Wales to New Zealand: Part 20 – Sun, Surfing & Snow-Capped Mountains

Can you believe it’s October already??! It’s surreal. I am sure that when we emigrated we also went into some sort of time travel tunnel because the days, weeks and months seem to go so much quicker over here! It really is crazy.

The Asset Sale Protest in Auckland

We have lived on the North Shore for around 4 months now and still absolutely love it. Somehow the weather always seems to be better here than in the CBD (not that we ever lived in the CBD, but I work there). About a month after we moved we headed to my work’s ball...the theme was the Diamond Jubilee and it was held in the viaduct at the events centre. It was amazing – loads of British themed things, like 2 London guards on the door, an amazing brass band, the colours were red and green and everyone got dressed up in fancy clothes. It was a great opportunity to dress up nicely, it’s widely known that they don’t really do pomp and circumstance here...you fit in whatever you’re wearing – a Saturday night out can be had just as easily in flats as it can in heels. It’s probably more dressy up in Auckland than where we used to live – Invercargill – but nothing like in the UK where if you were out for a big night with the girls you went all out in dresses and heels! I like that you don’t have to get dressed up if you don’t fancy it but the ball was a great excuse to go all out.

Diamond Jubilee Ball

The day after the ball the OH (other half) had gone to pick the car up and I was relaxing on the sofa, sleepily easing off the effects of the night before when I decided to look up pets on the SPCA website (those who know me in real life, know that this wouldn’t be an unusual thing for me to do!) Then I decided to take a look on TradeMe to see if there were pets on there (TradeMe is NZ’s equivalent to eBay...we have eBay as well but TradeMe is HUGELY more successful here) and sure enough there were lots of pets on there. So I started to look through and found 2 beautiful long haired cats...I had a feeling our landlady would be fine with us having a cat as there’s a cat flap in our front door (something of a giveaway), so I waited for the OH to return and broached the subject with him. He was all for it so I sent a text to our landlady who was happy with it too...yey!

One of the cats had only been listed that same morning so I contacted her owner and sure enough she was still available so I arranged to pick her up the following day after work. I was like a child at Christmas on the Monday....so excited about getting her. We went to get her and she was so beautiful, I picked her up and she was more than happy being cuddled so we took her home. It turns out she was originally a rescue from the SPCA and was given to a child for her birthday present, but then the family had to move house and couldn’t take her with them so they gave her to their neighbour (the people we had her from), but their cats just hated her. They’d given it a few weeks but said it was unfair to her and the other cats so had to re home her. She was 2 years old and her name was Alice...well that felt a little weird to me as I have a friend called Alice and didn’t think it really suited her so I renamed her. Her full name is now Princess Tigerlily but you’ll be glad to hear that we have shortened it to Lily, she loves her new name :)

Apart from miaowing a lot at night (just getting into a new routine, I guess) she had settled in well and was using the cat flap to come in and go out as she pleased. About a month after we took her in we went out for the evening, leaving her on the sofa and when we ended up staying at a friend’s house. This isn’t a big deal as she only eats dry food so wasn’t reliant on us for feeding. When we got home the following morning she was out, this wasn’t unusual. But as the hours went on it was very out of character for her not to come back at all. Day turned to night and she still wasn’t home. Naturally, I was very worried about her. As the days went on I shed lots of tears and was hoping that some old dear had just taken a shine to her and she was living in the lap of luxury. I listed her as missing on a website called Pets on the Net, also put her on TradeMe in the Lost & Found section, printed A5 flyers and posted them in 80 houses in the neighbourhood, contacted the 2 out of hours vets locally and registered her as missing with them, rang around loads of the rescue places and sent them pics too – just in case she was picked up as a stray....I just did everything I could think of. I even called the local council and asked if they’d picked up a deceased cat which matched her description. Luckily they hadn’t – and I had a gorgeous lady from the council call me regularly from that date on, asking if she’d come home. I’ve never experienced customer service quite like it!

Then a week after she went missing I found her collar out on the road at the end of our drive which was odd – it had been ripped off which made my imagination run wild and I was convinced she had had a scare and run outside her territory so didn't know how to get home. Throughout the whole time she was missing I also had a feeling that she was stuck somewhere.

Then...12 days after she'd gone missing we went to bed and the OH literally leapt out of bed after 20 mins or so and was listening by the window...and there she was...in the garden miaowing. She crept in and was really timid and flinching at loud sounds, looked quite thin and I could feel her bones in her neck & hips, also had a broken tail – it was all limp and hanging down so she looked really sad! :( But she was home and that was the main thing :)

Lily - when we first had her...

...and now....sans tail (still just as beautiful!)

