The last day has arrived!

Yup, who would have thought it would have come around so fast! We have had a wonderful final weekend in New Zealand and are now winding down before hitting the hay. Tomorrow will be a big day too, but we are more than ready for it.

It was a weekend of farewells and tears along with good food to send us off. We finished it all off today with a excellent day with D and T and a massive feed at Bronco's this evening.

Tomorow is a new day, a big day. We say BRING IT ON.

Oh GREAT

Oh dear, nobody warned me about this. I knew the spiders in Aussie were big, but THIS???? Check out this news article one of my DELIGHTFUL friends sent me:

http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2008/10/23/11601_local-news.html

That is the stuff nightmares are made of. My nightmares especially!

Had a bit of a drama with our beloved coffee table last night. As you know we had it on TradeMe. The chick who bought our couch said that she was keen on it and that she would come back the night after and pick it up. So we took it off TradeMe (had about 9 people watching it but no bids) and waited for her the following night. When she failed to turn up we texted her to see what was up. Then we got the whole 'boyfriend broke up with me waah waah no money waah waah' drama story. So with only two days left before we have to move out of our house we are stuck with the coffee table!

So we have decided to take a risk. We put it back on TradeMe for $1 reserve and set the auction for the two days. So far it is up to $11.50, hopefully it will go higher! Check it out:

Here is the link if you would like to bid on the bargain of the century: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?searchtype=SELLER&member=1401482

Gotta go!

Less than a week now...

Yes indeed, less than a week to go now. We are going through that phase of everything being the 'last' now. Last bookstudy, last Tuesday, last this, last that. It is hard to believe, but this time next week we will be there! Bring it on.

The house is, as you can see, a total shambles. It looks like that tornado that came through Cambridge the other day stopped by personally in each of our rooms and trashed them.

It is all taking shape though. We now have boxes packed, sealed and addressed. We have done a dump run. We have done a clothing bin run. The stuff we are selling on TradeMe is starting to be picked up. The house really is starting to look empty. This Saturday is our last day here then we go to Princess Fiona's house for Saturday / Sunday night. We will hit the road to Auckland on Monday, stay the night there then fly out at some unholy hour of the morning on Tuesday. Tuesday will be a long day, but you gotta do what ya gotta do!

We got a super cheap deal on a hotel in Rotorua last week so ran away there for Saturday night. We probably won't get a chance to have a weekend away for a while so thought we should sneak off.

We had a yummy meal at Relish followed by dessert at The Fat Dog. The hotel had a gorgeously deep bath which we made good use of (we don't have a bath in our house) and with that and some goodies we bought at the supermarket, it was a great time. The picture here was taken from our hotel balcony. Thats Mohutu (?) geyser.

Well, we have lots to do, more items to decide what to do with, and maybe, just maybe, a coffee down at Onyx later...

Yeah Right

I know I just seem to be posting up pics lately. But there are some classics going around at the moment. Check this one out...

FAIL GOLD

I have seen many FAIL pics in my time, but I think we might have a winner:

Snigger, snigger, pppfffttt, HA HA HA HA!

Got some more stuff up on TradeMe. Go there now and buy something!!

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?searchtype=SELLER&member=1401482

Not long now!

As you can see from the countdown on the right hand side of the page we now officially have less than two weeks to go before we fly out to Melbourne.

The time is zipping by and we are slowly getting everything done. TradeMe has been a big help in getting rid of the big stuff. We sold the washing machine last night and currently have the car, the bookcase and the piano on there. Later on today I will put up the other set of drawers from our room, the microwave, the stereo and also the cabinet that the TV sits on.

The picture here well illustrates our life in the last couple of weeks - sitting on the floor, surrounded by boxes sorting stuff out. We have been creating 'keep' piles, 'send' piles and 'rubbish' piles. We have thrown out a bazillion photos. We had SO many. A lot of them were double ups so it wasn't a major. We have thinned it out nicely.

Here is the link to our stuff on TradeMe if you want to have a sift through: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?searchtype=SELLER&member=1401482

That's all for now, must dive into some more boxes!

Oh, The Memories!

Well we have had a bit of an interesting afternoon. We have of course been packing and sorting stuff out as you would expect before a big move to another country. We have been going through all of the photos we have accumulated over the years. It has been interesting to say the least!

There were some great memories in there and we had quite a few laughs. Its amazing to look at what we used to call fashion once upon a time!

I wonder how many things that we are wearing now will one day be looked at as 'disgustingly out of date'? Funny how tastes change.

Had a nice morning in the FS today. Managed to catch up with some calls that we have been trying to get for ages. We probably won't get a chance to see them before we go, so it was good to catch up.

We are off out for dinner with Dawn and Laurence this evening. They are taking us to a mystery location to say farewell. They are off to Rarotonga next week and they come back just before we disappear so this might be our last chance to do what we love most (eat and talk).

I know its not a very good, but the picture above is of two puppies that were on a job I did on Friday. The black and white one is a Border Collie and the other one is a Huntaway. You can't see it in the picture, but the Huntaway had HUGE feet. He is going to be a big dog methinks.

Right, better go and make myself pretty for dinner tonight...

Access: GRANTED

Well, all the i's have been dotted and all the t's crossed and Mrs B's visa to Aussie has been granted.

This was the last thing we had to organise and also the most important. We began the process 4 weeks ago and got the call this morning to say that it was all done. The Aussie Consulate have been excellent to deal with and the process was all quite smooth. Quite by chance I had taken the day off today to do some more pre-move organising so we decided to race up to Auckland and get the sticker put into Mrs B's passport. We were more keen to do this than courier it up since our fiasco with Mrs B's license a couple of years ago. We thought it was too much of a risk of it getting lost like the license so hit the road.

Yeehaa!

Photojournalism

You may or may not know that I studied photography when I was at school. It was and still is a passion of mine. I love that you can capture a split second in time and preserve it forever on film.

Many years ago I sold my camera (to help pay for a mountain bike!) and it is a decision I still regret today. I often rue the fact that I sold it and that I have not really been in a position to buy another one since. This is in fact one of my goals once we get to Australia, to buy a camera and start taking pictures again. Black and white still remain a favourite. Somehow black and white potrays a deeper message and I like that you can develop them yourself in your garage.

One of my dreams when I was learning photography at school was to become a photojournalist. However that was not the path my life took so now I take a great deal of interest in the work of other photojournalists. I have two in particular that I like, Zoriah ( http://www.zoriah.com/ ) and James Nachtwey ( http://www.jamesnachtwey.com/ ).

Zoriah has documented many of the worlds trouble spots, mostly based around Europe and recently Iraq. His pictures are SCARY and show the realism of what is going on in those places. We sometimes forget just how good we have it here. He is currently working in Gaza.

James Nachtwey has taken images of the human side of conflict from Africa, Europe, Ireland and Asia. His pictures are terribly moving. He has caught the human pain caused by other humans and presents them in a respectful but powerful way. Last year he was given a TED award ( http://www.ted.com/ ) which granted him one wish. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design and each year, leaders in certain fields are invited to give the talk of their life and are granted one wish. James Nachtwey's wish in 2007 was to get help documenting a tragic problem afflicting areas of India and Asia: a form of Tuberculosis that is becoming resistant to drugs. Now, after a year of documenting this, he and TED have released their project with the aim of raising awareness and getting help to these places.

The thing that makes this all so tragic is that this disease is preventable. So sad. Here is a video released yesterday that has James explaining his vision and motivation and then a sample of the pictures he has taken for the project.




Here are a couple of websites with some awesome photos. Take the time to check them out, some of the pics will take your breath away:

http://www.stuckincustoms.com/ Landscapes and people.

http://www.widelec.org/ Human, animal, landscape and technology.

Speaking of new posts at my favourite websites, Zaproot has a new episode up ( http://www.zaproot.com/ ). Be clean, think green, think Zaproot! (You will know what that means once you have been to the website and watched one of their videos.)

Have a great day no matter what you are doing and where you are.

Sell, sell, sell

No, I'm not talking about the present state of the currency market. I'm talking about our frame of mind. We have so much stuff to get rid off. The garage sale was a huge success and now we have some left over items on TradeMe. Here are the ads if you are interested in checking them out:

Japanese dinner box: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Kitchen/Dinnerware-serving-dishes/Serving-trays/auction-179636133.htm

Japanese serving tray: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Kitchen/Dinnerware-serving-dishes/Serving-trays/auction-179637391.htm

The piano: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Music-instruments/Instruments/Keyboards-piano/Pianos/auction-179888850.htm

A brand new picture frame: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Home-living/Home-décor/Frames/Wooden/auction-179889655.htm

The desk: http://www.trademe.co.nz/Computers/Computer-furniture/Desks-tables/auction-179889157.htm

There might be something there that catches your eye. Later on down the track we will be selling the rest of the big stuff so if you want to grab something let me know. Here is what will be available:

- Queen bed

- Entertainment unit

- 29 inch TV

- Stereo

- Fridge

- Washing machine

- Set of drawers

- Bookcase

- Microwave

- Fax machine

That's all I can think of at the moment. I'm sure that more will come to mind as soon I have published this!

Looking forward to having Hiroko come and stay this weekend. She is flying up by herself as Mark has to stay and work and will arrive tomorrow night after the meeting. We haven't seem her for ages so it will be great to spend the weekend with her.

I have the PT this weekend and the Speech Quality talk tomorrow so I had better go get my study hat on.

Be good.