boots on the ground October 29, 2005  

It's 6:19am and I'm sitting here, listening to the dawn chorus and looking out across the Manakau Harbour. It's good to be home.

The last dash in KL was good fun. We did the markets, the national mosque, the orchid garden, the Petronas towers, the aquarium - all the fun tourist stuff. The heat and humidity meant that we had to do things in two hour bursts, otherwise we all started wilting. KL was, in general, enormous fun, and it's on the list of "stuff to do again at some point".

The flight back wasn't too bad. Rebecca went to sleep after a while and stayed quite comprehensively asleep until about half an hour before landing. This left us free to, well, not sleep, as it turned out. As a result, everything was in sharp focus on our arrival in Auckland. We cleared the revamped customs and biosecurity arrangements without any problems - OK, the food sniffer dog went a bit ballistic at Rebecca's kit, but we explained that this was just because we'd recently had fresh fruit in there. Rebecca seemed to like the food sniffer beagle. We were met by most of Heather's family at the airport, and spent most of yesterday at the family home doing washing and blinking in the unaccustomed sunlight while Rebecca got to know her wee cousin Evelyn and chased the family dog and cats. We tried the "stay up until your normal bed time" tactic for dealing with jet lag - Rebecca went down at 7pm local time as per normal. I lasted until 9pm, then crashed. Hence why I'm up at 6 in the morning, watching dawn across the Manakau.

It's good to be back.

rajah "brooke" October 25, 2005  

Left the UK in fine style on Sunday night. Departed Bristol after a couple of lovely, stress-free nights with some good friends; towards the end, they spent an hour entertaining Rebecca while her terribly stressed parents did the final pack. We kept walking through the kitchen mumbling "mustn't forget her beaker..." and finding her and her caregivers all wearing mixing bowls as hats. The drive to Heathrow was fine; due to our paranoid safety margins, we'd left a fair bit of time to get to the airport, so ended up arriving four and a half hours prior to the flight's departure: we were the second people to check in for it. The flight itself was fine. Rebecca was awake for the first two hours, and increasingly unhappy and vocal about it; then asleep for the next eight hours; and then awake and happy for the last two.

It was a bit emotional departing the UK. The emotion at the time was slightly muted due to the need to take care of a somewhat narked toddler, but it was there nonetheless.

Upon arrival in KL, we showered and collapsed. We went to bed at 8pm (1pm UK). Rebecca woke us up with a dirty nappy at 1am (6pm UK); after it was changed, she went back down, and we lay awake for four hours. At about 5am, when I was about to wake everyone up so we could get showered etc for the 6am start of breakfast, we must have dozed off - the next we knew, it was 9:30am (2:30am UK). A hasty breakfast later, and we spent the morning happily wandering around the KL Butterfly Park - which has to rank as the best thing I've done for a good long while. I have not the words for this facility; it is simply stunning. Rebecca coped very well in the intense heat, but after 90 minutes she started to wilt a little. As we were leaving, she wandered around a corner in the gift shop, in the company of one of the ladies working there; she returned a minute later, with a butterfly glitter tattoo. Nice the house.

Another couple of days in KL, and then we're off to Auckland. This afternoon, we're off to the Chinese market. Should be good fun.

gissue! October 18, 2005  

Now homeless. Edinburgh was very nice. Great to see friends and family again. Now we're on our last week in the UK; we've got a rented car, a dented address book, and a keen desire to see various other bits of the country again. So it's hie off to the open road; we leave for Kuala Lumpur on Sunday, get into Auckland next Friday; rock on.

blip October 12, 2005  

Plug being pulled at half eleven the night before everything we own gets loaded into a transit. Plug should be put back in at some point in the next few months. Expect occasional, intermittent bursts of communication. Email's still up, though.

my work here is done October 10, 2005  

It's Sunday. I finished work on Friday, after a frantic last-minute push to get the release out. The traditional last day at a British workplace - morning tidying the desk and throwing away old paperwork, off to the pub at 12, back at 3 for your leaving speech - went west. We were full on from 9 to 2pm, when we managed to get the release done and make a run for the pub just before they ceased serving food. Back to the office by 3:30 for the leaving presentation. They even conferenced in the US offices, which I was impressed by. Particularly since it turned out that the Americans had had a separate whip-round and had bought me a Hawaiian shirt and a disneyland t-shirt. I was quite touched, actually - given that my main liaison with the US offices has been to ring them up and berate them for doing things wrong, I'd have expected them to mark my leaving with a rousing chorus of "Ding dong, the witch is dead!". Nice people. MY manager/mate Chris made the traditional slightly embarrassing speech, then presented me with a replica of the maillot jaune (yellow jersey worn by the leader of the Tour de France) and a bottle of whisky. Plus another t-shirt, comemmorating my greatest ever snafu - I won't go into it in detail, but let's just say that Figure 14 of the ActiveX API Guide for Geneva 4.0 and 4.1 doesn't bear close examination. I then had a frantic session of clearing my desk, ensuring all my work was complete, etc. A fairly busy arvo, and a somewhat emotional day.

Saturday was my birthday. I spent the morning shopping, the afternoon chasing toddlers around the garden (at one point, Rebecca, Isla, Aidan and I all had a conversation during which we agreed that dogs go "woof"), and the evening drinking. An excellent afternoon, a wonderful evening, and an absolutely terrible morning after. Everyone turned up to send us on our way with good wishes and rather a lot of alcohol; I remember most of the night's events with bell-like clarity. Heather put a lot of time and effort in to making it a special evening - the cake complete with official Worrying Piercing Photo of me was a special favourite. Thank you to all who attended; I have your addresses, and the bill for breakages will be arriving soon.

To clear up a misconception that seems to be doing the rounds - our electronic contact details will not be changing in the near future. Both our email addresses will still work as normal - just email us at our tallpoppy or blogorrhoea addresses and you'll be laughing. Our mobile numbers will be changing to NZ variants, obviously, but not until after the 28th. We'll still be checking email as regularly as we can - and possibly even posting occasional updates to the blogs. Don't expect too much activity, though.

And to whoever it was who wrote an obscenity on our whiteboard at the party:

1. The whiteboard markers were behind you. You used a permanent marker. The buyer will think we have a very low opinion of her if I can't get hold of some white spirit between now and Friday.
2. I can recognise your handwriting, Tim.

finally October 08, 2005  

Exchanged contracts.

Thank fuck.

Sale definitely on for a week today.

Off to pub now.

and john wayne October 05, 2005  

To clarify: come hell or high water, we are coming home on time. The only issue on debate is whether we're coming back with the capital from our house sale, or a regular income from a house rental. At the moment, it could go either way. Handily, one of my coworkers has just relocated from Edinburgh, and is looking for a house to rent so he can bring his wife and young daughter down. His daughter is only a bit younger than Rebecca, so the nursery would stay in use. Could all work out quite nicely. Still, time will tell.

Sorry about the lack of writing recently. We are, funnily enough, very busy with the impending move. After a hard day at work either pushing bits or wrangling kid, neither of us is particularly in the mood to sit down and write huge swathes about the general state of the world. Which is a pity, but I'm sure that normal service will be resumed sooner or later. Though not after next Wednesday, because that's when they take the computer away. And everything else, of course. Expect a certain amount of "on the hoof" blogging whenever we hit anywhere with a net connection, and our email reply rate should drop down dramatically.

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