A colourful month….

We have officially been living in Port Chalmers for 4 months. Hard to believe, the time goes so fast! We continue to love living here and bit by bit becoming more ensconced.

The Fall colours are amazing, so pretty….

Rich and Luca have started going to the home games of the city rugby team, “The Highlanders”. Rugby in NZ is huge, like Ice hockey in Canada, or Football in Costa Rica. A large stadium was built in Dunedin not long ago and has really benefited the city, with the events that can be held here. The boys say the atmosphere at the games is really great and they both enjoy it….

The city of Dunedin put on a festival of nature for the duration of the school holidays called “Wild Dunedin” . Perfect for Luca, he and Rich attended many of the events put on. At the end of it, (last Sunday), was a walk through the 8.2km of the city’s green belt. We all did it, and brought Ted, one of Luca’s mates. It was such a cool way to see the city and discover parts, as yet unexplored by us. The old homes that opened their doors were wonderful and the effort that is going into preserving the bush walks and green spaces throughout this city great, the amount of volunteers involved, especially young people, with student led initiatives very heartening.

Luca has decided to give playing football a go. This is a surprise for us as he has not really shown that much interest before. He had a practice on Friday night and played a game yesterday much to his surprise. He was nervous as really knows little about the game, but went on and played well, says he wants to continue, so guess we should get him some shorts etc 🙂

So bit by bit we are becoming more and more settled in. Luca and Vida very content and happy 🙂

Work too has required a commitment to settling here, for a while . I have accepted a new position, it is an opportunity that rarely comes along, and I have jumped at it. In 2013 when Luca started school I did too, and began University papers, aiming to head down the Practitioner track. It was a struggle as very expensive and the opportunities at the time in eastern Canada limited, especially in what I wanted to do, I knew a lot of NP’s who were working as RN’s as they could not find jobs in their specialty. I persevered, but was beginning to question my decision and wondered if I should change my focus entirely. I put it all on hold when we moved to CR and have used the time to reassess everything.

Starting work here was terrifying for me as knew how much strain the system is under and I wondered how I would cope. The health board and the government as a whole, recognizes that health care delivery needs to change significantly to meet the enormous challenges it faces, (the need and issues here, the same as places like Canada and the UK). Funding roles that aim to meet these needs are starting to appear. This is where my job has come from, they have offered to pay for the rest of my university papers towards being a Practitioner if I will commit to be part of a team that will lead the department towards nurse led care. Such an exciting opportunity and I feel incredibly grateful to be offered it, still pinching myself really. This also gives us the stability we need to be able to buy and means Rich can do what he enjoys too.

So the upshot of this means we are here for a while. It does not mean travel is off the table, we are already in discussions about the next trip, just that we will have a base for longer than we have had previously.

Not a bad place to hang out for a bit we think 🙂