Sad story

Moving up here was pretty dramatic. Allen brought up the Mistral with the boat and accidentally put petrol in it instead of diesel. He was held up for 3 -4 hours at Bombay. I drove the car up but was too scared to drive on Auckland's motorways so David met me at Hamilton's bus stop and drove to his place in Torbay from whence I drove up to Whangarei. All went well except that our caged cat, Fatso, squealed all the way to the cattery. When I left David I put her cage on the passenger seat and stroked her thought the bars but she still protested. NOW she so very happy. She was in a cattery for about a month and has settled down far better than we have.

The sad story is that I was tempted to take up a long term relieving job at a local boys school. It appeared in the paper the week we got here and was for a woman who was sick with cancer. I felt I was fated to do it. Alas, it was too much for me, I suffered from acute anxiety after about 6 weeks and left after 8. I felt very ashamed and depressed - a very bad start for my new life.

Funnily enough, a friend who also started at a Northland school in term 2 (in a more planned way) also had a horrible start to her work up here. She has survived but only just. I'm not complaining about the school which was pretty good really but I found the kids difficult. It's weird that we both felt the same thing.

I can't afford to really retire - without relieving and can only hope that the disaster I experienced doesn't spoil my reputation or confidence. In a strange twist of fate another job has come up at a private school - it's not so long term and sounds like a lovely job - I hope to meet the people concerned this coming week.

Stormy weather

The weather is so bad that it's comforting to be inside a warm house looking out at the trees swaying in the wind. It was rare to get wind this strong in Rotorua.

We get a lot of traffic noise here because although we are some distance above the main road north, the sound travels up. But with the wind and rain we can't hear it at all. We didn't notice how loud it was when we first looked at the house and in fact, most of the houses we shortlisted had traffic noise. Here, the roads are often in the valleys and the houses on the slopes above. Moreover, Whangarei has the most amazing traffic desnity for a small city.

We finally bought a house in Woodhill which is the suburb nestled under the western hills and above Western Hills Drive. The hills have a rich bush covering - lots of totara with their rounded tops giving the hillsides a lush look when the sun shines on them. We were impressed by an old house up the road but it was too much of a do-up. then when we saw this for sale - just down the road- we were predisposed to like it. It's a compact townhouse on a 455 sqare meter section with a good feel to it, and cheaper than everything else so we decided to buy it. We were desperate to settle down and thought maybe it would do us for a couple of years.

The map above shows the bush behind us. We are near the Glendale Rd Scenic Reserve.

Phew!

We've been pretty lucky with the weather. There hasn't been as much rain as forecast but today takes the cake. We went to a garden centre on a hill at Maunu and even with a woollen cardigan on I was too cold to look at the plants. Now it is hosing down. Fortunately this house seems to spring no leaks at all even in the heaviest rain. And yesterday we got in hours of gardening - not at our little place but at a friend's. She bought a property with far too large a garden for a single busy person so four of us got stuck into the vege patch and had it cleared in 3 - 4 hours.

We have a little vege garden here but now I want more land...

Winter in the North - it exists

By the end of March we were up here but without a house to move into. We were able to stay in Ngunguru - a sort of house sitting arrangement for 2 -3 weeks and in a friend's basement also for the odd night. I think we tried too hard to find a house and to gain a cash buyer advantage. In the end we were quite desperate. Our cat was in a cattery, our goods were in storage, I needed work. We really should have rented but we had quite a lot of offers of places to stay.

We made two offers from Rotorua - one didn't really get off the ground but they wouldn't or couldn't come down to our price. Fair enough - we were trying to get a coastal property for $300,000. One was at Tameterau about 14 k from town around the harbour and one at Ruakaka. Neither was ideal - one steep with road noise (but close to the water and lovely) and the other was a mortgagee show home sale - big house on small section with lots of the built in appliances ripped out like oven and hot water cylinder!

More later

So much water under bridge

Since I last blogged we have sold our house, bought another one and moved in. I took on a long term relieving job for three terms but lasted only 8 weeks. After the euphoria of finally selling, we had the tumult of deciding on a house to buy, moving in and then the chill of winter and the misery of my little breakdown.

We moved in here, Woodhill, Whangarei on 15 April. By mid May we were hit with an uncharacteristic cold period with 2 - 3 frosts and a cold house after we removed the old night storage heater when we recarpeted. The house isn't insulated underneath - would be quite easy to do once the subsidies are up and running. But the irony of coming to the North where is is obviously much warmer than Rotorua and then feeling the cold MORE is remarkable.

We have a heat pump now - very warm - but expensive. However, the gas heater and electric heaters were costing us a lot so in the end we'll get some of the cost back - Genesis will give us a $300 credit on our electricity bill so there are some mitigating factors.

More later.

Patience is a virus

So our buyer's house didn't sell at auction.

So he has had 3 or 4 offers after the auction.

So we have to wait to see if he accepts any of them and whether they are subject to cumbersome conditions.

Meanwhile we have to try to sell our house to someone else as per the cash out clause.

So we have an open home tomorrow. Groan.

On the positive side our potential buyer has extended his contract so he WILL buy ours if he's sold his house by March 13. But gee whizz, time is marching on and I'm not working and we are getting older!!!

And we've been paying $30.00 a week for a storage shed for the purposes of decluttering - can't continue that with not much money coming in so we've schlepped it all back home. Literally, it's a drag.

