Just wanted to say a few words about this place. This is Piha beach, which is just about twenty minutes north of where we live.
Our Nicola xxx
A little shot of Pingy, our Honda, promising us all the delights of the north coast..
Tuesday, 29 November 2016
Piha Beach . Windy, Sunny, Brisk and Volcanic. Hot sunshine combined with icy winds. Man, Beautiful Wife with Iphone.
Our Nicola xxx
A little shot of Pingy, our Honda, promising us all the delights of the north coast..
Thursday, 24 November 2016
Finding Bars and Buying Cars
I suppose its all in the title really! Since we landed we have not stopped. Nicola's start date was looming since we landed so we had to get our arses in gear from the get go.
We are moving in our house in a week or two which we are very excited about, but will spare the details for now.
Lets just say that, if you do come for a stay with us, you won't be disappointed ;)
We went to Mount Eden which is only down the road, for a drink and chatted to lots of people, from the gay Irish bartender who told us where to score some good weed, to the young woman in the quaint little park who told us where to catch the best Pokemon.
Which, Nicola and I decided, was something that would be absolutely necessary in our lives at this point.
I mean come on, who wouldn't want to ramble through a Triassic-period nature reserve to find a Pikachu in a waterfall FFS. ( MUM, that's short for Friday-Friday-Saturday)
We joined the AA of NZ with the foresight that we might need some assistance when buying a £500 car to traverse the Land that Time Forgot. The girl on the line at the AA call centre, Christine, was so flipping nice we wanted to adopt her.
We explained we had only been in New Zealand for a couple of days and that we were either interested in buying a Motorbike or a car, and she was all like , "Oh! how Nice! well can I just say welcome to New Zealand! how are you finding it, I hope you are happy!"
Last time I phoned customer service in England, I had an angry Glaswegian man on the end of the line threatening to terminate the call cos i was stressing him out.
and the worst thing was, i was truly sorry that i was causing him stress the poor bastard.
We have done lots more exploring if the surrounding areas and found things we are interested in from cool book shops;
to hiking trails, to Belgian beer bars, to virtual reality centres full of hi definition HTC vive Setups. by the way James, guess what tracklist they had playing. New Retro Wave on Youtube im not even joking ^^ MAGIC,
; to climbing gyms, to retro furniture shops, to nature reserves, to climbing gyms, ad nauseum (for you) :D
Anyways, yesterday, just exploring we happened upon (you'll hear me saying that a lot; you happen upon lots of things on the other side of the world) this industrial unit. With a bar in it. I thought of Blackjack brewery in Manchester, and wasn't far wrong.
The guy was barefoot, wandering around his little apothecary workshop with a paper under his arm listening to the rugby on the radio.
I said "what the crack here mate?"
"We're an off-licence that lets you try all the beer first" he says.
We're an off licence
That lets you try
all the beer first he says.
"I made this one myself" he says," Its a bit weird.
The hops get you fucked before you even nearly pissed" he says.
Im listening.
He says, take one of these bottles, choose which beer you want, Ill fill up your bottle, and when you've finished it, wash it out and bring it back, and choose another one and ill fill your bottle up again. Saves glass.
I think to myself... I do like to help the environment......
and
this one is made with the leaves of the plants in the garden
on the porch. which we tasted some of them. lime leaves, and its seemed legit,
so...
For the most part, its been hard to wipe the smiles off our faces.
We found out about the classic and muscle car fair , which is held once a month around the corner from us so we set out alarms nice and early.
Check out some of these beauties!
Its called caffeine and classics. And I have to say, as far as early morning entertainment goes, it beats Richard and Judy hands down.
Its got everything your car's got, but smells of rich mahogany. It has electric windows, electric mirrors, CD player, a smooth ride, good MPG, cup holders, rapid air conditioning. we love it! and we didn't even have enough money for it! this couple said, this is what they said... "well, we like you so... take the car, and when you save up the rest.... just send it to us."
They said, "we've had nice things happen to us and we believe in paying it forward...".
So there you go.
that was a nice day!
Our Nic was going to proof read this but shes fast a-Bo-Bo's. so night folks , hope youre all well and cant wait to see and hear from you all! god bless. x
We are moving in our house in a week or two which we are very excited about, but will spare the details for now.
Lets just say that, if you do come for a stay with us, you won't be disappointed ;)
We went to Mount Eden which is only down the road, for a drink and chatted to lots of people, from the gay Irish bartender who told us where to score some good weed, to the young woman in the quaint little park who told us where to catch the best Pokemon.
Which, Nicola and I decided, was something that would be absolutely necessary in our lives at this point.
I mean come on, who wouldn't want to ramble through a Triassic-period nature reserve to find a Pikachu in a waterfall FFS. ( MUM, that's short for Friday-Friday-Saturday)
We joined the AA of NZ with the foresight that we might need some assistance when buying a £500 car to traverse the Land that Time Forgot. The girl on the line at the AA call centre, Christine, was so flipping nice we wanted to adopt her.
