2003 - STRUGGLING ON

Paul & Karyn Gardiner
Christchurch
NEW ZEALAND

Dear Friends and Family

Karyn here, writing about our 2003. This year has been a particularly tough year for us; due mainly to concerns over Phoebe’s health and Paul’s work being particularly hard. It started well, though, with us seeing in the New Year in Scotland with friends and family. We spent 4 great weeks in the UK and managed to catch up with many old friends. We’re very sorry to those that we missed, but we’ll be back sometime.

Soon after our return to NZ, we were in hospital for the first time with Phoebe’s palate operation. It was a difficult 24 hours but the operation was a huge success. As they do at that age, Phoebe bounced back from it better than us!! She began feeding better and within 3 weeks we had disposed of that damn feeding tube. She’s continued to grow slowly, but steadily, since. Then in July, just as she started walking, we had a return visit to hospital for anti-reflux surgery on her kidney. That was really tough and we were scared it would hold her back, but that was not to be the case. Within a few days she was walking again and getting into all sorts of mischief (we call her the Nippy Nudist, as she runs to her bath).

In terms of work, I have done some occasional guiding, and I’ve also enjoyed escaping the madhouse on the odd Saturday to do some craft classes at the local high school. Paul has had a very intense year at work, as he has been looking after the whole of NZ on his own, so he’s decided to take 2 months off over Christmas and enjoy the summer with Phoebe and I.

For those who don’t know, we finally sold Paul’s UK house this year. We’re hoping to build a large, warm home here in Christchurch with the capital and move out of this cold house before next winter. However, NZ real estate is going through a huge boom at the moment. In Paul’s words, finding a decent plot of land right now is harder than finding a virgin in a maternity ward!! So we’ve decided to be patient and hold off for a while.

Other highlights this year include visits from friends and family from the UK, including Paul’s Uncle Ian & Auntie Joan and also a friend of his Dad’s. All Black Rugby, the World Cup tournament and winning back the Bledisloe Cup also featured heavily in our lives. But of course, the special joy has been spending our days with Phoebe and watching her develop into a lovely little girl. As well as the operations, she’s had chicken pox and more colds that I can count. Yet through all this, she is such an outgoing, giving, good-natured child and we both marvel every day at how much we love her and what she has come to mean to us.

We hope you are all well, and our love and best wishes to you for the Festive Season.

Paul C Gardiner, Karyn M Gardiner, Phoebe K Gardiner

2002 - THE BAIRN

Paul & Karyn Gardiner
CHRISTCHURCH
NEW ZEALAND


20 November 2002

Dear Friends and Family,

Paul here – letting you know what’s gone on for us in 2002. Well, it’s been very hard year for us, but also a very wonderful year (yeah, I know - sounds contradictory! Trust me, it’s true).

The highlight of the year was the birth of our beautiful baby daughter, Phoebe Katelyn Gardiner, 22 March 2002. She’s the cheeky wee elf up there. Every one says she looks like me: mischievous, chubby-cheeked, dimple chin, and bald as a chimp’s bum. Can’t see it myself!!! She has more hair now, and it was a milestone day when my Baby Daughter used more shampoo than I. She is doing well, full of beans, and looks like crawling by Xmas - which will get us both fitter, I’m sure. Still waiting on her first tooth, any day now…..

Our UK house was vacant for much of this year, and this was a bit hard, financially. Do you remember all those great BBQs we had there? We thought about selling it, then we secured tenants and things returned to normal. So, we still have the asset, but we may yet have to sell it in the future. Well, as a result of not selling the UK house, we put some work into our NZ home, mostly on the garden. I used to loath gardening, but have gained a real satisfaction from doing this work. I may yet become "Gardiner by name, gardener by nature."

As we write and read this, Karyn comments she hasn’t done much this year!! I can only say that I totally disagree, and that looking after the first baby is hard graft (especially one so “spirited”). Karyn has positively blossomed in the role, and is a real, natural mother. Who knows, we might even have another! As you might know, we have had trying times with Phoebe’s health, which has been compounded with the UK house thing. But now, we are getting on top of it all.