I called around local vets who quoted me everything from $600-$1000 to have her tail amputated. I don’t usually focus on price when it comes to vet services but this seemed very very extreme to me: it's not an essential limb and she had no feeling / pain in it so it wasn't a necessary operation, I just wanted it out of the way as it was a dead weight for her. Finally I had a quote from a vet who said $280-$380 which was much more reasonable. I went to the vets and was surprised at what I found, they had a couple of their own cats wandering around, even a dog came in too at one point...and I started to wonder if I’d made a mistake. The vets I have always been to have been extremely clinical and smelled of bleach, not other animals! But my fears were quickly diminished when I saw how much this vet clearly loved animals, Lily was more than happy to be picked up by her and the vet calmed my nerves as I left her with them. I had also read 2 reviews online which talked about their clear love for animals.

It was the best example of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ that I have ever experiences, I went to pick her up at the end of the day and Lily was a bit groggy from the anaesthetic but they’d also used a slow release 2 week antibiotic injected into her so that I didn’t have to feed her tablets or anything. Their mission statement online says ‘We strive for a high quality medical service at an affordable cost. We have a passion for animals and their well being’ and they truly do. They are an amazing vet service who even called me a few days after Lily’s operation to ensure that Lily was doing ok and that I was happy with her progress. Lily’s new bobtail healed with no dramas and 2 weeks later she had her stitches removed and was allowed out again. A bobtail actually suits her - it will look even better when all her fur has grown back...it's been 3 or 4 weeks already and it's coming back slowly but because her hair is soooooo long, it will take ages before it looks 'normal' again! A huge thank you to Northcote Vets – I will never use any other vet services for my Lily!

Since I last wrote I have also stepped well and truly into my 30s – I am now 31 and I was more surprised at turning 31 than I was turning 30! We rented a beach bach at a place called Mangwhai Heads – a very quiet place which a lovely beach – and spent the weekend there. As me & the OH share the same birthday we have to ensure the day meets both of our needs (I wanted to run a half marathon on the morning of our bday but that was apparently a non negotiable ‘no’!!) Our birthday is the first day of Spring here in NZ – much better than the first day of Autumn that it used to be in the UK!

A couple of weeks ago we also made our first trip to Waiheke Island for dinner. Eight of us went altogether and had a great time eating great food and drinking fab wine at Te Whau vineyard – it’s highly recommended. Our waiter noted that most of our table was British and we were excited to hear that his partner was in the group Frankie Goes to Hollywood! Amazing! Frankie says Relax and we were doing just that! :)

The sun setting over the city, view from Te Whau vineyard, Waiheke

Breathtaking Waiheke views. Rangitoto volcano in the distance

I also took part in my first volunteer day with work last month - we helped out at The CanTeen event called The Crank. Basically it was a 12 hour RPM indoor cycling event where team members took turns doing an hour long RPM session run by the Les Mills instructors. We were manning drinks stands, meeting and greeting people as they came in, registering people, etc and I also did an hour on the bike for one of our work teams. The session was hard going, those instructors are machines! but it was a great event and over 1000 people cycled through the day which ran from 8am - 8pm. Cancer is something that is dear to my heart; my nan died of breast cancer when she was in her 50's and a good friend of the OH's passed away this year and he was only in his late twenties so it felt good to be doing something to raise money for the teenagers (and families of) who suffer from this horrible illness.

CanTeen event - The Crank - inside The Cloud, Auckland

No other big news here really, there have been a couple of earthquakes in the North Island this month but they have caused no real damage and we didn’t feel them up in Auckland (so don’t worry mum & Dad!!) – there was actually a nation-wide earthquake drill in NZ last month as part of New Zealand Shakeout (the earthquake public education campaign) to ensure that everyone knows what to do if the worst happens. You can find out more here if you’re interested.

I just want to finish by saying how much I truly love New Zealand, the title of this post was alluding to that. It only takes a day of sunshine for me to realise how lucky I am to live here and this day happened when I was in Wellington for work. I had facilitated a session in the Wellington office and was heading back to the airport to catch my flight to Auckland and the driver took me the scenic route to Wellington airport. The sky was blue, the sun was beating down and a large group of surfers were out in the sea lapping up the beautiful weather, while the snow capped mountains looked on in the distance – it really was one of those ‘wow’ moments ... and I didn’t have my camera with me. But to be fair, I have had loads of those ‘wow’ moments here and I have shared some of them below. You'll notice that a lot of these have the sea in them, because that's a natural beauty spot for me; but the terrain here really does have something for everyone! If you have never been to New Zealand I urge you to come – you will not be disappointed.