Jan n Neil

in our case (sorry if this has been done before):

• the Hoover you bought on arrival in NZ dies and you have to get your second NZ hoover
  
• You buy (at least) one NZ pet
  
• you hear yourself saying "eh" sometimes at the end of sentences
  
• you blatantly haggle - and win - in stores whereas you never did in the UK
  
• you finally think in dollars, not pounds
  
• kilometres makes more sense than miles
  
• you consider upgrading your ride on lawn mower suffering from ride-on envy
  
• you take an ridiculous amount of pride in the fact that you had 20 cherries ripen and you found them before the birds did, plus the 3 nectarines on your tree were lovely, and the tomato plants have fruited. None of which you ever dreamt you would care about.
  

Jan

Bo-Jangles

You've been here for the long haul when:

• you really have to wrack your brain to figure out what time it is in the UK
• you have a collection of new pets and got a puppy or a kitten
• you've had to buy a new washing machine
• you have absolutely no idea how many pounds to the dollar
• you've got a leaf blower / vacuum
• you bought a chainsaw
• you refuse to buy anything that's not on special
• you know what comes next on the seasonal fruit and veg front
• all your friends talk about ther rental property/ properties
• you've not had a holiday for a bloomin long time
• you envy other people 'getting off the island' and going to far off places
• you hear of people going on a tour of Spain / cruising the Greek islands or suchlike and thinking, why the heck didn't I do that when I had the prime opportunity?

sr71

I thought haggling was quite common place now in the UK, certainly on most forums I belong too of quite a varied nature, people have for years tried to get the best price whether it's through haggling or price match policies.

Kilometres mean you get there faster

BEVS

Quote:

You know you lived here a reasonable/long length of time when.......

you've been here for eight years.

barnsleymat

When a local asks you if you'd like to go round to his house and sit on his 'dick' you realise he's not propositioning you for a bit of how's your father, hes asking you if you like to sit on his wooden platform.

Trish M

sirplug

you can't understand a word your kids say, because they mumble to you in a full on Kiwi accent .......

love30stm

The Honeymoon period is over and you long for Blighty but forget why you left in the first place

love30stm

I'm sooooooooooo glad my kids didn't pick up the kiwi accent.

Stormer999

No chance I have the photos and notes for future reference........

love30stm

Stormer999

I was never any good at table tennis.....

Catchafire

Saying "sweet as", much to your own annoyance
Catch yourself reading a copy of "Pig Hunter"
things have become "as good as gold"
you finally figured out what "arvo" means
your wife comes home and say she wants a waterblaster for her birthday
the primary mode of transport for the household is a UTE

Snap Shot

What honeymoon period ? Never got one. Honeymoon in an earthquake zone in the winter in a house with no heating (welcome to New Zealand) with 3 months unemployment whilst watching your savings deplete thrown in for nothing. Who the heck would choose that for a honeymoon ?

When your furniture etc arrives it's like Christmas. Is it bollox. At what point do you wrap up the cutlery from the kitchen drawer in plain paper and give it to someone for a present ? For the record we were without our stuff for 2 months. Albeit it was delivered to us the day we got the keys for our rented house so we could move in

We left the UK 'cause we were fed up with our jobs and wanted to move house. However, once we'd turned off the main sources of stress and had been in NZ for a few months I kinda thought, can we start over in UK not NZ ? Don't worry, full circle will come.

Anyway re: a reasonably long length of time. It was our first anniversary of our arrival in NZ on 28 February. Woo hoo ! Thank God that year is over, here's to the future. Leaf blower/vac, check. Purchased new barbeque, check (gave the old one away prior to leaving). Purchased new lawnmower, check (old one same as barbeque). No new vacuum cleaner yet albeit a friendly sparks put an NZ plug on it when he was working at the house. Washing machine is rented, might ask buy it at the end of the rental period though. Got a large patio, would like to buy one of those big canvas indoor/outdoor bean bags. Adopted 2 cats for a fee to SPCA, check. Got vets and cattery on hand when requred too, check. Whisper it, I seem to prefer Pak&Save for 95% of my grocery shopping. Shhh, I'll be in trouble now. It's ok, panic over, I've got $30 one card vouchers to spend in Countdown. Everything's ok now.

BEVS

HeHe.

Mr BEVS tells me I do the 'yis no' thing.

He now ends every sentence like a question?