WHERE'S BEST TO LIVE IN NZ AND WHAT DO WE NEED TO KNOW: PART 5!

[AngryBeaver]

Look at us Chatty Cathy's!
Justa oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
(I'm not sure )

Oh, yes, Long Bay is my new favourite place.

I was there with DD1 for a get together with some school friends while DD2 was at crèche. I got to drink a hot cup of coffee, have a full conversation and only got bugged for treats twice the little track for scooters is a massive hit too.

Definitely up for a meet up there!

I'm still in parent-visiting-mode for a couple of weeks I'm afraid. But - if anyone is free on Tuesday next week, they're away with DD1 for the day, so could meet up somewhere with DD2.

Should be no problem - if it's early afternoon I'll keep her up & then she should fall asleep in car on way there. If it's a bit later then she should have had her nap already. So whatever time suits you should be fine.

Napping is one aspect of sleep that thankfully (mostly!) causes few problems!

I can't do Tuesday as J has swimming lesson. He also starts Kindy on Thursday which I he is more than ready for.

Will keep an eye on weather forecast for another meet up though.

I may come up to Long Bay too, I've been meaning to take the kids there all holiday. We still have nearly 2 weeks till school starts, it's all gone quite quickly though.

What time will you meet? Swimming lesson is 2-2.30pm so I could always come over before or after depending on how long you'll be there.

Doesn't have to be Tuesday for me, can be later in the week.

Oh !
Just back from Waiheke. Lots of feelings and tension. Might have cried. Dh very keen tolive there but it was so much more of an island than I expected.
It is tiny.
The Countdown is a bit grotty. Th "town centre" is minute. The school playground has no shade cloths and needs updating.
Well, basically it is VERY beautiful, but it is an island, full of bush, with a few shops dotted about!
I am scared.
It is STUNNING no doubt. But, I don't know.

Sorry, the was to the meetups!

Sorry but I am a bit at "so much more of an island than I expected"

Have you told your dh how you feel? You don't want to be moving there and then moving off again in a year or so.

And that's why some people love it, of course, because it's small and laid-back and people know each other and it's a bit basic and there aren't lots of shops etc etc etc. But if it's not for you, it's not for you and it's expensive to get off the island on a regular basis.

wise words justabout (albeit from someone who has never been to Waiheke).

Just my twopennethworth from where we used to live (which was total civilisation so not remotely comparable) when I was on maternity leave. DH wanted to spend every weekend walking around that area as it was his weekend and relaxing for him. He'd spend the week rushing into the city and wanted to chill in our local coffee shops. I'd tramped those streets to death back and forth from school and nursery and the thought of going for a Costa in said area (another babychino anyone?) on my weekend killed me. And when we move to Auckland (which is a vertitable paradise compared to old area) again he wanted to spend all weekend chilling in our suburb which I'd tramped to death in the week and I moaned and said it was boring and I'd done that all week - could we not just get out and do something different?

Now I work FT and long to spend the weekend doing bugger all in our suburb and that's a perect weekend for me. So my rambling point after drinking wine, watching Dallas and watching DH build our BBQ for the last 3 hours is that it may be idyllic for your DH who gets his daily civilisation fix from 9-5 (or whatever his hours are) but for you doing it 24-7 it with no escape, it could be a 'bit much'. And you will be longing to spend weekends escaping as you'll have help and he'll want to stay home. And escaping will be expensive.

Apologies if I'm coming at this from too much of a personal perspective - said it was my two pennethworth, but as Justabout says there are other areas which are less cut off,very beautiful and less expensive.

AB If your dh is happy with the commute time from Waiheke (which is an hour really, when you add up driving/bussing to ferry, getting on ferry, getting off at other end, walking to Fort St) maybe you can look at other places within an hours commute of the CBD. Maybe you can find somewhere, quiet-ish, perhaps with the space you are after but where it is still easier for you to get to a bigger variety of activities/shops/beaches/parks/facilities.

Fort st is quite a good location in that all the trains and many buses finish at Britomart which is 5 mins walk from Fort St. If he did want to use public transport that is (e.g express bus from somewhere a bit further out)

Btw, we don't have any shade cloths at our school, I'm not sure how many do? Maybe lots do, just not the ones near us!

Tuesday is the only day that suits me - but if another day suits you guys better, we can catch up another time.

It may all be moot anyway - DD2 has been getting sick every 2 hours since yesterday evening. The only thing that's staying down is breastmilk - and then only half the time. So unless there is a miraculous recovery overnight, Tuesday won't be happening for us

crumbs. 18 days till we arrive in NZ.

Frik- have you seen the 10 day forecast?

I'll come to the next one if you do Tuesday. Not a problem. May e we can time it right for frik

I was told today that due to the better summer weather being in Febuary, they are thinking of moving the 6week break so it starts mid January. Anyone else heard this?

Yeeha frik!
I'm still fretting over Waiheke. Dh has said it's either there or he turns the job down...no pressure then!

frikgreat time to arrive, weather fantastic at the mo.

xminerva I've heard that suggested, not sure if they would do it. I suppose you'd still have a week or two off school at Christmas, then what, two or three weeks back, then another six weeks off? Not sure if anything would get done in that 2 or 3 wks at school, quite disruptive at high school age with exams etc.

Ab eek, what are you going to do?