M&J

It’s us again. Yes, we are still alive and we enjoy life.
A lot has happened since March …

Once again it was winter and thankfully the winter is not too cold in New Zealand. We now freeze like kiwis and pull us warmer once it’s below 15 degrees .

In August Martina’s sister Eva and Johannes (our nephew) came for a visit. We all had a great time together. We clearly have to repeat this in a few years .

We hope that we will get a lot of visitors in the next few years.

To welcome the visitors appropriately, we decided to buy a house. To find the right property in Germany is already hard enough, but with our European standards wishlist it is even more difficult to find something suitable in NZ within our means. After a long search, we settled for a new built.
Next July we will be proud homeowner of a detached house in Hobsonville Point. This is a neighborhood west of downtown with ferry connection to the city centre. Thus we hopefully can take it both easy riding the ferry to work and saving us the daily traffic jam on the highway.

Our house has 3 bedrooms on the 1st Floor and has an Ensuite for the master bedroom. All bedrooms have fitted wardrobes. On the ground floor we have an open kitchen, living and dining area and a separate family room. Also downstairs, a guest toilet and a laundry room. The house is oriented to the north and through the large folding doors we can enjoy the sun inside and outside. With a double garage and a small garden we have enough space for a game or two of soccer or perhaps rugby?
Our new home is within walking distance to daycare, elementary school and secondary school and over the next 1-2 years on top of a great cafe we will get several small shops and a supermarket very close. A playground and a large park are just around the corner.

The district is developed environmentally-friendly and we will ideally only need one car and can do many things on foot or by bike. This sounds for Europeans like common sense, but in NZ this is a new concept ;). If you want to know more about the area go to www.hobsonvillepoint.co.nz.
We hope that we can make a first internal inspection when Martina’s mum comes to visit at Christmas .

Two weeks ago was Auckland Marathon again and Jürgen has competed in the half marathon with big goals. Despite intensive training, he unfortunately had to significantly reduce his speed due to an injury to his left thigh midway through and so only made it to the finish in just over 2 hours. That meant a good 10 minutes past his targeted time . But after some motivating words and changing the shirt he actually looked quite happy. Don`t you agree? :

That’s it for now, no promises this time to write new posts soon, maybe it works faster this way .

Love,
Martina & Jürgen