kiwi-a-go-go: October 2021

I am not a very reliable blogger. Sorry about that but as I get older I prioritise things a little differently and things just go by the wayside. So it has been a little over a year since our touchdown in New Zealand in August of 2020 and I thought it might be time to take stock and share a few insights and observations.

First off, it's been a hell of a year for everyone. I'm not going to talk too much about the pandemic because we all know that it's kind of a disaster and I'm sick of it. That being said, I will say that New Zealand has now lost the battle and Covid is here and it's here to stay. We had a few weeks of lockdown as the government tried to continue the zero cases policy but Delta is a bitch and despite a valiant effort, it's all about the vaccine now. Here's hoping...

Now on to other things. We are building a house. It will be outside of Christchurch about 40 minutes or so and it is on an absolutely sublime ten acre plot on the fringes of the Canterbury Plains right up against the foothills of the Southern Alps . We haven't started the building process yet but hopefully we will break ground before the new year. Land is getting more expensive by the day and we were very lucky to find such a beautiful spot before things got truly out of hand. Here's a picture of our plot:

Wish us luck because every process imaginable has been slowed by the events of the last eighteen months. Construction is no exception. In the meantime, we still are in our rental in Kirwee and life is pretty good. Cara and I have jobs we like, that pay reasonably well and the kids continue on at Darfield High School. It's a different educational system that has been frustrating for them but they are good kids and are adapting well, all things considered. I don't think of things in terms of "this is better and this is worse". We are here now and we are here for good. This is our life. As far as I am concerned, I feel incredibly happy and fortunate to live in New Zealand.

The baseline level of anxiety I felt in the US is dissipating. US politics is background noise. The New Zealand headlines are refreshingly low key (excepting of course, all this pandemic shit). Things are more expensive. Lots more expensive. But outside of that, I can't think of anything else to moan about. We go hiking with almost zero crowds on a weekly basis. There are multitudes of breathtaking places to visit with one tenth the visitor numbers so we don't worry about "getting there early" or traffic or any other worry we might have had back in the US. It's just a smaller country. It's not perfect and, in many ways across many issues, things are starting to mirror the US. The economic divide between rich and poor is widening. Wacky conspiracy cults are more prevalent (but still confined to the political margins) and the money grubbing policies of short sighted politicians have way more sway than they should.

We live in the countryside of Canterbury and I love it. Walking around the neighbourhood with carrots in my pockets to feed the sheep and horses and riding my bike against the backdrop of the Southern Alps are a couple of nice vignettes to put things in perspective. I still don't have a studio but hopefully that will be remedied by the new year as well. Fingers crossed.

Thanks for reading, now here's some pictures of our new neighbourhood: