Archive for November, 2005

Hitting the road

Sunday, November 27th, 2005

The last ten days have passed in a blur of activity and, by securing
a work permit and finding a house to rent whilst we find one to buy,
we have now cleared the last two major obstacles in the first phase
of our move to New Zealand. Just over a week ago, after four days
and 1500 kilometres of house hunting, we have found a great house to
rent in a rural township, 35 kilometres north west of Auckland.
After several days of viewing disappointing and nondescript suburban
properties, we knew that we would find it hard to live in a home that
was wedged in amongst others. Having spent too many years in a small
apartment listening to every neighbourly noise, such places were not
what we had envisaged when we decided to move halfway round the
world. Firm in our resolve to find a place where the kids would have
space to run amok, a community where we could enjoy life and make
friends and yet within commuting distance of my new job, we searched on.

Having been told that rural rentals are rarer than hen’s teeth, we
continued north to a place called Kumeu[1] and popped into a real
estate agent to enquire anyway. It just so happened that one such
‘hen’s tooth’ was back on the market that morning and the description
captured our interest. As the agent couldn’t contact the outgoing
tenant, we drove out of the town and up the hill to view the property
from the road. Whilst the neighbouring Tuscan style villa, nestling
amongst the vineyards on the other side of the road had the edge in
terms of setting, the large house opposite, set back from the road
and with a large garden and patio to the rear was certainly in line
with what we were looking for.

Later that afternoon, we were able to have a look around the house
and it seemed to offer most of what we needed and wanted plus a few
other things like a sunken mosaic bath and a dressing room for the
lady of the house! Although it was a little over the budget we’d
set, we both knew that it was the best place we’d seen all week and
that the township was just the type of place we could see ourselves
settling in. Subsequent enquiries showed that the house was well
placed for access to good schools, local amenities, farm shop and a
reasonable 30 minutes from my office. We have since signed on the
dotted line, paid our bonds and deposits and will hopefully move in
at some point during the coming week.

With six humans, four cats, eighteen bags and cases, two bikes and
numerous boxes of stuff to move up country, not to mention my
upcoming daily commute, it was obvious that even our eight seat
family car would be woefully inadequate. Having driven a long 600
kilometres back to Foxton on Sunday and spent Monday running around
trying to work out what we needed to do first, we headed to
Palmerston North on Tuesday to look for the second car and trailer
we’d need to move north. During a quick lunch break, we got a call
to say that a package was awaiting collection at Palmerston North
Airport’s Courier Post depot. When I drove over to collect it, I
found it contained a letter from NZ Immigration and my passport,
inside which I found my brand new two year work permit. I was
stunned; partly because it had been processed and returned to me in
under two days but also because, after a good few years’ research and
planning and a large leap into the unknown without any guarantees, we
were now in New Zealand, with a home to move to, a job to start and
the permit that holds the key to our future.

I’ll admit to being a little overcome for a moment or two as it all
sunk in and I felt a wave of relief pass over me. It was only then
that I realised just quite how much pressure I had put myself under
to keep focused on getting the job and permit we need to stay in New
Zealand, occasionally at the expense of my family’s feelings, if the
truth be told. I think that it was then that I appreciated just what
we are in the process of accomplishing as a family: for all the
relocation programmes on television, comparatively cheap air travel
and desire for different lives, uprooting a family of six from an
established life in one country and moving them to another far away
is something that is hard to quantify and appreciate until you
experience it for yourself. After sharing the good news with SWMBO
and our dear friends Peter and Rae, we celebrated by buying a second
hand car and returning home to cook a family meal of chicken piri
piri. During this, SWMBO and I drank a toast proposed by our
daughters with a white wine charmingly called ‘Cat Pee On A
Gooseberry Bush’. With a spooky twist of synchronicity, upon reading
the label, we discovered that the wine (which helps raise money for
the SPCA, in case you were wondering) is produced in the valley that
we shall be moving to. Be it fate, destiny, the prayers of friends
or sheer coincidence, it made us smile.

After many calls to shippers and Customs, it seems likely that next
week we will finally be reunited with the shipping container with all
our worldly goods in it next week after living out of 18 cases and
bags for three months. This being the case, we now have just two
days to get ourselves packed (of course, we have bought more stuff
since we arrived) and ready to leave at 0600hrs on Tuesday. It’ll be
an eight to nine hour journey as a convoy to our new place, with
SWMBO driving one car with half the kids and her cats whilst I’ll
take the remainder in mine, along with a load of boxes and bags in
our newly purchased trailer. Having bought the truck secondhand, we
splashed out on a trailer because every Kiwi family seems to own a
four wheel drive ‘ute’ and a galvanised trailer with which they haul
their sheep, cattle, white goods, hunting dogs, old mattresses,
building materials and mother-in-laws, depending on the task at
hand. As we drove back from the vehicle testing station, I turned to
SWMBO and asked her how it was that our lives had come to resemble a
Country & Western lyric – just a man, his gal, his truck ‘n’ his
trailer, driving into the setting sun. We thought it was funny but
you had to be there, I guess.

