Job news!

Hello all!

I wonder if anyone is actually still looking at this... Probably not - I wouldn't blame you for not bothering, with the poor effort I have been putting into updating it!

Anyway, we have more news to add now, which is what has prompted me into getting down to writing. All of you in the UK will be enjoying the beautiful weather, whereas here we are rolling into winter and things are getting chillier all the time! Actually, saying that, we had a really really cold June (coldest since 1925), but it has now warmed up considerably, and was in fact just above 20 degrees yesterday! Crazy for 'the middle of winter'. Still, the evenings are chilly and, with nowhere in NZ having central heating, the flat is very damp. So much so that we did in fact manage to sprout a mushroom in the bathroom two weeks ago - bit of excitement but overall not really a good sign!

On a more positive note (and moving away from our domestic fungal issues), I have a new job. I worked for a total of eight weeks at Waitakere Hospital (in west Auckland), doing the joyous task that is elderly rehab, but have now found new and far more satisfying employment at the Starship Hospital, right in the centre of Auckland. If nothing else it's far more convenient - I start work half an hour earlier than I did at Waitakere, but get an extra half an hour in bed, and get home from work earlier than I even finished work out West! In addition to that, which in itself was a reason to change jobs ($160 a month better off with not having to buy bus passes), I am actually doing a paediatric job now! Finally!

I am working in the country's only children's hospital, and my caseload is respiratory patients on the wards, as well as running the rheumatology clinic, doing neurodevelopmental assessments on the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and also covering the mental health and eating disorder unit. So a pretty varied workload, and much of it totally new to me. The team there seems great and really supportive, so I think I will really learn quickly and very much enjoy what I will be doing. And the social side of things seems good - we went out for drinks on Friday after work, had lunch out today, will have breakfast out tomorrow and a meal out on Friday night! So obviously the bus pass money will be going all on social activities, but I know where I'd rather be spending those dollars...

So that really is the big news. I am feeling very pleased with myself to have got the job there, and even more pleased that the team seems to be people I am looking forward to getting to know. Most of them are actually British, so finally I have found a group of people who understand my humour! My sarcasm (along with my stethoscope) has been set free again!

Nick however still has not found anything in the Landscape Architecture field (forgive the pun), but is temping for a goverment organisation, doing filing. Not the best use of his skills but he does say his alphabet is getting much much better! He is still very much on the lookout for a LA job, and is hoping that something will come up very soon.

I have put on a couple of pictures of the penguins at 'Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Adventure', where we went for my birthday. It is the most fantastic place - they have a moving walkway which travels along a tunnel through a tank full of fish, rays, sharks etc. They also have a huge open tank full of immense stingrays - some about 2m across. But, the crowning glory of the whole thing is the simulated Antarctic Landscape that has a colony of Gentoo and King penguins living in it! You travel around the outside of said icy landscape in what is essentially a large metal box, and get within about a metre of some of the birds. It was beyond amazing! Loved it. Will go back many times before we leave the country, without a doubt.

Think that's pretty much our news in a nutshell.

Enjoy the penguin piccies!

Lots of love to you all,

Vic and Nick.

xxx