Fortunately, I haven't felt homesick, (apart from anything else I've just been too damned busy) but I am missing a couple of things.
1. Poppy and Oscar.
I'm cat-barmy. Ever since the age of eight, when Mum and I went to stay with my aunt who owned a B&B in Cornwall, and I got to meet her tribe of moggies, I've been a dedicated cat-aholic. I pestered my poor Mum and Dad for ages about getting a cat until eventually they relented and we got our first kitten, a ginger and white tom, whom we named Tigger.
As soon as Iain and I bought a place of our own I was desperate to get a cat, and we got Oscar in March 1995, just two months after we moved into our house in Tutbury. He was a rescue cat and was a bit thin and nervy, until he settled down into his new role as street thug, beating up all the other cats who'd been there years.
Two years later we got Poppy, who wasn't a rescue cat, but whose parentage was nevertheless in doubt. Her mother's owner suspected that Poppy's father might have been her uncle.
Poppy is bold, brash and cheeky, and when she was a kitten she had evil, toxic farts. Poppy used to like 'helping' me with my yoga practice. Whenever she heard the DVD starting up she'd come and sit on the mat, in whichever spot was the most inconvenient for any given posture, while occasionally biting my extremities.
Gratuitous cat picture: Oscar (in laptop bag) and Poppy
2. Our friends
Neither of us are particularly outgoing types, and it takes us a while to get to know people. We've really missed all our friends in the U.K. particularly all the Burton crowd. We decided we were going to socialise a lot once we arrived in NZ by joining plenty of clubs, but as we're planning on moving out of Auckland at the earliest opportunity (December, hopefully) we can't quite see the point of starting to get to know a load of people just to leave again within a few months. I'm getting to know some people at the yoga studio, Iain's getting to know his colleagues at work and we've both been on a couple of 'get togethers' with a group of people on one of the emigration forums, so we're not being too hermit-like!
We've got a few things planned for this weekend. We have an 'immigrants' meal' on Sunday and as the weather forecast is good, we're going off on a day trip on Saturday. At the moment we're thinking of visiting Tauranga on the sunny Bay of Plenty, but our plans may well change at the last minute. Sound familiar? ;-) I'll post again on Sunday night with piccies of our weekend.
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