Somewhere to Live

The first problem to solve on arriving in New Zealand was finding somewhere to live! We had plans to look for a short-term rental of a furnished house or flat, and then move later. However, this proved impossible, because furnished lets were in very short supply, and no-one wanted a short-term let anyway, other than serviced apartments, which are expensive. So we ended up taking a 12-month lease on an unfurnished house in Point Chevalier, Auckland.

It's a typical small New Zealand house: wood frame construction, weatherboarded walls, and a corrugated iron roof. It's an older house that's been recently refurbished. There's a verandah outside the front door - we're not posh enough to have a verandah round the sides as well! The main living areas have sealed and polished floorboards, whose rich red-brown colour gives a real warmth to the living room. It's great, and we have really fallen on our feet. Mind you, scraping together enough furniture to make it livable has been quite a struggle!

Point Chevalier is a charming little suburb to the west of Auckland city centre. It's partly surrounded by water, with the harbour on two sides and a creek on a third, and so it’s somewhat isolated, which gives it more of a community feel than you might expect in a big city. The tree-lined streets, privet hedges in bloom, and the signs to the tennis club remind me very much of the English suburbs I grew up in.