A puncture on the return journey from Matakana at the beginning of the month was to set the bad luck rolling, this alone resulting in the need for two new car tyres to get the car through its WOF (Warrant of Fitness, like an MOT, but spelt different). On returning home that night, we prepared some food to cook, only to see the little blue flame of the gas stove flicker out and not re-ignite until I refilled the gas cylinder next morning. We also opened a bill for our quarterly rates payment that evening. It was abundantly clear: May was not going to be cheap; The fifth month of 2009 was certainly not going to be a bargain; A humongous saving; A deal to bite one’s arm off for.

No! It was going to be f~@$ing* expensive! The car breaking down and costing $500 to fix the following weekend confirmed our fate.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever lived in the New Zealand rain forest at this time of year, but I can tell you: It can be cold and May was cold! Exceptionally cold apparently, with people stating it to be as cold as winter gets here (kind of good, as I’ve had a test run for winter now!). We became extremely grateful for our log burner during this time. We loved the log burner – it kept us warm. Until one night it started leaking smoke into the living room! So that was out of action for about six days until a sweep could come round and investigate. Yes, exactly: more expense! More notes prised from our cold little hands!

The sweep (sadly not a soot-faced little oik) explained that the cowl (no relation!) was broken and we needed a new one. The seemingly bargain price of $60 for a sweep took a $75 leap upwards.

Three weeks since the puncture and we tried to pour ourselves a glass of water. Nothing happened. Our home uses water collected from the rain, saved in a tank, so we went and checked the tank. Glumly, we discovered it was empty. We had not got round to clearing the gutters of all the rotten leaves and had therefore not got round to re-connecting the downpipes to the tank. Basically, we had not gotten round to collecting any water. A somewhat more deserved expense, this time, but still an expense!

Jen’s mother kindly offered to have us stay for the night, so we could shower in the morning, so we jumped in the second car to head over. Now that car wouldn’t start! By now we had had enough and just left it sitting there on the drive for a few days, until, nearing the end of the mother of all disastrous months, I went and gave it a good long try. Finally getting it started, it felt like things were starting to wear off.

Thankfully, the remaining costs of the month were kept to a relative low. They truly were a mean and nasty four weeks and I’m glad they are over. I know they are over because the 31st (exactly four weeks since the puncture!) brought me some kind fortune: I was called and offered a new job. A great job. A job I can’t wait to start…

*_flipping

Matakana, situated in Rodney District, is a small village just off a roundabout by a river. We stopped for a cream tea and a rest before heading through the rain into the village. We were fortunate enough to turn up during the weekly Farmer’s Market, which was pretty cool. Loads of local people selling locally made foods, drinks, sauces, you name it! We invested in some Feijoa, lime and chili sauce. Excellent on pizzas!

We stayed up the road in Leigh, in the Leigh Sawmill Cafe to be exact. The rooms were nice and big, with a tidy ensuite. I always love it when a lodge has a shower floor, rather than a step in shower, and that’s precisely what our room at the Sawmill had. It’s probably just an excuse not to worry about getting the bathroom floor wet more than anything else, but I love shower floors!

We rested our wet and tired souls for an hour or so in the afternoon, before heading for a wine taste at Heron’s Flight. We were served by the drummer from Kiwi band The Brunettes, which meant the chat was pretty interesting. He knew a fair bit about the wine as well!

We headed back to the Sawmill and, after establishing that we really should have booked a table, the cafe and micro brewery served us up some excellent pizzas, wedges and risotto. The beer was pretty good too!

The next day, we had a quick look at Goat Island before breakfast. The island is a protected area with no fishing allowed. This results in quite a lot of fish hanging out and you often see them leaping out of the water in front of you. We then spent the afternoon having a wander round Tawharanui Reserve, which turned into a bit of a long trek after we passed through the first field of bullocks and decided that we couldn’t do that again!

