Flight's booked.. Very scary !

Well it's a couple of weeks since I last posted and things have changed again. I'm pathetic aren't I ??

This week I've placed the house back on the market as I'm now hedging my bets. If someone wants to buy it, they can, if someone wants to rent it they can.

I've booked a one way flight to Auckland. I leave Manchester at 10:00am on 7th September using the wonders of Singapore Airlines. That will take me to Zurich, Singapore and then arrival in Auckland on 9th September 2006. That's a bit scary but after talking to my consultant in Auckland it was clear that neither of us could actually move on without a definite date to work towards. So I took the bull by the horns and booked a one way ticket. Its now all action stations to be ready for that date. I also realised that I'll need to resign from work in early August which is only 4 months time.. ooohhh. Its quite funny as my consultant in Auckland is from Meols, a small town about 20 mins from where I currently live. Its weird talking to someone 12,000 miles away and she has the same accent as me and knows as much about where I live as I do. She's been there for 12 years and loves it. So in short, I leave the UK in 4½ months, possibly for ever who knows. Jeez it frightens the life out of me just thinking about it.

For anybody interested in the ghost hunt I did the evening of my previous post, well it was rubbish. I'm sure there are hauntings at the place, there's enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that there is but the event was badly organised. It was the last night of the My Fair Lady show and once the audience left, the guys moved in to take down the set. There was 40 of them crashing about (not their fault, they had work to do) but it also meant that we were unable to investigate most of the venue, all of the lights were on so it was as bright as daytime and to make matters worse, the medium was, in my opinion, a charlatan, a total waste of time and about as psychic as my toothbrush (probably less so). We therefore didn't investigate any of the known haunted areas so there may have been ghosts dancing about all night but we saw or experienced sweet FA. In all, a waste of a nights sleep. Never mind hey?

Last Saturday, me and Shorty went ghost hunting in Nottingham again (our favourite place) - The photo above is one of the prison wings, the photo below, the exercise yard. It was as fantastic as it usually is at the Galleries.



As we've been there so many times they tend to leave us to our own devices and we have free run of the building. As well as the usual access we have on these ghost hunts, eg Court room, overnight cells, caves, chapel, laundryroom etc, we also had access to both the National Prison Museum and the National Police Museum which are located in the same building. Its great to see actual gallows from the days of capital punishment, flogging tables from the days of corporal punishment and all manner of fairly barbaric devices to restrain, hurt or humiliate the inmates.

The police museum also had loads of memorabilia dating back to the 18th century through to modern day. Again, fascinating stuff. We had a load of paranormal activity aswell, moving coins on our tests, doors slamming by themselves, a locked door opening, tapping noises in response to questions. One of the best bits of these ghost hunts is getting access to these amazing buildings and particularly into areas that nobody else gets to see. For example, most people don't even know that Nottingham had IRA prisoners let alone actually have access to the very cells they were housed in.

I didn't do a great deal over Easter myself. Well actually that's not quite true, apart from the Ghost Hunting above in Nottingham, I went to Betswy Coed on Good Friday for no other reason than it was a nice day and whenever I go to the place I'm on my way somewhere else (usually for work)



so I never actually stop, get out, have a wee, take in the sights etc. I therefore thought that I would and do you know ?? I jolly well did too (including the weeing) ha ha ha It was cool, even down to meeting the man who I buy my sarnies off each day at work ! There I was sitting on a rock at a waterfall watching the world go by and all of a sudden "hello John". And there he was.

The most bizarre thing was that he was asking me about NZ. How the hell does he know about that ? I was amazed he even knew my name but to know about my plans as well ?? Spooky ! And all from the man from the sandwich shop as well.






Things I've learned this week:-

a. Booking 1 way flights to the other side of the World concentrates the mind
b. Overnight ghost hunting destroys me for 2 days afterwards (must be getting old)
c. Be very suspicious of sandwich sellers.... they know everything.

Will post again the next time there's news..... or when I change my mind again, which is ever is sooner.

What a difference a fortnight makes !

A fortnight ago you may recall, I put the house up for sale. I didn't get a sniff from anybody which is really their loss as it's a great house and well priced ! Anyway, you may also remember I said that I was a little sad at letting it go ? Well before anybody came to view it, I decided that I'd keep the house after all but that I would refinance the mortgage to release some of the equity and thereby use that money to fund the trip to NZ. At least to get me there and settled in. Clearly I'll be earning soon after arriving and then my wages will hopefully pay my way.

So I've done some research on the web, spoken to a well known financial institution and had 'approval in principle'. They're going to send me the ubiquous forms to fill in and then they'll send around a suit to cast an eye over the place to :-
a: agree that it does exist and
b: agree that it's not about to fall down around my feet and thereby agree that the mortgage is secured on a decent enough crib.

So my plan, this week (as you can see it changes regularly) for NZ is to rent my gaffe here and then rent a gaffe in NZ.

Things I learned this week :-

a: Cats don't float

b: Hellens Manor in Herefordshire isn't as haunted as we would have liked (although the EMF readings in the Drawing Room and the 'fire projection' onto the ceiling were both very weird !!) - The pic at the top of this Blog is Hellens Manor at around 2am. The rather ghostly looking image is my mate Shorty, she's most certainly 'of this world' but is captured moving during the photo's long exposure.

c: Haunted locations dating back to the 13th Century at 2am in March are f-f-f-freezing. Brrrrrrr

d: Checking into hotels at 6am totally confuses the reception staff !!

e: Sky in NZ is off air as their satellite has "technical difficulties" - Anybody got a ladder & a good head for heights ?

I'm going to the Empire Theatre in Liverpool this evening for a paranormal Investigation. I'm really looking forward to it so hopefully we'll capture some evidence to prove its haunted reputation.

NZ progress update, Next week I need to call my Employment Consultant in Auckland to discuss matters of job hunting with them (which areas to concentrate on, salaries, T&C's, start dates, interview availability etc). So in my next post I may have some more information to pass on. The NZIS still has a 4 month delay on 'ITAs without a job offer' applications so I'm still expecting a May/June decision from them.

I must fly, haunted placed to go, spirits to meet, you know the sort of thing.

John