Joking aside, there’s hardly a day goes by when we don’t pinch
ourselves to check that it isn’t all a dream. In just the last ten
weeks, we have abandoned the Northern autumn, snorkelled in the
Pacific, paddled the Tasman, made new friends, hiked the mountains,
been interviewed many times, swum with dolphins, joined schools,
attended clubs, seen Venus and Mars in the same night sky, drunk
lovely wines and fretted over papers and formalities. Whilst we have
had the odd blue moment and it is very early days yet, each day seems
to confirm the rightness of our decision – days where the girls can
cycle to school with minimal risk, days where one’s word is still
enough to close a deal and days where the local pastor lets folk use
his open wifi connection for free because he’s paid for it anyway.
Leaving the friendly folk of Foxton and Horowhenua in the week to
come, we can only hope that we find their like amongst our new
neighbours in Kumeu.

[1] http://www.kumeudistrict.co.nz/

First glimpse of our first NZ home

Saturday, November 19th, 2005

SWMBO tackles the bush

Sunday, November 13th, 2005

Manawutu River Walk, Foxton

Sunday, November 13th, 2005

Clearing the first hurdle

Saturday, November 12th, 2005

Unforeseen issues and last minute hold ups notwithstanding, come the
5th of December, I will be taking on a newly-created operations and
strategy role with a regional utility company in based Auckland. It
is a smaller company than my last but the role manages and oversees
three departments: the call centre, the dispute and complaints team
and the network management centre. However, with 150,000 individual
commercial and residential customers, not to mention vendors and
third party field teams to manage, the initial challenge will be to
lead further improvements in customer service and deliver new
services for customers within the next 18 months. I am looking
forward to the novelty of working with a smaller team again in a
different industry. In the longer term, one of the attractive
aspects of the role is that I would assume a greater strategic role
in larger regional operations. I was shown around the operations
centre and met a few folks who seemed pleasant and happy in their
work. After what I understand have been a few tough years, they
seems to be a close knit team who are keen to develop and progress.

Elsewhere, whilst things are looking hopeful and we are confident of
making a go of things here, the uncertainty over permits and visas,
together with some unexpected hassles has all added to an certain
level of underlying stress. Though our visitor’s visa are still OK
for another four months, I hope to have my work permit sorted within
the next two or three weeks which, in turn, will allow us to start
the long process of applying for residence visa for all the family.
The only major unforeseen problem that we have encountered thus far
concerns the shipping container that has all our worldly possessions
in it. After weeks at sea, it finally arrived at the port in
Wellington and was unloaded at the container base. The NZ shippers
contacted us regarding a few pieces of paper work and we thought that
all was going well. A week later, we were asked to provide a UK
prescription for just eight pain killer tablets that we declared had
been packed inadvertently by the shippers. Obviously, having used
the prescription to get the tablets, we were unable to comply. We
were then asked to get a private NZ doctor’s letter and prescription
instead. This we did and, on all information and advice, hoped to
have our container released. However, to our annoyance, it turns out
that all this activity took us over a previously unmentioned time
limit that is applied to shipped items belonging to those with
visitor’s visas. This, we were cheerfully informed, meant that we
are now liable for VAT on the shipment as Customs now deem our
belongings to be ‘imported’ goods rather than personal possessions.
The only upside to this is that clothes and personal effects
(jewellery, handbags etc) are not included in the calculation and
some element of depreciation will be deducted against the furniture,
books and kitchen stuff. If that is the only thing we missed in our
research, then we’ll take it on the chin and move on. It seems
churlish to complain when some, like the folks affected by the
Pakistan earthquake, are homeless with just what they can carry in
their arms and no money to start again.

Now we know where I’ll be working, we’ll be off on a recce next week
to find rented accommodation we can move into before the Christmas
holidays, which is also the big summer break here. From there, we’ll
be better able to search for schools and find a new home to buy.
With Christmas just six weeks away (where did the year go?), we’ll
still be house hunting, living out of cases with most of our stuff
still packed in boxes in the garage or shed and our friends and
family will be thousands of miles away. However, the best present
this year will be the very real possibility that our new life in Te
Ika a M?ui ? Aotearoa (the North Island of New Zealand) moves from
being a dream to a reality. We’re convinced that “she’ll be right”
as they say here. That said, we’re not quite there yet and I need to
ensure that my work permit application is correctly completed and the
application filed next week if I am to start work on schedule, so I’m
off to start on that before catching the All Blacks v Ireland match a
little later.

