jawnbc

Yesterday our belonging arrived from New Zealand. The estimated timeframe for arrival in Ireland was 8-12 weeks: ours arrived 19 weeks, so fail. But we moved to a furnished house and I was able to bring a fair bit of necessaries with my humungous 60kg checked baggage allowance. Go Airpoints Gold Elite Koru Platinum!

We were a bit worried about finding places for things. It some respects it'll be a stretch, but both of us agree it should be OK. Like everywhere else, if we find we need to jettison some bits, we can do that relatively easily. Someone who took one of our spare beds last week is re-establishing themself after a period of homelessness, so she gets first refusal. Many years ago when I was homeless NFA, people were incredibly, incredibly generous with me. 

Himself is off to Dublin for a PhD-related shindig and he'll be back late this afternoon. I depart for Dublin this afternoon and will be back for dinner tomorrow night. Am packed and ablated and having homemade espresso #3 in my slippers. Oh how I have missed you, espresso machine! Saturday I will recommence banh mí lunches, since I once again have my stand mixer. 

I am in the queue for Céline Dion tickets. Or, rather, I am in two queues: FNAC and Ticketmaster. There are 400k ahead of me. FML.

We cut the lawn with our strange electric lawn mower. We walked the dogs twice. I baked banh mí rolls without having a mixer to do the kneading (totally edible, but not to the same standard), and grilled bacon for our lunch. We are going to a local hotel that serves food in their pub tonight.

This week has been mostly about bureaucracy. Am now sorted for voting in three countries (NZ, Canada, Ireland, though this will be my last NZ election in which I can vote). We did the final sign offs on the sale of the Auckland place (actually completes in a week). Bought and received a freezer so we have more room for the pups' raw feed (and perhaps some magnums and ice). 

Tomorrow Himself is off to Dublin for an overnight stay: usually he goes up on Monday morning and comes back at night. I will miss him, but it will be great to be doing my own thang (whilst being a good dawg dad). 

An Oirish ATM card. And it's a Visa Debit card. Tomorrow I shall change the PIN and I can buy ALL THE THINGS.

A quick comparison between my New Zealand and Ireland mobile/cell phone plans:

• NZ: €33 a month, 80GB data, unlimited calls and SMSs to NZ and Australia and €5/day roaming to EU, US, Canada. Add Apple Watch phone for €3 per month [2 Degrees]
• Ireland: €30 a month, unlimited data, SMS, calling to Ireland, EU, UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. 80GB of roaming data in EU and UK per month, with €5 in many other countries. Add Apple Watch phone for €5 per month [Vodafone Ireland]

Ostensibly the difference between a market with 6 million versus 400 million persons. 

There's also a prepaid option thats a lot cheaper and includes the EU/UK roaming, but you cant have prepaid and an active Apple Watch service, which is super handy.

After a 36+ hour journey, am finally in our new home. 

For a long time I have tried to convince people to shift from the term virtual to digital. From my lived experience, virtual implies a lack of substance or seriousness to online mediated relationships. The connections I've made online--especially here in LiveJournal in those halcyon early naughties--have been very, very real.

This evening I had dinner with a group of friends: a sort of combined farewell and today is my birthday. Of the five couples at the table, three involved men I either met or whom I largely got to know on this platform. Two of the couples (me and Himself, and Grant and Brian) largely connected via here. Earlier in the day the lovely Cuboz sent me his annual birthday video message.

All very real and very nurturing for me. 

Our house sold tonight via auction. An excellent result. So pleased. Now it's time for the final scrub-up.

Today was my leaving 'do at work. I did not want to have one: I hate being the centre of attention and nothing fucks up this Pisces' peace of mind like managing expectations of others. But the one thing I really really hoped I would receive is a toki (or adze), a jade stone for men that represents strength, reliability and wisdom. Tried not to cry. Managed not to cry.

Aside from my current bosses (Dean and Deputy Dean), two other former Deans came to wish me well. So many kind things said about me. Very uncomfortable, but I put my big boy pants on. I will miss this place and these people.

 I'll be back in tomorrow and Monday and Tuesday next week, then I'm done.

Buy our home in lovely New Windsor, 20 minutes from (nearly) everywhere.

Earlier today my beloved arrived at our new home in Rosslare Strand Co. Wexford, accompanying our two beloved dogs, Niamh and Oisín. Because we did everything correctly, there was no need for quarantine and all three are already sleeping in our new home. From drop off at Auckland Airport to collection at Dublin Airport the journey was around 48 hours for the pups. Here’s an overview of how we figured it all out.

Why Wexford

My father-in-law lived in Wexford for the last twenty years of his life. My husband and I’s retirement plans had been to split our time between Ireland and New Zealand, but when Oisín and Niamh entered our lives, that clearly would not work. We then decided to, at some point, move to Ireland in a few years. Following the death of my father-in-law last year, we worked through some options and numbers, thinking  2027 might work for us. However, an opportunity for my husband to study in Ireland came along, and that settled it: 2026 it will be. So I gave my notice at work, and began planning our move.

Stuff

On Himself's penultimate date in Aotearoa, we were doing the things — mostly about the pups. First there was a certified heart worm treatment for a certified veterinarian. Then it was off to the government for the issuance of export certificates. We also got to see the custom crates built for them, which are wooden. Niamh will have shedloads of room; Oisín is bigger, but will still be comfortable. 

Tomorrow and the following 48 hours will suck balls. But once everyone's in Ireland and safe, I'll be much much better. 

Anyone wanna buy a house?

We are doing all the moving things and some of them are giving me the feels. This morning was our final appointment with our NZ vet. Ostensibly it was to get sign-off on some paperwork, but she also did a typical check on their overall health. And they are in great health.  But I wanted to hug the vet, though if I had the floodgates would've opened. And I had to get to work, where sobbing isn't always apropos. 

But I was almost at the office when I realized my work lead lanyard and swipe card were missing. So I came  all the way home. My boss was back from his annual break and wanted to discuss a farewell thingie. "I would prefer nothing at all, but assuming that's not an option let them get tipsy." I was distracted so I did some lower risk stuff (data entry! I love my numeric number pad!), and exited. 

Tomorrow we got the power (washing) sometime in the afternoon. I shouldn't expect to be all emo about that...

Today the movers come to pack up (most of our) shite. We're not bringing furniture, so this entails:

1. Media devices
2. Cooking devices
3. Baking hardware
4. Clothes
5. Pet supplies

Our dogs are very good protectors of the manor. When we've had tradies working on things they tended to get used to that person. This will be several persons, with lots of action, for much of the day. 

I will be ensconced in our bedroom as their chaperone. Himself will be the mover wrangler. I'm back to work in the morning so will probably get some pre-work done. Because tomorrow the skip arrives.

Uncle Paul and the pups have a wonderful three day visit. He left yesterday, so we sold the bed in the spare room immediately thereafter. No, really.

NZ has this awesome and maddening love child of Craig's List and eBay, called TradeMe. It's awesome because their security is good and the overall site makes sense. And the search engine works within the site, winning. 

It's maddening because its users are very entitled:

• What are the dimensions of the bed? It's a standard King Single, look it up.
• Can you post some additional photos? No, there are two adequate ones.
• Will you take a bank transfer? No, cash only means cash only.

Then I remembered about Amazon's free buy/sell platform. I put it up there and someone came over with the cash within four hours. Done. Dusted. Fewer annoying users too. And now we have a lot more space to use the spare room as a staging/sorting space for the move. Movers are here in 8 days, and the skip arrives the day after. 

My other task today was to go through my hanging (as in the closet) clothes. I won't need nearly as many work clothes when I get to Ireland: I won't need an entire set of dress short sleeved shirts in particular: have reduced 20 to 7 (I would drop two weeks' worth of shirts at the laundry every fortnight, hence needing a larger number). Have reduced the long sleeved work shirts by 1/3 too, and the trousers by a third. 

Uncle Paul has been visiting for Stephen's Day and some quality time with the WiggleButtTwins™: he's back down south shortly. We had a fabulous day at Kakamātua beach yesterday, followed by a chilled out afternoon:dog beach=clapped out pups for the rest of the day. 

This morning we've had local walkies and I've milled some flour: as of 05 January my bits will be unavailable until I arrive in Ireland (and they arrive in Ireland via boat). I won't have a stand mixer so that means no bagels or banh mí--can't be arsed to kneed anything by hand for 20 minutes--so it's back to old school hand prepped sourdough. Have a supply of rye and spelt, which expands the range of breads I can make quite a lot. 

Also milled some coarse whole wheat flour, which is epic for (Irish) brown soda bread. I only milled enough to bake a loaf today, but will mill the rest of my stash on 04 or 05 January. Once we're staged for sale (end of January) I won't be using the oven at all. The BBQ is going to Ireland on the boat, so will only be able to have stovetop meals. I see a lot of takeaways in my future...

Himself and I have been pushing through on the pack/purge/proffer since I finished work last week. We took yesterday (now known officially as Shane McGowan's birthday in our house): a beach trip with the pups, a languid grilled lobster lunch, and some holiday telly in the evening. 

Just after 21h Uncle Paul arrived from Palmy. He was a constant in the babies early life, until he moved across the ditch. He's back now, but won't be based in Auckland until we're gone. He took care of Oisín and Niamh while we were away last year so he is their third favourite human. They were SO excited when he walked in, it took like 20 minutes for them to recover. <3 

This morning it was brekkie, a dash to the supermarket for some supplies, and finishing the tidying up of the place. The forecast for later today is thunderstorms, but we could still get three or four hours poolside. The homosexualists are due at 13h.  Our Stephen's Day gatherings have been a staple here and it's one of the rituals I will miss the most. 

Life moves on. 

This year my employer decided to shut the university even earlier than usual: rather than noon on 23 December they elected for 19 December. So we get over two weeks off (we reopen on 05 January, since January 1 and 2 are holidays in NZ), but that includes six days of compulsory leave. They’re only supposed to take 3 days…

And the movers are coming on 06 January, which means I have a lot to get done and a relatively short window with which to do it all. As a result, we aren’t hosting anyone for Christmas, but our big Boxing Stephen’s Day gay pool party will happen (end of an era!). I’m back working on the 7th, and Max and the dogs depart on 28 January (I’m here until the beginning of March).

To my mind we have three phases of organize, pack and purge (OPP yeah you know me):

1.  To 05 January: pre-moving company OPP

2.  To 28 January: pre-departure OPP

3.  03 March: final OPP

We’ve identified which furniture will stay for staging, which ones are being taken by family, and which ones should have been binned yonks ago. Have a stager linked up. Have a landscaper tarting tidying things up for sale. Will have a cleaner in after #1 above to do a first massive clean, followed by a small one on 29 January.

At the same time I’ve been wistful about our time here in Aotearoa. It’s been 13.5 mostly excellent years. NZ has certainly changed me, mostly for the better. But being wistful isn’t the same thing as having second thoughts. It is time to go.

Am doing all the things.

The first phase of reno-to-sell is done: refreshed bathroom and kitchen. Pics when we've tidied up enough to show it all off.  Today's been about baking (glad to be back on the sourdough train), abluting, walkies with the WiggleButt Twins™, and lunch with a pal. Himself is on the mainland cavorting with pole dancers. R & C are coming by in a couple of hours for a barbecue. Summer is here!