Finally, we’re going to UK for Christmas, and really looking forward to it. We’ll try to see as many people as we can, but our focus is our family in Scotland. Karyn and I are looking forward to seeing our first niece, Baby Sarah Gardiner.

Hope you are all well, and our love & best wishes to you for the Festive Season.


Paul C Gardiner, Karyn M Gardiner

2001 - THE NEW HOOSE

Paul & Karyn Gardiner
CHRISTCHURCH
NEW ZEALAND

12 November 2001

Dear Friends and Family,

Sorry we couldn’t get our last year’s letter out earlier - we hope this reaches you in good time THIS year. We’ve been a bit better-organised in 2001. And yes, we have moved as you can see from the piccie, as well as our new address and phone number, above.

Well, this has been the most hectic year of our combined lives!!! We bought a house, celebrated our first year in marriage, and are now expecting a baby next year.

We bought our new house in January, but we had no luck selling Karyn’s Flat. So we decided to rent out the Flat and moved into our new House in October. Packing all our stuff up and unpacking it again was a chore, but at least it was only down the street…..as opposed to the other side of the planet!! It’s a great house, brick-built, with wood fires, four bedrooms, a big garden for the wee one to run around in and a playroom/office to hang Paul’s models in.

As well as the expansion of Paul’s junk, we had another incentive to move into our new house, with Karyn expecting our first baby in March 2002. So curiously enough, one of the rooms has already been designated “The Baby Room.” And another room has all Paul’s junk and collections pushed into it, very loosely labeled “The Office.” However, the House and garden both need some work, so we have a wee bit to do before the March arrival.

Paul’s work has greatly improved after a difficult start to the year - many projects are finally coming to fruition. However, Karyn’s Tour Guiding work is in a state of flux at the moment, as potential Japanese air travelers are choosing to stay put following the September 11th incident. But, we are both pretty upbeat about everything, and of course delighted with the way life’s going for us right now.

Well, that’s about it, except to say that we’re already planning a UK trip in 2002, with a package to show the Grandparents! So, take care, and look after yourselves.

Love & Best Wishes for the Festive Season

Paul C Gardiner, Karyn M Gardiner

2000 - THE WEDDING OF THE FERN & THE THISTLE

Paul & Karyn Gardiner
CHRISTCHURCH
NEW ZEALAND

24 November 2000


Dear Friends and Family,

Well, it has been an intense and hectic year, but a cracker. We’ve both new jobs, we’ve almost finished the decorating, I secured my Permanent residency - and of course, we had THE WEDDING.

The Millennium was a great start to the year, and friends from the UK were over here to help us see it in. So, we made the effort by celebrating the New Millennium in fancy dress. We slept in our cars before going to the beach to watch the first sunrise of the Millennium. No such luck – it rained!!!. So, we piled back to the flat, drank Champers and watched the rest of the world do what we were then recovering from. Then, early in the year, we both moved back into the jobs we revel in. Karyn is Tour Guiding again, and ramping up for the peak summer period. Myself, I joined a small New Zealand IT company called QTech, that specialises in telemetry and remote monitoring. I am overjoyed to be back selling in the IT Industry. My customer base is in the North Island, so I get paid to drive around one of the most beautiful countries in the world!!!!!!

Sorry about the mistake in last year’s letter - we were of course married on 5 August 2000, not 1999! We were overjoyed so many folk came over for it. I’ve never known a wedding to last 6 weeks, but it was “party party” every night from the moment folk came into New Zealand. The wedding day was an absolute blast, and as you can see from the piccy above, we have some fantastic photographs. I’m in the process of setting up our web pages to show off the wedding photos, but it’s taking time. In the meantime, I have many of the photos scanned, so if you’d like these, please just let me know.