All in all, a good weekend. I feel I must apologise for the somewhat briefness of my descriptions on here. The reasons for this are because I plan to launch a proper travel review site very soon and I want to review Matakana properly on there as my first location. All in good time, all in good time…

The reason for my slackness was because I, unlike you, spent the Easter weekend on Waiheke Island. ‘Where’s that?’ you ask. In terms of The World, it’s here:

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It’s pretty great too, as far as islands go. Don’t get me wrong; I love islands, but I always find myself getting more and more upset when what looks like the island’s most interesting road ends up a ‘NO EXIT’. It’s an island repertoire of mine: I’ll spot a road and think ‘Let’s go up there’, only to find it’s a dead end. Or not a road at all. I used to do it on Guernsey all the time. Even on my tenth visit.

We caught the car ferry out to Waiheke from Half Moon Bay in East Auckland on Thursday night. It chugged along at about 3 knots, taking about 75 minutes to complete the whopping 20 odd kilometre journey. We noticed as we departed the ferry that we had been just two cars from The Mad Butcher, on his way out for the weekend, so I put the slowed ferry time down to the humongous amount of carcasses that must have been stored in his boot. Long weekend, an’ all…

We stayed at the rather friendly Punga Lodge, which dealt us one complimentary breakfast, a host of afternoon teas, a seemingly private spa pool (I didn’t see anyone else using it!) and a bed. We were also a short walk from Oneroa, which meant we could hit The Lazy Lounge for a couple of drinks and then walk home. Although this proved a little risky on ‘Good Friday’ as the little kiddies were out in their rusty Skyline performing drive-by paintballings. You missed.

The friendliness of the staff at View East vineyard made us want to return for a bit more than a wine taste and a coffee, but sadly time eluded us. We had to fit in the paddling of Punga Lodge’s twin-kayak round Oneroa Bay, a trip up to the World War II tunnels of Stony Batter, a meet up with GU2′s old Head of News Naomi and my sister-in-law’s birthday lunch at Mudbrick vineyard. We also narrowly missed out on seeing Ethan Hawke and Scarlett Johansson’s arrival at Te Whau vineyard, but as he’s grown up a bit since Explorers I didn’t think I would recognise him. Plus alpacas are way more interesting to look at.

All of this fantastic weekend was carried out without my camera, so a return visit will likely happen at some point. And then I can take some photos. And enjoy all over again…

Never mind that it was a blazing hot day and I could feel the chocolate bar in the package had gone soft. It would soon be sat in the freezing hold of an Airmail plane and would be restored to its former glory. I was definitely doing the right thing by sending these presents – wasn’t I?

Well, 25th December passed and my family still had not received their pressies! In fact, most of January passed. Sorry, all of January. And February. Their parcel was lost. Or stolen, more like. Everyone’s innocent until proven guilty, but it seems that the temptation of three NZ calendars, a DVD and a bar of New Zealand’s finest choc is a wee bit too much of a temptation for some postal workers. “How did they know what was in the package?” you ask. Because it was written on the side of the flipping envelope! On the customs slip. Next time I reckon I’ll just write ’1/4 litre of urine, some fingernail clippings and last week’s TV guide’ on that thing.

Of course, there is the possibility that the parcel was genuinely lost by some honest accidental method. Such as ‘it fell out the back of the plane’. Or maybe a sniffer dog raided it at the airport, just before the poor creature found out what chocolate does to dogs? Or, at a push, the melted chocolate looked too much like a stool on the x-ray scanner to allow it entry into the UK?

None of it matters, really. The main point is that my family are still awaiting their Christmas bundle of joy and it’s 13th March. And that makes me quite sad, really.

Being relatively new to NZ and Jen having been in the UK for 6 years, neither of us had had the pleasure of Outrageous Fortune, until recently we were in The Warehouse and couldn’t resist handing over the $19 they were asking for Season 1. The gamble was what you might call: “WELL WORTH IT!” as, despite receiving mixed reviews amongst colleagues, we both love it.

