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" )