Half done

We now have a fridge. And a TV. A vacuum cleaner. A microwave. And a washing machine. Jo bought two beanbags. And the furniture shop we're getting our bedroom suite from has provided a mattress for us to use until our bed arrives next week. It's beginning to come together now. At least when we move in tomorrow the place won't be totally empty now.

We spent the afternoon cleaning the house and tonight we need to pack our stuff. Then we can take it all round there tomorrow after church.

The Telecom engineer came round this afternoon to set up our line. It kind of worked. We have a landline now, at least in the back half of the house. The front two phone sockets, the one in the family room and the one in the kitchen, don't appear to want to work. We need to get hold of the electrician who wired the house to get him to check it out, I think. In theory this means we should have broadband all sorted for when we move in tomorrow too. Life without the internet - intolerable, eh? How did we ever survive without a constant link to email and websites?

Sudden movement

Yesterday the people managing the apartment block we're renting in told us that they've found someone to effectively buy us out of our contract here. Such good news. It would be a shame to keep paying for this place until early November. There's one condition though - that we move out this weekend. The new tenants need the place early next week. As such today, after work, we've had to rush around trying to get the essentials we need for the house. We've got stuff arriving, when our container finally gets here of course, but we needed a kettle, toaster, basic cooking equipment, ironing board, duvet etc anyhow. And temporary curtains for our bedroom. And some bedding for the bed that doesn't arrive until Tuesday. It was an amazing successful evening in the end. We got exactly what we needed, and Briscoes had a sale on (it was meant to start tomorrow but they gave us the benefit, which was nice) which meant we saved about 25-30% on everything we bought.

So, over the weekend, we're moving into our new house. It's very exciting, but the house is going to feel a little empty until our furniture arrives. People at work have been lovely, offering us all sorts of stuff to see us through. It's really touching. We're probably not going to need much more than an airbed for a couple of nights, but for that we've got three offers to choose from. And that's just from people in my team at work.

My boss was telling me I should take a day off next week to go skiing. He thinks that I should be making the most of the lifestyle change the move to NZ has led to. I couldn't imagine my old MD in London saying something similar.

Culture shock

I can't get used to this leaving work at 5pm lark. I keep getting chastised for being there at a quarter past. Thing is, if there's something I'm working on, sometimes it's best to do an extra few minutes rather than drop it and forget where I'm up by to the next morning. But that doesn't seem to be the culture in the office. It's true people work totally full on while they're there, but come 4 or 4:30 and people begin to drift off, even management. It's very different to London. I'm not quite sure what to do with all this new found evening stuff.

Settling down

I'm learning. It's all slowly but surely making a bit more sense at work, which is good. I'm beginning to understand more about the extensive databases that I'm going to be using for most of my work, but the inconsistency and lack of integrity of the data in there does worry me. And then there's the intricacies. The job is going to be challenge, not least because it's a new role and nobody is quite sure of the scope of it and what my particular areas of responsibility will eventually be and where the role will lead. But that has a good side too. It's definitely going to be something to get my teeth into.

Jo's enjoying her job too, it seems. She's learning more and more every day, and having a month-end to deal with is certainly ensuring she's getting stuck right in.

In terms of news, there isn't much. But I guess this is the way it will be going forward. It's not just a long holiday after all. We live here and work here and even though it's somewhere different, day to day will still involve getting up, going to the office, working, coming home, and then going to bed. We need to slowly start building friends and other things into the framework. And weekends. I'm looking to weekends that don't involve furniture shopping. Or curtain shopping.

Meeting the staff

After church today there was a newcomers' lunch. Every six months or so these are organised for the newcomers to St John's to meet each other, to meet the St John's staff and also to hear a bit more about what goes on at the church from week to week. It's such a good idea. It really did what it said on the tin. We also signed up for the church family weekend away today, which is in November, I think. Given how many newcomers to the Barge we've explained the value of weekends away to in the past, we couldn't really not sign up. It really be a great way to meet people and get to know them better.

Joanne and I are currently having discussions about when we should move from the flat into our house. She's keen to do it next weekend. I'm more willing to wait for our container to arrive. No decision has been reached as yet.

Ordering furniture

Another busy Saturday. We met the guy from Danske Mobler at 9:30 at the house. He was bringing out a lounge suite we liked to see how it fitted. There were options on various sizes so we wanted to see how it looked before going for 3-seaters or 2-seaters or the whole chaise setup. It helped. Also he brought a sample of the material we were thinking of getting it covered in to see how it looked against the walls and carpet and stuff. It helped too. We decided on two 2-seaters and changed the colour of the material we wanted. In case you're interested, we've gone for raisen. And it's all ordered. And the dining room suite. And coffee table. And lounge suite for the other room. We got a decent discount in the end, which was a nice bonus for buying so much stuff from the one shop.

After that we nipped to the place where we getting our desks from and placed a quote request. And then drove to the furniture shop where we're getting our spare room bedroom stuff to order it and get a quote on a corner TV unit thing.

One downside about Chch is the relative lack of public transport. As a result of that, and mine and Joanne's different office hours, we need two cars. This one will do mountains too.

Keys...

We settled on the house today! We got the keys. We own it. It's ours. How exciting! After work we drove down there so that we could run up and down the hallway and round the living room and in and out of all the doors. We're definitely looking forward to getting moved in. We also nipped to the local chippy for some grub. Our first meal in our new house.

I actually produced a useful piece of work today at the office. I managed to generate a report all on my own, neaten it up and email it out. I did it so well that a colleague's asked that I do it each and every week. It's good to, in some small way, feel a tiny bit more useful than I did yesterday.

Today has been a better day.

The last Friday of each month after work is a time for a social drinks and nibbles thing. It is sometimes themed. Today's theme was the All-Blacks, as the New Zealand rugby team left for France yesterday. All week emails have been sent out reminding people to wear black to work today as some sort of tribute thing. I'll support the Kiwis when they play other teams, but I won't support them over England. I wore no black to make the point. It's fair to say I stood out.