A couple of years ago we started looking for somewhere pleasant to retire, we'd reached the ends of our tethers with the Santa business, my wife called it the "present tense" - so much stress trying to please everyone, everywhere around the world. We were burned out. We looked at parts of Europe, Britain and Canada but then one of the kids moved down here with some of our grandchildren (we call them the subordinate Clauses) and suggested we look in the Southern Hemisphere. We knew we wanted a warmer climate for my wife's arthritis, all that fiddly work crafting and wrapping had taken their toll, and I needed to think about my elf too. We had to have a fair bit of space for the reindeer, and happily we found an ideal block near Rodney, on Trade Me.
We have a good couple of hectares here, which suits us down to the ground because I'm a very keen gardener. It was so hard to get things to grow in the North Pole, all that ice and snow. The wife takes care of the flowers and I'm in charge of the vegetables. We have a little joke that I like nothing better than to hoe, hoe, hoe.
The property has deer fences all around, not that the reindeer take too much notice of things like that but, because there are a quite a few deer farms in the vicinity, the herd don't stick out like sore thumbs. I have a devil of a time ensuring Prancer and Blitzen stick to the perimeters, those two have always been trouble, but the others mostly stay on the property, they're not as frisky as they used to be. Retirement suits us all, although at this time of year we do get itchy feet and hooves. Sometimes I take them all to Snowplanet for a bit of a chill-out. We let ourselves in when it's closed - can't say how we do it, but you can understand with so many houses not having chimneys these days, we became pretty good at breaking and entering. And they love it there, you should see Rudolph's nose light up.
When I want a good cup of coffee and some baked goods (I hope my wife doesn't read this) I like to go to Little and Friday on Eversleigh Ave in Takapuna.
