Evan left you with a real cliffhanger with us and Rik standing in the rain by the side of the road out of Kaikoura, with our bags getting slowly wetter and a cardboard sign saying "Christchurch." Well it started slow I have to say... but then we were blessed as Evan was poo-ed on by a seagull! Not only was this incredibly amusing for me and Rik, BUT it also brought us good luck, and fast, for within 5 minutes a guy pulled up in a massive landcruiser with room for all three of us and our bags and driving all the way to Christchurch. He was an interesting guy, and also had some kind of sleep problem as he made us promise to keep him awake, as he mainlined diet coke and red bull. We chatted about his job in Iraq and he told us about how much money the US army wastes each day having each meal shipped out from the US (from a firm owned by cheyney , they charge something like $24 per meal!), how they won't use any local ingredients, or labour to support them, but instead ship in lots of philipinos to be the kitchen staff. Anyway.... a few wet and rainy hours later we arrived in Christchurch and Rik made his way to Dorset House and we headed to New Brighton where we had another cleaning gig lined up.

New Brighton sounds kind of cool eh? by the beach, bit new age etc... WRONG... it's a depressing little suburb, probably passable in the baking sunshine but intensely depressing midwinter. We arrived all wet and soggy and were put to work cleaning Point Break backpackers immediately. Now, on our travels we've kind of got an idea of what we like in a hostel - small, friendly, log fire, and what we don't like - large groups of kiwi experience people arriving each day, cold, miles away from anywhere. On the plus side the owner - Kat - is lovely and single handedly running a cafe and a backpackers on her own AND there aren't any bus tours. However, not only are there no bus tours, there are no people... and it's COLD and miles away from anywhere.... so we cleaned friday, then fell into bed, deciding to do somthing about it tomorrow. (one positive is Big Pizz co is round the corner and did large pizza's for 5 dollars (less than 2 pounds) i could have stayed there!)

Saturday dawned and we changed yet more beds and cleaned more toilets and told Kat that as we could not commit to staying for weeks then she was more than welcome to phone up the other couple she had on standby and we would move out of the staff room the next day. She was very lovely about the whole thing and after our cleaning stint, we packed up some sandwiches and headed into town to meet up with Rik and Nicole - who by this time had arrived at a family friend's student house in Christchurch for the week. We wandered round looking at the nightlife that christchurch has to offer making use of the happy hour drinks. Nicole was picked up to be taken to an all nighter with her housemates which she was dreading, and we went back to Rik's place to eat our sandwiches, then head out again to Mickey Finn's. This is an irish bar with ludicrously cheap beer and pool. Evan and Rik were challenged by 2 pool sharks ( who were very quick to explain the reason they were so crash hot at pool is that they have a pool table in their 4-car garage.) (wise guys!)and started badly by losing 2 games out of 2. However, they ended up taking the match 3-2, and which point we decided to leave as the night buses to new brighton are not up to London standards, ie they don't exist. (Jennifer has slightly glossed over the pool here. Me and Rik were on a socialable night out and had been drinking and these Kiwi guys clearly thought there was some easy pickings on offer and wanted to thrash the Pommes. they went 2-0 up without us really paying attention though one of them was a pretty hot pool player. then they said "ahh fella's you can't go out like that!) only it sounded like ihhhh follis ye kint go art loke thit" so we focused, steeled a bit of northern grit and showed them what the pool halls (snooker club near porter cottage) of sheffield can produce. Spanked them, 3 to zip to take the best of 5. happy to let them pay for each game (if they can afford 4 car garages they can afford 5 dollars for my entertainment. that's more like how it happened, we were ace)

Sunday dawned and time to move hostel. We had done a little reccie on saturday and decided on Vagabonds as it's small and cosy, but sadly they could not fit us in til Monday so we spent the night at dorset house with Rik, which is very plush and not at all like a hostel. Having dumped our bags there we met up with Rik and Nicole to spend a lovely sunday in the cold but sunny weather exploring. First stop was the Arts Centre which was built as a uni and school in the 19th century but the uni moved out in 1975 to a suburb and the building is now home to craft shops, a theatre and an indie cinema. At the weekend there are lots of craft stalls and more importantly lots of very cheap world food stalls. HOORAY. Evan had a kind of chinese combo which seemed to be a bit of everything from satay to curry to ribs, for the equiv of about 2 pounds 50. I had a potato pancake for about 1 pound 50, Nicole hit jackpot with penang tofu and Rik had some deep fried vegetable fritters which he said were just like donuts. We also checked out the Cathedral ( built by the same guy who designed St Pancras in London) and played pooh sticks under the shade of the weeping willow trees on the River Avon which runs right through the city. Christchurch is very picturesque with trams running through it and lots of quaint bridges here and there. It is rather like Oxford or Cambridge, but mighty colder I'd say!

