cottageinthesky

There was a thread about kiwi books/authors recently

eileen35

:scared: taranaki ready to explode.whereabouts is that.thinking dantes peak and all that.

eileen35

hi karonious
had wee look at your blogs earlier and theyre really helpful.my hubbys line work should go down well there as its externall wall insulation.maybe heat those houses up.
did you go through an agency or did you get in through skilled migrant?
how many kids do you both have? i see you said one of thems settled in school,that must be relief knowing kids have taken to such big changes.
did you know anybody in hamilton?
i,ll probably keep pestering you with questions.hope you dont mind?
speak soon
all the best in your new environment

justy

First step is usually a holiday to see if you like NZ. It is a beautiful place and if you love the outdoors then there is not a lot better. Some parts are very backwater like northland, Auckland is another rat race although not on Londons scale. I liked New Plymouth personally. Be prepared for less wages but better lifestyle. My advice is take as many pounds as possible when the exchange rate is 3 to 1 and buy property. Get your residency and stay a minimum of 2 years then get indefinite residency. Then you can come and go as you please. Have as many choices as possible. Life changes all the time. I'm now in Scotland but will return to NZ in a year or two.

karonious

did you go through an agency or did you get in through skilled migrant?
how many kids do you both have? i see you said one of thems settled in school,that must be relief knowing kids have taken to such big changes.
did you know anybody in hamilton?
i,ll probably keep pestering you with questions.hope you dont mind?

I landed the job (just looked at Health Boards on the net and applied), then told Steve he had to do everything else - and held him to it!!! We never considered using an agency, didn't hold with paying someone to poke their nose in our affairs and possibly end up doing the hard bits ourselves anyway. Steve reckons it wasn't that difficult (I really did make him do it all!), just a matter of getting organised. The really useful thread has a lot of good ideas, well worth a read.
Only the one child with us (10 year old daughter). Also have 3 sons - 2 time served Brickies and an apprentice painter/decorator near Elgin who haven't lived with us for the last 3 years since we moved from Elgin to York. Hopefully they would all appreciate a long working holiday when we are ready to buy/build a house!
No, didn't know anyone, but having been a RAF family for years, we have become used to starting anew with no support.
Ask away, can't guarantee sensible answers but will try to help

eileen35

hi justy
where in scotland are you?
im in glasgow.
im too scared of flying to holiday first.im going to have to get hubby to do a mr t on me to get me there.
as things go here,work crime,house prices etc.we imagine we,ll take to new zealand no bother.
see where you said get your residency and stay for minimum 2 years ?
can you do that without having skilled migrant category
hubby should fit in on the jobs shortage part but his jobs not in the skilled migrant part.
what job do you do?
thanx eileen

eileen35

hi karonious
we definetly will give it go ourselves i think.
if i hadnt found this forum probably wouldve opted for agencys help.
everyones been really helpful.
we looked up the eoi and know now hubbys not in the skilled migrant anyway.
so we,ll go the other way.
also discovered hes not been in job for two years.will be on sept though.so thats actually not bad time for us really.
gives us plenty time to get this house into shape to sell and let my daughter get her exams out of the way also.
and to get as much info from everyone here.
thanx again
take care
eileen

karonious

I get the impression that a lot of people don't use an agency. If you are both working full-time and lead stressful lives it may be worthwhile paying someone to take that burden for you, but being a tight-fisted Scot I would really have grudged paying someone to do something I (or indeed the lovely Mr B) was perfectly capable of doing for nothing.
Take care,
Come back and ask your questions here, people are always willing to help if they can
Karen B

justy

Hi,
We are in Aberdeen. I'd forgot about that Mr T move. Jeez its been a long time since i watched the A Team.
Well NZ is a different life than the UK. People are more open and trusting which is the way things are meant to be. I'm sure you will love it there.
I applied for residency on the grounds of being an electrician and had a job offer too. When two years had passed i got an indefinate visa which means i can go back anyime. If my passport expires i get another visa put in the new one. I'm not sure if it was related to the skills category only? All i can say is that its a very handy thing to have because it enables you to return to the UK for any given period to work and earn pounds if you need to. That freedom to choose makes life a lot easier. You don't have to be flying to NZ thinking this is all or nothing. You can mix and match. Just do the two years first. Check if it does apply to your particular application.
We are doing the flipside to that because my wife is a Kiwi and shes getting her indefinate UK residency now. I could never have seen all this coming in a million years. We are returning to NZ in a year or so.
Where are you planning to settle? If you own a UK house you should be able to get a fair bit for your money in NZ but prices have doubled and in some places tripled in the last 5 years. You can still get a lovely house for under £100,000 with nice large garden, short walk to the sea etc

