Kia ora,

Well well well... it's been a while hasn't it? Our poor little blog got neglected as we busied ourselves with getting jobs, settling into the Wellington lifestyle, catching up with old friends, finding some new ones, sampling the local wines, and before we knew it we were careering towards christmas with not enough time left on our visas! So off we popped to the doctors for a medical (we're now both proud owners of a chest x-ray each), scraped a pass in that category and trotted off to immigration to see if they want us. As it turns out our sort are in high demand so we are now in the lucky position of being able to stay longer than we originally asked for, if we really want to. All being well we'll be here at least another year.

Since the last update we've also had visits from Mr & Mrs Rhodes, Ms Kentish and Mr & Mrs Hird, we've been on holiday to Tauranga, Auckland, Martinborough, Taupo and Oz, and have spent a great deal of time in our favourite bars, a lovely wine bar and the very homely Welsh bar.

Work is... well, it's work isn't it? But Dave has been lucky enough to land himself a job at a company called Intergen, who are a great social bunch and a really good company. I'm at Stats NZ, also a good social crowd - happily landed myself in a team of people who enjoy the odd vino and more than the odd morning tea! I have just got a temporary promotion, so all going very well for me too.

So that, in a nutshell, is us. How about you? How the devil are you all? and what have you been up to? What are you up to for christmas/new year?

You will note that most of you haven't had a christmas card from NZ dropping through your letterbox. That I'm afraid is the result of the combined efforts of hallmark and NZ post to bankrupt anyone not smart enough to work out that christmas is not all about the birth of santa, as we thought, but about diddling us out of our hard earned cash. So apologies to you all for lack of paper-based greetings, but hope this last minute blog will be sufficient to let you know we're thinking of you and missing you all.

I must get off to bed now but can't sign off without saying huge thanks to Hassan (and all contributors) for our leaving video. You may have heard the traumas of me not being able to get it to work, and believe me I've persevered! Fate dealt me a great hand this christmas though as Santa delivered me an early gift in the form of a laptop and as luck would have it, it's been the only piece of technology that seems to want to play the cd! It really was great to watch - emotional at times, but very funny too! So thanks one and all. Please keep the news from home coming - it's great to hear what everyone is up to.

Anyway, enough from me. Hope you all have a safe and happy Christmas, and that the new year brings you the willpower to stick to your resolutions!

Lots of big love to everyone from us both.
Meri Kirihimete!
xxx