This is one example of the views from the house, taken early on a Sunday evening as the sun was setting. The sky is always fascinating even if not always sunny and there is lots of it!

Here is Steve looking after his spring onions in the garden at 43 Nottingham Street. He looks just like Alan Titchmarsh including his ruddy complexion. They pack a strong flavour too.

It is all on 1 level and has beautiful wooden floors and is about 100 years old. Steve is particularly enjoying the garden, his vegetable patches and compost heaps. We also have 80 steps to climb up to the house which is very good for our fitness.

Our friends Margaret and Steve (from Rochdale) will be visiting in 2 weeks time and last night Lizzy and Acky were our first guests for a meal which was great.

Mum sent this photo to us last week. It is a really nice photo as we all look very happy (and not just due to the champagne…)

I really like this photo which shows the University Kelburn campus (where I am based) with a tremendous sky. You can get a sense of the location and the ‘big sky’ of New Zealand.

Sue

Here are a few photos (that aren’t of me with babies!)
Sorry that they aren’t very good quality but I will work on it.

The Rankine Brown at night (on the right) shows you the main staircase (you can see it from across the bay in the city); the other shot of Wellington city is from the library very near my office; the first photo is of Sandy one of the library cats. All of these have come from Flickr which has loads of great photos of Wellington and of the University.

Sue

But we are now in our temporary home for 6 months in a suburb of Wellington and have wireless broadband and a new laptop. So there’ll be no stopping us now!

How would we summarise our first 3 weeks in our new country? Between us we have come up with the following -

New Zealanders are far too friendly and you can’t go anywhere without people either smiling or wanting to talk to you
Food is very good and cheap – they have cafes well sorted
Weather been very sunny and warm apart from today which is wet and windy (just like the North West of England)
Sue has been preoccupied with work but after week 2 is settling into it and all her gadgets such as PDA
We’ve already been to the pacific and been on a ferry across the harbour
We are now over the jet lag and can stay up until 10pm on a good day
New Zealand wine is very easy to drink and with massive choice over here
The multi-cultural nature of the city means there is always a celebration going on; we’ve already had Chinese new year, St Patrick’s day today and next weekend is the Italian festival
Steve has already bought a ukeleyle and is doing some interesting cover versions
Steve also has a vegetable patch and a shed (aka Alan Titchmarsh)
Sue has gone green and is walking to and from work (‘as long as it doesn’t rain and ruin my hair’)

We would love to hear your views and news so do add to this blog.
We will also do our best to start adding photos (technology permitting)

S&S

We are feeling very calm yet also very weird. (Sue)

I have been musing upon the line “It’s easier to leave than to be left behind”. This is probably true but it doesn’t mean that leaving is easy. We’ll miss everybody.
Bye for now. (Steve)