A New Beginning

 So we have finally made the move to Sydney - arriving yesterday! This blog will be a round up of news since my last blog back in March. It might be a bit briefer though as we're swimming in the bureaucracy of moving countries at the moment.

 Knee update

The knee is holding up incredibly well and much better than expected. The last few days have been a bit testing with lugging baggage etc but in reality I'm almost back to pre-knee-falling-apartness! I've been swimming regularly and doing heaps of reformer pilates to strengthen it. I seem to be almost even in strength on both sides now but can't bend the new one quite as much as the other one. However, I can kneel for a bit (enough to do various yoga exercises anyway!) I'm not quite off the anti-inflammatories but these are much reduced. Ultimately -it's brilliant and so much better than I'd hoped for. Sydney so far seems less hilly, but still hilly so I'm hoping my recovery continues!

Visiting the UK

With the knee fixed and an imminent country move happening, I was keen to get back to the UK to see family and friends. It was a whirlwind tour in April and I'm so sorry that I didn't get more time to see people and catch up - but for those I did, it was brilliant and thank you so much for squeezing me into your busy lives! It was interesting going back to see how life is after the big covid waves. I was pleased that so many of my old haunts had survived (e.g. around Balham) but surprising to see just how bad the potholes were (I mean seriously huge ones on the M25 and M23!) 

Enjoying a boat trip down memory lane (I trained and lived here!)

 

I seemed to have brought the rain with me so apologies. When I got back to Auckland and exited the airport at 2am, it was still raining - but at least the rain felt warm!

What have we been up to?

 After catching Covid off Jonathan just after the last blog, I ended up having less time back at uni working than anticipated. We were both quite flattened by it and were very grateful for the wonders of the vaccine. I managed to finish off a few projects at work despite this and ended up on a casual contract for marking after I'd finished in mid-March. This meant that I spent one night in the UK at my parents marking presentations on Zoom throughout the night. The students didn't realise and it went well!

We'd hoped that by the time I'd got back from the UK, our visas would be through, but alas, they were not. Some crazy charades followed where we both had to get repeat (but slightly different) police checks done in NZ. Jonathan's came through in 3 days and mine took over 4 weeks. Ironically, we were both granted visas before mine had come back though.

Jonathan has been working in Hamilton (Waikato regional hospital) since February as a locum doctor. This involved him travelling 2 hours south every week for 3-7 days and staying there whilst working. Despite this nomadic life, the experience proved to be very positive as the unit is, for once, full of people happy in their work and friendly as a result. They kept trying to talk him into staying (and me too) so we always have that as an option in the future.  

I went down to stay with him for some of his last week as he had some time off in between on-call commitments. It was lovely to meet some of his colleagues (many who were also new to the hospital) and do some socialising as a result. 

Hamilton gardens is definitely worth a visit. This is one of the weirder closed gardens (surrealist I think they called it.)

We had a memorable day together in a rainy Hamilton having fantastic crepes with a colleague and her 2 sons, followed by Roman Holiday at the movies (I'd never seen it - what a great film!), found the one and only lounge bar to have a cocktail before a swanky meal in the evening. It was during this said meal that we got our visas through - at 8pm Sydney time, on a Saturday! Surreal to say the least. Fortunately I was already booked on the bus back to Auckland the next day so the frantic packing/decluttering/winding up started in earnest.

Birthday firsts

As you may know, I've kept up a tradition of always doing something new on my birthday each year and 2023 was no exception. This time I went in a flotation tank where you lay in a very very salty warm bath which helps you float, in the dark with sound proofing so that you have sensory deprivation. 

 

Flotation tank - definitely worth trying!

I then followed this up with a massage and felt suitably unstressed after a crazy week of packing. In the evening we went out to a local restaurant we'd been meaning to try since we arrived. They only have 7 guests and prepare all the food in front of you. It was millions of courses and quite nice, but definitely "emperor's new clothes" at an extortionate price. 

