Fun facts about NZ

 Now that we've been in New Zealand for, what, about six weeks, I thought it was time to share some interesting (playing it fast and loose with the word interesting, you might say) trivia about the place.

I fell into the Aussie trap of thinking that it would be pretty much the same as Australia.  And, in a lot of ways, it is.  We talk pretty much the same, except they get their vowels all mixed up in a really endearing way.  For some time I was referring to my sister-in-law's cat as Pippa.  Turns out its name is actually Pepper.

There are also plenty of marked differences, albeit small, that keep reminding you that this is a whole 'nother country.  Can't get here by bus.

 There's no Kmart, Target, Big W... but the Warehouse is amazing
 In Australia you get so used to having so many shops to choose from.  If Target don't have it, check Big W.  If it's not at Big Dub, you'll probably find it at Kmart.  But here (or in New Plymouth anyway) the only big cheap discount department store is the Warehouse, and it sells pretty much everything.  I mean, everything: mobile phones, TVs, furniture, clothes, plants, milk, nappies.  And it's all decent quality and CHEAP. 

There's no eBay or Gumtree
 Now, this is a little annoying.  I don't know what everyone does with their secondhand goods here.  There's a site called Trade Me which sounds promising but it works like eBay so if you have an old couch or whatever to sell you have to list it with a reserve and wait for the auction to end.  You can't just stick it on Gumtree for $100 and have it gone the same afternoon.  And so when I'm looking for an old swing set or cubby house for J, there's nothing on Trade Me.  No bags of kids' clothes for cheap.  Where does it all go?  I am here and ready to buy, people. 

They sell booze at the supermarket  
Cue choirs of angels singing.  Take note, Australia.  A decent reason to move here if for nothing else. 



They don't know what cordial is 
No one drinks cordial.  They all drink this powdered stuff called Raro.  Most people don't even really know what cordial is.  I know. 

There's no Triple J, ABC or SBS 
I mean, well, obviously there's no Australian Broadcasting Corporation in New Zealand.  But I hadn't realised how much of the quality programming we take for granted comes from those channels.  Here there's commercial TV which is pretty dire (it's basically a never-ending loop of British game shows like The Chase and Tipping Point, with news in between), or the Maori Channel which shows a lot of great classic movies, or Al Jazeera.  I think we need to get Sky (the NZ version of Foxtel).

They use Americanisms 
Or what I consider to be Americanisms.  I guess NZ is kind of in between Australia and the US if you squint your eyes and tilt your head.  They say cell phone instead of mobile, sweatshirt for jumper, and if something's good, it's neat.  As an example: "Eh bru, look at the neat cell phone pocket on this sweatshirt I got at the Warehouse." 

Chemists are only open during business hours 
Again, this might only be because we're regional but I was very disquieted to learn that if I need over the counter meds outside of 9-5 Monday to Friday I am bang out of luck.  Combine this with the fact that there's no bulk-billed after hours locum, and it basically means that if you - or, worse, one of the kids - takes ill on a Saturday afternoon - or, worse, in the middle of the night - you have to go to hospital.  I MEAN COME ON.  Needless to say I'm stockpiling drugs in a slightly obsessive fashion. 

They have petrol station forecourt attendants 
Remember in the 80s, when there was someone to greet you and pump your petrol for you?  They still have that here!  I love it!  It's such a redundant service! 

On a side note, how good is the name of this suburb?  Snappy!

Petrol is $1.80/L 
Yup.  You read that correctly.  Frankly I would say let's forgo the forecourt attendants and give us the fuel a little cheaper. 

They call shopping trolleys "trundlers" 
Ok so this fact is a little dull.  But the word trundlers is vaguely amusing.  And they are the bane of my tiny life because the back wheels don't turn side to side so you have to steer them differently and for some reason it's taking me a long time to adjust.  I don't know.  Yeah.  Let's move on.

Trundler hahaha

Unfortunate placement of that pole there, hey

There are no fly screens
There are plenty of flies but for some reason no one has fly screens.  I quite like it for being able to lean out the window to pass B his beer or whatever, but it means you can't have airflow and security at the same time.  It feels weird and exposing.  If the door's open, it's open to anyone who wants to come in.

