Joshlin

we are just about to reach our 3rd anniversary in NZ (left UK 4.10.05, arrived 6.10.05) and got me thinking about what we've done / what we've found etc etc - no particular order, just a few ramblings

absolutely no regrets, not at any point
occasional home sickness, usually when stuff has happened with family / friends in UK and couldn't be there to help out
great when people come to visit for first time - helps you revisit all those initial "wows"
still so many places to see, so many experiences to have
kids (6&4) are happy, content, settled and very kiwi - although miss having grandparents to spoil them / take along to school events etc
our house is huge - well not really but definately in comparison to UK house and cost about the same!
we have to do everything at a slower pace (ie diy round house)- time / money to do things not as freely available - but nobody really cares anyway
haven't met an unpleasant person yet
social life - much busier than in UK - hosted some expat do's which were extremely enjoyable!!
started camping - although note to self - need to do more this year
tried campervanning - superb - don't like some of the hills though (hubby quite happy to drive them, thankfully)
can just pop to beach or ski-fields without spending hours in non-moving traffic, and come back in the same day
have acquired 2 pooches - would never have done this in the UK (both labradoodles - cool dogs!)
found trade me - can't believe the stuff i've been able to sell and the amount of money i've got for it
hubby has to work every 2nd weekend - not a good thing, but employer is superb - very understanding and happy to let him "out" to go to kids stuff
still laugh at kiwi-ism's, eh!
hate cost of flights back to UK - can't justify cost to a place that i don't really want to see although would like to remind selves of why we left (and see family etc)
love our logburner - can't beat the dancing flames when it's cold outside - don't like the chill first thing though!
love being able to take the kids to the park without having to check for bottles / needles / condoms /thugs etc etc
dislike the kiwi lack of urgency when want to get things done
can't get used to the cost of paint and wallpaper!!!!!

i'm sure there's loads more but don't want to bore you all
raise a drink for us on saturday - next stop citizenship

Cheers

teebrown

Great post, thanks, left me with a smile after reading it.

planty

Congratulations on 3 years here! We celebrated our second anniversary in August, and we still love it here - in no hurry to visit the UK!

Batty

Great post - much the same thoughts as I have on a regular basis Good luck with another 3 years!

Wiz'n'Ton

Good news folks and what a great post to read. Happy Anniversary to you and the clan!

You can be sure that we'll raise a few glasses for you on Saturday

M-Squared

Excellent post Joshlin I know what you mean about the cost of paint, quite outrageous!

mum-dad-3-little people

Great thread joshlin, congrats on your anniversary.
I love reading threads like this, i'm so nosy, i love to hear how peoples lives have gone since they have emigrated. Its not boring at all so anyone else who would like to add their experiences i would love to hear their story. I bet lots of other people would love to hear them to.

bourbon-biscuit

What a lovely post

pixi-dust

We're the same as you, in fact it's our 3 year anniversary today, so I hope you don't mind if I post on your thread our experiences.

We felt like we'd come home as soon as we arrived.
We had an offer in on a house we'd seen when we came over three months earlier for job interviews and after a few sticky moments moved in about two weeks after we arrived. Unfortunately the people who sold it had moved out about 12 weeks previously so the garden had gone mad, there were weeds growing out of the gutters and the grass was about a foot long, we just about sh@t our pants we were so scared!

Still it's lovely now!

We made friends incredibly quickly which was lovely as the DH and I had met 'later in life' and had no common friends, they were either his or mine (which was fine) but it was lovely to make friends who knew us as 'us' It feels like we've known our wee group forever and they've definitely made a difference to how happy we are here.

We have a lot less stress in our lives now, a lot of this is down to having only a teeny fraction of the humungous debt we had in the uk. Things have been a wee bit tricky sometimes, but when I freak out I have to remember to tell myself we're in a lot better financial situation that a lot of people so pull myself together and do something about it. We have to budget here, and after the initial panic, we both actually love it. This was part of our problem in the UK we had our head in the sand, so we've had to dig it out here! But we're happier for that.

