMs can work from home … Bobby has only been working a couple of weeks so he’s feeling even more vulnerable about taking time off than me!

We’re both exhausted and need a rest … but since Kyle still isn’t well, I don’t think tonight is going to be much easier.

We’ve learned about NZ doctors though .. you have to pay to visit the doctor down here, but I think it might make them listen a bit better rather than just fob you off like UK doctors. Bobby definitely felt that was the case when he took Regan to our own doctor on Thursday .. not sure I feel the same about the out of hours doctor though. North Shore doctors run an out of hours surgery and they take turns to run it which means that there is always somewhere open … wasn’t very impressed with the guy that was on today though. Visits cost between $15 and $20 for kids .. think it’s about $50 to $60 for an adult.

Here is a link to the real estate page for our new house …

Not sure how long it will last since it’s got a big sold sticker on it (eek!) but for those of you who access early enough you’ll be able to view the slide show of the house.

Our offer on the house went unconditional today … what does that mean? NZ house buying is a bit different .. we put the offer in last week subject to building inspection, council search (called a LIM report here) and finance (we hadn’t even been to speak to a bank as we never thought for a minute that we’d buy something this early!).

Mortgage offer came through okay.

Building inspectors will do the LIM report for an extra $80 if you ask them - means they photocopy all the council documentation on the house then check it against the house as they inspect it. It’s a good idea to do it this way as the council can take up to 15 days to send out a LIM report otherwise. Anyhoo, we got the report on the Wednesday and it highlighted a few issues:

- there was a slight problem with the roof that needed fixed
- there were a couple of issues with the carport that needed fixed
- there was no planning permission for the kitchen and bathroom downstairs! Although they had got retrospective planning permission to make the downstairs into a rumpus, the next owners had put in a kitchen and bathroom and had used it as “an income” … ie a flat and had rented the area out. These additions had never been checked out by the council so were technically illegal.

We got the solicitor involved as we don’t really know how to go about this here … and although it’s kind of similar … it’s also a bit weird! The solicitor went back to the sellers telling them that we weren’t going unconditional until they fixed the roof and carport and they got a “safety and sanitory report” on the kitchen and bathroom. Heard today that they’d agreed to do all of the above. Now here’s where it’s weird (or different at least) - in the UK, you wouldn’t go unconditional until you’d inspected the repairs and seen the report saying everything was fine. Here in NZ, so long as they say they’ll do it … you can go unconditional. I asked her what would happen if the safety and sanitory report came back saying that it either wasn’t safe or wasn’t sanitory and she said that it was up to the sellers to make sure that that wasn’t the case and we’d deal with it at the time if it happened (ie ask for money off etc). So under NZ law, we went unconditional and paid the deposit (the what? yup, you have to pay a 5-10% deposit when your offer is accepted).

So we have definitely bought a house and we’ll be in before the summer starts and settled before our first visitor (Lynne) arrives in February …

It’s been a busy week with the house stuff and Regan also got an ear and chest infection so has been off nursery for the last two days. The antibiotics seem to be kicking in now though so hopefully she’ll be okay by Monday. Unfortunately, Kyle and I have now caught it so Bobby is going to have a hard weekend I think!

Kyle went on his first pre-school trip this week too … he went to the Sky Tower (again). He seemed to really have enjoyed it though and it was a much nicer day this time too so he probably saw alot more than he did when he was there with us.

Did something a bit scary at the weekend …. I think we may have bought a house!!!

As I said in earlier blog, we had viewed a couple of houses on Saturday and one in particular had caught our attention. On Sunday, we viewed something near where we are at the moment (which was quite a bit more expensive than the one from Saturday) and it was a bit of a dump … which made us think again about the one from Saturday. We went back up to view it again and still had the same feelings. The estate agent doing the open home realised that we were keen and explained the bidding process etc in New Zealand (you can put offers in subject to many things .. including getting a mortgage). We said we’d think about it and left …

A few hours later we were still thinking about it and finally decided to put an offer in! Phoned the estate agent back, she came right round to the house (she lives round the corner) and wrote up the offer. She left us, went up to see the sellers and within an hour our offer had been accepted. EEK! Still need to wait for building inspection, council reports and mortgage offer but if all of them come through okay then we’ve just bought a house. Entry date isn’t until the end of September as we’re on a fixed lease here so we delayed entry for as long as we could.

