New digs!

Places to live in can be hard to come by in these land-starved small towns surrounding Wellington. Some people have even begun commuting the 90 minutes 'over the hill' on winding, steep roads to come from the Wairarapa Valley to work in Welly. I can't blame them for this as it's really very nice over that way, but nevertheless it's a bit far removed for me at the moment.

With my three cats coming over in two months, and the fact that they all live only indoors, I figured I needed to start looking for a place soon. As an aside, most cats live outdoors all the time over here, something I'm not really comfortable with, so I didn't want to have flatmates who might assume that my cats also can go in and out as they please.

The one thing I was looking forward to about finding somewhere to live was the prospect of having flatmates. Danie has turned out to be a good friend, even though he's now in Australia, and he was a great flatmate to have. It'd be a potentially quick way to not only make a new friend but to then also have a circle of friends, as I'd meet more people through any new flatmates.

But to find the right combination of place to stay that will let me have indoor cats along with agreeable flatmates would take too long, so I moved on the first thing that came up. For better or worse, I'm moving into a small 'townhouse' (what we'd call a duplex) that's only five minutes from work. It's in a small development called Totara Park, and it's across the Hutt River from Upper Hutt itself. By the way, what they refer to as rivers here are really nothing more than very large creeks. That's not meant to be a putdown in any way, it's just that back home when I think of rivers I conjure up images of wide, deep, fast-running water. Here I'd say the rivers are much more 'quaint'.

Anyways, it turns out one of the nurses at work, Claire, lives just a few doors down from me on the same street with her partner. Ironically enough, all of the streets in Totara Park are named after States or cities in the USA, although I'm not exactly sure where my 'Freemont Green' would hail from in America ...

It will be easy to move this time, but soon I'll need to furnish this place - certainly before I have any guests, as my current 'furniture' inventory consists of:

- a folding chair, the kind you'd take to the beach, complete with slots for drinks in the armrests
- an inflatable mattress (it's a deluxe one, natch!)

And there you have it. There is a place down here called "Big Save" and apparently they will furnish your whole flat in a sort of package deal, so I'm headed there as soon as I get moved in.

Just pray that if I find something, it's not tacky or too 'Neo Fraternity' style! Interior decorating is not my strong suit. Pictures to follow.

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