Mini-OE to Germany - Day -2

This is the first entry of hopefully a series of blogs about our journey. A journey back to the future? Back to a country we once called home but which has changed so much that it might be more futuristic than we think. It is also the first time I will leave New Zealand The first time I leave my new homeland since we arrived here in February 2000. It is our first real holiday since 1998 which was the year of our holidays in New Zealand to see if this exotic land can give us a place to live. Our post immigration holidays were all spent with family and friends as a tourist guide.

In about 45 hours we will enter a small plane at the airport in Kaitaia which will bring us to the big city Auckland.This is what we were working towards since a number of months now. We planned the pregnancies of our goats and cows, dried them off, arranged buying calves around this date. We had a lot of luck for example when Lilo mentioned to our vet assistant that we will go on holidays and he told her he loves to farm sit and has done it many times.  Everytime we tell someone that Josh will be our farm sitter we hear the same. “Oh he is a great guy! You don’t have to worry about anything” Wonderful!

The same with our two dogs. It wasn’t such a coincidence as with Josh our farm sitter. We knew about the dog kennel in our neighbourhood. But same as with Josh, every time we mention the dogs will go to Heather everybody praises her highly. We paid her a visit and her place is great. Our dogs will have a big room with their own bean bags they love so much. Heather is cooking her own dog food just as we do. It will still be the hardest thing I have done for a very long time. It will be a dreadful moment when we turn around and leave Heather’s place without our two dogs. But hey, we are grown-ups aren’t we?

Our time is perfectly planned. My wife took care of this. I must admit,I haven’t done a thing for these holidays. It is all her work. She bought the tickets, booked hotels and rental car, arranged meetings with all our friends in our favourite pub and at a pub in her hometown. And put together a plan. This might be the reason why I am absolutely not in holiday mood yet. The other reason might be ….

Family!

What is wrong with families? Why can’t they all be happy and enjoy the time we will spend together. I must admit, 95% of them are exactly like that. They are happy to see us and although the time we will spend with them is fairly short they make the best out of it. Then there are the others who are upset that we only spend 3 days with them .Which is exactly the same timespan we will spend with others. But no, they are more important than others! Are they?

Even writing about it makes me upset. But I will not get upset. I will enjoy the time. It is too much effort and – yes – too much money we spent to have a bad time. I just don’t really know how to deal with it should we end up in a big mess. Will I still be able to just move on without looking back? I honestly had moments where I thought “Stuff them!” But this would be a break. And we probably won’t be able to fix it. I am not prepared yet to have this break.But if the tension rises a bit more we might not be able to avoid it. And I am scared of this.

Still, I need to take it easy. I am in a very positive mood despite all the trouble we already have. Yes I know, we haven’t even left our home.

I will try and keep this diary, this log book and travel report up to date. Join me if you like on this journey into the past.

Cheers

Peter