I love living in New Zealand, I have found the people to be friendly and interested and really welcoming. If we get bad service somewhere it really sticks out as it's so unusual.

We changed our life radically from living in the heart of a city (no garden) to living very rurally ( huge garden), about an hour away from the nearest 'big' city. It's a lot less hectic, we never see a traffic jam, but we do see some shocking driving!
I find rural living to be a very friendly thing, it's like I imagined it might have been 50 years ago or something. I've seen more of our nearest neighbours here in 3 years than I did in 10 years in the uk.

I love the beaches, I've always loved beaches, but the NZ ones do seem so unspoiled, we often have a huge beach all to ourselves and the dogs even in the height of summer, cos if you know the secret ones....

The main thing that I don't like is the sheer distance from family and old friends. I just became an aunt a couple of months ago and I was so sad to not be there. Uk people don't realise how not far a $$ goes! Well some!

I love the cafe culture here, I love the water and being able to dive and go out on the boat every weekend if we want. I love being more practical and growing a lot of our own food, having chickens ( my new favourite thing) I've never been a keeping up with the Jonses person but sort of like it that I'm not the one with the oldest crappiest car ( even though I do have one!)

I love that cheese and onion crisps are a very special treat!

I like that when we go into the bank they call us by our first names. I've turned into a total rugby fan even though I barely understand the rules!
I am fiercely proud of my new home.

and yes, us too - citizenship is next.

Wiz'n'Ton

Hey, if Licky doesn't mind us nickin' her post, then I'll stick our thoughts in here too:

Been here a year and 9 months, and have had a real rollercoaster ride. We seem to thrive on challenges, so always set ourselves massive goals that firghten the cr*p out of me until we start achieving them.

NZ has been brilliant as it has given us the grounding to simply *try* something. In the UK we were surrounded by people sucking their teeth and going 'ooooh, what do you want to move to NZ for?' or 'no point starting a company here - why not have a job like everyone else'. NZ couldn't be more different. There's that real 'Give it a go!' attitude which is so refreshing. People encourage you to give your ideas a crack, and so we are doing what we've always wanted to. We'll soon have our first investment property, and T is going to start a business.

I've done really well in my work, and now run an office - something I would never have achieved in the UK. I love it! Coming to work is great, and I feel I really get something out of it.

Life here is as full as you want to make it. I went fishing on sunday with a mate, just off the local jetty, and caught this big ass kawahai (pronounced car-why). We live in the city but the country is minutes away. Cycling on our doorstep, plenty of stuff to do if you want to - it's just great.

We know our bank guy personally. Like, first name terms, go out for a pint personally. How mad is that?!

Bit of a ramble, but overall we are really enjoying it. Yep - family far away, and expensive to visit, but it's not proved terrible. Yet. Hell, we may even head over there for Christmas 2009.

One thing's for sure - we're here for the long haul.

ohnojo

Hey - congratulations to you all
It was 7 years for us in July - makes me feel old ! Getting citizenship and going along to the ceremony were very happy and proud moments , especially as we had to originally go to appeal to be allowed to stay
All's well that ends well

Joshlin

don't mind at all - great to read others experiences - tis a great place we're in!!! (mostly)

Joshlin aka Licky

bookemjano

Three years for us tomorrow too. Hard to believe how quick the time has gone and the changes we've been through.

No regrets, other than my Lotto tickets never win. We're happier, more optimistic, more adventurous and more settled than we've ever been. In the UK we were always aiming for a bigger house in a better postcode. Here we live in a 90 year old glorified lean-to with wobbly floors and a three ring stove - and we had to sell our soul to Kiwibank for 27 years (not easy at 43 and 41!) to get that, but would rather be here and relaxed than chasing our tails back in England.

Loving:

- Growing my own veg in my wee small garden and being able to just nip outside for spinach to go with my pork chops tonight. I've gone all Martha Stewart making my own sauces and we're even building a chook house.
- Walking past teenagers and feeling safe.
- Ten minutes to the beach and there's a park on every corner.
- Free parking (and most of it accessible for us later-in-life drivers).
- Strangers saying good morning and how-are-you.
- A much bigger circle of close friends, some from other countries, people I would never have met before.