We explained we had only been in New Zealand for a couple of days and that we were either interested in buying a Motorbike or a car, and she was all like , "Oh! how Nice! well can I just say welcome to New Zealand! how are you finding it, I hope you are happy!"
Last time I phoned customer service in England, I had an angry Glaswegian man on the end of the line threatening to terminate the call cos i was stressing him out.
and the worst thing was, i was truly sorry that i was causing him stress the poor bastard.
We have done lots more exploring if the surrounding areas and found things we are interested in from cool book shops;
Anyways, yesterday, just exploring we happened upon (you'll hear me saying that a lot; you happen upon lots of things on the other side of the world) this industrial unit. With a bar in it. I thought of Blackjack brewery in Manchester, and wasn't far wrong.
The guy was barefoot, wandering around his little apothecary workshop with a paper under his arm listening to the rugby on the radio.
I said "what the crack here mate?"
"We're an off-licence that lets you try all the beer first" he says.
We're an off licence
That lets you try
all the beer first he says.
"I made this one myself" he says," Its a bit weird.
The hops get you fucked before you even nearly pissed" he says.
Im listening.
He says, take one of these bottles, choose which beer you want, Ill fill up your bottle, and when you've finished it, wash it out and bring it back, and choose another one and ill fill your bottle up again. Saves glass.
I think to myself... I do like to help the environment......
For the most part, its been hard to wipe the smiles off our faces.
We found out about the classic and muscle car fair , which is held once a month around the corner from us so we set out alarms nice and early.
Check out some of these beauties!
Its called caffeine and classics. And I have to say, as far as early morning entertainment goes, it beats Richard and Judy hands down.
This is the one i want...
Then after the show, we had to get to grips wth reality. We had to go and buy a car for ourselves in real life.
Armed with a budget that most families spend on sky tv channels in a month we headed over to "Ellerslie car fair" to barter with the best.
Part time fruit-n-veg salesmen selling cars they know nothing about and telling you they're only selling because they have to pay for a new kidney for their adopted daughter, otherwise they would hold onto that precious valuable pile of shit forever.....
and stood there, toying with the fact that you woulndt want to buy this car even for a joke, even having won the lottery, was to say the least,
a bit Wonkey.
but guess what.
we landed a Bobby dazzler!!! and we love the tits off it!!!!
They said, "we've had nice things happen to us and we believe in paying it forward...".
So there you go.
that was a nice day!
Our Nic was going to proof read this but shes fast a-Bo-Bo's. so night folks , hope youre all well and cant wait to see and hear from you all! god bless. x
Lets not get too excited just yet....
I always feel that its a little bit too soon to say it all worked out very well, and that everything is going as planned, so I wont say that.
But everything has been pleasant so far.
Through lots of hard work from everyone involved, this mission/adventure has happened without too many hiccups so I think it only fair to say a great big THANK YOU! to everyone around us. The family and friends that helped make this move possible.
It's our second day since touchdown and I dont think we are fully convinced that we're not on holiday yet.
The weather is gorgeous, everyone is smiling, happy and helpfull and very welcoming. It's the kind of place where you walk into a bar and everyone stops turns around, looks at you on hearing your Manc accent, and then asks if they can help you with anything and welcomes you! (to wherever it is you've happened upon.)
It's flippin great so far, but like I said, I'm not counting my chickens ......
Except the three that live in our back yard. Which we have named Taylor, Katy, and Gwen. after the famous pre rapheallite painters. ^^
Thats Gwen.
Shes a bit of a camera whore, but she aint no hollerback girl.
and this is the gang.
Taylor's the tall one an Katy is in the middle. shes the one with the eye of the tiger.
anyways.
The agenda at the moment is to find a place to live that will allow us to be close to Nicola's workplace, the beach, and then Antony's workplace. In that order.
We have viewed three properties so far. one stank of piss. one looked like a set from CSI miami, and the other one was lovely, but would only be available for a three month period? who woould want to move into a place for three months? WTF? ( mum, that stands for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Anyone watch Trailer Park Boys?
Theres a fancy little town called (quite aptly) Ponsonby, which has trendy cafes, bars and shops that sell litte woven baskets, arty pictures of tree stumps and tiny little unusable containers for extortionate prices. Its full of wealthy young mums pushing round toffee nosed children in bespoke prams and talking about how their new diet is affecting them, kind of like spinningfields but without the pissing down rain. It seem like a nice place to live but is out of our price range.
Here are some of the little bonsai from ponsonby flower shop that we found. Their trees were so beautiful i could have spent hours there. We made friends with a lad that worked there. He was a kiwi brought up in edinbourough and knew manchester very well. top lad.
nearby there is a place called Point Chevalier, which seems to have all the pluses and non of the minuses, where we THiNK......we THINk....
we would like to live.
the park there ....has a climbing boulder....
and a zip line.
and a BEACH.
with beautiful clear water, a jetty to swim out to with no sharks, that overlooks the harbour in the distance.
I'll post a picture but the camera does not do this place justice.
