Granny23 mentioned that some of you had another meet-up and reminisced fondly about the glad-to-see-the-back-of-you lunch. I'm glad that you enjoyed it; I certainly had fun but it does seem more than four months ago.
I thought you might like a quick snapshot of how it is now. We are living in a small three-bedroom house in Richmond, a small town on the north coast of the South Island. The garage is packed full of surplus furniture and storage boxes – and toy boxes. We have a small garden with a lawn for the children to play and rather neglected beds. I am planning to plant some tomatoes and vegetables a little later this month when there is no more danger of overnightfrost – it's spring here – and am gradually weeding and tidying up the shrubs.
The children comes to us after school four days a week as all they have to do is walk across a school field (the three at primary) or scoot down a fairly busy road before turning off (the 11-year-old at Intermediate). I collect the one-year-old from the nursery that is five-minutes walk-away. It must be pretty obvious why we chose this house, but it is also quite a nice little house and we are comfortable and now fairly settled here after eight weeks. We also look after the baby all day Thursday which seems to whizz past as he is such a cheerful little soul. Ours is the emergency phone number of anyone is unwell or has a mishap at school. We seem to making up for our absence at a rate of knots.
I am completely worn out and having a simply fabulous time. Yesterday I created a treasure hunt to keep them all occupied for about an hour. The clue they couldn't get was "where Granna sits" and they wasted a lot of time looking underneath every chair in the house until someone spotted the next clue sticking out of the back pocket of my jeans. Absentdaughter doesn't work on Wednesdays so I have been catching up on other stuff today but have also made a big batch of play dough – a special request from the nine-year-old granddaughter surprisingly. I haven't made that since the days when absentdaughter was in toddler group.
I don't seem to have a huge amount of time to visit gransnet and, of course, I am asleep when you are all at your most active – or at least I am in bed listening to Mr absent's snores 
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Apologies to anyone who looks at this thread and has no idea who I am or why I am burbling on like this but I thought there might be a couple of people who'd like to know how it is for this new Kiwi.
In one way the time has flown since your leaving lunch but you have certainly packed lots in to your time.
for your garden as there is no veg emoticon.
Resources for advice on giving up
