More job hunting this afternoon. Did get a notification that my application for a school IT Administrator had been received – you never know………….

The landlord popped around later in the afternoon to say that he had just become a Grandad – beaming he was!

Picked up the recycling bin – they removed the plastic bag overflow too – phew…….. we did hear them around this morning though, so at least they hadn’t got a lie-in either. I take it all back!!

We had a lovely braised steak meal tonight, beautiful! It’s strange though, we were expecting the lamb to be cheaper, but it’s actually cheaper here (it seems to be on offer a lot) to eat steak!! What a shame I say, what was a treat in the UK seems to becoming a regular weekly thing here……….

Felt our first earthquake! 5.1 on the richter scale and about 50km out to sea and 50km down………………..not exactly a teacup rattler, but even so…………

Perhaps we shouldn’t have gone to see 2012 last night after all!!

Up at 7am this morning to try to beat the recycling collection men. Instead of paying for rubbish collection (recycling collection is free) on the Kapiti Coast, you can purchase rubbish bags that are sold by the council to local shops. Prices seem to change, but they cost about $2.50 – $3 each.

We moved into the cottage 2 weeks ago today – 2 WEEKS! Doesn’t time fly! – anyway, we had been told about the recycling collection by Cathy, from Harveys, and managed to catch them on the first day. Having seen the recycling bin out all day, we reckon it got emptied about 3-4pm, so we weren’t too worried about it last week. HAH! We should have known that the vagaries of recycling collection would mean that it mirrors the bin collection in the UK……………

Last week, we (well ok, Louise first that day – well ok, she does have a tendency to get up earlier than me, but she has trouble getting back to sleep once awake whereas I can sleep on a sixpence – if I fitted!) were getting up about 8-830am when Louise heard a rattling of glass from the road behind us, Renown Road. That meant one of two things, either the recycling guys/girls would be here soon, or, they’d already been!

I slipped on my clothes and rushed the recycling bin and the rubbish bag down the drive – this is not something to be sniffed at as the drive must be about 50-70m long! Once down by the road, panting for breath and wishing I’d had a cup of tea before heading out in the world (Joking…..really), I had a quick look around and noticed that there were wheelie bins (you can hire these instead of paying for bags, but we decided that we didn’t generally have THAT much rubbish every week and the bags seemed cheaper) and recycle bins around the next few houses. I didn’t notice if they were full or not – sometimes they just have a few bottles lying in the bottom. Anyway, guess what………………..yep, they’d already been when the little sparrows woke up and found that somebody had switched the sun on already!

So, that’s why I’m up early this week. 2 weeks worth of recycling when you’re setting up a cottage, starts to fill a recycling box pretty quickly! I think I beat them this morning though – we’ll see. I bet that they don’t pick the recycling up until 4pm today, having stayed in bed all morning and had a good laugh at those of us who were trying to catch them at 7am……………….mutter, mutter, mutter……….

Aha, 1st job reply back – ah, no quite. My CV and cover letter have been passed on by Absolute IT. Well, it’s a start!