I finally seem to have emerged from my dazed shock at leaving London, hurrah! Leaving truly sucked, I spent most of our last week or so in tears and just to make things worse, I got a nasty chest infection which knocked me for six. Poor Daisy found it all a bit unsettling too although once we were out of the house our last few days in a hotel in town were quite good.
And now, for the Daisy update.
Daisy was a superstar baby on the 35 hour epic journey to NZ. She was great on both flight although had meltdown at LA airport. She can't be blamed for that however as after spending two hours queuing to clear customs in the middle of the night then immediately having to go back through customs to leave again we all felt like screaming. The new rules for transiting in american airports are pretty tough on everyone. I spent weeks worrying about what to feed Daisy on the flights and what would be sterile etc etc but in the end, not only did we not have to open any baby food at Heathrow, the little minx refused to eat any of her lovely packed meals and insisted on sharing our airplane meal rubbish. Wah!
It was very exciting arriving in Nelson and we had lots of family to meet us. We arrived in the morning and Daisy was so out of whack with all the flying that she actually managed to avoid jetlag. How lucky is that? She woke up an hour early for the first two mornings and that was the extent of it.
Daisy has been thrilled to meet all her NZ family and she loves having so many people around although it took her a while to get used to it. She seemed to find everything a bit overwhelming for the first couple of weeks but is thriving now. Christmas arrived quickly and we had a very nice day out at Uncle Philip and Aunty Heather's. They breed birds so we took the opportunity to show Daisy where lunch came from. Oddly enough, she is currently slightly obsessed with any sort of bird and can't contain her excitment when there are lots around.
We had surprise in store for us on Boxing Day when Daisy started crawling! She loves pootling around and I thought it would be harder work trying to keep an eye on her but it's actually much easier now as she entertains herself exploring. It can't be the sunshine as there has been precious little of that here but she has undergone a bit of a growth spurt since arriving. Along with the crawling she has put on quite a bit of weight, gets taller by the day and seems to have teeth popping through constantly. She won't let me count them but I think she's got 11 teeth. Heaps! Her repetoire of party tricks has also expanded and she now blows lots of kisses, can point to other people's (and her own) nose when asked, can (usually) correctly give a yes or no to a few questions by nodding or shaking her head and claps her hands to the sides of her face in an expression of shock if I exclaim "oh no!" Which may seem like a strange thing to to her but it makes me laugh.
We've had a few trips away. First we went to Awaroa which as Andy said in his blog was good. A few days after that we spent three night in Pakawau. It's quite a remote tiny place in Golden Bay and we stayed with Julie at her friend's great beach front holiday home. It rained the whole time but it was such a nice place to stay that we had a fab time anyway. Lots of scrabble, the fire going and a very cold leap in the sea once a day!
The day after we got back from Pakawau I flew down to Christchurch for the night for Katie's hen night. It was my first night away from Daisy and I cried at the airport. Wuss! I recovered very quickly though and had a fantastic night. It had a 70's theme and we had drinks and games at Katie's sister Anna's house first. Congrats to Anna who is pregnant, yay! After that we went for dinner and dancing at a Greek restaurant in town which was lots of fun. We then headed off to a club for more dancing. Phew!
We also spent an afternoon visiting my Aunty Bev and Uncle Dave's farm in the Rai Valley. We met Aunty Doreen and Uncle John there plus my cousins Tim, Kelly, Hayley, and Angela and her baby Liam and husband Zane. Daisy had her first ride on a quad bike when she went to see the cows while we headed up the hill (proper 4x4 cow sh*t on the car action!) and Andy got to shoot Tim's gun.
It feels like we have been non stop busy since arriving here and we were going to have a night up in Wellington this week but decided in the end to spend a whole week in Nelson relaxing a bit. A good idea. We are slowly getting ourselves sorted out. We bought a car shortly after arriving, a Pajero like we had in London but an old one and the big size so it's 7 seater. It's blue and silver. We've spent this week in serious house hunting mode and have looked at quite a few now so are starting to get a feel for things. Loads of houses here are sold by auction which is bloody annoying. I'd much rather just know the price, make an offer and be done with it. On the plus side, the actual transaction takes a matter of days so when things do happen, they happen much quicker.
Andy has restarted his Dubai job hunting this week. It's quite hard to concentrate on other stuff when we are still in holiday mode but with no income coming in it has to be done. Hopefully things won't take too long and we will be heading to Dubai in February. Can't wait for some sunshine!
From the top is disheveled, disorientated and clad in mucky pj's arriving at Nelson airport. Off to see the cows with Hayley and Grandma. Crackshot Ellis. 70's Hen Night in Christchurch.
Bx
