hola. as of wednesday 28th march our new address will be:
165b Fernhill Road, Queenstown, 9300, NZ
our telephone number stays the same - +64 (0)3 441 3291 - and we'll be off t'internet for 24hrs while we wait to get connected up. we have free mail forwarding for 2 months just in case you have something mid-transit.
so we might have a house. seems quite nice. we put our application in on tuesday morning. we move out here next wednesday. I called the agent today to find out why we'd not heard yet, being the sole applicants for the house, and it turns out the owner's an aussie who travels a fair bit so may take a while to reply and he's a ski instructor so whilst the agent thinks it's free over winter she's not sure... and I'm thinking why advertise a house for rent when it might be in use in a months time?
the ways of the kiwis might always remain a mystery to me.
UPDATE - friday 23rd - we got the house! so I'll tell you a little about it... old stylee one level house with 2 bedrooms, big living space with wood burner (oh yes!) and 3 walls with floor to ceiling windows looking into the lovely courtyard gardens. furnished. located in fernhill, up a big hill the other side to town we're at now, a stones throw from some really nice church people including the small group we tried last night & liked. oh, and a dairy (corner shop) just down the road in case we run outta milk. pictures will follow once we've moved in and jazzed up the place! thanks for praying :)
well autum has arrived - we've had 3 days of southerlies bringing cold air up from the antartic and the first snow on our mountains. to me the mountains here need snow on them, they become so much more beautiful. so, autumn's here and we have less than 2 weeks to find a place to live... we fell in love with a little place in the sunshine this week, but there were 4 applicants and we weren't succesful which was really hard. so far we've not found anywhere else right for us so right now we're wondering what god's up to and having our faith stretched...!
here are my belated pictures & post from heading north to visit methven and christchurch to see old friends and go shopping for art supplies. I had 2 days in methven and managed to see all my friends which was so lovely. on to christchurch and I stayed with pol & evelien who live in a cute country house with chickens and cows to look after - they have 2 tame chooks they incubated & reared who like chilling out in the lounge and do a good job of clearing up crumbs on the floor!
in christchurch I checked out all the free galleries and the arts centre. the arts centre is in a traditional stone built ex-school and artists are housed in buildings named 'chemistry' and the like. they've recently added an art installation on the pillars and I loved the colours and pattern - it's a really nice way of adding colour and texture but without clashing with the feel of the buildings and courtyards. I got carried away taking photos in the rain...
in one gallery/shop there was some gorgeous pottery with amazing colours which I took some pictures of... only for one of the assistants to come and berate me for taking photos for about 5 minutes, shouting at me from across the shop about foreigners and (the not) obvious signs they had banning photography... I refused to be chased out by the mean woman's words but nether the less it was a relief to leave the shop, and even more of a relief to enter a weaving and pottery gallery upstairs where one of the artists warmly welcomed me and invited me to 'please touch' the items on display... that's my kind of gallery!
my ideal gallery - "please touch!"
as fran and I sat for a 'pat on the back' coffee in our favorite funky queenstown restaurant, vudu, 'come pick me up' by ryan adams started playing in the background and my soul was transported to a beautiful achey place as I remembered music loved and lost. lost thanks to trying to move our i-tunes music onto a different drive. a fair while ago. but just recently I've been remembering all the beauty of those tunes we lost. ryan adams. kate rusby. ed harcourt. and many more, not to mention a veritable collection of praise music and randomly downloaded songs that just make my heart sing. alas, no more!
in my loss I have turned to youtube. it lets me hear a full version of a song, allbeit sometimes a wobbly out of tune live version. I get to be fascinated by music videos. it also however breaks my sweet illusion that the red hot chili peppers are my personal discovery, making music just for me.
music just picks me up, spins me round a zillion degrees and puts me back down in an amazing and different place. and I'm silly enough to forget that sometimes.
anyone want to make me a disc of (mp3) music that will cheer my soul? offers kindly accepted at 2/507 frankton road, queenstown 9300. and in return I shall recommend you some NZ beauties: goldenhorse - to make your soul a little lighter and maybe make you want to dance; bic runga - nice female vocalist who wears a dress full of light; and evermore - they probably made it off the island, j'aime 'running'.
