Interesting Wildlife

We had an Anax Imperator appear in our conservatory this lunchtime - a female Emperor Dragonfly in real money. Whacking great beastie at 4 inches long. Needless to say Freya was sure it was trying to "get" her. As I pointed out I have trouble picking Freya up these days, so there was no way a bug was going to fly off with her, even a big one like that. Children have such illogical fears. I guess that's what makes them kids. Adults have much more logical concerns - like are we doing the right thing vanishing to the other side of the planet? As it gets closer and closer I get more excited and also more nervous.

Tomorrow is a day of note since I pack my job in. It's going to be rather strange after 13 years, I shall miss it a little I guess, but only because it's like an old well worn jacket. I also won't know what to do with myself, not being one to sit idly and veg. At least I can listen to TMS and the Edgbaston test progress to a draw (on account of the rain).

Diane has been shopping around for mobile phones, and has for sometime been using a Motorola something or other. It's one she got off fleabay and it's unlocked and thus works nicely with the new NZ Vodafone SIM card she just received (also from fleabay). The phone now seems to have a split personality, displaying both the Vodafone UL and Vodafone NZ banners. The main reason for all of the shenanigans was so that we can provide PSS with an NZ phone number. I'm gradually coming round to the idea of a new phone. My trusty Nokia 3410 is locked to Virgin and while I'm not interested in a phone that takes pictures, one that makes phone calls down under seems like a good plan. Researching methods of unlocking give all sorts of confusing results. Some claim that there are four unlock codes and the online generators don't produce more than two and even after using these it refuses to work with anything except a Virgin SIM. The solution is therefore to buy an unlocked 3410 off fleabay, as they are going for virtually nothing - less than having it unlocked.

Almost There..

It seems that the wildlife in our future neck of the woods is somewhat over friendly. Mahia Beach is the other side of the sticky out bit from where we're headed, but it's nice to know that you'll always have a mate to play with.

Just two days to go now - it seems almost surreal to think that I won't be hacking COBOL code any more. Woo! is my general feeling about this. I'm still not sure what exactly I will be doing in NZ but I really hope it's not COBOL. Quite a few people have asked what I'll be doing, and for some inexplicable reason, "not much" seems to irritate and bring out the green eyed monster.

The car continues to excite. One of the child seats fell apart on Sunday - the base is now flapping up and down merrily. Apparently it is fixable, but requires a large lump of plastic costing £20 or thereabouts but it is on a two week delivery time. That's a shame because I'm supposed to be flogging it in two weeks. Good job it's to a friend. I've come clean and explained what's happened and my honesty seems to have been appreciated.

We have finally managed to nail down some insurance. It's amazing how many places don't want to know when you say you've got no UK address or are emigrating. The medical cover is a bit rubbish, but then we're entitled to treatment at either end so we don't care. The kids were all covered for free - and given our plethora of offspring, that's worth having. The main thing was to cover the cost of the air fares in the event of anything stoopid happening or losing baggage etc. No one will cover the guitar so it's coming as hand luggage whatever happens.

A Wise Choice

Apparently, according to this poll, NZ is the best destination for expats. Guess we've made the right choice which is a relief given that we've got just over 6 weeks until we leave. The only slightly worrying aspect is that NZ is now a little close to Australia, following the recent earthquake.

We have now collected all of our medical records from the doctors and in the end it didn't cost us a penny. No idea where the figure of £80 came from but I'll settle for zero any day. On the flu front we have had no more problems and everyone is fighting fit. We decided not to bother faking it on the new flu helpline so we won't be stocking up on tamiflu.

We also have most of the school records, although the high school which was initially reluctant to hand over anything seems to have omitted the end of year report. This is rather annoying since it's possibly the most important part. School isn't open again until 4th September so we would appear to have just two days to sort this out. Grrr.

The post office have now started to redirect next door's mail to us. So far this has happened twice. We're sticking it back in the post box on the assumption that they'll get it right next time and it won't come back to us for a second or third attempt but with this set of jokers you never can tell. Would we trust them to redirect internationally? Nah. I suspect not. It'll have to go to Mother's.

Next Monday I've been drafted in to represent the guitar club at the bun fight prior to the Selsey Festival where I'm playing in public yet again. Sir Patrick Moore, a well know Selsey Resident is allegedly going to be there. I shall try to avoid asking him anything about Uranus or anyone else's.

Just Plain Old Mister

I attended my last official function as a school governor this morning - the year 6 leaver's assembly. Ever so slightly emotional but not as much as when the whole school used to clap them out as they left. I am rather sorry to be packing it in after 11 1/2 years, but I obviously will have trouble making meetings from the other side of the planet. Various promises to introduce some NZ schools to ours were made, much shaking of hands and hugging etc. was done and I left feeling a little sad.

Freya is back at school today having recovered from her bout of pig plague or whatever it was. Nobody else seems to have contracted it so far and as it's supposed to be infectious while symptoms are present we're hopeful no one will. As it appears you can get tamiflu online without a diagnosis, we're pondering whether we should get a couple of doses in case Phoebe goes down with it.

We have received Rhiannon's school records - a giant leap for mankind given the reluctance of the school to part with them. Emailing the head teacher directly was a decent manoeuvre and most fruitful.

We've booked a minibus to take us to the airport - £100 for all of us. Not bad I suppose and we are at least all in one vehicle so the scope for "home alone" incidents ought to be much reduced.

