Good morning folks, hope you're all well

Wednesday last week brought about one of my least favourite activities - clothes buying - which comes a close second to shoe buying. I needed a business suit in order to at least look the part. We spent quite some time trying on suits, and thankfully we found one. The attitude to assisting customers is totally different here - they actually come and help you and bring you stuff into the changing room. Once they've got an idea what you're looking for they really help. Unfortunately they couldn't help the fact that I'm only 5'3" and ALL trousers here are standard length for someone about 5'7". Very attractive I looked stumbling around the changing room. We finally bought one, had a celebratory coffee then headed home to do the adjustments; Rich set about turning the trousers up and I did the cuffs.  Thursday we drove out to the coffee morning at that the move2nz people have every week. It was very informal but quite clicky (how do you spell that?) but we chatted to people in the same boat as us and got some good advice about my CV which I need to work at. This was also the first time where we were told that in NZ the best way to get a job is to phone speculatively and call in with your CV, and that networking is a really good way of meeting people who know someone who's looking for someone to fill this job or that job etcetc. Eek, can't I just email my CV?.... Ok, I can do that.  We're quite glad for the car at the moment as some of these shopping malls and meeting venues are well out of the city. We made the somewhat hasty decision of having a spin over to Governors Bay for our picnic after the coffee morning, a truly stunning place which we shared with only one other car of people, however we underestimated the time it would take to get back to town for my appointment with a recruitment agency - I had to be Wonder woman and quickly spin myself into my business suit in a flash and then we spun off to meet Brian at Canstaff! This appointment went really well, he's putting me forward for an accounts job for a construction company which is building a new town near Queenstown. Apparently living in Queenstown is very expensive so it may be prohibitive but we'll see what happens with the application first. His agency specialises in helping Brits/Europeans get skilled migrant jobs so I am hoping he may come up trumps for us. However the advice is still to apply for jobs in the paper, on websites and generally get out there so we're certainly not letting any dust settle. Friday I spent the afternoon in the library re-writing my CV. Out here CVs are several pages long and apparently employers are keen to see responsibilities and achievements listed for each job. It feels quite liberating being able to have spaces between lines on my CV when like most Brits I've been fitting my rambling table tennis and accounting exploits onto 2 pages for the last 15 years! Friday was also a ground breaking day in the Willett internet and car parking departments. In the great scheme of things it might not seem that big a deal but Rich found free city centre parking and I finally got free wi-fi internet at the library - hurrah!! Every cent helps! Saturday I finally got round to ordering some business cards for me and I jumped into the business suit again to go to a migrant expo. It was a little more eclectic than we thought and only made a couple of contacts from recruitment agencies. Again we bought the paper and got the hi-lighter pen out again. By early evening we both started to feel quite jaded and decided to have a day off the next day. Sunday the four of us went to a winery/restaurant called Darjon where Ish had been working as a waiter between arriving in chch and starting his recent employment at the tax office. The meal was fab and the weather was just amazing allowing us to sit outside in the sun to eat. I think again we got a little sunburned; this kiwi winter is quite something else!! Afterwards Rich and I had a spin out to a beach called Spencerville, just north of chch city - it was a bit chilly by the time we got there but certainly somewhere to go back to at another time. Yesterday, Monday we left Sara and Ish's and moved into the city to a hostel called kiwihostel. The room is ok but the hostel is Japanese owned so all the other residents are Japanese and all the signs and notices are in Japanese and it's a bit like being in the film Lost in Translation, which is ironic as we only watched it Saturday night!! Little did we know! I spent yesterday in the library again completing my first job application - this is to the Department of Corrections (their prison service), what a fantastic place this library is - free internet, heat, phone books, open all day, what more could a job seeking girl need. Rich shopped at his favourite superstore pack'n'save, fond memories of Anglo Swedish shopping trips coming back! Last night we had a spin out to Sumner which is a beachy resort a bit further round the eastern coast of chch. We had fish and chips and looked at the sea like a couple of oldies (except it was dark so we looked at what we thought was the sea!). We drove back into chch via a road called Summit Road which takes you over the top of the Port Hills and shows off the entire area, both out to sea and across to the mountains just fantastically. The views were amazing seeing all the lights. Unfortunately the camera wasn't good at taking photos of lights so this will certainly be on the itinerary for any visitor out to see us! Last night brought back lost of hostel memories, and not good ones. Kitchen sharing is ok, but when people are still shouting outside your room and banging doors at 1.30am this is not good. So Rich is taking the car back this morning via the chemist to buy earplugs! Who knows whether we will stay there or find somewhere else? We've paid for the week so I guess we'll stay and suss is out over the next couple of days.  What is good is that it is Tuesday morning, I am in the library and I've just had a phone call from someone who wants to give me a job??.and I'm meeting him in 2 hours in a coffee shop to chat! Not even time to go and put the power suit on, or get nervous?it's true about who you know??.watch this space.