hayleyearth

This rule does not apply to refugees at all. They get into the country much easier. Most from many years ago still live an 'isolated' life in France because they can not speak the language (hence can't get jobs etc etc so that's how that crime figures are rising)

I can have my French permanent residence status before having my NZ citizenship without having lived in France.... Getting the French citizenship is another story though (I have to learn French)

Mellons bay, East Auckland Good old doctor

Aren't you registered at a gp? If you are, change your gp, because that's a rip off for visits! I pay $18, if medicine is needed it's usually included (some pharmacy's don't charge the $5).

Anyone that only has a SA passport got a new passport while in SA on holiday while obviously arriving on your old one? Did you present your old one at the airport on your way out? Did they accept your old one with the visa linked to it at arrival in your new country of residence? Did the old one show up as invalid ?

The real reason car rental companies don't usually (I can actually say never as I've never heard of one that does) accept debit cards is because of the 'excess' they withhold or would take if something goes wrong. Apparently what makes things different is that with a credit card we have accepted with the bank that they can take money from us without us having any, where with debit cards well they can only take what we have and hence if there isn't funds the transaction will return invalid at their side.

1.5 years ago (flip that's so long ago, but went so quick) I would have been more than willing to show you awesome routes all around Auckland (literally), now I'm probably too unfit to ride that distance, nevermind the speed Welcome though! I have noticed an influx of South Africans in this area (I'm close to Howick) in the last month or so.

Layla at 7.5 month The 3 wheel can convert to a 2 wheel (once she can walk).

And she got her 1st bike She even 'checked' that the assembly was done correctly before she got on ... Hahaha

Oh man, doesn't it. Can't understand how she is growing so fast!? She's so strong, started crawling 2 days after turning 7 months, she follows me all around the house. She (7.5month today) can pull herself up standing already. I saw this trike - bike and want to buy her it. Papa said it can be her 1st birthday gift. Only thing is I think she will walk before turning 1 and hence I can not wait to buy her that till then... https://www.thewoodentoybox.co.nz/shop/runna/runna-mini-25607/

Yip, 6-12 months. We did Layla's birth registration through there too and wew told the same time. Silly us, we didn't apply for her SA passport the same time because we thought "ah well she already have a French and kiwi passport in hand and with those she can travel the world without visa, to save us money, time andf effort now but mostly in 5 years also when we need to replace them all we didn't apply for the passport".... Only for me to realise a while later she may not enter SA on one of her other passports!! Eish. I'll have to apply now, we want to go to SA in a year.

We will be riding this one to school from the end of this month... We just can't decide on a trailer or a bike seat (rear seating).

https://community.bikehub.co.za/topic/155527-new-zealand-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/?p=3445657

Best broadband fibre deal in Auckland?

Reading the last few posts about how it is living in NZ and compared to SA etc etc etc I thought I could add my 'new' view due to having our baby now... In the last 4 months I have wanted to move home almost on a daily basis and if my partner would have let me go I would have spent some time at home with my parents with our baby - understandingly he has done all he can to prevent me to jump on a plane. Both of us are in NZ alone - we have no other family here (well my sister is here now but she is still finding her own way so we see her very little and strangely not suited for the role I need someone to be). I miss having that mother/grandmother role that will come take the baby from your arms and change her nappy and feed her and put her to sleep during the day so I can take a shower and have something to eat or just rest a bit. I wish we were living in South Africa so I could have a nanny that could come clean my house so I could maybe rest (not really sleep) while my baby is sleeping instead of doing the laundry, doing the dusting (or all the silent jobs) and then when baby is awake and fed and cleaned then give her a toy and in 10min do all the vacuuming while running back to baby 10 times to make sure she has not started eating the toy up. I wish I had the family member or close friend that would invite me for a meal - this does not happen in NZ! Kiwi's don't even invite you to their house for a beer never mind a meal. I can remember as a child how many dinners or lunches we ate at my aunts or ouma. My partner is (more needs to be) my friend, sibling, mother/father, ouma/oupa, nanny AND the father of our child AND my lover (and I need to be all this to him) and many times in the last 4 months we realized that we can not be all this for one another - every day we wake up though trying to be this for one another (he is better at it than me) but every night we go to be more exhausted than the day before because we have no village and I can tell you that once you have a baby you realise more than ever how much you need a support system just to keep sane. Life would have been way easier if we could just have that nanny and granny. We came home the day she was born. She has had every feed of her life with me. I have witnessed every nappy change. She has been every awakened moment with me in the same house. I have had 4 hours of her life to myself (after I made sure she was asleep). I can with confidence say that if I was in SA it would not have been like this. And the worse is everyday thus far I wish I was in SA but then I go walk with her in the stoller, just the two of us going 10km all over and I have NO fear, I take photos with my phone in public of us on the walk and not scared someone is seeing me and then would come take my phone - here I am free in that regard, but without 'a village' / or some support it is really something we as expats (with new babies especially) find very hard. (Talking about all my friends all around the world that has new babies too.)

