Things are starting to settle down towards what some people might call normality albeit that we are 11,684 miles away from home! We have settled into a place that we can temporarily call home and having our own space (well at least a bedroom and a bathroom of our own) makes a great change from sleeping in the van for 4 weeks. My job is all signed and sealed and after a frustrating 6 hours spent sitting in NZ immigration I have my work permit. The same cannot sadly be said for Katie as one thing after the next delays her registration to the NZ nursing council. Hopefully now though after replacing documents that have been lost in the post and finally getting her ex-boss to write her a reference things should be on track. Katie has two jobs waiting her registration. One will be doing bank work (supply) at Christchurch Public hospital where she will be able to pick and choose the hours and shifts to work and secondly Katie will be working for an agency where she will be called upon to work at various care homes in the Christchurch area.Having got to know our way around the city now and with the impending work date looming we have started to look for things that we can do in our spare time. We have signed up for an indoor climbing course at The Roxx, we have started swimming regularly at the local sports complex, we are considering taking high diving lessons and if that isn't sporty enough we are both now proud owners of new bikes. These not only are going to be our transport to work but it also means that we don't have to drive everywhere anymore.Working in the week will mean that weekends will be precious once again so we are training ourselves to make the most of them. What better way to spend one was at Oktoberfest. Katie and Rachel disappeared to watch a film leaving myself and Tom at the Vespa Bar, a drinking hole in town, to enjoy the 16 piece brass oompaa band, hog roast and large beers. This was a mistake, as, by the time Katie and Rachel came to pick us up Tom could no longer pronounce the words "Vespa Bar" and I was a little worse for wear myself. After we dropped Rachel and Tom off at home I proceeded to fall asleep in the back of the van whist Katie drove us home where I stayed until 7am the next morning, asleep, outside the front of the house!Finally this blog entry would not be complete without mentioning that on the 18th of October Paul and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. We began the day with cards and gifts, well one of the gifts anyway since mine hadn't arrived in the post from the US. Since the symbol for this anniversary is paper, Paul had got a book on origami from the library and proceeded to create a origami flower garden masterpiece for me. He's so lovely. Later in the evening we went to dinner at the "Octagon" which is an old converted church. The food is excellent and they provide live music in the form of grand piano, sax, and singing which we really enjoyed.