JBs' Sabbatical Stories

 Yes, you read that right, the suitcases (well, cargo bags) have been unpacked and are now stored away, for now at least! We moved into our new home a week ago today and have had an interesting time working out the quirks of living somewhere different. I wouldn't say it feels like home yet, more like we are living in a posh, spacious AirBnb! Once our container arrives, and we have our own stuff around, I'm sure it will feel more like home. Like most New Zealand houses, insulation and central heating seem to be foreign concepts so the first thing we got wrong was how to heat the house! For the first night, we didn't put anything on as it's quite sunny and generally warm in the day. However, it gets very cold at night and even Jonathan was uncomfortable. We had made the mistake of leaving the HRV (heat recovery ventilation) system on overnight. HRV circulates the hot air at the top of the house to the rest of the house and in doing so improves ventilation and helps preven...

We have been in Auckland for almost 5 weeks now, with nearly 3 weeks out of managed isolation. We're down to level 2.5 lockdown now too. Considering this, we're making good progress. Since I last wrote, we've moved hotels again so we are currently in our 4th hotel room. This time, the army commandeered our hotel so that they could take over security at the managed isolation hotels (we think) so we were transferred to a sister hotel in downtown Auckland. Thus, I'm writing this from 40 Beach road - it isn't on the beach but it's very close to everything (but in Auckland, that's not difficult.) The room itself is generally nicer with better wifi and kitchen facilities but it's very dark (3rd floor, surrounded by buildings) so I try to escape for much of the day. We only have 2 sleeps left here though... Yep - we've found a house to live in! I found it early on in my searching and dragged Jonathan to see it as soon as possible. We were still at level 3 l...