So what’s so good about this house then? It’s on a full plot (which is unusual in our price range) so has a big garden … it’s on three levels - top floor has two bedrooms and a living area (master suite?), middle level has living area (kitchen, dining & lounge) plus another three bedrooms (Kyle, Regan & Playroom/guest room) and the bathroom then the bottom floor has two large rooms, a shower room and a kitchen. We brought our gym equipment over with us (step machine, elliptical trainer and a rowing machine) so need somewhere for that so thinking is we’ll turn the bottom floor into a gym! There’s a great space just outside the “gym” for a hot tub too!! (they are not that expensive over here and most people have them!).

The house needs a bit of work (don’t all our houses?) which is why it’s still in our price range. It’s still in Browns Bay but up in the valley rather than right on the coast like the one we’re in just now so definitely no seaview … but still only a 10-15 minute walk to the beach/shops.

So I arranged a solicitor yesterday and she’s off doing a title search … the building inspection was done today with report due before Thursday, mortgage broker is off finding out about Orbit mortgages (current account mortgage) so it’s all moving very quickly ….. It’s a bit scary but quite exciting.

I’ll keep you updated.

We’ve also uploaded some photos of life in Browns Bay …. http://www.flickr.com/photos/fikkabix/sets/72157600866529270/

What a week! Auckland and Northland above were hit with severe storms with gales of up to 160km/h. Our lovely wooden house sitting high above the Bay with no shelter from the wind was hit full on by the winds. NZ homes are not really built for that kind of weather and have no insulation, no double glazing and no heating so it was a hard night on Tuesday night. The living area has windows on three sides looking out to the bay so they were hit very hard by the wind … and as they are single glazed, they were shaking really badly. At some points, you could actually feel the whole house shaking. It wasn’t fun!

Bobby went down to Browns Bay to get some food and while he was gone the lights starting flickering. I called him and asked him to get candles just in case. He found them … 3 packets left of which he took 2 …. just as the lights went out in the shop! A pack of worried ladies came running round the corner looking for candles and were a bit miffed that he’d just swiped them! He got back about half an hour before we lost all power …

No power, no heat and bad house shakes made us decide to take the kids to bed with us … four in a normal sized double bed (we haven’t put our own bed up yet) does not really work .. trust me! The next morning I was extremely tired and very sore … The power was back on so we had lights etc however NZ electricity like to keep the water heaters and the rest of the power separate so that if they’re having issues with the electricity, they give you power but no water heater. Our water didn’t come back on until Thursday.

Weather has now cleared up and all back to normal.

Last weekend was a special weekend … Regan was 6 months old and Bobby and I have known each other for 18 years! We decided since the weather was nice to have a day out, so we went to the local French cafe for lunch then ate fresh cream cakes on the beach. We have photos which will be loaded soon …

Also began the open home search last weekend .. trying to find out what’s out there for our budget. Saw a number of places .. new, old, tree houses etc. Here’s an example of what we were looking at http://www.barfoot.co.nz/scripts/db.dll/details?sid=300.2&ref=366944 (not sure how long the link will last as it will be removed once it’s sold). Surprisingly, this house is actually in our price range but had no parking and no garden but wow, look at the views from the windows! Anyway, did some more houses this weekend so getting a feel for what’s out there … looks like we’ll be able to afford to stay in this area, just not sure we’ll get the seaview.

Six weeks into the job and I have a soap box topic already … they still need everything signed in ink! Once you’ve finished your document, you have to go round the building trying to get people to physically sign the front page!! Email will not suffice … When you don’t know anyone or where they live, it’s a right pain! I was always moaning about this and Bobby thought this was really funny. It made me laugh when he came in the other day complaining of the same thing. Obviously a kiwi thing then.

One Response to “Severe Weather”
1. Wai Says:
The house looks amazing, i am totally jealous of you and the family. Follow the All Blacks and you will pass easily with the natives.

Weather has definitely taken a turn for the worst recently … down south, they are having ice/snow and up here in Auckland, we are having good old lumpy rain! They have some really heavy rainstorms … thankfully most of them are either during the night or while I am at work. The clouds make for some awesome sunrises though .. this morning I came round the corner to the view of the CBD and it was amazing. The sky was dark with clouds but red because the sun was coming up so it was a kind of hazy orange colour with the buildings still lit up … wow! Didn’t have my camera and couldn’t have stopped on the motorway even if I had so completely missed the opportunity to capture it other than in my mind.

