Su & I have been in Wellington now for 3 weeks and it has been a bit of a rollercoaster of emotions for us. We started off very positively, absolutely certain that we would find work really quickly, be able to save loads due to our free accommodation and set about enjoying Wellington with all its cultural delights and excellent wildlife sanctuaries. But it didn't really work like that at first! Su applied to agencies to find healthcare assistant work, thinking that would be a winner due to her nursing background. She was given the impression by one agency that work was a cert, only to receive a telephone call a couple of days later to say that it would involve too much work to take her on for just 6 weeks. Meanwhile I called around the universities and libraries looking for casual work, was advised that there were loads of jobs going, but that I was overqualified and would probably be bored! So I tried agencies, only to find that some didn't want people for any less than 3 months and I didn't have smart enough clothes for others, plus with the current economic situation many people weren't looking for new employees, especially when they come attached with an agency fee, so it really wasn't worth me buying a smart set of clothes when I wasn't guaranteed a full working week. So we spent a large part of our early days in Wellington wandering around looking in shop & cafe windows, trawling jobsites online and making useless visits to agencies. Add in running out of money, lots of wind and rain, not meeting other people, and we started getting very tetchy with each other and were generally feeling quite low.

The turning point came at the end of our second week in town, when we decided that we should get away for the weekend and arranged to go back to the Kapiti Coast to see Ross, Helen & Stevie and do some more painting, then head up to Otaki to the other house on our cleaning agenda, to start the cleaning but also to spend some time outside, walking on the beach, sitting in the garden and just stopping for a while. We arrived at Ross & Helen's and promptly exploded at each other (quietly downstairs, not a screaming row in front of them!), then took some time to properly talk things through to get some perspective on things. And the penny dropped, especially for Su who had been feeling much worse than I had realised. She googled homesickness and found she could tick every box - she was desperately missing home, especially as her best friend has just had a baby, and was feeling extremely anxious, angry and almost depressed. She read that this often happens in about the fourth month (tick), is worse the further you are from home (tick), it can make you feel angry (tick), and can bring on feelings similar to depression (tick). Which was also a bit of a shock to me, as I know Su is more of a homebody than me, but I had no idea of the extent of her feelings (although neither had she). Things were less drastic for me, but I found that it reminded me of the bad bits of living in Brighton - having no money to go out and do fun things and constantly looking for jobs, which reminded me of the person I was trying to get away from, the person constantly worrying about money and work, which let's face it, doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. So there we were, both experiencing difficult emotions, generally being quite insular, and feeding off each others anxieties - a recipe for disaster!

But realising this helped enormously as when you know the real problem it is easier to find the solution. We spend the day painting, had lunch with Ross's family, a little play with the adorable Stevie who is already showing a desire for a decent bottle of wine, just like his parents(!) and then Helen cooked my favourite lamb chops, Ross uncorked yet another extremely lovely bottle of red wine, this time a French Syrah/Grenache and we had a lovely evening. The next day we set off for Otaki, in Shadowfax who we had missed enormously, arrived at this beautiful little house, and opened the car door to breathe in fresh, clean air, hear birdsong and see lush green grass (from all the rain!), stunning flowering bushes, little mandarin and lemon trees and the mountains in the background, with birds of prey circling, all on a stunningly clear, warm day. What a tonic that was! It's funny, I always thought I was a city girl, but while I love being close to decent shops and the arts and culture found in cities, I know that as long as I am relatively close to a city I want to live in the country, surrounded by greenery and birdsong, and preferably by the sea, because that is my ultimate tonic. So, after leaving our stuff at the house, we made a flask of tea (how British!) and drove to Otaki Beach, which was stage 3 in our recovery. Otaki Beach is simply stunning. It is a wild, windswept beach, like the beaches of Norfolk, Holkham perhaps, only with a much rougher sea than we've witnessed back home, with the waves breaking miles out to sea. We found a conveniently placed fallen tree and sat drinking our tea, eating mallowpuffs and just breathing in the sea, the salty air and the call of the seagulls. Again we felt that little bit more human. A couple of hours later we headed back, stopping to buy some treats for tea, and ate a simple lunch on the veranda, looking at the mountains. The evening was completed by a big bowl of noodles accompanied by David Tennant (they've just started showing the recent series of Doctor Who here, a tonic for anybody!), a roaring fire (built by Su, a.k.a. Ray Mears!), and followed by a huge bowl of chocolate log, cream, and boysenberries. The day was complete and we were already feeling much better, with a greater perspective on things.

The following morning we began cleaning the kitchen, stopping to walk around the garden, smell the flowers and pick fruit, before reluctantly packing up and heading back to the city. We stopped to drop Shadowfax off at her temporary home and found poor Stevie had an ear infection so we went to the doctors with him and Helen for some support, and then came back. And then we started work. We eventually both found work as housekeepers for the Quest chain, me at Quest on Willis and Su at Quest on Terrace, and it is amazing how much a job making beds and cleaning bathrooms helped us - it just feels good to be doing something again, to be meeting people and to have some money coming in. So we feel pretty much back to normal. The Wellington Film Festival has just started and we have been planning to see a number of films, plus plan trips to the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, Te Papa plus other museums and galleries, the ferry to Eastbourne(!), Cape Pallister and the Seal Coast and the walkways and parks of Wellington. Plus some of the people we met in Tauranga are planning to be around Wellington at this time so we are trying to arrange meeting some for drinks or a walk. All of which goes to show you should never lose sight of now, of the ability to have fun and mostly of course of the reasons we are here!

As I was writing this last night Su was baking chocolate afghans, making the whole flat smell deliciously of chocolate, and today I've been to buy tickets to see 'Flower in the Pocket', a film about two Chinese Malaysian boys described as 'a little film with big, deep pockets, Flower is in equal parts childhood idyll, absurdist comedy, gentle social satire and family mystery' - we will report soon....

With love, Jo & Su, xxx