Frequent flying

Monday, November 7th, 2005

A while back, one of our brood managed to lose a large set of keys to
our house and car. This must have, in some way, been working on the
subconscious of my beloved earlier this morning because, in the depth
of the night and half asleep herself, SWMBO shook me violently and,
in a rasping whisper not unlike Golum’s, insisted that she ‘could
hear Keith Chegwin outside!’ Being woken at three in the morning to
be told that the moon-faced darling of 1970’s BBC children’s
television is creeping around our garden is not my preferred way to
prepare for a early morning interview. Incredulity turned to
comprehension when upon replaying the phrase in my head, my befuddled
brain realised that she had actually said that she ‘could hear keys
jangling outside’. The need for sleep notwithstanding, paternal duty
and a certain amount of nervous male pride ensured that I spent the
next 5 minutes creeping from window to window, scanning the section
for intruders, famous or otherwise, whilst trying not to recall
details of brutal ‘home invasions’ from recent local news reports.
Having relayed that fact that the jangling was coming from the collar
bell of one of SWMBO’s four cats, I returned to bed to prepare for my
interview with a few hours of restless tossing and turning, now
accompanied by persistent unbidden recollections of Keith Chegwin’s
incessant nasal chirping.

It is two months exactly since we boarded an Air New Zealand Boeing
747 left the UK. In the morning, along with other bleary-eyed
business folk, I will climb aboard a much smaller aircraft for my
third day trip to Auckland in as many weeks. However, tomorrow’s
flight will be different from my previous excursions up country in
that, this time, the cost of the flight will be covered by a
prospective employer, rather than our slowly diminishing family
budget. Whilst there is no business class champagne and caviar
breakfast option available on the thirty seat turboprop crop-duster
I’ll be flying, I might just chance my arm and ask Kevin or Kerry,
the regular cabin crew on this route, for an extra packet of
Macadamia nut cookies to go with my stewed tea.

Whilst I am certainly no jet set executive, I have been lucky enough
to travel to a variety of places on business over the years.
Business travel can be an absolute grind, especially when the
itinerary is tight or the schedules mean long flights with bad
connections. With this in mind, I try to find something new to
offset the drawbacks and provide me with a new perspective to enjoy.
On the outbound flight of my last Auckland trip, I was seated in
front of an Un Min, the airline industry’s contraction for an
unaccompanied minor. From the tone of the conversations he struck up
with both myself and another chap behind him, this small boy, no
older than ten, was already the veteran of many an internal flight
around New Zealand and Australia. From what I could gather, the lad
lived on a remote farm station and any journey to visit far-flung
family or distant friends involved, at the very least, a four wheel
drive and a small light aircraft and that was before he had left the
family property. Yet this seasoned flyer, whose trip home would
involve progressively smaller and smaller aircraft, was not too
seasoned to relish being given the job of handing round the sweets to
the other passengers, whom he proceeded to charm with a winning
combination of healthy outback complexion, cheeky smile and endless
barrage of questions.

With both my bicycles locked inside a bonded container somewhere in
the Port of Wellington, the majority of my terrestrial travel thus
far has been by car or train. Topography, geology and seismology
have all played a part in making road transport the main choice for
moving people and things up and down these long and varied islands,
with ships and boats fulfilling the crucial role of bridging the gap
in the middle and providing alternatives along the sides. I use the
all-encompassing phrase ‘road transport’ as we have seen all manner
of vehicles on the roads here and have become used to rounding a
corner to be confronted by some new form of wheeled vehicle the like
of which we have never seen. Even at the dinner table a week or so
back, I looked up and out of the window to see a London Route Master
double decker bus (No.18 route for those that want to know) driving
past the end of our road and down to the beach. This, we suspect,
was the ‘English Rose’, a bus used for tours and corporate events we
later saw plying it’s trade in Wellington.

As someone who, at one time or another, has piloted bicycles,
minibuses, vans, minicabs and trucks around the busy streets of
London and around the UK, it has taken me a while to adapt to better
suit the more relaxed, though arguably more dangerous, style of
driving here. Although I would describe myself as an average driver,
my spouse has maintained for years that I am prone to certain traits
that are to be found in the sub genus Homo Automobilus. These, I am
reliably informed, include resetting the trip odometer to ‘0’ before
each journey but never checking the final mileage, passing toilet
stops and rest areas to avoid being overtaken by those I have just
passed and demanding what other drivers are doing ‘on my road’. It
goes without saying that I utterly refute such allegations but am
happy to repeat them here in the interests of balanced reporting.
That said, in the early weeks here, I did notice that I was
constantly passing people on the roads. Over the weeks, it has
dawned on me that this ‘must pass’ mentality was a hang over from
driving on British roads where every mile might be your last before
becoming trapped in a 20 mile Bank holiday tail-back. Of late, I am
more than happy, when the conditions allow, to edge up to just shy of
the prevailing speed limit, set the cruise control to keep me legal
and let the car take the strain, knowing that we’ll get there soon
enough.

