six months on

Non essential work - which is what blogging quickly began to feel like not long into our new life in New Zealand - was always likely to fall far beneath the able-to-fit-into-my-hectic-schedule threshold once I started work in an office. Leaving the house at 7.30am on a weekday morning was a monumental shock to the system that has yet to fully dissipate, and I've found that there is little time left available in my working day to empty my thoughts onto my laptop, and that's even taking into account the paucity of watchable programmes available on five 'free-to-air' tv channels.

To be fair, I am home by 6pm at the absolute latest (and that sometime includes time for a cheeky drink either in work or in the local bar over the road from my rented house), but for someone who has spent the best part of the last five years working at home and for himself, this takes some getting used to.

So, that's the piss-poor excuse out of the way... The reality is that real-life, as I've no doubt tediously mentioned more times than anyone can care to remember, gets in the way; at least it does for me.

We arrived in Christchurch nearly six months ago on December 23rd, and headed straight to our rented farm house (which happened to be free on condition of feeding the cats, doves, horses, etc) for a peculiarly jet-lagged and overly warm Christmas. This was followed by friends coming to stay with us into the new year, and all was good as effectively we were on holiday and annoyances such as work and earning money for a living were pushed to the back of our collective minds. We, or rather Cathy, even managed to keep a log / diary of events with the intention that we would chronicle at least our first year here. Fanciful ideas regarding writing a book based on our emigration experience were half-heartedly endorsed as something fun (and, ultimately of course, financially rewarding).

So, it didn't quite pan out the way I planned it, and the few people (i.e. friends and family) who actually bothered to read the blog in the first place drifted away presuming that all's just ticking over nicely and event-free. Which it is by the way, but my lethargy and plain bone-idle nature means that I've not been communicating enough with people 'back home' (and by this I mean by any medium including emails, telephone calls and Skype), something I intend to immediately rectify before I become one of those people who never keep in touch and only have myself to blame when becoming a bitter, lonely old fool.

This blog entry is a line in the sand, and if you're interested in what we've been up to over the last six months and beyond - including our take on all those differences inherent in living on the other side of the world - then please come back now and again as I intend to update at least weekly.

I was relatively prolific while venting my frustrations regarding the NZ Immigration process, so please feel free to read any previous posts while I get around to filling in the six month blanks...

the whites in sumner
image © Alan Riboldi-Tunnicliffe