Hello All,

Had the worst night sleep in ages, was up and down like a yo-yo, stupid chesty cough, Personally i blame the terrible take-away indian we had last night, wont be returning there. Didnt have our usual companions so wasnt a lot of bant or finger pointing or photos!!

After speaking to Shirley about cars etc we decided to get one while we were in Auckland as there would be more of a selection. I realised after finishing the call it had cost me $18 and if i had used the phone in the flat it would have been free (although this was broken just our luck) i got out my big yellow butt phone this afternoon to show the caretaker their phone was crap, in doing so it slipped out that i was a bt engineer.... (summit like that)

We had a quick browse online and found a few cheap cars in howick which was an hour bus journey, this bus driver was nice though (he was scottish). Before we departed on our adventure we had to find the key for the flat all i can say is im sure its a womans job to check the mans pockets, before putting it in the washing machine!!!

We spent ages looking out for our bus stop and still ended up missing it, we wandered around a nice little town, eventually found where we were meant to go.

Spoke to a nice chap from the garage called richard who hailed from essex and has been here for 7 years. Had a look at a few cars eventually decided to take a couple for a test drive my choice was a NISSAN SKYLINE as kate will never allow me to get the boy racer car in the UK. The majority of cars were automatic which was great fun and less work for me. As i went to turn out of the drive i didnt realise that the indicator was on the wrong side, so we had a comical moment as the wipers went crazy. we took the nissan out for a quick spin i loved it, katie then attempted to drive her first auto car and instantly started panicing but she did well.
We then took the mitsubishi mirage out for a spin and it wasnt as comfortable or nice to drive i attempted to move the seat backwards and pulled the wrong lever i ended up lying down!! We got back to the garage and sorted out all the paperwork and put a deposit down for the skyline and we will be collecting it next friday. Got the car for a bargin price of $2950 :)

Upon arriving back at our flat, we discovered that the washer/dryer we put on this morning had forgotten it could do both and ended up spitting wet clothes out at us. we put it back on for a drain which was an epic fail. When the caretaker came to fix it he turned it on as said it works hahaha genius! then we explained the problem and he started to drain it then swore as he released the valve too much and water was pissing out of it, i was hard to watch him struggling to pour one saucepan in the sink as another was filling up, so i helped him! arent i nice. :) he then found the blockage was a coin a label and a tiny twig i think he was attempting to blame us, personally i think it was kates fault! haha.

Going to cook some chicken schnitzel and kumara potatoes (they're not potatoes they're SPUDS).

We shall upload some more photos soon.

Hope all are well!

Alan & Kate

xxx