HELEN GETS HER WORK VISA!

I GOT MY WORK PERMIT AND WORK VISA TODAY !

In fact, I got 4! Well, firstly they have put a Permit AND a Visa in my passport, but they mucked up the first set of 2 and had to stamp VOID all over them and then they issued them with the CORRECT leaving date! Glad I spotted their mistake as otherwise I'd have had to leave the country next weekend!!

Was it easy? Yes... very. After Warren got his Work Visa I was legally able to apply for one too. I made an appt to see my case officer at the Chch office for 10am today, 25th Jan. I took along a letter from Warren which stated he was my hubby and that he had a job and visa etc and how long we'd been married. I also took his passport with his Work Visa in it.. plus my marriage cert and, of course, a completed application form.

I think I was nearly a dead woman in the Immigration Office. There was a huge queue and I just waltzed past them all and said I had an appointment. Oooh if looks could kill - I think some of them had been camping there for weeks by the state of them - I was whisked to a corner where I gave in my bits, he said come back in an hour. I came back an hour later, smuggly walked past the SAME people in the queue and he handed me my passport ... DONE (well, except for the date issue but he sorted that in mins!!).

So, if you are in NZ and have a case officer allocated for your ITA... contact them for visa's etc and you'll be whizzed through..

Right, time to find a job!

Summer Finally Arrived......

If there's one thing we both wanted when we were settled in New Zealand it's a dog. We did some scouting about before Christmas but decided that we would wait until we had bought our own property. Sensible huh!

Little did we know that there was a dog out there looking for us.

Whilst preparing the Christmas Dinner on the BBQ we spotted a dog hanging around the garden gate. We went out to investigate and this poor little dog was scared stiff, rather shabby and looking very lost. Assuming she had escaped we proceeded to go round the neighbours houses asking if they were the owners etc.. to no avail.

After an hour or so Warren made the unpopular decision to ring the Dog Pound. There were tears. How could we do this to a poor dog on Christmas Day.. put sense prevailed and not long after the Dog Man arrived and carted her off to the Pound. Oh boy, that was awful. We made it clear that if she was not claimed we would like to take her!!!

Every single day I rang the Pound asking how she was and if she had been claimed. Finally, on the Wednesday after Christmas I was told that she had indeed been claimed by her owners. Mixed emotions - glad she had been reunited with her owners but sad that we would not see her again.

Imagine our surprise, and delight, when TWO WEEKS later we had a call from the Pound asking whether we were taking her or not as she was, literally, on death row. I rushed over and picked her up and ever since she has been an amazing companion to us both!!! We are SO happy. And so is she! We have never walked so much! In total she gets about 5 walks a day! She loves the beach and swims like a fish, she is amazingly well behaved and it appears she has been trained as a gun dog. She is a collie/pointer cross so full of beans and runs like the wind! She knows all the regular commands and within hours we had her off the lead and coming back to us on command! We're very lucky!

Meet Summer....