A Trip Home

Pohutakawa - the NZ Christmas tree

Last November we spent the month in New Zealand (actually Vicki spent somewhat longer involuntarily, read on …). The purpose of this return was two-fold: catch up with family and friends that we hadn’t seen for 2½ years and for Vicki to apply for a UK visa. Due to some forward planning I have dual nationality (thanks Mum and Dad!) but Vicki is “just” a Kiwi. She has been able to stay in England on a 6-month visitor’s visa, but last time she got one it was made very clear that this was the last ... and don't leave the country as she might not be allowed back in! Consequently we’ve seen less of Europe than we had planned. The only answer was to apply for a “proper” visa which would allow her to stay for a longer period and work. Unfortunately this can only be done from your home country and would take £1,000 ($2300 NZD) plus about 10 working days to process the application (as of when we were planning this trip).  So a month seemed to give plenty of time for both our objectives – oh, how wrong we were.

Our first stop was in Christchurch, staying with our very good friends Kerry and Dave. While we thought we had plenty of time it was a struggle to get around all our friends. Not quite all as it turned out. We managed to spend some quality time with my daughter Izzie and Vicki’s son Andrew. Though as Andrew was in the process of setting up his own business as a surfing instructor Vicki spent more time in front of her computer setting up his website than with him. Still, he seems to have had a successful start (with a huge response on TreatMe) and is doing something he enjoys and is very good at.

The old bakery at Blue Spur township

We then moved down to Dunedin to stay with my mum and see my other daughter Georgia, who had just got a first class Honours Degree in Archaeology. She was starting a holiday job before returning to commence her Masters. And we finally got to meet her boyfriend, Michael. They have been together for a number of years but we’d only seen a few photos. He passed the test though - seemed human, no two heads or arms scraping the ground.

NZ back country - in the eye of the beholder?

Ex-residents

It was a good chance to catch up with my mother too as she is now 93 and still living in her own house. As always when there we go on plenty of day-trips, either down the coast or into the hinterland. And always I am impressed by the sea and beaches and the pockets of unmolested bush, rare as they are outside national parks in NZ. Sadly a lot of the rest of the countryside is bare grass paddocks for sheep or cattle where pretty much anything larger than a thistle has been removed. It is very barren and only kept going by the regular diet of fertilisers. The less fertile areas are planted with exotic forests grown for their timber, or ravaged land where the bulldozers have felled them all.

We then headed up to Nelson to stay with Vicki’s parents. The Nelson area is a favourite of ours and it isn’t surprising that it is such a popular holiday area as there are more sunshine hours than most of the rest of NZ, lots of variety in the landscape, and a plenty to see and do.

 

Coffee & cake at the Mapua wharf - Nigel, Julie, Joan, Ivan

Kina Beach

 

Vicki, myself and Julie at Mapua, Nelson

Typical NZ car (not)

Brook Stream, Nelson

Boatshed Cafe, Nelson

Maurice, a local gunsmith

Andrew with his first clients

As we got closer to the time we were due to fly back the worry levels increased as Vicki’s visa still hadn’t arrived, nor her passport which had gone with the application.  All the UK visa agency in Manila would tell us was that it had been received, and their website now said that 1/3^rd of applications were being processed in 15 days, 2/3^rds in 25 days and the rest … clearly it wasn’t going to happen in time to catch our flight so Vicki had to forfeit her return ticket. I headed back on the long and lonely flight to the northern winter at the beginning of December, while Vicki spent more time with Kerry and Andrew in Christchurch, and then in Nelson with her parents and sister.

The visa, and passport, arrived in Christchurch on December 17th.  Vicki flew to Christchurch the next morning and onto London that afternoon, so was here for Christmas with a shiny multi-year working visa in her hands. All turned out well in the end though a LOT more expensive and stressful than anticipated.

Visitors

Following on from the success of our month-long holiday in Italy last year with Mum and Julie, they decided to visit us in the UK in September for a few weeks.  We were very lucky to have our 'owners' (Nigel's employers) approval to have them stay with us, so they used the son's rooms (he, like most of the family, is in the USA) - Mum grandly accommodated in his bedroom and Julie set up on a comfortable convertible couch in his office - however they did have to share his huge bathroom.  They didn't complain!

We'd planned plenty of outings, of course, so here's a bit of a run-down on the joys of being a tourist in our neck of the woods.....

Note: several of these photos were taken on Julie's camera, by Julie or Nigel ...

At nearby Basildon House, a National Trust property that's used for some of the internal rooms of the fictional Downton Abbey...

Who doesn't recognise Stonehenge?

tourists at Stonehenge

the three Slade girls at the Devizes locks (hidden behind them)

the first pub stop, in the lovely village of Marlborough

And they couldn't visit without seeing London .. twice for Mum and three times for Julie ....

on the train from Theale to London Paddington ....
 

a brilliant Charlie Chaplin impersonator busking at Covent Garden

Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and the Slade sisters

on the 'Harry Potter' (Millennium) Bridge with St Paul's Cathedral behind

 Julie got very excited about the grey squirrels in St James's Park ..... especially so when one clambered up onto her knee!  Don't worry - I checked her bag afterwards, before NZ Customs got a chance!

 For my birthday in April we'd gone to a Birds of Prey centre, so Julie knew she wanted to go there too, so we returned .....

We enjoyed a great day in Oxford .... 

.... and a special day aboard the Cygnet - a canal boat on the Avon and Kennett Canal.   Having been shown the ropes we were left to our own devices for the day - negotiating several locks and travelling from Kintbury to Hungerford and return.

Julie skippering the Cygnet under a rail bridge

enjoying the comparative comforts below decks

The Cygnet and Mum (BTW - we grew up on Cygnet Street in Christchurch!)

Julie and Nigel managing one of the locks

A must-see pub, and a must-duck pub, near Brimpton - the Pineapple Pub.  You can see that the beams encourage us to duck (in preference to knocking ourselves out!).

They abandoned us for three days to visit Paris (during which time Glenn and Irene Seymour came to visit), were back for a couple of days, then winging their way back home.  It was all over far too quickly!