The new surroundings

After the madness of the flittin', it was great to just hang out together and get used to our new house. Iain had been living here for about four weeks but all he had was a tv, a bean bag and a bed, so it was great getting the house organised and spending a bit of normal time together. I'll do a proper sweep of the house soon and post the obligatory photos but here's some from the first couple of weeks here.

two and a half years of hoarding!

Nesting

Iain's first dinner on our brand new BBQ

View from our new back garden

Hunting for a tree

The finished article!

As I mentioned in a previous post, we've been very lucky that we've already got some mates in town so we're not starting from scratch. First, there's Mike and Sarah. Iain worked with Mike at the Glasgow Warriors, and he now works for Taranaki Rugby. We spent some time round at their house back in '09 with Katie & Steph. That night in '09, we also met Clark and Karen, a Scottish couple who had also just moved out here. Clark also works for Taranaki Rugby and since Iain accepted the job down here, the four of them have been brilliant at helping us out and making sure we've got everything we need and that we're included in everything Taranaki. Mike and Sarah even put Iain up for a week before we got the keys to the house! Just before Christmas, Karen had given us the heads-up about the annual Christmas Concert held at the TSB Bowl, an outdoor stage with a huge grassy amphitheatre in New Plymouth's massive Pukekura Park. In the spirit of the season, we headed out to sing carols and wait for Santa to arrive by candlelight. It was pretty cool. It was also pretty windy so, as you can see, I managed to create a rather nifty little wind-breaker for my candle. Classy.

 LM :)