Andrew's Blog: 2011

Well, its now been two and a half months since we said our goodbyes to you all in Ireland, and even though we've been in touch via phone and skype, I thought it high time for a recap on what has happened in that time. It seems like a long time since this photo was taken, so here's what we have been up to.

Firstly, after a long couple of flights we arrived in Hamilton around 1 am on September 1. The early Spring weather was surprisingly sunny (turned out to be a false start) but we had a nice relaxing first week in NZ at Mum's house, recovering from the pack-up and flights. Included in the accommodation were morning coffees on Mum's back verandah (very nice):

The first job was to buy a car, which we succeeded in doing within a day of starting to look for one. It is a very smart 2006 Corolla:

After a relaxing week in Hamilton, we took the corolla for a drive down to New Plymouth to stay with my friend Julius and see Ireland kick off their World Cup campaign against the USA on September 11. Before the match we bumped into our friend Paul (from Limerick) who lives in Wellington and had driven up for the match:

Our seats were right in the front row and were able to deploy our banner to good effect. As you all know we became world wide celebreties with our apperance on the television during the second half:

After the New Plymouth match it was back up to Hamilton for a couple of days, then on September 14 we packed up our worldly possessions and said farewell to Mum, and hit the road for Wellington, via a rather circuitous route that took in Mt Maunganui (to see our friend Kingsley) and Napier.

We arrived in Wellington on Friday 16 September where we stayed with my sister Katherine and her family. The next day it was straight into house-hunting, and after a somewhat disappointing first few days looking at cold and damp houses we found a lovely flat in Brooklyn, not too far from Katherine's home (more about the new place later in the post).

After a week in Wellington, on Saturday 24 September we boarded a flight from Wellington to Nelson (a short hop across the Cook Strait) to visit my brother John and his family. Marian made good use of their sunny conservatory to recharge the batteries:
Whilst in Nelson we went to our second World Cup match, Italy v USA on 27 September. It was a festival atmosphere (no one really cared too much who won). The following day we were in Nelson Airport when the Australian team arrived in town for their match against Russia. The locals were (mostly) polite and welcoming. Here's me with the Aussie coach Robbie Deans: And Marian and Katherine got to meet their idol the Aussie No 8 forward Radike Samo: We flew to Wellington on Thursday 29 September and immediately returned to the South Island the following day, in a truck, to pick up my stuff from Christchurch. My long (nearly3 month) holiday was over, and I started work on Monday 3 October. Never mind, the World Cup was heating up and a couple of weeks later Marian and I were off to see Ireland take on Wales for a place in the Semi-Finals, feeling quite confident: The less said about that game the better. On a more successful note, on a trip to Christchurch in late October to retrieve the remainder of my belongings, we entered a table quiz and won first prize (wine and hats): Anyway, getting back to our new flat, it has a nice kitchen / dining room: and bedroom: A nice view over the city and harbour from the sitting room: and also a little back yard and just enough room for a vege garden which we had to protect from the Wellington gales with plastic sheeting - hope you are impressed: Here's our back yard: And another view looking back towards the house: Gardener hard at work (note the sunny weather)