Well, that kind of abruptly concludes our little list.  I hope you learned something today.  I've been learning many things these past weeks and I'm sure there's many more to come.  I'm still having to hold up and examine each coin before I hand them over in the shop, for one thing.



Briefly in other news, our shipping container full of all our stuff arrives within the next two weeks.  We got a teaser today when B drove his car down from Auckland which had a few boxes packed in it.  Oh I love my things, you guys.  We have been lent a whole house worth of stuff by B's generous family and friends but ultimately there's nothing like your own stuff is there?


When that container arrives it's going to be CHRISTMAS in our house!

Frost

Well, a few days ago I wrote about the onset of the wintry weather, and yesterday we woke up to a light frost.  I was, of course, thrilled.

Then last night it was even colder and this morning we woke up to the full sparkling winter wonderland!  I can confirm that it was definitely quite crisp out there.

Poor cows!

Wintry Weather

I started this post a couple of days ago when it was windy and rainy and seemed that winter was closing in around us.  Today, however, we've got some (patchy) sun again.  Still blowing a gale though: those biting southerlies straight from Antarctica.

Tomorrow concludes B's first week at work.  He leaves before the girls get up in the morning and arrives home about 15 minutes before they go to bed at night.  It's been hard on him, and especially on J who has been asking for him a lot.  A just carries on but then chortles uncontrollably when she sees him come in the door.

I haven't actually found it too difficult.  My days are so busy with the little ones that I simply don't get a chance to dwell the way I did when B worked ridiculously long swings away doing FIFO before A was born.  Nowadays the days whip by before I can get a handle on anything.  I am, however, really looking forward to Sunday.  He gets Sunday off then it's back to it on Monday.

The cows are doing their work beautifully eating up all the grass and churning the soil nicely.

Remember this photo I took a couple of weeks ago?

Here's what it looks like now:

Poor B, as if his hours aren't long enough, goes out every morning, in the pitch dark and/or rain, to move the cows to a new strip of grass.  They'll gradually work their way around the whole place, then I think we seed new grass and they can just graze without being moved daily.

A turns eight months old today.  I could pretend that I'm all misty and nostalgic about my last baby rocketing towards her first birthday, but I won't.  I'm very excited that she's growing up.  She is definitely a happier little beast than she was a few months (or even weeks) ago.  In fact she's quite a delight.  Still has her grumpy moments, but at least now it's for a reason - tired/hungry/etc.

What else...?

Well... I think that might be everything for now.  I thought I had more news.  I'll leave you with more wintry shots of the farm.

That reminds me, I kind of want to name the place.  Not something cutesy like Crabapple Acres or whatever.  Something cool.  I have no ideas.  Help me.

Oh and how about these two sharing an apple for afternoon tea?

Mothers' Day and other things

Whoops somehow the weekend got away from me without getting a blog post published.

B has started a new job today with very long hours so we actually spent the weekend enjoying our last days tooling around as a family of four who do EVERYTHING together.  I'm going to seriously miss having him around, and not only for the extra set of hands with the girls.  Just because it's nice, really nice, all being together most of the time.

He's had essentially ten months off, with only the odd job here and there.  We're so lucky that we're able to afford that kind of break, but it's going to be a shock to all our systems now he's back working six days a week.  At least it's not FIFO.  Thank god it's not FIFO.  We've done our time there I think.  I hope.

Anyway!  Boring!

Speaking of boring, here's another photo of the mountain.  Or, a photo of cloud covering the mountain.

And while we're doing boring repetitive photos on this blog, here's a photo of the cows.  Oh and apparently they're girls.  But they keep mounting each other which makes me really uncomfortable.

Yesterday we went out for an amazing brunch with B's family to celebrate mothers' day.  The food was delicious, although J and A did their best to ensure we only got to eat it once it had gone cold.  It was so good it didn't even matter.

We also went out into the orchard and picked what is definitely the last of the last of the apples.  I actually had to buy some today.  Quelle horreur.

But look at our photogenic spotty apples bobbing in the sink!