Watching the continuous stream of troubles arriving at the door of the Wests has highlighted to me a unique way of living, which I am a strong follower of. There is no name for such ways, so I’ll simply call it ‘Watching Old TV Shows Way After They Were On The TV The First Time’. Without meaning to, I’ve always done it.

Back in the UK, I used to enjoy re-running Dragon’s Den episodes, a few years after they were first run. About 99% of South Park episodes are brand new to me; I own two whole Simpsons DVDs, of which I have seen two episodes; I love Black Books, have three seasons of it, but have only seen one; And Spaced, one of my favourite all time TV comedies, was only first watched by me in 2003 (it came out in 1999).

I have given some thought as to why I am so far behind the times and I have put it down to a couple of factors: the first was that I packed of to Uni in September 1999 and the TV reception was never close to great, so I never saw a lot of these shows first time round. The second reason is a kind of subconscious future-proofing: I am obviously scared that TV is going to suffer some massive ‘creative downturn’ (hell, some would argue it already has – eh Simon?) so am saving up as many episodes of quality programming as possible. Just in case.

I still have about four seasons worth of Outrageous Fortune episodes to work my way through, then I may just begin on Lost. Actually, I may go back and fill in my X-Files gaps first… We’ll see.

The move out to West Aucks has prompted us to go grab a bite of the giant broadband sandwich for ourselves. Telecom were initially a bit unsure as to whether or not our house could sustain the pressure of such an influx of data into the building, but I persuaded them it was just because our phone number was a new one to them. Also, next door has Telecom Wireless Broadband (I know so, cos our computer detected it – aren’t I smart?), so surely we could have it, right?? And so here it is, one seemingly fast connection! So I can work online AND use the phone at the same time again. Sweet.

One thing I do have to remember about New Zealand is the limited data usage on broadband. Ah, to hell with it! Let’s get the rest of my photos uploading…

Now, I realise that this may sound like an account of a dream I had yesterday afternoon, while slumped out on the cosy lounge suite, but I promise you: it definitely happened!

The visit was down to EcoMatters Environment Trust, a charitable trust based in Waitakere, West Auckland that aims to aid those wanting live a more sustainable lifestyle. We first heard about the offer of a free Sustainable Home Check at the monthly market here in Swanson (coincidently on our first weekend in Swanson, as ‘Westies’!). An project called ‘ Sustainable Ranui – Swanson’ had a stall and introduced us to their ideas and offered us the free visit.

The visit was most impressive. Our advisor began by asking questions about our property, before moving on to questions based on our water and energy usage habits. He then began the practical tests, such as measuring how much water our shower passed in a minute, the temperature of our fridge and freezer, checking our water thermostat setting and our home insulation.

The whole process represented extremely good value for money, seeing as it cost nothing, and to then receive a number of freebies, such as re-usable shopping bags, an water aerator for a tap and some low-energy lightbulbs was extremely useful (haters, take note, these are NOTHING like the original energy saving bulbs. They have been vastly improved since you last ‘used’ them. There is definitely no need to ring up Newstalk ZB when the Prime Minister is on and waste his precious air time with stupid questions like “Are you going to make us all use energy saving lightbulbs?” like one lady recently did!).

The whole process helped slam home to me that New Zealand is definitely a world leader when it comes to environmental and community initiatives. I would urge anybody who qualifies (Waitakere City residents, I believe) for a free home sustainability check to book one in right away. It will cost you nothing and will save you more.

I used to live in Greenwich, London and also spent six years of my life in an awesome town called Guildford. I used to DJ the excellent Flirt! night at Surrey University’s nightclub Rubix. I have also presented many a radio show on KMFM and CTR in Maidstone.

I could write about a load of promises and how I am going to give you plenty of this and a whole load of that if you continue to visit here, but I don’t think I’ll spoil the surprise (or set myself up for disaster!). Just check it out regularly and watch the surprises unfold!

Cheers, Dunc