Hope you are all keeping well and looking forward to Springtime. I am having real trouble getting my head round these upside down seasons. The climate change never really affected us when we were out in the Far East, we left in the summer and it remained summer for four years! But here it is so weird, Easter especially, you always associate Easter with springtime and the weather getting warmer, but it’s Autumn and getting colder and it feels like it should be nearly Christmas, but Christmas is in summer and ages away. We are used to Christmas in the sun, but in Singapore it was always hot so it didn’t seem odd, but having a winter with no Christmas is going to be really strange!
The new house is great; it is just wonderful to have space and privacy again. Our container arrived just before we moved in. We drove up the hill above the port to see the boat dock and we could actually see our container on it! (see picture) I know that’s a bit sad but it is exciting when all your stuff arrives on the boat :)Getting the shipment cleared was hard work but we had expected that. New Zealand has extremely strict bio-security screening on everything that comes in. They are determined to keep out disease and pests that could harm the agriculture here.
You have to have a very detailed inventory that lists everything in the container; this then has to go through the ministry who will mark certain items that they want to inspect. This can include anything from camping equipment, shoes, bikes, baskets, untreated wood etc.
Even though we had been extremely careful about our packing, they still wanted to inspect all of our Christmas decorations, an air conditioning unit, folding chairs, garden tools and some packing crates. Once they have marked items for inspection you are not allowed to move them until they have been checked, and you have to pay a hefty fee for each item that they have to see. If they decide that they have to fumigate then you have to pay for that also.
You can only unpack your container at designated sites, the floors have to be concrete and situated away from any soil or plant life, and you are not allowed to open your container without a government official present (whose time you also have to pay for) he then inspects everything and ensures that the items that the ministry have to see are put to one side.
It is a lengthy, complicated and expensive procedure, however it did run smoothly and they were very professional and efficient.
All of our stuff was cleared, except for our Christmas tree; it seems it was fitted with decorative pine cones – ooops!! The men from the ministry cleared the area, donned white overalls and proceded to remove the offending articles (it was like that scene from ET were they have him in the white tent!)
Anyway he seemed very pleased with his ‘find’ he sealed everything in plastic and informed me that there were over 200 potential trees in that bag. An image of 200 lethal pine trees growing out of the living room carpet flashed through my mind, but I actually managed to keep my mouth shut!
I thanked him for not destroying my tree and he told me where I could get some nice uncontaminated New Zealand cones to replace them with.
Maybe by Christmas we’ll have time to do that :)
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