The vast majority of Kiwi drivers are perfectly sensible and
courteous but the tiny remainder fall into two distinct camps – the
dreamers and the boy racers. The former are those who make use of
the full width of the road, including the opposite lane and both
shoulders, as though driving was like one of those early video
driving games, which simply required one to steer down the black
ribbon between two sets of green pixelated markers. These folks mean
no harm but simply seem incapable of steering a vehicle within the
confines of a designated lane and clearly have less of a grasp
concerning New Zealand’s particular ‘give way to the right’ rules
than I do. The latter, allowed to drive from the age of 15, feature
daily in the newspapers here, where graphic tales of speed freak
antics and lurid reports on road deaths share the same pages as
details of the latest safety campaigns and editorials exploring the
causal factors involved. Shock tactic television adverts feature
tearful actors as bereaved relatives or families in magically
suspended cars suddenly dropped to earth to simulate a head accident
but the thrill, kudos and machismo associated with customised cars,
ear-shattering sound-offs and street racing by New Zealand’s youth
ensures the tolls continues to rise.

As with road deaths the world over, there are no easy answers and few
governments will risk their majority by taking on the road transport
lobby head to head. The inevitable corollary to this is that the
drive for such change invariably falls to volunteer campaigners and
pressure groups. Having been involved in a small way with the London
Cycle Campaign and Tower Hamlets Wheelers’ Bike Buddy scheme, two
stories in Wellington’s Dominion Post caught my attention this
morning which illustrate how the efforts of such groups can make all
the difference. The first concerned a novice cyclist who died whilst
out training for an upcoming charity ride. After carrying the bike
in a car, it seems that both the rider and their friend neglected to
reattach the quick-release brake cables after refitting the wheels.
Any but the shortest journey in Wellington will involve at least one
steep hill, so the consequence of this oversight was the cyclist
careered downhill, through a junction and into a pickup truck, with
fatal consequences. As “not a confident bike rider” who disliked
“riding in the city”, perhaps this rider might have benefited from
having an experienced bike buddy who, as well as helping them ride
confidently along the safest route possible, might just have advised
them to check the reassembled bike before heading down a steep
slope. In the second story, prompted by a coroner’s report,
Wellington City Council is considering lowering the speed limit in
the city centre from 50 to 30 kph in order to reduce deaths and
accidents involving vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and
cyclists. However, the union representing the bus and tram drivers
here claim that, because pedestrians stepping into the street leave
their members “nowhere to go”, the pavements should be lined with
chains or railings except at designated crossing points. This is all
well and good unless, as has been found in London, you are a cyclist,
when these railings are potential killers that prevent riders falling
away from the traffic and leave them more vulnerable to being
crushed. Without a unified and comprehensive approach, the city runs
the risk of reducing casualty statistics in one user group only to
cause them to rise in another. Who knows, I may just add my voice to
the debate.

Talking of casualties, we had our first opportunity to experience New
Zealand’s healthcare system when daughter two managed to over-extend
daughter three’s ankle joint in a bout of playground rough and
tumble. Despite the lack of visible symptoms, an increase in the
pain after a few hours raised concerns enough to indicate a swift
drive to the emergency room forty kilometres away was in order.
Despite some concerns over the extent of the reciprocal healthcare
agreement between the UK and NZ, we were dealt with pleasantly and
efficiently in a clean and welcoming environment, a welcome change
from the madhouse atmosphere and cast of social outcasts that made up
London’s busiest ER, which was nearest to our old UK home. After a
couple of hours waiting punctuated by a visit from a triage nurse and
a trip to x-ray, we were ushered into a consulting room to see the
doctor. Seemingly almost as young, blonde and smiley as her patient,
the lovely Dr Williams spoke with a soft lilting voice that could
only originate in the valleys of South Wales. The telltale signs of
junior doctor tiredness receded a little as she talked of home and
checked the ankle for damage. Having ascertained that the damage was
minimal, we said our goodbyes and left the good doctor to her work.
Whilst she professed to be enjoying her work experience and social
life abroad very much, I detected more than a hint of homesickness in
her tone and suspect that, on completion of her rotation, she’ll be
heading back to the UK. Come tomorrow morning, I’m interviewing for
a job that may just mean that, when March rolls around, we can avoid
having to do the same.