More farming stories and injuries to add to the repertoire. In October, I ripped a nail off while we were all tailing lambs. This is the gory process of cutting off a lamb’s tail to protect lambs from their botties pooping up and so catching flies and other parasites. As I looked at my nail hanging off, and the lambs screaming, I saw I was the lucky one!!!! “There but for the grace of God go I…….”

Well, that’s it for another year. So Karyn married a Scotsman but lost her Scottish name. In other words, folks, please note our new email addresses.

All our love and best wishes to you, and Good Tidings for the Festive Season.


Paul and Karyn

1999 - CHRISTMAS AND WEDDING NEWS

Paul C. Gardiner
Karyn McGregor
CHRISTCHURCH
NEW ZEALAND


24 November 1999

Dear Friends and Family,

Hi folks - Paul here. Greetings from sunbaked tropical New Zealand (Ha!). Contrary to popular belief in the UK, it does get very cold in Christchurch, and I have survived my first NZ Winter. 1999 has been intense for both of us, but we’ve had a lot of luck with our jobs, immigration and life in general. And, we are both very happy and still very much in love!! Earlier this year, I worked on Farmer McGregor’s farm in Alexandra until February. We then moved up to Christchurch to work and to receive the container load of stuff we shipped from the UK. So, for a while, we slept on the floor among scores of boxes!!!!

Karyn started work in February at a Duty Free shop, and was happy she was using her Japanese language again. It meant I had loads of “free time” ……to paint the outside of the house, decorate the inside, unpack boxes , etc, etc. It was a relief to get my Work Permit!!! I got a job selling advertising space for The Home & Business Directory, the alternative to the Yellow Pages here. However, things move on: Karyn wants to get back to tour-guiding, and I want to get back into the IT industry. At least with both of us working, we are now able to afford some of the absolute basic essentials: bed, washing machine, TV, VCR, nippy sports car, laptop, microwave. You know - just the basics.

Oh, yes, before I forget - The Wedding. We finally have a date!! We will be married on Saturday 5 August 2000 in Alexandra, Karyn’s home town, about 5 hours south of Christchurch. Things are moving along, as we have the Church, reception, and photographer booked already. I have even conducted some preliminary first-hand research on some dodgey establishments for my Stag Weekend!!

Well, drop us a quick email ( addresses below) when you can. All our love and best wishes to you all, and Good Tidings for the Festive Season


Paul and Karyn

1998 - OFF TO NEW ZEALAND

Paul C. Gardiner
C/o Lewis and Noeline McGregor
"Rocky Glen"
NEW ZEALAND


24 November 1998

Dear Friends and Family (or should I say “Gidday”?),

On what will be one of the happiest, yet saddest, days of my life (28 November) I will be leaving the UK, and flying out to a life in New Zealand with Karyn. For those of you who don’t know, we were engaged in July this year. She is the poor woman who has rashly chosen to put up with me for the rest of her life. We’ll be spending Christmas/New Year at Chez McGregor (above), and then make some decisions about our future in January. Our marriage plans are not finalised by a long shot, but we plan to join the ranks of the “Great Imprisoned for Life” in the first half of Year 2000.

Please note that I have a new email address: paulcgardiner@yahoo.com. I will be able to access it just before we fly oot. Thereafter, it might be a little sporadic until we get properly set up on New Zealand Internet. I’ll keep you posted. I really want to keep in touch, so please let me know your contact details (address, fax, email, phone), to make sure we have them all correct. A word of caution: if you fax me, please remember the 11-13 hours time difference, or Karyn’s father might make use of that shotgun on me yet!!!!

For your info, Karyn is set up with email also, if you wish to reveal some disgraceful secret or complain about my behaviour. Karyn can be reached on karynmcgregor@yahoo.com. The address, above, is our temporary physical address in New Zealand, until we get properly shacked up ourselves. Please pass this on to folks, whose email and physical address you think I might not have.

Love and best wishes to you all, and Good Tidings for the Festive Season


Paul and Karyn