Well it’s been over a year now since my last update! So I’ll give a ‘brief’ overview of what we have been up to. Most of it involves hard work and a new house, a visit to hospital and a spell of time in purgatory for me.
After my brief visit back to New Zealand to visit family, Nigel and I decided that we really should bring the adventure to a premature end. An accumulation of things I guess, I didn’t realise how much I had missed Robb & Heather ‘till I went home, and to be honest one desert island was beginning to morph into another. Our days consisted of getting up at 6:30am snorkelling until 9am and then wondering what to do for the rest of the time. I guess it was exciting to visit these places but we got quite complacent about it, and the freshness of it wore off. I never did get to Bora Bora, but everyone that did go said “Boring Boring”, full of tourist and thieves!
So we said our sad goodbyes to ‘Uncle Ted’ our sailing buddy for the past 7 months, he’d been a wonderful companion and tolerated the bickerings of the Burtons. He’d put up with my bullying about keeping the galley clean, appreciated my cooking skills, and finally learnt how some of his electronic ‘gadgets’ worked from Nigel. I’m not sure that he has mastered emails or remembered how the satellite phone worked – but he’s made it to Australia since we left him so I guess he’s not doing too badly!
Within a couple of weeks of our return I was offered a couple of jobs, one was with a world renowned organisation and the other ‘not’ a world renowned organisation. Silly me took the ‘not’ position and spent 8 months in purgatory! In the end I walked out on my job - not something I would do lightly for those of you that know me well. But, it seems as though the decision would have been made for me a within couple of weeks of leaving. I was taken into hospital in an incredible amount of pain and ended up having an ‘operation’ to have bits removed. I thank God that it didn’t happen whilst sailing across the Pacific, lord knows what might have happened to me.
Anyhow, the long and short of it is, the world renowned organisation found out I was looking for another job and offered me another position. I love my new job – I LOVE MY NEW JOB! My new boss is one of the most honourable, kind hearted, tolerant, Christianly person I have ever come across. He is highly regarded by his organisation and staff alike. It’s a privilege to work for him. Most of you know which organisation I work for and are aware of the good work that they do the world over.
Nigel is working for another well known Kiwi organisation, I’d like to say he loves his job as much as me but he does struggle at times. He’s getting used to dealing with unions and ‘civie’ workers, but on the whole has settled into his new way of life remarkably well. Does he miss his previous career? Not at all! I think that our adventure away made the transition easier for him.
We are the owners of a new home! We’ve been there for 9 months now. I’m ashamed to say that we haven’t really done much to it, although to be honest it didn’t need a lot doing to it. For the first 4 months of our time in the place I was too stressed with work to appreciate it, but now my weekends are stress free and we can finally get round to getting it how we want it. We fell in love with the place as soon as we walked through the door. I love our deck! During the day the Tui’s sit in the trees and entertain us and in the evening we can lay on the loungers and look up at the stars.
So that is where our life is at, at the moment! Now I’m in the mood to update my blog I’ll spend some time on reflection on the events of the past 18 months. At the time internet access wasn’t always great and upload speeds were cockroach driven, so when time and mood allows I’ll write some more. I have some sad updates on acquaintances we made along the way but I’ll save that for another time, they deserve a page of their own.