justy

I used an agency too and they charged me nearly £3000 for just pointing me here and there. I should have done it myself but i was so serious about going to NZ that i did not want anything to mess it up so i took the plunge with the Migration Bureau. They got me the result which i guess is all that matters now but it is costly and it never seems like they actually do a lot. All the bills were very hard to itemise too. Had i known about this forum back then, i'd have done it myself for about £700.
I still had to pay for NZQA assesments, medicals, police clearances on top of the agency fees anyway. When i was late paying the last bill they reffered it to a debt collection company in NZ which meant i had to clear my name. What a great start that was. If i had not quickly credit carded the payment i'd have had trouble getting a mortgage in NZ. Be very wary of things like this. Unless you are very tight for time then i would do the forms yourself

eileen35

hi karen and justy
im not working just now so thats how i could mess around on computer and find some things out.
we will be selling our house hopefully august or september,that allows hubby chance to be in job 2 years.
then we,ll get started.
in the mean time i,ll search about see what i can find to help us with the process.
karen hows hamilton? has stevie got job yet? if not could you ask him to have wee nosy in papers etc to see if there is many jobs for plastering or externall wall insulators. we know in wellington theres plenty construction jobs available there.
but we,re still undecided between hamilton and wellington.
he has passed tests for health and safety on building sites and he can do draught proofing also.so end the day,he,ll do anything labouring,plastering whatever it takes.
justy wherabouts in aberdeen are you?do you know ballater? colins dad came from there.we go camping there every year.
cheers for the advice about agencies.
definetly do it ourselves,and like you say maybe go for two year first.
bye for now
eileen

justy

Have heard of Ballater but not sure where it is. We are in Nigg right now but its short term till we can buy. We were very close to buying in the west end (whitehall Rd) but strangely enough we were guzumped English style here in Scotland. We put the highest offer in which was accepted. I went offshore for two weeks, our advisor went on holiday....short story...it got screwed up and we lost the house. Never mind, everything else is going great. We love these granite houses so will keep looking.

karonious

karen hows hamilton? has stevie got job yet? if not could you ask him to have wee nosy in papers etc to see if there is many jobs for plastering or externall wall insulators. we know in wellington theres plenty construction jobs available there.

Hi there,
I will ask him to do just that when he looks for himself. Apparently there are jobs on Trademe as well.
I'm from Rothes, near Elgin myself, also posted to sunny Peterhead twice. TWICE!! Hell was modelled on Peterhead
Steve's favourite joke when we lived there was 'have you heard of the new drug found in the local pubs? - canefitahmean!'

eileen35

hi karen,
had look at your blog.pmsl
and now that winters kicking in here we have thought about 1 of those heated light bulbs for our bathroom.Even though we,ve got radiators.
has youre furniture and belongings arrived yet?
when you said about the shells,i was wondering if your stuff takes quite a while to get there.
what kind of books do you read?i noticed kathy reiches.ive not read any hers.
i like val mcdermid,martina cole,mark billingham mostly psychological stuff.
eileen

karonious

has youre furniture and belongings arrived yet?
when you said about the shells,i was wondering if your stuff takes quite a while to get there.
what kind of books do you read?i noticed kathy reiches.ive not read any hers.
i like val mcdermid,martina cole,mark billingham mostly psychological stuff.
eileen[/QUOTE]

Hi there,
our furniture is meant to be leaving the UK today and arriving end of Nov. Groupage (part load) takes longer but that is not a problem as we haven't that much actual furniture as we always intended to buy here. We are really pleased with the stuff we have bought so far, just waiting for the lounge/dining bits to be delivered on Thursday. I do miss the dishwasher and tumble dryer though. We rented a micro-wave and washing machine but thought we could manage without the other two....Come home little dryer, all is forgiven
I have read every fantasy-fiction book ever written (minor exaggeration) and will read just about anything else apart from romance. I have been know to take a Watchtower to bed and even a children's encylopedia (my ex-husband was NOT impressed with that - told me 5 f*****g chapters wasn't f*****g foreplay!!) Kathy Reichs - true life forensic anthropologist. She is always digging up mysterious bones and solving crimes... singlehandedly of course