Get a cuppa and a good dunkin biscuit!

Its safe to say that these last 2 weeks have been just as mad and hectic as the week before. We saw Matt the Canstaff MD and immigration whiz on Tuesday morning and started the paperwork for the work visa/permit. After lengthy debate we decided to opt for the one year visa because going for a 2 year visa meant we would have had to have had medicals at this stage which could have slowed things down, and I really didn't want to mess my new employer about. We had a fab morning at Scarborough beach the next day while we waited for Matt to complete his side of the papers fopr immigration -it was very choppy there, we remembered going there on our trip with Joe last year when he was showing us his surfing skills. There were also some fantastic houses built into the cliffs, there should be some snaps on these on the website soon, unfortunately a combination of dodgy laptop and then unavailable internet machines in Timaru is slowing down the amount of information we're able to send at the mo - a gap in the market for an internet cafe maybe?

We gathered together all the papers and queued the next morning at immigration. They opened at 8.30am and Matt suggested getting there at 6am so to be at the front of the queue. Needs must! So there we were at 5.45, first in the queue, thankfully it was quite mild. We were soon joined by other people and started swapping stories. We were seen pretty much straight away and thankfully 45 minutes later we had the visas. It was really touch and go as we weren't urgent cases by any stretch, but thankfully by getting there that early we had pushed ourselves as much as we could. We had a celebratory coffee and bagel, then decided to pack up and head down to Timaru, calling at Matt on the way with my signed employment contract. We checked into the Top 10 holiday park which is where we are still now.

We have spent lots of time driving around sussing out the nice places to live, and on the Friday afternoon I had a phone call from my new MD saying he was looking forward to having me on board and how was it all going?

Our unit here in the Top 10 is fine, all self - contained with bathroom and kitchen which is really necessary as it's very cold here at night now. We have an electric blanket and a heater (Donna, I can now relate to your running out of bed sto switch on the heater and getting back in stories!!) During the day the weather has been fantratic, very sunny with the occasional cloudier day but between 14 and 18 degrees, which is lovely for late autumn or the equivalent of our early December!

Last Sunday we had a spin out to Lake Tekapo (which is the photo at the top of this blog) lovely innit?! It is certainly one of my fave places and a huge attraction to being in Timaru - it's a one hour drive. It has a glacier which feeds into it hence the blueness of the water

I started work on Tuesday; Richard and Leah came with me - it felt a bit like my first day at school. Thankfully i didn't cry when either left and played with my toys nicely.

The company i'm working for is called Aspect Furniture Systems (no website so no point googling it!) It designs, supplies and fits top notch office furniture all over NZ. Richard is the MD/owner; Andy is the Sales Manager and Grant is the Marketing Manager. There are about 8 of us altogether in the office and about 6 guys in the warehouse. Being an office furniture company the office is very nice, certainly a move on from my days at NMA where i kept banging my knees on the 80 year old desk (those were the days eh Pete?!). My role there is still coming together as they're currently installing a PC network and broadband so there's quite a bit of reorganisation going on. My work is all PC based, supporting both Grant and Andy with their sales and marketing work. Richard is already talking about putting me on a course to learn their design software which is very promising and i may do some accounts work aswell...early days.

Wednesday night we went to see a house which we've agreed to rent. It's just perfect, 2 bedrooms (so room for guests!), very plush. We're having it from 23rd June. It has a beautiful garden with lots of little areas to sit, and inside it's all polished floorboards and rugs. The woman who owns it is off to Oxford UK for a year so we can have it for that length of time if necessary, but probably for about 6 months.

Rich had his first game of golf Friday mornign while i was earnign us a crust! I think he will do a separate blog about that one, for now let's just say it was a bit hilly and they was some hobbling yesterday!

We had an invite to Ashburton yesterday to see Joe play football, his team won 4-1 with Joe scoring twice. It was lovely to catch up with Lorna and Tom again and we have a coffee and peruse of teh local craft shops afterwards.

Today, Sunday, we're car hunting, I've just had a spin out in a toyota starlet which seemed very nice. 1996, automatic, blue etcetc. Hoping to pick a car up in teh next week or so - just trying to manage the cashflow at the moment :-)

Well that's all for now, please keep your news coming and Alice - pleased to see becks did his stuff for you. Happy Birthday Mum for tomorrow, i'll give you a tinkle in the morning. And happy birthday to Ruth and GF for the 31st - not quite at that level of organisation yet!!! Hope you both had a good day.