Farewelling Auckland

It takes quite a bit of time and effort to sort out you life when you move countries. We've enjoyed living in Auckland with all it's hills, quirks and scenery.

Decorated street furniture is a feature of Auckland. This is in Bath Street.

 

The sad bit is saying good bye to so many awesome friends who've really been there for us over the nearly 3 years we were there. We found out that our e-bikes were illegal in Australia so we couldn't take them with us. By luck, some friends from the UK were about to move out with their 2 children so they now have 2 bikes and a car waiting for them in their garage (they don't arrive for another week!) 

I'll also really miss my pilates instructors (in particular Rebecca) and yoga (Emma) who had seen me through knee disintegration, pre-hab and rehab with such positive support throughout - I owe them heaps.

View on my walk to yoga a couple of weeks ago.

We had some lovely meals out with friends though and some last visits to our favourite places. For our last night, we went back to Amano - the restaurant where we had our first night out in 6 months when we first arrived! It was as lovely as ever.

Moving to Sydney

Well the hassle of moving out of our rented house wasn't as quite straightforward as we'd hoped. The packer turned up on Monday and was supposed to have colleagues join him - but he ended up working solo all day. Thus on Tuesday (when the container came) they were way behind and didn't leave until 18.45! When we'd moved out of our place in London, it was way more efficient and they were done by 3pm. This meant we had to leave keys with neighbours as the estate agents were closed and a later, not as a relaxed evening start as we'd have hoped. Fortunately we were on very good terms with our lovely neighbours. We're hoping we manage to get our bond back but landlords tend to see this as a way to get money to finally do repairs or upkeep they hadn't bothered with when we were in the property.

 In the middle of all of this, we found that we hadn't got the upgrade we'd applied for through the loyalty scheme of Air New Zealand and had to buy extra baggage for the plane. Trying to work out what you need to start new jobs and stuff you need to live every day with isn't as easy as you'd think! It may be another 8 weeks or more before we see anything in the container, so we decided to take plenty with us, just in case. We'd moved into a local apartment hotel for 2 nights so that the packing could be done and as we had an early flight yesterday. This is definitely a good idea for anyone thinking of doing the crazy stuff we've been doing!

Not traveling light!

So we got to the airport and made the most of the lounge passes we'd earned having used Air NZ so much for work over the past 3 years. When we turned up at the gate we then found that we had a 30 minute delay, which wasn't a big drama but as we were about to board, they upgraded us. It turns out that Premium Economy is better than Business used to be. It was a decidedly pleasant flight but we were still a bit worried about getting through all the official stuff when we arrived. We need not have worried though as the automated systems in place meant that we'd cleared passport control and customs in about 10 minutes, even though we both declared items (chocolate and coffee!) This was much quicker than my time in transit in Adelaide which was painful to say the least.

So, we're now in an AirBnB for 3 weeks whilst we find our feet and work out where we want to live. We had dinner out in Brighton-le-Sands last night and are working our way around the local area.  Jonathan started work today and we investigated Rockdale en route. We've subsequently spent quite a bit of time getting various bits of paper and bank accounts sorted there and it seems quite nice. Jonathan seems to have been warmly welcomed and on first impression, the hospital seems a nice place to be. If you're wondering what I'll be doing, I don't know yet - but they want me too apparently. I'd not set anything up as having one of us free to do the "leg work" of finding somewhere to live is useful and I wasn't sure when they initially offered if my knee would be up to clinical work (I was only 4 weeks post op at the time.) 

So, we're waiting for our new phone SIM cards to arrive, which seems very important here as you can't seem to set up lots of things without an Australian mobile number. We have managed to get tax numbers and a bank account set up though so we're making progress! I'll try to update the blog when we have more news. In the meantime, our emails should still work and we're on the same WhatsApp numbers. Thank you all for following our adventures so far (and yes, we do still feel like we're in the Truman show - we hope we're keeping you entertained!)