New House and Container

We moved into our new house on Friday. Moving in was rather interesting. The lady we bought the house from is a single mother that was needing to down-size. She had a rental property lined up to move to last weekend but at the last minute had to back out from the rental as the prior people left it in no shape to live in. She had to find someplace else to rent in just a few hours and didn't end up getting access to the new rental until Thursday afternoon. She still had all kinds of stuff at the house when we were to take possession on Friday afternoon that had not yet been moved. And, the house had not been cleaned. The real estate agent and I ended up helping her clean and pack up Friday afternoon so that we could move in. Which was no big deal for me as I was just waiting around anyway to unload our stuff. The house is rather spacious for us--- I don't have enough furniture in the container to fill the place. It also needs a lot of cosmetic work and heavy duty cleaning. The house was build in 1993 and has not had any updates since it was built. I think it ended up being a little much for the prior owner to keep up with.

In other good news, our container is set to be delivered tomorrow (Tuesday) just in time for Christmas! A moving company is brining it tomorrow morning and they will also unload the contents into the house. There are 41 items that have to be set aside in the garage for NZ Quarantine to inspect. They want to inspect all garden equipment, sporting goods, bikes, Christmas decorations, food products, wicker and basket products, etc. NZ has had a very bad history of pests being introduced to the country. They have very tight controls around what gets brought in so that new bugs and seeds are not introduced. NZ Quarantine will come by Tuesday afternoon and inspect the items from the garage and give the green light to unpack them.

We are currently living at the house with a blow up mattress for a bed and two bar stools for the kitchen area that the prior owner is lending us. I bought a couple plates and glasses and a few pieces of silverwear to get buy for a few days.

We had a couple outings over the weekend. On Saturday, John and I went to a farmers market in Matakana, which is about 1 hour north of Auckland. The market had a lot of organic produce and fresh items. We drove further north after the market and visited a couple beaches and a marine reserve area. We also stopped at a cheese production shop and a vineyard on the way home. On Sunday, we were invited to go with Richard and Pippa to a Christmas party. The party was in an organic farming area. The farm had about 100 acres and grew garlic, leeks and fruits. It was a pot luck lunch. A part of the tradition for the party is to do a gift exchange. They draw names from a hat for who you exchange a gift with. You get a small present for your person but you also have to write a poem about that person. Pippa and Richard got us a Cabbage Tree (looks like a palm tree) and wrote a poem about our move. It is a rather creative group of people.

For Christmas, John and I will be around the house cleaning and unpacking. Hope everyone enjoys themselves over the holidays. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!