Why We Have Been Missing In Action ... and other stuff

There is a certain frantic quality to life when you arrive in a new country. The urge to explore is tempered by the need to get settled and begin making a home, especially when you’re a mom with a teenage daughter to provide for! For me, this sense of urgency was compounded by the fact that I was due to start work within a week of arriving in Wellington, which reduced the amount of time I had to explore, plus I had no other adult to send to house viewings in my stead. So the pressure to ‘get settled’ was on from the start.

And practically speaking, finding a home isn’t easy. As mentioned before, rentals are shown for very brief periods and it is often first come, first served. Added to this was the fact that we were totally dependent on public transport (and thereafter feet!), we didn’t really know what any of the areas were like and we also didn’t know how far our new budget would stretch. So when on our sixth day in Wellington we found a sweet little flat that seemed OK and was relatively inexpensive, we grabbed it and moved in, signing a six-month lease and paying a two-week bond (deposit).

And it was a sweet flat, as long as you didn’t mind the fact that the kitchen, a weirdly configured two feet by six feet space, never saw the sun; that the only natural light downstairs came from the balcony in the afternoons, and that the entire place reeked not only of ancient carpets and a touch of mildew, but also of the seventies – and not in a good way. Green-and-beige carpeting and pink walls in the bedrooms … and funky turquoise and orange kitchen colors which would have worked well—IF the kitchen had been filled with sunny brightness all day long. But it wasn’t and never had been!

It might have been OK. But to add to our woes, the previous tenant had abandoned her telephone line instead of disconnecting it, which meant an utterly interminable delay while the various telephony companies liaised with one another to disconnect and reconnect our line ... it took three weeks of repeated phone calls and complaints and chasing up before we had an incoming line - but still no broadband, which meant no email, no Skype and no contact with the folks back home in SA.

I have to confess it never really felt like home. I started to dread arriving back at the flat after work, and coming up a set of stairs that occasionally smelled of cat, then along a walkway overhung by the heavy canopy of towering trees that blocked all light and kept the ground in a permanently damp and slightly slimy state. And because it never felt like home, I lost all interest in making it look like home. We camped out in the lounge, sleeping on a mattress which doubled as a couch during the day, using the bedrooms as over-sized clothes closets and venturing into the kitchen only when we needed to make tea or cook supper. I have to say, though, that the bathroom (apart from the mildewed ceiling) was a lovely little room – it had an actual bath in it – something of a rarity in Wellington flats – and it also had a washer and a drier which both worked fantastically well – speedy and efficient. The bath too wasn’t bad – small and snuggly and the water was always hot, hot, hot!!

So we decided to ‘keep our eyes open’ for an alternative. Having been out to the north before, we both knew we preferred the southern suburbs. So we explored the surrounding neighbourhoods carefully. Visited Lyall Bay and Island Bay – both gorgeous but just a little far out from school and work. We went over to Miramar which is also wonderful, but we would only be able to afford a place in the middle of the central valley – no views to speak of except fences and streets and other people’s back yards! We went shopping in Kilbirnie – a suburb just over the hill from Newtown but a whole other world away - where we found Pak ‘n Save, a great discount outlet for groceries and veg and dairy produce! And we both liked Kilbirnie a lot. Riding the bus over the hills with Hataitai off to the left and the Miramar peninsula on the far side of the beautiful Evans Bay … seeing the sprawling green fields of Kilbirnie Park, the yachts bobbing in the marina, the planes flying in and out of Wellington International Airport – not to mention a fantastic array of shops including branches of all the banks, Farmers, Woolworths, Amalgamated Video, pubs, dairies, organic food shops, furniture stores etc etc.

So we narrowed our eyes at Kilbirnie and watched TradeMe carefully for any possible future homes. And lo and behold! Much sooner than we had anticipated, we found … IT.

A bright, light and airy duplex on the hillside above Kilbirnie Park ...

...with outstanding views of Evans Bay .... :-)

Tbc.