the things not said

After a 36 hour marathon of flights in the direction of New Zealand we finally landed in Christchurch on Thursday 29th March.

I immediately felt welcome when we arrived; Gareth went off to get the many articles of luggage we’d managed to slip onto the plane (two car seats, push chair, travel cot, and as many suitcases allowed for a family of four), our 10 month old was strapped to my front and just waking from a middle of the night sleep (it was now 3pm) and my two and half year old daughter was screaming her head off on the floor surrounded by the 8 hand luggage items we had dragged through four airports.  Her reaction was totally reasonable and I was completely sympathetic, heck I wanted to join her!  As I stood there holding both my children, sweating under the weight and general discomfort of the situation, a wonderful woman who smelt like a field of flowers in comparison to my rather pungent traveller odour, scooped Minnie up in her arms and gave her the cuddle my little one had been asking for.

This angel, with her cheerful manner then helped us find all our luggage, got us on the fast track through customs, walked us to arrivals and delivered us into the arms of our friends who had come to take us to our hotel.  When I look back a week later I still marvel at our good fortune to be greeted and cared for in such a perfect way.  I was expecting to lose it in the airport when I arrived but it actually was my first introduction to the Kiwi way – children and families are important and they think of ways to make our lives pleasant and fulfilled.  I’m sure it’s because they have more space and fewer people but we have a lot to learn from them in the UK – I for one am going to learn as much as I can.

In our first week with a small family we have managed to get over jet lag (the children slept through from day five), find a place to house sit before we move into the rented house we’ll stay in until our furniture arrives, hire a car, get a phone on contract, open a bank account, do a weekly shop and cook real meals, go to the beach and make some new friends.  Most importantly I feel at home here already and despite being in a foreign land where they have earthquakes on a weekly basis I am excited about the future years we have here.

May their positivity rub off all over me!

Once we decided we were going to move to New Zealand and it looked likely Gareth would get a job with his company, we put our house up for sale.  At the time we figured it could take months to sell and we didn’t want to be in the position where he was due to start his job and we still had a house in the UK to shift.  As we knew we wouldn’t be coming back to Liverpool it was an easy decision.  The sale was a lot easier than we expected and we accepted an offer in a week!  The day Gareth accepted an offer of a job in Auckland, the sale of our house went through.

That was three months ago now and we are only just posting off our application for residency, yes people it takes that long.  Don’t get me started on the costs, I may weep.  Right up until the residency application process our move to NZ seemed fast and smooth.  I’m actually told 3-4 months isn’t that slow for getting a visa, and yet it feels very long and drawn out.

If it wasn’t my life on hold I would probably be fine about the wait, even heartened by the fact that it does take this long.  I can’t decide if it is our country hanging on to us or our new country hesitating on letting us in. Either way they aren’t rushing.  It does make me think we should be taking this amount of time to be absolutely sure we want to go.  The times where it has seemed so slow and like it’s an impossible goal has worked to make me sure I want to go, a bit like my husband’s reaction to being told we may never have children, all of a sudden his need to have children became as strong as mine.

We always want what we can’t have.

My family and I are moving to New Zealand next month.

That is such a wonderful statement that I am so excited to be able to write.  I always envied the people who lived in foreign lands because they had a job or family there and jealously coveted their opportunities.  Now it is I that is going and I never get tired of saying New Zealand to the question of “Where are you moving to?”

We’ve never been to NZ, we are going on recommendation, which seems cavalier when you think we are taking our beloved two year old daughter and 8 month old son, but how bad can it be?  We’re not intending to go forever either and I reckon you can do anything when it’s not forever, obviously if we’re talking stomach crunches the time needs to be considerably less than forever.  I give us 5 years with the NZ thing but I’m open to more.  All I know is, after the money we’ve spent on health checks alone we need to go for a minimum of 3 years to get a fair return on our investment.

Auckland is the destination and I don’t think there is a single person I have told we are moving there that hasn’t got a friend, family member or twice removed contact living there – most of these people weren’t intending to stay, so it seems this place has a lot going for it.

Application for residency is sent this week so hopefully we’ll be booking flights in a matter of weeks.  Maybe then it will hit me that I am one of those people that gets to live abroad for a while, then maybe the excitement will feel real…