Final Countdown
It’s the first week of 2006; strange how fast the last five years have gone by, even more strange is the realization that we’re actually moving to New Zealand in less than twelve weeks – more like nine to be precise. We have transitioned from being folks who are ‘talking about moving to NZ’ to folks who are moving to NZ. There’s no going back now – we’ve been talking about this for a year, fantasizing about all the experiences we were going to have and now we’re about to have them. It feels a bit surreal but then I get shaken from my dreamland when I realize all the things that still need to be done:
Decide on a freight company and book dates for packing, buy airline tickets, purge the closets (of clothes, papers, and all the junk we’ve accumulated in the last 7 years – we’re such packrats), sell things on Ebay or Craigslist, buy all the additional things we need to take with us from Ebay, Craigslist, or Amazon, deal with finances, taxes, and legal matters, plan our initial itinerary for NZ since our household will be in transit for six weeks and we’ll be ‘home less’, spend five days with the Guidi family in Florida, host the Scanlon family for four days in SF, and, uhm, spend as much time with our friends before we go. Oh, and make time to go the gym, read, develop my Reiki practice, and have quiet time for myself.
It’s a daunting list and I wonder if we can pull it off by our self-imposed departure date.
Kathy – the blog is great. I’m very excited for you guys and this will be a fun way to stay in contact.
kind of scary about selling the TIC but i’m sure it makes it real!
One of my favorite sites is an English bloke who spends a lot time overseas – he has experimented with fully streamlined recumbent bicycles and riden across the USA.
Currently he is in Christchurch – here he notes some good mt biking in the area
http://rob.bikerevuk.com/
29/01/06
Another beautiful day in Christchurch. Nice five hour group ride today, to round out a relaxing recovery week – and I needed it after successfully completing my aim of 850km for the week before. And I’m a very happy bunny now, because on Tuesday my mountain bike finally arrived! I was starting to panic, with the Karapoti only three weeks ago, and hearing stories of other people’s parcels going missing in the mail. So much relief to have it safely get here, and now I have a training alternative when I need a break from the road too. On Wednesday Cam took me out to Bottle Lake forest, which has a huge amount of singletrack, albeit all flat. I hadn’t realised exactly where we had gone, and so it was a big surprise when we popped out of the woods onto a sandy track paralleling the beach, very cool. Lots of fun round there, but it’ll take me a while to get used to the surface – lots of gravel and sand, but actually grippier than it initially seems. Then yesterday we headed over to the Port Hills, which are about a 30 minute ride from town. Climbing up was swelteringly hot, but we were rewarded by some sweet technical singletrack along the top; needed to concentrate and not look at the drop to the right! My skills are a little rusty, but I think it’ll only take a few more rides to get back up to speed. We avoided the black runs on the way down, as they just look totally unridable, for a cross-country bike at least! There was a round of the National downhill series up there last week, and some of those guys were struggling, it is pretty hardcore.
It took three or four batches (and having to endure tasting them all was such hardship), but Shirley has now perfected baking fat-free chocolate muffins, which is great, as I have long had a weakness for them! Her next mission is a similarly healthy carrot-cake – the prototype of which is cooling as I type for later sampling…..
Mum is coming down to visit from Auckland next weekend, so I’m going to try to get the baulk of my 26 hours training done in the next four days…. ciao for now