Letter to Bokhara

My Dear Fellows & Dear Princess Normal,

I've just written an email to Bokhara and now I'm all written out. So I thought I would be cheeky and change a few things and post it here as well. 

S.

Ey up me duck,

So it is six months TO THE DAY when we left London. I have been rubbish about staying in touch, but that's okay because so have you.

Oops. That is unless you've been trying to text me on my old mobile. In which case you are forgiven.

My new mobile number is 555-1234. Having said that, it could be pricey to call me on it because it is a mobile. If you have WhatsApp on your mobile it is much cheaper, and you could call me on your Friday night and we could have a drink together. 

Okay, technically it will be my Saturday morning, but I think I'm allowed one before the sun is over the yard-arm because technically I'm still drinking on UK time.

The last six months have been surprisingly easy. I think Er Indoors and me have had it much easier than most immigrants. We got a great flat through Er Indoors's sister's mother in law (if you follow that). It is brilliant. It is only 2 bedrooms but nice & spacious inside, and we are right next to a nature reserve, so surrounded by trees. 

The sound of foreign birds surround us. Oh, all right, they are mostly sparrows and blackbirds, but there are some local breeds in there too. There are some particularly noisy birds called tuis, who sit in the trees going "poo-poo" and "ACK-ACK" and "honk". 

The cats, as you might expect, are loving it. They flew out to NZ a couple of days before us, and were in quarantine for 2 weeks, so we got them back about a week after we moved to Wellington (we spent that first week staying with Er Indoors's sister). Er Indoors's sister also came to Wellington with us and she was AMAZING, driving us around Wellington and basically helping us furnish an entire house in a weekend (very few places come furnished in Wellington). Your Er Indoors would have LOVED it. 

The Kiwis are big on bargains, and Er Indoors's sister was amazing getting us money off beds, bedding, couches and all that. This is just as well because nearly everything is more expensive than it is here. I'm still dividing everything by 2, to try and figure out what the actual prices of things is, but I really need to stop because it is just too depressing.

On the plus side, I got a job here within a month of arrival. I'm quite liking it. The people I'm working with are pretty nice, and the office is literally 5 minutes from my front door.

I say that. It's 5 minutes down a MASSIVE hill. It's not a hill. It is like The Mound in Edinburgh crossed with the Himalayas. Er Indoors told me that the first time she walked up it, she thought she was going to die. She passed a little old lady coming down as she went up. Apparently, Er Indoors was so wiped out by it that she couldn't even get her keys out. She just had to lean against the side of the house, breathing heavily.

The little old lady came hopping back up the hill. "Are you all right?" she asked.

Er Indoors panted that yes, she was fine and that this was her house and she was planning to go inside to die shortly. "That was bloody embarrassing," she said.

So I think that was the first and last time she tried it. Fortunately, there is a cable car that you can catch in town that drops you in the botanic gardens, which is a 5 minute walk from us. It's so handy, and very pretty. 

I'm making it sound perfect. There have been downsides. We've felt about 6 earthquakes since we've been here. Not scary ones, they just feel like a big truck going past and they are generally over before you realise what they are. But everyone keeps saying, "It's Wellington's turn for The Big One" so we've bought a big earthquake kit with blankets, water purifying tablets, glow-sticks and a hand-cranked radio.

I expect "The Big One" will hit while I'm on the other side of bloody town.

Mind you, Er Indoors should be okay. She is working from home and loving it. She hangs out with the cats all day and continues to do the job she was doing in Edinburgh. It makes me really happy, because she is much happier. If there is one single thing that has made coming all this way worthwhile, it's how much happier she is in her work.

The weather here has been incredible, but this is not a good thing. I have discovered I am not good in the heat after Wellington had its hottest summer in about 80 years. The cold, I'm fine with, but bloody hell the house we are in is like a sweatbox and there's no air-conditioning. I've been living the last 3 months on ice-lollies. On the plus side I've got a bit of a tan. Although to be honest, I've never tanned well. I just get a bit of a pinkish hue. So now I walk around all the time looking vaguely embarrassed. 

Er Indoors is loving being in the same time-zone as her family and speaks to them just about every day. It's really nice. She flies back up there every couple of months and works from up there for a week. I've been up there twice with her (once at Xmas) and her home town is lovely to spend time in, you would really like it.

I still really miss Edinburgh a lot. This doesn't surprise me, you can't live somewhere that long and not get attached. Wellington is lovely, and definitely suits us because of the nearness of everything, but it doesn't have the same personality, or the memories I've attached to places. I suppose as we get to know more people here that will probably change. 

So that's us. If you want to look at pictures and things you can see some on my photo-blog. It's the same one that Auslaender does and it's actually a really nice way to keep in touch, because it means you send just a little update every day. Mad Dog has started doing it as well. Not that I'm hinting.

If you're interested, I wrote about that last night the four of us had in Edinburgh here - https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2347834327154294927 and you get a bit of a mention on my last day in Edinburgh too - https://www.blipfoto.com/entry/2351996814934149236

Oh, I should mention it is all anonymous, so I only ever refer to you as "Bokhara". I thought you might find that funny.

I hope all's going well with you and the missus, and that the kids are doing well. But you need to get WhatsApp on your phone - or even Facebook messenger, so that we can have a bit of a chat over a glass of port sometime.

Cheers!

Me & Er Indoors