Monday dawned and it was time to hit the job agencies. We tramped round a few places who said they didn't often get work for just a week or two so took our CVs without asking us to register properly. We left our CVs with one agency and miraclulously they called us back and asked us to pop in to see them to talk more. Hooray... so we subjected ourselves to interviews ( very pleasant) and computer tests - sigh - however, apparently we did very well on these ( I should think so too) and I can type at 68 words per minute at 100% accuracy ( although this entry probably contradicts that) and Evan is some kind of data entry whizz. The least said about advanced excel the better. Anyway, our consultant is very nice and said she was sure she'd be able to get us something. Indeed the next morning, barely out of my PJs when she called and by 11am I was behind the reception desk for Crane Distribution who make plumbing and electical bits. The role was very easy, and entailed being nice to senior management team and ensuring meeting rooms had enough biscuits etc... but also involved doing mailmerges and typing up documents and stuff to keep me busy. All vey painless. Jane wanted me to take this role as she was busy trying to market Evan to the same company and after much persistence he started there on Friday! However, the girl I was covering for made a full recovery so I am now jobless, but at least Evan has work for basically as long as he wants it. The building he is in does not house the senior management team and appears to be very friendly and fun, so I think he'll enjoy it, and everyone who works there is very nice, so now we just need them to find me something else to do and we'll be fine....

Socially this week we've not done much. Rik headed off with Nicole on the trans scenic railway over the alps on Monday and although Nicole came back he stayed to check out the west coast. We met Nicole on Wednesday night and sampled the delights of the asian food court where I rediscovered rice dumplings a la vietnam and proceeded to eat three for under a pound, plus a bowl of rice noodle soup as we discussed with Nicole where she REALLY should visit in asia ( as clearly we're now experts!) Nicole and Evan both ate mountainous curries for very cheap. Then back to our place for a few rounds of rummikub with NZ tv in the background, on any given day of the week there will be some kind of CSI show, or some kind of pretend CSI show, very dull. My fave show here is called Men in Trees, not sure if that has arrived in the UK yet? it's quite good in a northern exposure meets sex in the city way...

Anyway I digress, because of our very early starts, I've been getting up at 6.30am to make the 40 minute walk to work to start at 8am ( we're backpackers we cannot spend good money on bus journeys!) we didn't do much in the evenings this week, but on Friday we met Nicole as it was her last night before flying to Oz. We finally made it to a Govinda's - I'm not sure if we told you about our complete failure to eat at one of these Hare Krishna places in Oz, but anyway, we had lots of lovely vege curry all for 2 pounds, and then it was 35p ( 1 dollar) for a second helping so although we weren't hungry in the slightest we went back for seconds. and marvellous it was.

Whilst we're on the subject of food this weekend we've had a very lazy time... doing a spot of shopping, a spot of sightseeing around the city, and eating nice cheap lunches. Yesterday at a place not unlike Govindas where you can have either mash, rice or sweet potato with any kind of topping you want, so evan had falfel and I had an african bean curry. AND it comes with bread AND they have gluten free bread. and all for about 2pounds 50. Today we walked and walked and walked to a little house on the other side of Hagley Park which was the oldest homestead in the region of Canterbury ( everywhere round here is named after somewhere in England... there's even a Hillsborough, and a Sydenham and a Beckenham!!) and then treated ourselves to the arts centre food again.

It's absolutely freezing and I'm about to attempt some gluten free carrot muffins to warm us up...

Harry Potter is out on Wednesday, and it's my birthday on Tuesday and all our friends have left and Evan won't watch Harry... so if anyone has just won the lottery and fancies flying out to watch the film with me as a birthday treat....