Hello From NZ

Hi Everyone!

Well I am in New Zealand now, and having a very nice time. I am in Westport of all places. If you look on a map you will see it is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, on the West coast of the South Island. It is very rural here but beautiful and the weather is perfect for me. Not too hot, not too cold and sunny.

My sister has just finished building a really nice house in the bush away from town that is so peaceful and beautiful, it makes me want to cry sometimes. It certainly is a long long way from Japan and the aftershocks.
Every day I take our black labrador Sam for a stroll down the road and back. He is getting old and I am having trouble walking long distances now, so both of us enjoy the slow paced waddle. My mum arrives tomorrow night and can stay until I leave, so it will be really nice to have this time with my sister, me and my mum together for the first time in a year. My sister has also been enjoying feeling Maru chan's kicks. The flight here was long but made more comfortable by the kind staff on Air NZ, who made sure I had 3 seats to lie down across, a huge bottle of water to keep myself hydrated so I wouldn't have to wait until they came around offering it. Even so I felt that the 3 hour train ride, the flight, the stopover, the second flight and then finally the 3 hour drive to get here, was too much for Maru chan and a lot harder on me than usual. But we recovered well and the next day I felt fine and Maru chan seemed to be kicking and behaving as usual. The trip home, will be a lot less strenuous as it will be broken up over several days.

I talked to DH this morning on Skype. He looked fine, says that he goes and collects water on his way home every night and heats it up to wash with. Petrol is still scarce and food probably a bit too, but his company has a convenience store where he can buy lunch and at home he eats ready made meals so as not to create dishes that need to be washed. Our water might be restored earlier than the end of April which is great but still probably 2 weeks away.

DH's sister sent me a message to say that Sebastian is fine and eating well and sleeps with Grandpa N in the room we were sleeping in at night (a much better arrangement for him than when he was in Iwaki!), so I am not so worried about him anymore. Though I do miss his craziness and exhuberance, I catch myself worrying what our dog here in NZ,Sam, is doing - that he might be chewing something or peeing somewhere, which of course he isn't because he is a perfectly behaved dog. 

The Japan earthquake news has died down a lot here, so I have trouble keeping up with what is going on. The stories are also a lot of humanitarian ones that make me so sad, I can't watch them.