Tuesday, 7 July 2009
Always winter, never Christmas
Yes, that's right folks - we've moved to Narnia. Well, not quite but it certainly is very weird being in the middle of the cold and wet of winter with no Christmas to break it up.
Winter is in full swing here now and it has taken us by surprise how chilly it is been. A few weeks back snow fell on Te Mata peak, which is about 20 minutes away and only 400m high - for the first time in 10 years!
Maybe it's just the contrast of the hot summer making it feel so cold, or more likely the fact that none of the houses seem to have double glazing/central heating/insulation. Essentially we are living in a portacabin in 0 degrees weather. Brrrrr. We do have a wetback log fire in the lounge and have now bought a little heater for our room so things are getting warmer.
Despite the weather we've still been managing to get out and about on the weekends. I love the beaches in winter- they are even emptier and the seas are so dramatic.
Despite the decent swells recently, AJ has not been surfing. He is waiting for an operation on his knee to fix an old injury that has flared up in the last 6 months. He can walk fine but anything more strenuous and he is in agony. The NZ health service is about as slow as the NHS it would seem so he has been waiting for months now. He saw the surgeon today though and should be having the op in the next month. The major downside of course is that he hasn't been able to work hardly at all since April so we hope his recovery time will not be too long.
My job is still going well and actually despite the recession, business is booming for us right now. A bad exchange rate coupled with a huge harvest in 2008 mean that wineries are really struggling to sell all their wines to the usual export markets and as consequence we are being offered incredible deals on premium label wines virtually every day. Great for our customers, good for us, not good for the wineries. I wonder how many will still be afloat when the economy finally picks up again and how they will ever get their prices back up to the pre-recession price points. Ah well, it's a tough old game at the moment but we seem to be surviving.
Not to much else to report really. We are still looking for a house to buy but not much comes up. We found a house that we loved but it sold before we could get our finance oragnised so that has dampened our appetite for the whole process at the moment. Something else will come along eventually i'm sure. I've started to go horseriding once a week which i am really enjoying. I'm having proper lessons so am getting back in to show jumping etc for the first time in about 15 years! As a consequence i am in pain quite a lot of the time, but it's worth it!
Winter is in full swing here now and it has taken us by surprise how chilly it is been. A few weeks back snow fell on Te Mata peak, which is about 20 minutes away and only 400m high - for the first time in 10 years!
Maybe it's just the contrast of the hot summer making it feel so cold, or more likely the fact that none of the houses seem to have double glazing/central heating/insulation. Essentially we are living in a portacabin in 0 degrees weather. Brrrrr. We do have a wetback log fire in the lounge and have now bought a little heater for our room so things are getting warmer.
Despite the weather we've still been managing to get out and about on the weekends. I love the beaches in winter- they are even emptier and the seas are so dramatic.
Despite the decent swells recently, AJ has not been surfing. He is waiting for an operation on his knee to fix an old injury that has flared up in the last 6 months. He can walk fine but anything more strenuous and he is in agony. The NZ health service is about as slow as the NHS it would seem so he has been waiting for months now. He saw the surgeon today though and should be having the op in the next month. The major downside of course is that he hasn't been able to work hardly at all since April so we hope his recovery time will not be too long.
My job is still going well and actually despite the recession, business is booming for us right now. A bad exchange rate coupled with a huge harvest in 2008 mean that wineries are really struggling to sell all their wines to the usual export markets and as consequence we are being offered incredible deals on premium label wines virtually every day. Great for our customers, good for us, not good for the wineries. I wonder how many will still be afloat when the economy finally picks up again and how they will ever get their prices back up to the pre-recession price points. Ah well, it's a tough old game at the moment but we seem to be surviving.
Not to much else to report really. We are still looking for a house to buy but not much comes up. We found a house that we loved but it sold before we could get our finance oragnised so that has dampened our appetite for the whole process at the moment. Something else will come along eventually i'm sure. I've started to go horseriding once a week which i am really enjoying. I'm having proper lessons so am getting back in to show jumping etc for the first time in about 15 years! As a consequence i am in pain quite a lot of the time, but it's worth it!
Love to everyone. xxx
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