KEY POINTS:
Rotorua - we're here!
After years of anticipation the move has been made and, considering the complications inherent in any shift from one city to another, with relative - but only relative - ease.
This was the 19th move my wife and I have made in 30 years of marriage, including six in Australia, and with any luck at all it will be our last until someone carts us off to an old folks' home or to the local cemetery.
We have moved only twice in the past 10 years and this time we found to our dismay that, for all our experience, it has become an awful lot harder with age.
Exhausting, in fact. And painful. I have suffered muscular aches and pains in parts of my body I didn't know muscles existed.
But in spite of the daunting task of unpacking cubic kilometres of cardboard boxes and folding for disposal bales of wrapping paper it has been worth it, for I feel a strong but quiet sense of relief at being quit of the Big Smoke.
How good it is to live once again in a manageable place. Rotorua is what I call a "20-minute town", that is one in which you can drive from one side of the city to the other in any direction in 20 minutes max - any time of the day or night.
We have downsized considerably, so one of the most testing experiences has been finding a place for everything we didn't give away or chuck out before we left.
For instance: our less-than-10-year-old townhouse in Auckland, with its two-and-a-half bathrooms, has been replaced with a home built around the time I was in high school - of rimu from top to bottom - in which the only bathroom would fit into our previous en suite.
The tradesmen of Rotorua are rubbing their hands with glee as we transform our (please, God!) last home into a place of comfort, peace and serenity.
The interior has been painted throughout; the dog/cat door has been put in; an electrician has attended to inadequate and missing power points; the Sky TV people will be here today to set up the dish; and so will the bathroom lady with recommendations for renovations.
Soon the flooring bloke will turn up to renew the kitchen lino and, if there's any money left, the plumbers and gasfitters will be called in to install gas hot water heating.
And for the first time in our married life my wife and I have a proper bed - you know, one with a headboard and a footboard and wooden slats to hold the mattress. No more base and mattress for us.
I managed without difficulty to assemble it myself but so far it hasn't been slept in. Tonight's the night!
Even the cat and the dog are enjoying their new environment, although it took both, the cat in particular, some time to settle down. She disappeared the moment I let her out of her travelling cage, appeared briefly a few hours later, then disappeared again. But when I got up the next morning she was curled up in the hall.
The spaniel was tranquillised for the journey, but apart from going bleary-eyed, would have none of it. It was fascinating to watch him fight the vet's drug and stay awake for the entire trip.
But the feature of the week has, perhaps, been the emailed response from 30-odd readers to last week's column, not only from Aucklanders, Northlanders and Hamiltonians wishing us well but from a number of Rotorua folk letting us know we are welcome.
In gratitude I record here just a sample:
"Welcome to Rotorua! All the best and I hope you feel at home here."
"I enjoy your column greatly and I am glad you will continue to write it ... All the best to you and your wife in Rotorua and I look forward to your next article."
"A warm welcome to Rotorua. We seem to get more than our fair share of bad publicity at times so it is good to welcome you here."
"Delighted to read that you've chosen Rotorua. Welcome!"
"Hope you enjoy our beautiful city and region. Here's an invitation to a concert ... "
"I cannot think of a finer, more beautiful place to live than Rotorua ... wish you a very happy time here, and thanks a lot for your columns in the Herald which I enjoy reading."
"We were green with envy reading that you chose Rotorua to move to. Good on you. That is our most desired locale as well and we have coveted living there for years now."
But a very special blessing goes to the bloke who wrote: "Good riddance to bad rubbish. Don't Ever Come Back."