"little"? she turns out to be a big girl A 99 percentile in length - don't know where she gets that from, luckily only 50 percentile in weight. I am quiet because it takes a lot of time to raise a little one like this especially if you are preparing her to be a future QOM at TdF She is a VERY alert baby so sleeping time is quite a problem, for me that is THE biggest and only struggle we have with her. I am exclusively breastfeeding so I am eating for two and still constantly hungry which is something I didn't do/feel when I was pregnant. I am also constantly tired, exhausted is more suited and it is not due to the lack of sleep and many times I am considering going to formula so I can just have a bit more freedom and energy to do what I would like to (like ride more and run again). It is however scary to see her outgrow the clothes meant to fit her (3-6months as she is only 4 months old today), she is currently wearing 9 months old clothes sizes and to think it is my body alone feeding her growth - it is crazy to think. I have been on the bike again a little - only 3 short rides. And we took her riding too when we were in France when she was 2 months old...just over 30km done (Ile de Re). She is a little character and keep us on our toes, we are quite scared of when she will start to speak words and ask questions and start to move herself around. She is very strong! For me this has been the toughest time of my life thus far, I'll say a bit in my next post.

Yip, as intern said, enough if you are single or both earning in that range. Edit: assuming you wouldn't want to buy a house or have a fancy car.

There's a couple of glass places around where I work...

No PR stickers anymore in passports, just eVisas. But damn, what a couple of months we have had with paperwork etc etc.... I'm PR now too, so I'll be able to apply for citizenship when our little one goes to school only... Eish... Unless we can find a way through a parent or patnership way. I must say, dealing with Immigration NZ is really a pleasure, they did the whole process for me in a month and emailed me all along the way.

'Little Potgieters' meets 'Baby Adamson-Maeckelberghe'.... I found some keen babysitters

And since yesterday she is a Frenchie too Our French family booklet. It's basically her family tree booklet and it hashboth her parents (us) and our parents information in and will have our death information in etc etc

Our little South African-French-Kiwi. Layla is perfect and kept us waiting an additional 6 days. We could not have asked for a more perfect birth story either, one midwife and dad doing it all by themselves and the whole 13 hours of labour was a magic experience (have photos of us laughing etc right through the pushing phase even which luckily only lasted 25min.) I have full confidence in the way New Zealand deals with the whole pregnancy and birth and even post natal care for mom and baby. We decided to come home the same day as her birth although we could have stayed at a 'nice' birthing unit absolute free. Because we decided to come home there were midwifes that came to visit us for the 1st 4 days checking up on the baby but also answering any questions we had, what's amazing is we can phone the birthing unit 24/7 and they help us with what ever we need (we had to phone twice already as we didn't know why she didn't want to stop drinking on day 2/3 in the middle of the night). We have a very peaceful baby though, every night since the start (accept for that one night) we have to wake her to feed. Happy. Tired, but extremely happy.

Her due date was 6 days before ours... Ours are tomorrow! But yes, she can come any time and even late too, the waiting game is killing us! I do feel 'different' the last 2 days, this past weekend I could still go hike 7km and 10km on the two days, but now walking from the lounge to the room takes forever with a weird walk. It's such a waiting game, and all papa wants to do is stay home with me and his daughter, but his daughter is sending him to work every morning.. Haha

Yeah but here you have the 'phone back' option actually... Don't know why patches didn't make use of that, they ALWAYS phone back.

Yesterday was 2 years for me in NZ and tomorrow is 3 weeks till due date of our little kiwi (kangaroo more if we go by her movements)...