Once more, there's a silver lining - Allen now realises that we can't keep everything - he saw how little storage space most places have. And I've got into a routine of putting things on Trade Me just about every day. Slowly, things are selling and Allen delivered a couple of mattresses to St Vincent de Paul yesterday which they were grateful to get - they'd been barely used so didn't fall into the category of the urine soaked items often left outside by people wanting to get rid of their junk!

I hope that there's a happy outcome to our buyer's multiple offers - and soon.

The photo was sent to me yesterday by my cousin and is a great record of my father and his 7 siblings in old age. I haven't seen the family for many years but remember their names: Leith, Jack, Bob, Cecil, Jim, Nancy, Spotty, Winnie - the latter 4 are the girls.

Reality doesn't bite

Really retired now - all the others have gone back to school and I'm fancy free. I will have to relieve though - to my horror a school which started early rang me two weeks ago for a day's work. I couldn't go because I just wasn't ready and anyway it was the day we got the OFFER on our house. Since then no one's rung and I must say I'm pleased. I will have to break the teaching ice all over again when I get my first relieving gig.

I don't miss teaching at all. I'd like our house to sell this week and then spend a month packing up and sorting out and THEN relieving when we get to Whangarei.

So another landmark on the old retirement journey was the first offer on our house. It was low but just adequate and conditional on the sale of HIS house in an auction in two week's time. The two weeks are now very nearly up and the day after tomorrow we will know our fate.

A funeral in Auckland in the weekend meant we were more than half way to Whangarei so we went up, stayed with a friend and looked at houses: in the city on Sunday and one the coast on Monday. It was very very hot but the heat was not confined to Whangarei fortunately. It was 32 in Rotorua and Auckland felt like Hong Kong. Whangarei was sparklingly beautiful under clear blue skies and the houses at Onerahi on a peninsula jutting into the harbour looked at their best. We saw a few affordable places. We were impressed at how many people had installed new bathrooms and kitchens even in lower cost houses. However, the house we fell in love with - open French windows wafting in a breeze from the harbour was just not practical - postage stamp secion and no room for our vehicled or storage for our gear.

Yesterday was more depressing. It's disappointing how crappy many of the houses at Ruakaka and One Tree Point are. You can get a house at a lower price but you need to spend so much money on them to bring them up to standard. And you just don't get as much bang for your buck as you get in town. We loved One Tree Point. It was the first time we had seen it in good weather and there is actually a white sand pohutukawa lined beach with beautiful views of Mount Manaia and the Heads. Photo of the latter attached.

After we got home one of the agents said she had listed a house in Kamo for well under 300 000 - by a totara reserve and with sweeping rural views. Do we want to give up our dream of water for a much cheaper house. Hmmmm

And in relation to the reitrement theme, a niece in law who lives in the beautiful coastal community of Ngunguru said that there is a great retirement village there with people in the 50 and 60s and it's independent living of course - very close to the harbour/river. Very cheap way to get in there and it looks cool but ....

Saw a good t-shirt the other day: "I'm retired, ask someone else."

The good, the bad ...

Really fed up with unsuccessful house sale now. I know it's slow but I'm having more doubts than usual about our agent. He ALWAYS makes mistakes in his paperwork. I suggested he change the price to 319000 to make it sound better - he agreed but kept it at 320 in our expensive ad with Price Reduced across the top. A little thing but they mount up and he rarely gets things 100% right. Now that our bulk advertising fund from the auction has run out, we have to pay $118 to have the ad in the Property Guide each week so I'm putting a stop to that. He can advertise the time and place for free in the Rotorua list of open homes but whether that will get people in to see the house is questionable. We'll see.

But the good thing is that my students from last year did quite well in their exams. I'm kind of surprised how very much it matters to me. I'm especially pleased with a couple of the media studies standards. In my last year, the kids get the best results!

Car buying is going ahead - maybe this week. Turners Auctions in Tauranga have a repo 2002 Toyota Rav which they expect to go for about $10,000. It's beautiful but has been superficially knocked around. If we can get it cheap enough and we're not outbidded... The insurance company has been very generous and we are getting 15,000 for our smashed car so ...

But we have to do our sums - it's not registered, has a stuffed battery and will need some touchups.

Getting fitter - lots of walking - but also fatter - lots of eating. Need to increase the first and decrease the second ...

Picture is of a similar car to the repo Rav.

Back in town

Got back from a week in Warkworth on Saturday night. Travelled on Saturday to avoid the shocking traffic on Highway One north of Auckland. It was bad enough most days but Sunday would have been slow! Maybe it will improve when they have finished the tunnel bypass of Orewa.

No one has fallen in love with our house since our absence - in fact the agent said one woman at the most recent open home said it was horrible!

We've shifted the big book case out of the lounge to make the lounge look less English teachery. It was blimmin' hard work.

Looks good actually. We bought a huge urn from the Warehouse for $29 and a bunch of painted twisted twigs to go in it for $9! Next time I go past a twisted willow ...

Today we are going to paint over the very last 70s decoration - the pink painted doors in the laundry and shower room. We're looked for a product to take the gloss off the paint - if we can't find it we'll just have to sand. Not the en of the world when you are retired and there are no other time pressures. If I was still teaching, by now I would be starting the planning for the new school year. Gawd.

Picture is of a glorious puriri forest on the Tawharanui Peninsula.