no news means...

...there's not much happpening, and no pics means we're back in internet cafes. we sign for our place on thurs and might move in then, we're not really sure how it works! fran's line manager lives 9 doors down from us, so we'll know some neighbours, and he's not actually a skydivder - hoorah! I had one job interview yesterday but didn't really like the place :( I'm still waiting to hear from the job I'd really like to get. other than that it's freezing - all the water taps outside at the campsite are frozen and we have our wee fan heater on all the time keeping us warm. I'd really like to get my job sorted now...

heavenly welcome to queenstown!

we just watched the opening night of queenstown's winter festival - amazing fireworks over the water while we sat on the beach. there were some real stunners including giant dandelion sparkleys and springtime tree blossom poweder puffs. and it gets better... I just fulfilled one of my life wishes by having real hot chocolate (with chillis - if only juliette binoche had served me...). well actually it was supposed to be real hot chocolate in vienna, but I'm not going to be fussy about the details! and to top that all off... we've found a place to live! after a week of trawling round an ever increasingly depressing number of units and shared houses, we've found as near to perfect as you can get the week before all the ski-fields open. actually, this place was on the list all week, but dreary pictures put us off. it's a 2 level unit right next to the lake up a little slope. the panorama of the surrounding mountains are stunning. it's 3kms from QT and there's a cycling track along the lake edge into town. it has a balcony & little terrace and comes fully furnished which is a big bonus cause there isn't much in the way of 2nd hand furniture to be found around here. we still have to have our application accepted by the landlord, but we should be sweet. we'll get pics and an address up as soon as it's confirmed. and the last spot of news, I've just gone ginger again after 4-inch highlights roots weren't really looking cool anymore. now I look classy for my job interviews. will get a pic up asap.
finally, its almost feeling like we'll be at home here...

safe arrival...

so we're here, in queenstown. I love god - we had an amazing journey - left methven mid-morning, had time to stop & play on a gorgeous beach on our way down the east coast, and arrived in queenstown about 6pm. we ran the gauntlet of storms with snow still at the road edges and falling on the hills around us but not where we were. last night it snowed on the hills here so I'm huessing the roads are pretty icy right now. we stayed in a backpackers last night with a really steep driveway which rose valiantly powered out of this morning, only to discover snow had fallen up to 20m away giving us a safe exit! the journey was great, really quick & easy and rose did well seeing as she's full of boxes, bags, bedding.

now we're staying in a motor park (as long as we can find somewhere to store our boxes today!) so are off to buy a fan heater to keep us warm and dry. outside it's snowing...

goodbye, farewell...

so we leave methevn tomorrow, and have to make quenstown in one day as sunday has more snow forecast and the mountain passes will become impassable. last night we went to fran's leaving do, and as fate would have it met a couple who we really clicked with... 2 nights before we move 6 hrs away! it did remarkably cheer up my evening to have a non sky diving friend to talk to though - I suddenly felt human again after having an interesting conversation with someone my age! today I had my curry lunch leaving do with all the great women I met here, so it was a good farewll in all. now we just need to get packed and find somewhere to stay tomorrow night when we arrive in QT - we need a place to put our boxes whilst we find a house, so that we can stay in our camper and drive it round to view houses easily. prayers highly appreciated.

ah, and if anyone has some pics from fran and my's sheffield leaving do I'd really appreciate some in emails as we seem to have none. thanks peeps!

it's a white-out!



so here, as promised, are the pics from our recent snowfall. there was so much snow, loss of electricity & communications that yesterday some farmsteads still hadn't been reached and the rescue helicopters were going out to make contact. it's been a bit of a farce actually as much of auckland also had long power cuts - when one wire snapped cutting of the whole city's electric supply. tourists in methven have been getting a bit antsy being able to see the mountain with it's 90cm fresh snow but not get up there with the road being blocked and it also having an electricity cut due to a snapped wire.



