Posts tagged Auckland
Hello 2019; Goodbye 2018
At this time of year I’m reflecting on the year that has just closed and setting goals for the year ahead. We find ourselves at a cross-roads again, waiting to see what will come next for us. Although we’ve been here before, and we know that it does work out eventually it is challenging to sit with the uncertainty now. A friend reminded me in a New Year tweet that every year has its good things happen and bad things happen, even when our social media bubble leads us to believe that everyone else lives in a world where only good things happen.
We continue to live purposefully, focused on family and friends, love and laughter, good health and fitness and meaningful work. We’ve made sure we spend time with those we love, including a family holiday with Moira’s children and their partners in Rarotonga to celebrate a significant birthday. Not to mention – moving to Christchurch to be closer to Ross’ family.
We’ve also made excellent progress on our health goals, as we both feel fitter and more toner than ever before in our lives. We spend a lot of time in NZ’s beautiful outdoors which is good for our mental health as well as our physical health. We love to explore places, both familiar and unfamiliar,. Since a third of New Zealand is in National Park, tramping boots or an off-road bicycle are great assets when it comes to exploring.
It’s the third of our priorities -interesting and worthwhile work which has delivered challenges in 2018. Various people with better knowledge of recruitment than me tell me that it is quite common for the job search to take a year. I really hope not. In the meantime, I’m learning a lot through the process and using the time to reflect and refine my CV and career goals and to think about preparing for the next stage of my worklife.
I’ve had two important coping mechanisms. One is exploring New Zealand purposefully – as one friend put it – behaving like a tourist in our own land. We do find ourselves approaching the task of exploring seriously – planning a schedule, doing a major walk or cycle ride every day unless the weather is truly awful, digesting what we have seen and recording our impressions in photographs and words. In 2018 we’ve explored the Coromandel by bicycle, toured Northland, and then spent 6 weeks mostly on cycle trails as we made our way south from Auckland en-route to Christchurch. In the South Island we’ve chased the sunshine all the way to Southland to walk the Humpridge Track and then all the way to the northernmost point of the South Island at Farewell Spit to learn about the wildlife there. Google Maps captured where we’ve been and it shows how much of New Zealand we visited during 2018.
My other coping mechanism is to spend time on creative pursuits. This year it has mostly been knitting, although I hope to get back to blogging about our travels and creating photo books to help us digest all that we have seen and learnt about our natural environment and history.
We expect 2019 to continue our journey of focusing on love and laughter. Hopefully with the addition of an interesting job for Moira early in 2019. And just as much exploring and creativity as possible.
Goodbye 2017
2017 was a year of re-establishing a NZ based life, of consolidation rather than exploration. Our 2016/17 summer of the outdoors reconnected us with the power of love and the beauty of our homeland. We settled in Auckland, drawn there by work, to a life full of opportunities for exploration of new landscapes and different geology.
Our priorities remain the same: family, health, worthwhile work and travel. Since we defined those priorities more clearly for ourselves back in 2011, we have got better at matching our practice with our intention.
Our choice to return to a NZ base was confirmed by the great pleasure we have had from time spent with family and friends. It is so much easier to see them from an Auckland base, and to be more easily in touch by skype or phone when we are in the same time zone. Moira was able to catch up with her UK, Swiss and Californian relatives in brief visits this year. We were delighted to spend longer with Rebecca who joined us for our cycle touring expedition in the Alsace/Lorraine region of France.
Healthwise, we continued our active lifestyle with lots of walking and cycling in Auckland and further afield. Mt Eden became “our mountain” through our evening peregrinations around or over it’s volcanic cone from our little apartment on its flank. Auckland has excellent cycle paths which we have enjoyed exploring, although it can be challenging getting to them as Auckland drivers are notoriously impatient. After our years of living overseas, Ross took advantage of NZ’s health system to have a hernia dealt to.
Moira undertook one parliamentary consulting role in the Parliament of Moldova, her first in Europe and an eye-opening experience to work in a former Soviet country. Her main work this year has been as Library Director at Unitec, the largest of NZ’s polytechnics. The student demographic is very different from a university, with almost half the students speaking English as their second language, while a third of the students are first in family to study at a tertiary institution. Education has the potential to make a real difference to their lives, enabling them to find more satisfying work or to advance in their chosen careers.
Although 2017 was a year with less travel than previous years, we holidayed in the UK, France and Switzerland in July/August when we went to Europe to see family and attend Ollie and Fern’s wedding in lovely Cornwall. It was such a pleasure to meet up with parliamentary friends, last seen in Myanmar. We really enjoy exploring Auckland’s 50 volcanoes and multitude of islands. Nothing we like better than to take our bikes on a ferry to explore somewhere new.
Goodbye 2017, we liked you!