Its hard to write a diary/memoir/blog or whatever, about a wonderful experience in your life, open it up to others, and not sound like some kind of gloating showy offy jammy smarmy spoilt kid. but thats exactly how I am feeling right now.
Is there any way to write a blog and not sound pretentious? I dont know, I've never written a blog before. But ive always felt that they reek of self importance.
Im trying my best not to sound like that. But if i am coming across like that, i just want you to know this .
I really couldnt give a fuck.
i am imprtant my mum told me so.
and when someone else tries to take a nice photo. Ill be there to photo-bomb it.
All the while, everywhere we go, Im thinking about my family and friends being here with us, and who would really like 'this place', or 'that place',and where I'm going to take you when you visit. and theres lots to choose from and i really hope that most of you are seeing it as a realistic plan. That you are thinking about saving up and coming for a visit.
I remember reading an article long time ago, when we were first thinking about visiting this place to see if we might like to move (other candidates being Canada, Swizerland, Afghanistan) and the article contained the sentence "Everyone, at some point in their life owes it to themselves to visit New Zealand at least once.
They werent wrong.
I can say that without a doubt, that out of every single continent I've visted, every single country on this planet Ive planted my pumps on, i hate this place the least.
Its the cats whhiskers this place is.
I cant wait to see what you think.
If this was interesting to you I might write someting again.
(Thats Jamaican for "something" )
But everything has been pleasant so far.
Through lots of hard work from everyone involved, this mission/adventure has happened without too many hiccups so I think it only fair to say a great big THANK YOU! to everyone around us. The family and friends that helped make this move possible.
It's our second day since touchdown and I dont think we are fully convinced that we're not on holiday yet.
The weather is gorgeous, everyone is smiling, happy and helpfull and very welcoming. It's the kind of place where you walk into a bar and everyone stops turns around, looks at you on hearing your Manc accent, and then asks if they can help you with anything and welcomes you! (to wherever it is you've happened upon.)
It's flippin great so far, but like I said, I'm not counting my chickens ......
Except the three that live in our back yard. Which we have named Taylor, Katy, and Gwen. after the famous pre rapheallite painters. ^^
Thats Gwen.
Shes a bit of a camera whore, but she aint no hollerback girl.
and this is the gang.
anyways.
The agenda at the moment is to find a place to live that will allow us to be close to Nicola's workplace, the beach, and then Antony's workplace. In that order.
We have viewed three properties so far. one stank of piss. one looked like a set from CSI miami, and the other one was lovely, but would only be available for a three month period? who woould want to move into a place for three months? WTF? ( mum, that stands for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Anyone watch Trailer Park Boys?
Theres a fancy little town called (quite aptly) Ponsonby, which has trendy cafes, bars and shops that sell litte woven baskets, arty pictures of tree stumps and tiny little unusable containers for extortionate prices. Its full of wealthy young mums pushing round toffee nosed children in bespoke prams and talking about how their new diet is affecting them, kind of like spinningfields but without the pissing down rain. It seem like a nice place to live but is out of our price range.
Here are some of the little bonsai from ponsonby flower shop that we found. Their trees were so beautiful i could have spent hours there. We made friends with a lad that worked there. He was a kiwi brought up in edinbourough and knew manchester very well. top lad.
nearby there is a place called Point Chevalier, which seems to have all the pluses and non of the minuses, where we THiNK......we THINk....
we would like to live.
the park there ....has a climbing boulder....
and a zip line.
and a BEACH.
with beautiful clear water, a jetty to swim out to with no sharks, that overlooks the harbour in the distance.
I'll post a picture but the camera does not do this place justice.
Its hard to write a diary/memoir/blog or whatever, about a wonderful experience in your life, open it up to others, and not sound like some kind of gloating showy offy jammy smarmy spoilt kid. but thats exactly how I am feeling right now.
Is there any way to write a blog and not sound pretentious? I dont know, I've never written a blog before. But ive always felt that they reek of self importance.
Im trying my best not to sound like that. But if i am coming across like that, i just want you to know this .
I really couldnt give a fuck.
i am imprtant my mum told me so.
and when someone else tries to take a nice photo. Ill be there to photo-bomb it.
All the while, everywhere we go, Im thinking about my family and friends being here with us, and who would really like 'this place', or 'that place',and where I'm going to take you when you visit. and theres lots to choose from and i really hope that most of you are seeing it as a realistic plan. That you are thinking about saving up and coming for a visit.
I remember reading an article long time ago, when we were first thinking about visiting this place to see if we might like to move (other candidates being Canada, Swizerland, Afghanistan) and the article contained the sentence "Everyone, at some point in their life owes it to themselves to visit New Zealand at least once.
They werent wrong.
I can say that without a doubt, that out of every single continent I've visted, every single country on this planet Ive planted my pumps on, i hate this place the least.
Its the cats whhiskers this place is.
I cant wait to see what you think.
If this was interesting to you I might write someting again.
(Thats Jamaican for "something" )
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