these first pics were taken in the morning while it was still snowing. rose is still sporting a fluffy white afro and snowed into the driveway. we went out again in the afternoon and had fun playing in the deep snow...



everything with any kind of flat surface was deep in snow and some porches were buckling under the weight of it.



there was quite a lot of fun to be had relieving snowy trees of their load. the huge snow piles at the edge of the road are currently being cleared and taken in big trucks to get dumped outside of town!



fran and I went learning circle crazy yesterday over coffee and assessed both of our lives and the thing we want to happen which aren't or just need some adjusting. (the learning circle is a tool from st thomas' church to help you learn from events & make constructive plans). fran's stuff was mainly involving extreme sports and mine mainly time with god and time doing art. it was really useful and will help us when we get to queenstown and are doing new & different things with our time.



sunset over the hills.

merry christmas! ... or at least that's how it feels

we've just had a huge half metre dump of snow today, and a power cut all day long. we woke this morning to about 40cm of snow which continued all day til 4pm. of course we made the most of it and went out to play in the snow. the huge drifts were excellent for power tackles with soft landings ;) fran however managed to miss his target with a snowball that smacked me right in the face and now I have a sore nose and some idea of what it's like a get punched! we're lucky to have bottled gas where we're staying for hot water & heating as many NZ homes just have electric power. hopefully my pics will turn out well, but it'll be a while til you see them as we have the slowest dial up in the world where we're currently residing.

on the housing front, we moved out of the lodge ok and are staying with ian (instructor on the course) and seb (his fiancee) in their great house. they're welsh and my accent's already going a bit odd, so who know what I'll sound like by the end of the week. I thought I might have picked up a kiwi accent by now, but I'm still trying to figure out what it is! we're hoping the snow will clear by saturday or we might have to drive the long way round to get to queenstown. when we get there we'll still have to find a place to live and a job for me so it's still a little unsettling not knowing exactly where we'll be living or what I'll be doing, but I'm sure god does so I'm happy.

I hate packing :(

au revoir redwoods



we leave our lodge tomorrow to spend the last 10 days staying in a spare room - rent went up 250% because of ski season, so we all decided it was time to go! the guys have their exam tomorrow so it's a bit hectic, and I hate packing so haven't done very much yet, but hey-ho! good news - we have 2 people interested in our van which we didn't think we were going to get to sell before leaving but now it looks possible. we go to queenstown on sat 17/sun 18 june and hope to find somewhere to live in the first week! should be an adventure anyway. I'm really excited about going to QT, but sad to leave the friends I've made here. not sure when we'll be able to get on the internet so it might be quiet for a while.

big changes... kind of exciting and daunting and a whole bunch of other things at the same time. we'd really appreciate your prayers, esp for the right house, the right job for me and selling our van. thanks! missing you great people out there... xxx

I'm trying out new title fonts - can you comment & tell me if this looks like funky hand-writing. it's called 'jenkins V2.0' and I have no idea if most computers have it or not. my original, 'chiller', is not that common and I've had boring 'times new roman' on my screen since being in NZ. if this doesn't work I'll have to try another! thanks.

my restorer



I went for a walk on my way back from bible study on monday morning. it was the same walk fran and I did soon after we arrived and I realised how much fitter, healthier and more robust I was feeling. walking at a good pace, clambering over rocks cause the river was flooded. felt great. I've also had coldy/sore throat syptoms but they've not developed into tonsilitis or fatigue which is real progress. thank you god.



I'm reading a great book at the moment called For Women Only by Shaunti Feldahn. it's about the stuff about men we as women normally don't intuitively understand, like what sex means to a man, what being 'visual' means and how a man needs respect (it communicates love...) it's really interesting as a man or woman to read. fran's going to read it after me. there's also a For Men Only book by the author's husband. there's lots of information from an extensive questionnaire she did and you can read more at www.4-womenonly.com. I'd definatley reccomend it, even if your aren't a stereotypical man there's illuminating things in each chapter.