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