For the "things that aren't interesting to anyone but me" file:

We've had a minor breakthrough on the subject of J's eating.  She is so fussy - worse than me, if that's possible.  It's actually lucky for her that I am also terribly fussy because at least I'm sympathetic to her.  Hey, it's no fun being fussy.  We don't do it for the laughs.

But it's exhausting trying to come up with dinners for us, dinners for her, and then exasperatedly making Marmite toast for the 50th night in a row when she won't eat what I've prepared.  Now that A is on solids too, that is a LOT of meals to make every day.

So about a week or so ago, we said: enough.  J eats whatever we eat.  So now, we cook our dinner and set aside a portion for her which she then has the following night.  This probably still sounds needlessly complicated but she has dinner at 5pm and there's no way I'm organised enough or interested in eating at 5pm enough for us all to eat together.  Maybe in a year or two we will all sit down together but for now this is what works.  And she's eating!  She's trying different things!  There's still plenty of stuff she doesn't like - pasta and potatoes to name two (a child of mine who doesn't like pasta, I don't even know what to say about that), but the main breakthrough for us has been that she's willing to try things.  There's no pressure to finish everything, but she has to at least try everything.  And it's working!

So many people suggested we do this when I have complained about her fussiness and now I feel silly for taking so long to do it.

Now if I could just get A off the damn purees and formula life would be a breeze!

Another one for the "uninteresting baby news file" is that we've got rid of A's dummy... sort of.

Last week her sleep was so diabolically bad, and B was due to start this job today, and I started panicking about how he - and I - would cope so sleep deprived.  So I said to him - "Three nights.  Let's give it three full nights and days just to see.  It can't get worse.  If nothing improves we give it back to her."  He cautiously said ok, so we threw the dummies -ok, not in the bin, but in the drawer, and steeled ourselves.

That was four days ago and we no longer put her to bed with a dummy.  She still cries briefly getting to sleep, will that ever end??, but she has been managing a solid block every night until 3am or later, when she can't drop back off without the dummy.  She hasn't slept that long since she was three months old.  So now when she wakes in the early hours I just give her the damn dummy so we can get those extra few hours.

I'm glad we did it, but as with everything to do with A, nothing is a magical quick fix.  And she has taught me over and over again that nothing is permanent so I'll just enjoy these good sleeps for as long as they last and always be aware that things will probably change again.

She is most certainly going through a much happier phase at the moment though.  Far more inclined to smiles and laughter than she's ever been before.  She absolutely adores J, who I think is just now realising the benefits of her adoring captive audience.  Gosh they are sweet together.

I have a post bouncing around in my head about what it's been like transitioning from one to two kids - suffice it to say, nothing at all how I'd expected.  If I can ever manage to string my million thoughts on the subject into a coherent post, stay tuned for that.

Meanwhile here is my fruit bowl, and the first camellia to open.

Cows!

I think my favourite thing about J's current level of speech is her pronunciation.  She'll repeat almost anything back to you, but gets them slightly and adorably wrong.

Barcaboo, barbapoo - barbeque
Dordy/Cwean - dirty/clean
Bwoo, Gween, Porple, Wid, Wawow - blue, green, purple, red, yellow
Noonles, Soss, Dooce, Bwid, Happle - noodles, sauce, juice, bread, apple
Teebee - tv
See-ah - see ya
Hoss, Shooks, Yog - horse, chooks, dog
Bubby siss-ah - baby sister
Tracksie pants - tracksuit pants

I told B, and I wholeheartedly mean it, I hope she never learns to talk properly.  The way she says pweeeeese when she wants something melts my flinty heart.

One word that she absolutely has mastered, however, is cows.  And guess what got delivered to our place today!

They arrived in true country fashion: walked up the road with a ute driving in front flashing its lights.

Only a couple of minor detours up the neighbours' driveways...

Only a few near misses with impatient motorists...

In you go, ladies.  Or, wait.  Are they fellas?  Oh I am HOPELESS at this country gig.  I think they're female.

I know one little two year old who is going to be THRILLED to see this lot.  Ever since we arrived, every time we drive down the road, it's "Cows! Cows!".  We're in prime dairy country so there's plenty to point out.  Now she's got her very own herd.

Mountain making a subtle cameo