Home

Our Home

Decorated with memories

Filled with energy in motion

Carnaval without masks

Palace of brittal identities

creating colours

to blend into the world

and when clashing

flowing back into

the cocoon of shelter of

Our home

"Under pressure"screams the radio. Nearly time to free ourselves from the magnetic pull of the bed. First thing I put my jacket on. It is freezing cold. When everybody arrives in the kitchen William and I try to fast forward the children who are still stuck in a dreamworld. Soon it is quiet. It is Tuesday, my day off. Kling klang, the dishes are stacked in the sink. No beautiful singing of a dishwasher. And than it is time to write (and to clean but I repress that successfully) It all happens in the kitchen on the picture above in our house. An old wooden white house. Cars are zooming past. Nobody wants to live anywhere else however because it is cosy and it's home. It is nearly spring so William will soon spent a lot of time in our reasonable sized garden. There are not many houses left here with big gardens. They are either subdivided or new townhouses with hardly any grass around it. A bit strange in a country with so much space.

We bought our house nearly 10 years ago. Just in the right time when they were reasonably cheap. The house prices doubled since than. The medium price of a house in Christchurch is about $330.000 at the moment and the interest rate about 10%. Compared with Holland for example it is still cheaper. With a strong economy and unemployment at a nearly all time low you would think it is not that bad here. Eh stop the salaries are pathetic. Still houses popping up everywhere and getting filled up quickly with many new emigrants (English, South African,Dutch, Japanese and others) Most come here for the lifestyle however like us or they stayed at school a bit longer which pays off. We made the right decision though, we like it here.

A serious Marja

(Some didn't know I could be as serious as in my blog. I am, get over it.)