Another Month over......

Well, another month is almost over…… They seem to whiz by at the moment! We’ve (mostly Tony!) finished painting 3 bedrooms, the lounge, the dining / family room and the kitchen. Will post some before and after pics soon! We’ve had the quotes back for replacing the sliding patio doors with Bi-folds and they should be installed by the end of Feb. We seem to be spending $$$ really fast….

Beginning of Feb we’ll be having what they call over here ‘heat pumps’ installed. Otherwise known as Air condition units. So we can have cool rooms for the summer and warm in the winter. I haven’t seen any houses with ‘Rads’ in but I’ve seen ads on the telly for ‘European style heating’!! We don’t have mains gas in Hawkes Bay, all gas appliances are powered by bottle. The kids are looking forward to nice ‘air con’ rooms as the temp has been in the middle 30’s recently making it difficult to get to sleep in the evenings.

We’re waiting on an architect to get back to us, with some drawings for our plans to put a small dormer window in, the store room off the spare bedroom. This will give us some head height to allow for a shower to be fitted as part of its conversion to an en-suite for that room. He is also drawing up some plans to move the separate upstairs toilet into the family bathroom so that we can extend our en-suite into the toilet area and create an almost ‘wet room’ en-suite for us!

The removals company has been booked for Monday 18th Feb to move us from our rental into our New home. A distance of about 1.5 miles! So if you're going to send anything to us please use our NEW ADDRESS from now is ok!

The kids go back to school on Monday 4th for the new school year. Dan will be in Year 11 and Louise will be in Year 8. The school terms here run roughly as follows

Term 1 - 4 Feb to 18 April
Term 2 - 5 May to 4 July
Term 3 - 21 July to 26 Sept
Term 4 - 13 Oct to 12 Dec

This is Dan’s NCEA year (National Certificate of Educational Achievement) equivalent to his GCSE’s. So it will be a busy year for him. He is also looking forward to March when he can apply for his NZ Learner Driving Licence. This allows him to be out on the roads but he must be accompanied by a 'supervisor' some one who holds a full NZ licence. After holding his Learner Licence for at least six months he can then take his ‘Restricted Licence Test’. This is a practical test of his driving, if he passes, then he can drive on his own, but not between 10 pm and 5 am. Between these times he must have a supervisor in the front passenger seat with him..! So by Sept - Oct he could be out by himself!!! (Tooo scary to think about at the mo!!!) After that there is another time period before he can then apply for his Full Licence! Oh, and mentioning that, Tony and I have yet to sit our ‘Theory Driving Test’. We can drive on our UK Licence for 12 months! Luckily we don’t have to take a practical test!!

Louise spent a week in early January training with the Napier City Football School. It was a summer holiday program running from 9am to 3pm for a week. She had a great time and really enjoyed her herself. Especially wearing her Spurs shirt. Most of the NZ kids here either support Man United or Liverpool…. She was in her element trying to show them the errors of their ways and even with the football coaches!! Unfortunately she has to wait until she’s 14 before she can join their ‘girls’ team. But hopefully with school starting in Feb, the new football season won’t be far away. (Ooops! Soccer not football!)

The weather is still very nice.... lots of sun. A few rainy days and when it rains it really pours down. We caught the edge of Cyclone Funa (it hit Fiji!) as it moved south, quite windy! We've missed winter and we haven't worn coats and I haven't worn proper shoes for months. I've been living in Jandels! (flip flops!) I even have a jandel suntan!

Thought I'd let you know the cost of a few things here in NZ Dollars... Although all the prices of things are in cents the lowest value coin is a 10cent. So they do rounding at the till up or down.!

Tonys Prescription (diabetes pills 3 months worth) - $3.00
Takeout Fish and Chips for 4 - $20.50
McDonalds (3 meals) - $20.60
Louise's movie ticket to see 'I am Legend'(she went with friends) - $10
Diesel fill up - $60
Paperback book - $30
Single Bus Fare from Napier to Taradale - $1.60
Dump run : Grass clippings, Cardboard, Wood - $6
Petrol Lawn mower - $256
Pair of Shorts for Dan - $40
T-shirt for Louise - $25
Music CD - $22
Movie DVD - $29
Service for the Car - $137
12L Paint - $256
Weekly Food Shop - $217
Haircut for Louise - $20
Haircut for Dan - $16.......... and $23 for Wella styling gunk!

That's about it for now!