Everything has changed...

Kia ora koutou!

I haven't been around much for a while, and I have really missed checking up on everybody, taking part in Thematic posts, reading people's wise and funny words - I'm planning to be back to something like normal, as from now. 

The first 4 months of 2012 have been incredibly busy and very stressful. We sold the house we had been in for 23 years, then spent the next 6 weeks frantically sorting, packing, chucking out stuff we didn't need... it's incredible how many things can be accumulated by a family of hoarders! At the same time we were looking for somewhere to rent, inspecting houses for sale, then, when nothing appealed, looking for land to buy and build on.  

Oh, and working.

Moving day came all too soon, and our remaining stuff was moved to the very comfortable house we had found to rent. Later that week we signed up for a piece of ground on which, with luck and a lot of money, there will be a finished house later this year. Not too much later, hopefully.  

People always say that moving is one of the most stressful things in life, and I would now certainly have to agree with that! Things were not helped by the fact that on moving day I managed to badly pull a muscle in my lower back, which has caused me a great deal of pain and discomfort over the last five weeks - it has finally started to improve over the last few days, thank heavens.

Kites at New Brighton Beach

Two weeks after we moved it was the end of our summer term, always a really busy one. Then I was off on my long-planned 2-week trip around the South Island of New Zealand, including 4 days in my poor old earthquake-battered Christchurch, visiting my sister and brother-in-law. Seeing my home town so changed was very depressing, but it was something I needed to do, I think.

Crossing Cook Strait

There will be pictures. Lots - my road trip around parts of the country I had not seen for many years was good for the equilibrium.

Autumn in Arrowtown

So. here I am, back in our temporary home, ready to start school again tomorrow. But I still feel rather discombobulated - I keep hearing the words of one of my favourite Lucinda Williams songs:

Faces look familiar,

But they don't have names

Towns I used to live in

Have been rearranged

Highways I once traveled down

Don't look the same

Everything has changed

Everything has changed

See you soon.