Thoughts on my time in New Zealand

I am just about to start my last week at work - well 3 days really - here in New Zealand and thought that this would be a good time to record my thoughts on how it has all been. When I came out here I didn't really know what to expect - the main task was to be audit of the Long Term Council Community Plans (LTCCP). This is described on the Audit New Zealand web site as 'auditing the future' and is a pretty fair description. This makes it quite different to anything we do at home and therefore quite a challenge. The councils have to write a plan for the next 10 years in which they forecast all of their financial information making all kinds of assumptions. They have to comply with all the usual legislation and some specific to LTCCPs, and get audit approval with enough time to have a month's consultation with residents and make any necessary amendments before a publication deadline of 30 June or they can't strike the rates! Consequently there is a very short time line for auditing and hence the need to bring us in as secondees to help, and also the reason why it has become very time pressured towards the end. So, that has been the work. Sometimes we have had to stay away to do the work as the clients are more widely dispersed than back home. Although I have not been away as much as some of the others. I have worked in the local office for much of the time and that has enabled me to get to know some of the staff better. I have always been made to feel welcome here and found the people very friendly, although it has taken until the last few weeks to feel that I belong.
In the time I have been here I have travelled to a lot of the usual tourist places of the North Island, although not as many as I had intended due to the broken arm. I have seen mountains, lakes, beaches, cities and everything in between. I have found it to be a beautiful and welcoming country with wide open spaces we only see in places like the peak district. Even the cities have lots of green space, trees and parks, and the people mostly live in detached bungalows not terraces and high rises. I think it has been a very long time since there has been that amount of personal space for the people in UK! I have played at being a tourist rather than treating it as my home although I know some of the others have joined activity groups where they have been so that it has been a more 'normal' life for them.
I have missed my family desperately but have kept in touch with everyone in their own way - some through emails and photos and some through Facebook. I will be really glad to be back home and to see everyone again but I will miss New Zealand too. In the meantime, my husband is on his way here - just arrived in Singapore, and I have 10 days to tour the South Island and 4 days in Hong Kong before I make it back to UK and normality. I have enjoyed my time here and am glad I came. I have always wanted to see Australia and New Zealand and now I have - maybe one day I will get to come back.