My gig at St. Joseph's in aid of Project Peru went pretty well. I managed to get through my pieces with only a couple of small memory lapses and a few wrong notes. No rotten fruit came my way and the audience were polite enough to applaud. Back to practising Dowland.

I'm counting down the days until I finish work. Only 10 to go and some of those are holiday. I seem to be leaving at just the right time as there is one particular muppet who is cruising for a bruising - I'd like to say he knows who he is, but sadly he doesn't.

Aporkalypse

All three of the kid's schools have been spewing forth letters about swine flu, which appears to have taken hold. A particularly inspired letter came from the infant school, warning us to avoid crowds and all the other rigmarole you're supposed to go through. It was inspiringly attached to a letter about the forthcoming summer fair, which proudly proclaimed the more the merrier. Ho hum

Freya seems to have contracted the pig pox - she came home from school on Thursday feeling very poorly with a high temperature, rancid breath and a headache and promptly fell asleep on the sofa. We tried to call the doctor, who wasn't answering and referred us to NHS direct. NHS direct were "experiencing a high volume of calls" and referred us to...... our doctor. Hmm. Di got in the car and went down there. They virtually fended here off with a broom and said the doctor would call. He did. A prescription for tamiflu was issued after a description of the symptoms which we picked up from the pharmacy. Their fax machine was approaching melt down with prescription after prescription spitting out of it. Anyone would think it was a pandemic or something.

Freya was much better by Friday lunchtime and was becoming increasingly annoying, wandering around the house sticking the digital thermometer in everybody's ear. Friday night her temperature was up again. Saturday morning it's down although she's still warm. However the amount of fighting and screaming is back to it's usual level, so she is definitely on the mend.

I spent most of the day listening to TMS. I'm really hoping the weather holds for the next couple of days and that England manage to make Ponting swallow his chewing gum. Surely they can't loose with 521 on the board?

I was also doing a load of practice in preparation for a spot at Arundel Castle in late August, where I will be playing the King of Denmark's Galliard by John Dowland - a rather fun piece which requires the 3rd string to tune down a semitone. Or to put it another way, it makes your G string F sharp.

I finally succumbed to the delights of Twitter and took and set up an account, the first couple of "tweets" appearing opposite.

On Shaky Ground

Apparently there were a couple of fairly large earthquakes in NZ today. Despite reports, I have a reliable source who apparently didn't notice the supposed shaking in Wellington. It does serve as a reminder that the whole place is sitting on a fault line and one day there will be a big one that does a lot of damage. There has to be some downside somewhere I suppose - I mean you wouldn't expect to watch this sort of thing and not expect some sort of quid pro quo.

We're looking into travel insurance. It's not as straightforward if you're emigrating, apparently which may or may not be the thieving insurance companies trying to make a fast buck (as if..) but we did get one bit of advice and that was to look into taking out two policies - since we can split or rather large family into two 2+2s it may save money. Bizarre but true.

BT have finally figured out that I didn't pay the phone bill when we moved out and it's just dropped on the mat. It's only taken two months, guys, No wonder they're struggling.

Spooky!

We've just figured out that our flight to Auckland will touch down at 9AM on the 9th September 2009. That's 9/9/9 9:00 - rather spooky.

We wrote to our health centre to formally request copies of our records. Allegedly this is going to cost £10 each - what! It's not much more than a summary and not the full thing in any case so how they can justify that amount is beyond me. It also seems to be the case that they make up the prices as they go along, since this is essentially a private transaction and not covered under the NHS. You'd think they'd be happy to see you go, but apparently not. We're currently haggling and we may end up not bothering. There's nothing really worth reporting - we're all pretty healthy with no ongoing issues. We've got the "red books" for the kids, so we know what jabs they've had so we really won't be missing much.

I had a final eye test this week - I still can't see a damn thing, and it's only because my arms would shame an orangutan that I'm able to read without glasses but apparently all is well. Mr. Walsh commented that the long sight thing was a function of my date of birth - after a few seconds consideration I realised that this was a very cunning way of saying "old git", and we both had a good chortle. It turns out his daughter is a medical student and he'd met up with her in Papamoa earlier this year. Strangely he'd not heard of Tauranga, even though it's next door., but he was raving about the beaches etc and was thoroughly jealous of our impending move.

Glad to be Going

When you read articles like this one, it makes you realise how lucky your are to be getting out. I don't usually believe a word I read in the papers, especially not the Murdoch gutter press but you can't help wondering if there's an ounce of truth in it. We have just over two months left in the UK and we're currently melting due to the very un-British weather we've been having this week.

The school has agreed to let us have copies of Rhiannon's records - a rather brusque phone call from a clearly admonished P.A to the head of year had cleared this one up. We're also busy collecting records from doctors, dentists and chiropractors and just about anyone else we can think of.

The internet connection has been playing up over the last few days, so after a lot of arguing with the ISP support dept., I've splurged out on a new wireless router. I've no idea whether it will actually work in NZ, but according to one of the people on the NZ ex pat forums, setting the VCI to 100 as opposed to the UK specific 38 allows it to work. We shall see.

I read in ElReg that Air NZ have apparently shot a new in flight information video - the one where they show you how to put on the life jacket etc. They have of course YouTubed it. Pay particular attention to the uniforms: