Day 2, Kiwi on drugs

Our second day of reality in Auckland. Over the weekend, the Kiwi was bodysurfing at Pauanui (something she's irritatingly good at), and she apparently managed to damage some cartilage in her ribcage. Following a long walk this morning, the dull ache turned into agonising pain, so much so that she couldn't move at all without hurting. It got so bad today that I took her to a doctor, who diagnosed the problem, prescribed no fewer than three different painkillers to be taken together, and told her not to do anything energetic for at least two to three weeks, taking painkillers constantly, remembering to breathe and trying not to get pneumonia and so on.

Apparently unloading boxes and moving into a new home comes under the heading 'anything energetic', so getting our 48 boxes moved around might be interesting. Still, she's fully spaced out at the moment and experiencing the joys of prescribed chemicals, which is better than lying down in what looked like unbelievable pain, so she's on the mend, I think. My only real concern is that, true to form, she'll be unable to actually rest for longer than, ooh, 30 minutes at a time, so I'll be enforcing some serious 'do-nothing' rules for the coming three weeks. After which I'll be waited on hand and foot, oh yes.

On the job front, had a meeting with a (rubbish) recruiter this morning, which was good only in that it reminded me what wearing a suit was like again, and helped brush up my skills in talking about work things, which are a bit rusty at the moment after 5 or 6 weeks off. Interestingly, had a call from an old acquaintance which might prove profitable as well, taking me up to three opportunities about which I'm quite excited. Next week everyone here comes back from holiday, so I'm taking it reasonably easy this week and expecting more to happen as of the 12th. Which, by the way, I'll be starting a fair way before those of you in the UK. Ha.

Auckland - reality looms

And so finally, here we are. Just over a week ago, we arrived in Auckland, and stayed one night before heading off to a beachside apartment at Pauanui, on the Coromandel Peninsula. New Year's week featured sea swims, walks up Mount Pauanui, a fair bit of lying around in the sun and the attendant rounds of barbeques, beers and so on. Absolutely superb. Although it doesn't really do it justice, here's the view from our bedroom. The beach is just over that grassy patch. The Kiwi took loads of photos, so there'll be some coming up on Facebook or Flickr or wherever we end up putting them. My brother kindly sorted us out with a Flickr account for Christmas, so we'll give that a whirl I think.

I came back yesterday, in order to attend a stag do in Auckland (much fun), the Kiwi's back today attending the hen version. Tomorrow, we officially begin non-holiday life in New Zealand, starting with NZ mobile phones and graduating to things like flats, cars and jobs. Currently we're staying with friends, which is a bit of a godsend and very much appreciated, but we're both longing for a time when we can put clothes away without knowing we have to repack them in a week's time.

We've even been looking enviously at some pretty fine barbeques, too... but one step at a time, I think. This is where it gets interesting; the sooner we're both in paid employment, the sooner we can actually relax and get on with building our life together.

In other news, dinner out last night turned out to be quite good despite being a stag event, so I took the opportunity of kicking off my other blog, Eating Auckland. Best culinary find so far is a superb hot sauce by the name of Kaitaia Fire - powerfully hot but possessing a deep smoky, citrussy flavour all of its own. I can confidently say this will be the first thing in our new fridge, at such as time as we have one of our own.