Houses aren’t cheap in NZ (or anywhere else – thanks boomers ;) . We have been pretty happy renting, but, with a 14 month old and our lease finishing we really wanted to get our own place. We had been looking for a long time, always getting outbid; sometimes by a lot, sometimes by a little.

Buying a house in Christchurch is further complicated by the fact that we had that massive earthquake, and then some houses were repaired properly, and some houses weren’t. Maaike and I are both pretty risk-adverse (esp when it comes to houses), so, we were hoping to buy a house which was build after the earthquakes. Of course, that massively limits your options (and also means that there is decent competition, as we’re not the only people who think like that).

Anyway, finally found a place not too far from where we were living. It’s modern (soulless ;) and ours. And it’ll be totally fine for the next 5ish years. It has a nice flat fenced garden section so Anna can run around and generally not get mown down too easily by a car. Its close to parks & the hills, it’s opposite a bakery (dangerous) and a dairy (small shop, for some unknown reason they’re called dairies in NZ).

We hired movers to help us move. Best $500 we’ve ever spent. Will absolutely use a moving company next time. Unbelievably efficient and strong!! Yes, very happy.

Shortly after moving in, we had two friends Alex and Clare come by for dinner. We met them on our trip to Antarctica and dropped into them in london so it was very nice to have them over to our patch in NZ.

So, happy to be in our place, looking forward to unpacking and making it our own place.

Managed to get away for one day of skiing this season. I had a great day on the slopes with Ian and Paddy. I admit there was a certain amount of “don’t be a fool and smash yourself to pieces on your one day out”. I survived, it was great to be out there (until the mist rolled in anyway!)

And then it was time for the flight home. Several flights home. As a new parent, I’ve certainly worried about my kid being quiet on the planes, or at least not being too disruptive. Anna was really good on the way home, but, we did have one pretty awful Australian older lady sitting beside us on the flight from Germany to Singapore. Picture your lovely old granny. Now, imagine her being not lovely, puckered old face like she’s just sucked on a lemon, and rubbed iodine in it. Right, got that.

So, Singapore Airlines had the best staff of any of the flights we’d been on. They were immediately there with the bassinet, they gave us food early, checked in on us all the time – they were simply excellent. We’d had our dinner and Maaike gets up to go to the loo (Anna is peaceful in the bassinet). As soon as Maaike leaves, Anna starts howling. Our lovely neighbour immediately tells me that my child is distressed, and that I should comfort her. She goes on to inform me that our child is “upsetting hundreds of people around us on the aircraft”. She made no offer to hold my tray (I was basically trapped), no offer to comfort Anna, no nothing.

Fuck that. I asked her had she ever been a parent (she had), I asked her if she’d ever let her children cry and settle themselves (she had). She then informed me again that my child was unsettled and needed comforting.

I forget how the rest of that conversation went, but, we didn’t swap contact details at the end of the flight. What a miserable old bat.

For the record, Anna was great, we had people come up to us in Singapore airport and tell us how wonderful she’d been on the flight (etc. etc.) She was a bit worse on the flight from Singapore into ChCh, but, she was basically fine. We also had a lovely guy sitting next to us on the leg into ChCh, and he was totally fine with the whole situation (even ended up playing squash with him back in ChCh!)

Be kind if you can, offer to help if you can, and if not, keep your nasty opinions to yourself. Parents travelling with small kids are going to do their very very best.