So after our Wellington visit, there isn't much of an adventure to tell anymore, other than us winding down to move out of NZ.
We had a few house viewings, with one family seemingly being very interested. They even tagged along for an unofficial viewing when we were out. This was when one of the estate agents from Nidd was supposed to go around the house by himself for reasons I really can't think of. Maybe as just to backup Kirsty's word of what she said about the property. Anyway this dick allowed the family to do an unofficial viewing without our consent which irked us. This family came back a few more times, literally as many times as they could, but eventually bought the house.
In mid May, Sabine took the job offer from a cardiology position in Swansea, Wales. The guy on Skype, who ended up being her supervisor, sounded like a cool, genuine person at the time. However, Sabine now says she should have simply flown to Swansea to see the place first before making any final decisions, because her workplace situation changed upon starting in her first week in September. She was originally hired to do research on one specific method in order to validate a paper that was already 90% ready for publication. Upon starting her role, they told her that this research paper became invalid in the weeks between her being hired and starting. So instantly, her being in this role became pointless. Her 'office', which I have seen, is a broom cupboard of a place which was being used as a storage room. The equipment she was supposed to use in the first place is damaged and not setup at all regardless, with parts missing. They still are. Her contract was only for a year and her supervisor is hardly in anyway because he took on 5 other roles including Cardiff, Bristol, and London. So Sabines job is really unjustified, and always was. She got no maternity leave due to the 1 year contract, but they set things up for her to help with others' research from a home computer. Sabine was the first in her team to work from home before Covid-19 took hold, which saw everyone having to work from home. The university locked the building, meaning no work could be done, and now, as I type this, they have decided to commandeer the building space for teaching. For those that don't know, teaching space has changed across the board in the UK. Classes are now heavily restricted in space because each student needs to be sitting at a radius of 2 meters away from one another, not just next to them, but from behind and in front too. A class of 30 now has to be a class of 8 or something.
Back on topic, on Tuesday 21st May 2019, Gerald, our neighbor, finally got workman starting on concreting the shared driveway. Up until this point is was only a gravel driveway, up a hill. For legal reasons we couldn't sell the house properly until the area 5 meters up from the pavement was sealed with either tarmac or concrete. We eventually realised that Gerald was the guy who originally built our house in 2004, at the same time when it became law for all new properties to need to have sealed driveways, at least 5 meters up from the pavements, in order to protect the pavements themselves from damage. When we mentioned this to Gerald, he said he didn't know of this law at the time (probably because the law had only just come in at the time) and he got on it, as it was basically the last thing he should have done after our house was built in 2004. He was getting frustrated anyway at replacing his tires often due to them getting slashed on the gravel stones when driving up to his house. It was kinda ironic that the team ran out of concrete 5 meters from the pavement on the first day, but it was finished the next day so it didn't matter.
I finished my work at the Mail Room, But quickly started a new role for a few weeks, unpacking boxes again. This time in the new Dental School. Basically, the Dental School is a huge tower block, built in the 1960's. The space inside was very tight and cramped, so the University forked out millions to build a brand new tower block behind this one. That was completed and ready for everything to move out from building 1 to building 2. Building 1 had only 2 weeks to be gutted before being cordoned off for renovation. Only the outside walls of building 1 will survive, and the entire space inside will be totally brand new. Eventually buildings 2 and 1 will connect and be a super massive ultra modern teaching space.
Because of Sabine's previous miscarriages, she decided to be privately checked on at a baby clinic every week.
On the 20th May, I started a new job at a call center, to input data from incoming emails related to gas bottle orders from RockGas, one of the biggest gas bottle suppliers in the country. It was my job to handle email orders and setup delivery. The hours were shocking though. It was from 8am till 4pm. This should sound good, but I was only allowed half an hour break. I decided to take 15mins off in the morning and another in the afternoon. It drained my soul.
Bit by bit we managed to sell our house belongings via Facebook, including our lovely car. From then on we had to rely on hire cars. The guy who bought our car was a returnee from Northern Ireland, who was over here but went back to the UK, but couldn't get a job so returned again. Pretty similar in my case. I cant land a job here in Swansea at all; using recruitment agencies or otherwise. I did have a job for 2 weeks in an office of a failing company. They had only just been bought out, surviving bankruptcy, and was in the process of a total office overhaul. I did what I was told but became redundant after 1 week after the person that hired me was reshuffled someplace else.
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| This was the best I could get the lawn before we moved out |
Boris Johnson became prime minister of the UK, proving that elitist scum run the country. This is what I wrote at the time:
Elitism is not a worthy value. Working hard and getting a decent job out of it shows value in your knowledge and commitment to getting a job done right. This scumbag Boris Johnson becoming prime minister is proof that elitist fuckwits can rise to the top and drag the rest of us down into the gutter. Elistism is like racism. Heck it might as well be as they all think they are better then everyone else, despite ones actual achievements. Sorry not sorry. The system is broken and needs a reform. Fuck elitism.
In hindsight, as someone else told me since then, only those that want power over others actually end up in power. This is pure evil and totally corrupt worldwide.
In later July 2019 we sold the house, had Crown Relocation come to take away our possessions, and we moved into a bedsit of an AirBnB in Mosgiel until our flight on the 4th August.
Our cats needed specific shipping boxes made of wood to be transported in. They flew with us to Auckland (in the cargo hold) and were taken from there by a pet transport company. We later picked them up from Heathrow a few days after we arrived in the UK.
Before actually leaving NZ, we did have a few days in Auckland before our flight to London. We spent this time doing pretty much the same things we did previously in Auckland.
One of the last things we did in NZ was eat at Better Burger at the airport. Their chips are the best chips I've ever had, simply because they keep the potato skin on the fries, making the chips SUPER crispy.
Our Singapore airlines plane took off at 3.30pm on the 4th of August.
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| The Best chips....... in the world. |
One other thing I want to say is that Sabine and I enjoyed visiting different cafes and restaurants in NZ, rather than over in the UK where it's just totally monopolised by Costa, Starbucks and Cafe Nero. The local homemade flair just isn't there. :( Although they do use goats cheese in their paninis in the UK, which is really tasty.
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| NZ cafe flair |
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| NZ cafe flair |