Hating:
- The distance - so hard when you're so far away.
- Being so behind on Coronation Street.

Only had one insult from a kiwi - was told to get back to my cobbles. He meant it as an insult (pretty good!) but I peed myself laughing and he got even more wound up. Otherwise, have had a great time and been accepted everywhere.

Definitely here to stay. Couldn't leave anyway, not got round to getting our RRVs renewed yet.

j19fmm

Yay, thank you all for sharing some positives. It's lovely to hear about it all,we need more, please

Black Sheep

I won't spoil it then for you by telling MY 5 1/2-years-in story here.

I will just say though that over the course of reading many posts in this forum over the past few months, I've noticed that many people who say they really enjoy living here also often mention how much they love their logburners. I'm curious: are these 'clean burning' logburners, up to the new required emissions standards? Here in Chch, they've been trying to ban smoggy logburners for more than 5 years now, but have kept having to postpone the ban deadline (was supposed to be 4 years ago but still hasn't come into effect yet). The smog problem in Chch is just terrible, everyone knows this and everyone knows about the impending ban on the older types, yet there are some who continue to use them as if it's somehow 'OK' just because Environment Canterbury hasn't been able to get it passed as 'law' yet - yea right! As if, if it's not law, it's somehow not causing pollution or affecting anyone else's health or right to enjoyment of their own property!

My neighbours are British, maybe they even come on to this forum, maybe they're reading this right now - they've literally forced us out of our home because they burn their logburner day and night (it's on a wetback so heats their water) for 8 months of the year at least, and our health is suffering for it (windows/doors can't keep logburner smoke out, in fact a new study of a month or so ago determined that the air inside a home/building with all windows & doors shut has as much particulate pollution from logburners as the air outside the home/building. We didn't need a study to tell us that though, weve had to live in a smoke-filled-even-with-windows-shut home for years now) We've told these neighbours as nicely as we could that their logburner smoke is bothering us and harmful to our/our children's health - they seem to be burning wet wood as well and it smells like sewage, it's really really bad.... and they've basically given us the two finger salute in response, said to us "it doesn't bother US", and that was that, smoke continued to pour out of their chimney into our house on a daily basis... and they became very unfriendly and then, though we've never done ANYTHING to THEM other than mention their smoke, did a nasty to us that I won't go into . This is an affluent area, and most people have already converted over to clean heat appliances (mostly heat pumps), and on a beautiful mild night only our British neighbours will have their burner going with the smog pouring out over the road very visibly and densely under the street lights, you can see it from half a mile away.

My point? Weve had a hard time in NZ. We have to deal with Kiwi tradespeople and businesses on a more regular basis than many of you folk will ever have to if you're lucky, and that's pretty bad already and has meant serious big time losses of money to us (there will be some who will understand without my having to explain). But ironically it's been expats here who've had the biggest kind of impact on us, the kind for instance that has made it impossible for us to live in our own home and forced us to move. It was a Brit too who installed heat pumps for us some years back in three homes. He did such a bad job, and all three were wrongly sized and we suffered greatly from that, that was $10,000 out the window as not one of the heat pumps warmed those homes even somewhat, and so they had to be supplemented with oil heaters such that our electricity costs actually increased while the warmth of our houses decreased. That guy, British as I said, will tell you how great NZ is. He's totally incompetent but lives in a beautiful huge house (he told us all about it) out in the Chch suburbs, the likes of which he explained to us (before he installed the heatpumps, so while we were still on good speaking terms!) he could never have dreamed of owning back in London. Coz here in NZ, it's MUCH easier to get away with being incompetent... which obviously is going to make life more 'enjoyable' here than 'back home' for certain types who wouldn't be able to hold a job for long anywhere else but here.

So there's the irony - that possibly the 'happiest' of the expats in NZ are the ones that are making my family the unhappiest...