The harbour bridge has eight lanes but it depends on the time of the day how many go each way. Weekends and during the day, there are four lanes each way but at rush hours they change it so that busy direction has five lanes and non busy has three. It’s quite a sight (and very strange the first time you see it) when they are changing this as they have a machine that goes along the bridge moving a very large concrete wall one way or the other. It works though, the bridge is never that busy.

Work has definitely improved this week … first set of deliverables delivered with my first tollgate meeting on Tuesday. I’ve had to do all the financials to get through the tollgate which was a new experience for me … Ros usually did that! Once I worked out the very complicated spreadsheet though, it wasn’t too bad. We had our first team meeting (the infrastructure PMs) during the week as well so at least I now know who my peers are and have people to ask advice of.

First whole week of split commute hasn’t been too bad either .. although my 5.30 starts are still a bit too early for me.

Went to pick Kyle and Regan up during the week to find that Kyle had found himself an older woman! One of the teachers has a five year old but because it’s the school holidays, she was at nursery in Kyle’s room. Trying to get him out of the building into the car was a nightmare as she kept grabbing him and kissing him and telling him (and me) how much she loved him!! Finally got him out the room and to the front door and she started kissing him through the window … Typical Kyle though, I asked him the next day if he’d been playing with Helena and he said no as she didn’t have any stickers today!

Regan can now roll over on her own, can nearly sit up without falling over and can stand against furniture! She loves standing and even when she’s grumpy, she will grin at you if she’s upright. Think she’s going to be like her brother and start walking very early … glad we brought the walker with us as Kyle loved that when he was learning to walk. Will take photos and post …

As certain people at CVG will testify, I like to analyse people and their behaviours so I’m thinking that once we’re more settled and I have some more time that I’ll buy some books on psychology. It’s interested me since I was at University and I saw what they were studying. Also need to get fit … there is a Pilates studio in Browns Bay so thought it may be an idea to go there and join a class. Had a chat with the woman and basically they won’t let me join until I have written authority from the consultant who did the Caesarian that I can start exercising again. Oh well, looks like I won’t be going there then! Will have to find another solution. Talking of which, I was chatting to one of the women at work the other day who had gone to the gym before work - she has a personal trainer and does an hour and a half a couple of times a week at the gym. She went in that morning expecting a gruelling 90 minutes of machines and weights only to be told by the trainer that he was going to give her a massage instead … she looked very relaxed that day! Maybe I should go there …

Been a bit of a strange day … NZ and the UK have quite a strong link and unlike Australia, who are trying to become a republic, NZ seem quite happy to keep that link. I was surprised then when people either didn’t seem to know about the new terrorist attacks in the UK or didn’t seem to care. One of the reasons for coming here was because NZ is a much safer country than the UK … and when you have small children, that’s very important. Discussing it with Bobby tonight, we’ve come to the conclusion that the NZers don’t actually think about stuff like that because it doesn’t affect them which I find really strange because when you live in Europe, it’s something that everyone is very aware of. I guess it’s (sort of) a good thing as it means that we were right that it’s a safer place to be … but still a bit weird. Bobby had a similar experience … but I’ll let him tell you about that.

During my “waiting for everyone to turn up to the meeting” conversations, it’s become very evident that in order to fit in I’m going to have to learn about rugby! In the UK, I never followed rugby and didn’t know the difference between rugby union and rugby league … still don’t!! But as my eyes glaze over during these conversations, I am told that if I ever want to be a real kiwi then I have to listen, pay attention and learn! Made sure that I knew the All Blacks vs Wallabies score from the weekend but strangely enough, no one mentioned rugby today!

Bobby mentioned briefly in his blog that I’m getting bored with our uninteresting cars … not bored, the Gita is a really nice car but it’s just not very exciting. I’ve been thinking about whether we should have bought the Evo GTA … but it wasn’t my ideal car so no regrets there. I think I want a Skyline … but need to save more pennies (cents) for that.

I purposefully didn’t mention work very much last week as I wasn’t having the best time. I have to admit that they did warn me about it at the interview but I was finding it very difficult working with few processes or information. The people who have been there for a while know who to speak to and where they are but there is no central store of information … it’s just a who you know type environment which is not good for new starts. I was getting very frustrated with this. New week, new outlook … made sure that I grabbed one of the PMs today and set up a meeting so that she could take me through a very horrible spreadsheet which had been worrying me last week. Also now have my laptop so I’m going to make sure that I sit beside the other PMs (I’ve been sitting beside the test group as that’s where the only free desktop was) so that I can bug them with questions. Hopefully that’ll help ….