Moving In - Wellington, New Zealand
On January 3rd Lynda departed for England. Andy & I deferred our return to Wellington for a few days on rumours of a delay with our shipped goods from Australia. Bob remained in the South Island and made his way north to Nelson. Having expected our belongings to arrive within a day or two of our revised return to Wellington we were dismayed to find that we still had no ETA for our goods. This made our new home a trifle uncomfortable (houses in NZ are rented empty). Fortunately Andy was off again with work - this time to Melbourne - so she was able to escape the discomfort. At least the Wellington weather had come good!
After what seemed like a dozen phone calls to our removal company, we finally set a date (coincidentally the day of Andrea's return from Melbourne). Three lads had our container unloaded in jig time and I elected to do most of the unpacking myself. By the time Andy walked in the door I had most of the furniture set up (she was most happy to see the bed). The rest of the weekend was spent unpacking and, despite being two weeks overdue, we were very happy with our removal company - not a single damaged item!
Bex & Pete's Wedding - Christchurch, New Zealand
On January 21st Andy & I flew down to Christchurch to attend the wedding of my sister, Bex, and Pete - a wedding quite different from our own. For starters it was in a (deconsecrated) church, complete with bridesmaids, groomsmen, old cars and 'sides of the church'. I was put in charge of videoing the event and can safely say I'll never be asked to do it again. I spent my limited amount of time before the service getting to grips with the video camera (which I'd never used before) - I just assumed "a tripod was a tripod was a tripod". Oh, how wrong I was. As soon as the music started I realised I'd borrowed a duff one. Somewhere in the plethora of bolts and fastenings something was loose, but it was too late to experiment and find out what. Every transition took on farcical proportions as I filmed the ceiling or the left wall instead of what was going on. To cap it all, a wonderfully tight panning shot of Bex and Pete coming back down the aisle turned into a wonderfully tight panning shot of floor. Great. I hope she forgives me.
After photos outside the church we all made our way out to Trent's Winery for the reception. We had a fine meal, drank some fine wine and were treated to some fine speeches. A fine evening in the company of family and friends.
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