Kiwiagogoland

OK so I have lots to catch up on. We are here, having arrived safely a week ago. I'll tell you more as I get more time, so there will be lots of back dated posts, so check through the August and September posts thoroughly.

Big up to all our friends out there hoping for updates, they will start coming soon!

Today was our open house, for those who could come along, it gave opportunity to say goodbye. I really enjoyed the day and it was especially good to see friends, family and surprise guests who were able to make the journey and drop in with such short notice. The last few days have given us some time to relax and get over the house move. We have been very lucky and blessed by family and friends who have offered to look after us all during our time of 'Big Issue' selling ;)

I am constantly amazed by those who rally round and we have formed some great friendships.....so make sure you stay in touch! The blog of course is our outlet to keep you informed, the flip side is you HAVE to comment to keep US informed :)

The container arriving was an event in itself. The lorry can hold 40 and 20ft loads, so it shortened itself to get up the road in reverse. The men duly loaded it up, and guess what....yep, it doesn't all fit. So my bike, the fridge a bookcase and a couple of boxes are going seperately. Oh well, such is life. I spoke to them the following day, threatening to leave it in their depot and not ship it out, they responded with a small discount ;)

The new people don't move in until tomorrow, but the cleaners are in today, and will come again in the morning along with the oven man.

PS If you've never had an oven man clean you're oven, it's the best 70 quid you will spend - fantastic

Today is my last day at work. Although I dont officially leave until the 7th September, with holiday leave etc, it is possible for me to bring my last day forward. Bye bye everyone, it's been a pleasure :)

The packers arrived today and worked through. Already there are comments about the stuff not fitting in the conatiner, despite clearing out a large skip full of stuff. I hope it does bloody fit after all this.

Since getting confirmation through, its been go, go, go! For NZ MAF everything that has come into contact with the ground has to be spotless. So I've been cleaning bikes, shoes, tents, tools, ladders etc with the steam cleaner and wiping them over with Jeyes fluid, ready for inspection on arrival. I stink of Jeyes - even the lady at the petrol station commented on me 'smelling nice'. Apparently she loves the smell of creosote.....whatever turns you on ;)

Finally managed to get our tickets booked tonight. We have our seats and meals arranged and we fly out on the 26th August, arriving on 28th August at Christchurch. We decided against the stopovers as things were so complicated and its late int eh day to add additional worry of more visas, hotels, cost etc.

I need to phone int he morning to arrange our additional free baggage allowance, then its just a case of sorting insurance, car and somewhere to stay - lol.

Anyone know a nice holiday park in the Christchurch area ;)

Phew! They made it. I got a phone call at 16:15 local and I thought it was to tell me to wait until Monday as they had not exchanged. But I was wrong. Everything's worked out fine and we now have a green light :)

Not looking good so far. Buyers solicitor not returning calls with regards to exchange, which means we will be on hold over the weekend.

We are due to exchange contracts today - the point of no return (unless you are prepared to pay 10% default deposit). I've just rung the solicitor (in case they had tried to contact me at home again, rather than on the mobile) to find that she has gone home for the day.

Aaaargh! Fortunately it looks as though things have been hended over to someone else. No news yet though.

Phew what a whirlwind 24 hours! We are now all set for completion on the 21st August. Hopefully we will have exchange completed by Friday so at that point, we will be able to sit back and relax in terms of the house sale being finalised.

In the mean time I am on the phone again trying to finalise removals. There are now 2 of the 4 companies who quoted, still left in the running and I am just waiting for a price adjustment to come through to be able to close the deal.

With visitors coming over on Sunday, that just leaves Saturday to tax the car, get the pre-booked haircuts for me and Alex, then sort out clearing out the garden, shed and ornaments. You know the sort of thing - composter, water butt, bird bath, feeders, kennel, hutch, shed, BBQ. I think I might need a van and a skip :)

At some point I also need to take down the weather station!

I'm still waiting for 2 quotes to come through for the dogs to get shipped over and we need to finalise flights and baggage allowance, because we need to pack that before the moves come in on Tuesday.

On top of all that, tonight I have the loft to clear and the filing cabinet full of old paperwork to go through. Should be done by midnight ;)

The solicitor has rung today and left a message on the home answerphone. Not sure why as we both work and she has our mobiles, but hey ho. Fortunately Nicki was off work and picked up the message after a bit of shopping.

The only problem now is....the solicitor is on her lunch ;)

My resignation is now in at work. The original date was for 7th September as being my last day, however with annual leave, that date has come forward to 20th August. Frighteningly close as that is now only a week away.

All we are waiting for now is confirmation of the completion date from our house buyers. We should have heard by now if they were going to meet our deadline of the 18th August, so it looks like there will be some slippage.

While you can still access the blog using the old domain name, I thought we may as well use the URL for the new domain too. So here we are :)

I wasn't going to bother with an NZ domain name for family email, but I've decided that it would be a good idea after all, due to the amount of spam some members of the family currently get. This time its going to be whitelist enabled from the start, so that should help everyone that bit more.

Nicki and I now have NZ bank accounts. It was very easy to setup via email and although they aren't fully active until we arrive, everything is now in place.

We've now had all the quotes in for removals and insurance too ....Now we just need a completion date for that darned house!