How Long Does It Take To Buy A House?

The first big news we have is....after 15 months of searching and after viewing over 150 open homes we have FINALLY bought a house!

We bought it at auction, and I must admit the whole process was fairly nerve-wracking. I used to take for granted the old English process of seeing a house advertised at a certain price, offering 5% less and eventually meeting in the middle - usually with no other buyer competition. So easy!

By comparison, the actual house buying process here in Wellington has been fairly difficult! We've put in three tender offers over the last year, which has got to be the worst method ever (for the buyer), especially when there's no price given on a house and you have to pay for all your due diligence (lawyer, builders report, etc) before you place your tender.

The first time we were beaten massively on price. The second time we were beaten by just $2,000 (although we didn't know that until afterwards), and the third time we were the highest bidder but the vendor pulled out at the last minute.

An auction is a bit more preferable - at least you know what the other bidders are offering. But it's a nerve wracking process never-the-less and during the bidding my heart beat a hundred times louder than it does during an average Zumba class.

But we got it! We got it, we got it, we got it!!!!!

Other news..... last week Alfie went to his first school disco. For those who've never witnessed a Primary School disco, they are completely insane events which take place for fundraising purposes - and I guess for the kids' enjoyment too, although as they're usually held on a Friday evening of course there are always a few tears and meltdowns.

The kids had to dress as celebrities for this one, so Molly went as singer Katy Perry (pronounced Kay-dee Pirry if you are a Kiwi Kid) complete with purple hair, handbag, lipstick and studded belt - and Alfie wore his Superman pyjamas.

After a lot of dancing and a late night, Saturday morning began early with piano and rugby, followed by a birthday party.....so by the afternoon things had predictably got a bit messy and Jake and Molly went off to take a nap leaving me with the difficult task of managing a 5 year old on the point of a major meltdown.

So I turned to the kitchen - when it comes the males in this family, I always follow the same rule: if there's trouble, make a cake.  It always diffuses a tantrum.

We made a birthday/anniversary cake, as this weekend marked 2 years since we arrived in Wellington! What an amazing two years it's been. So very fast, so much fun. It's been a blast...Happy Anniversary Wellington!

House Dust Mites

And the blood test results are...

.....Molly has an off-the-scale reaction to house dust mites. There are no known food allergies (although she hasn't been tested for every food in the world, so you never know), just simple house dust mites.

(except of course, it's not really that simple).

On a RAST blood test, the results are scored from 0 to 6 on an allergy scale, with 0 being negative (ie no

allergy), 1 being a bit inconclusive, 2 being a positive result (ie an allergy) and then 3 to 6 being "strongly positive".

Molly's results look like this:

CODFISH                                      0.01
COWS MILK                                0
EGG WHITE                                  0
HOUSE DUST MITE                  >100
SOY BEAN                                    0.46
WHEAT                                          0.54

So, that's a fairly extreme reaction to the damn little critters!

We are firstly, extremely relieved that it's not more serious, but we are also feeling quite dazed and confused by all the advice and recommendations on exactly what we have to do and how successful it's going to be. We're hoping that a house dust mite allergy might be easier to manage than a food allergy - although it's going to be impossible to completely avoid exposing her to dust mites. We can be responsible for limiting them at home, but she'll inevitably be exposed in other places.

The results mean that many things are now explained: for example, why she always comes out of the library with big red rings around her eyes (those dusty books and cushions), and why she always becomes unwell when we stay at baches for the weekend.

My bed time reading has now become all about dust mites. Riveting stuff, ha ha! But here are a few interesting facts, for anyone out there who is interested in this kind of stuff:

1. House dust mites are extremely common in most New Zealand households. Most of us live with them with no symptoms, but in some people they cause eczema, asthma and rhinitis (basically a permanent year round cold). Unfortunately Molly is one of these people.

2. House dust mites love high humidity levels - which is probably one of the reasons we have so many of them in NZ! With this week's forecast for Wellington being 80%+ humidity all week, we certainly have a challenge on our hands. Expert recommendations are to keep your household humidity level below 55%. Easier said than done, especially in a rented house where we can't install a ventilation system or decent heating equipment. Yet another reason for finding our own home soon! In the meantime, we'll need to invest in a dehumidifier and keep all our windows open.

This is fascinating. It completely explains why Molly had eczema in Auckland as a baby, which disappeared when we went overseas. She had no trace of allergies when we lived in the desert (Central Australia) with zero humidity, and it all came back again when we returned to NZ.

3. Some of their favourite places to live are in carpets, soft furnishings, soft toys and bedding - hence the recommendation to replace carpets with wood or tiled flooring. We can't do much about the carpets in our rental property, but we can do something about the bedding.

I'm concerned that we may have a bit of a mission on our hands when we tackle the soft toys, many of whom have been an important part of our family for years now. Many of you will have come to know and love characters like Bobby, Rabbit and Penguin over the years, but goodness knows what's living inside these dear creatures...

Anyway, it's a relief to finally know what it is that's triggering our little girl into developing such angry reactions which affect her quality of life so much. Now we start a big journey into trying to resolve things as much as we can for her.

PS Big apologies for the yucky images of dust mites on this post!

Wellington's Sunday Food Market

Firstly, let me just say for the millionth time.....you can't beat Wellington on a good day.

You just really can't. And yesterday was really a good day. The sun shone, we pulled our summer clothes back out of the cupboards, got the sun cream out again, and drove down to the waterfront.

Wellington's waterfront has got to be one of my most favourite places in the city. Yesterday morning was a stunner. The water sparkled, the mountains looked sharp and crinkly, the sailing boats were out, the sun was bright and low, and the sky was the bluest blue.

Every Sunday morning in Wellington there's an open air food market by the harbourside that we just love.

For a start, you can get your fresh fruit & veggies there for a fraction of the price you pay at the local supermarket. It always seems much more tasty too. Yesterday a whole punnet of cherry tomatoes were wolfed down within 30 minutes by our lot! The bag of feijoas we purchased are currently in hiding so I can make sure I can eat some myself during the week!

It's also just a really great place to while away a sunny Sunday morning. You can get a very tasty brunch/snack there (particularly the Chinese dumplings, oh how we love the Chinese dumplings).

You can sit and drink a coffee in the sun while you watch the buskers - and there are always buskers, sometimes ordinary guitar playing ones, and sometimes really unusual elastic band playing ones or clever ones with string puppets that do portrait paintings.

The smells are amazing - coffee, bread, spices, fruit, fresh fish, pizza, crepes....Seriously, if you are a food lover, this is THE place to hang out in Wellington!

Apparently about 7,000 people attend the Sunday market every week and I must say, it feels like it! I think it's probably about the busiest place you can possibly go to in Wellington.

One of the things we love about living here is the lack of crowds and general relaxed and easy-going feel to life. But I'm always happy to endure a bit of crowding for Wellington's harbourside food market!