Wellington - what I would miss...

So if I was to leave Windy Welly what would I miss?

1) Water water water
Welly is surrounded by the most stunning and wild coastline. It really is beautiful. It is a real treat for us to live by the sea, it only takes us 10 minutes to walk to our local beach. We love the rugged nature of this coastline and we are blessed with the amazing sealife we get; dolphins, whales, squid. If we feel the need for a long beach walk then in less than an hour we can drive to the Kapiti coast to one huge long amazing beach with cool dunes. Even in bad weather the Welly coastline is truly wonderful

2) Coffee and cafe culture
Wow Welly is some great cafes, they really take their coffee seriously here, combine that with excellent customer service and freshly baked sweet and savoury delights, you are in for a real treat. I would be very sad to leave the super coffee and service from the Memphis Belle cafe on Dixon Street, or imagine leaving the stuning views, great hot chocolate and amazing cooked breakfasts of the Bach cafe. Yep it would be hard to live without them.

3) Family
For the first time in years we are living near family. It is wonderful to have my sister-in-law just up the road. Its great to see the kids play regularly together and from a social life point of view its very handy having the free babysitter round the corner. Its so great having a support network so close, its also not bad having family just an hours plane journey away. Long live family I say.

4) Culture
Some of my London pals thought I was coming to live in a cultural black hole (you know who you are....). Well the NZ film festival has to be better than any I've attended before. As it is held so soon after Cannes it gets the most diverse and full range of movies and short films. It was a real sweetie shop moment for us and it was soooo hard choosing what to go to. This was repeated when the comedy festival came to town and at the moment its the food festival. In addition all major plays come to Welly which is fab, and the local productions are full of choice and variety. Its not called Wellywood for nothing you know. Combine this with a great number of galleries and exhibitions and probably one of the best museums in the world - Te Papa, we certainly don't feel this is a cultural black hole. Oh and I almost forgot to mention the local cultural festivals, just in Island Bay we have a week long festival that includes exhibitions, talks, walks, and two days of full on partying, eating and generally having fun.

5) Social freedom
I used to think in London you could be anything you wanted to be. Yes this is true but come to Welly and have a look around. The Wellingtonians love expressing themselves through clothes, attitude (sooo cool, sexuality and religious and cultural beliefs. Really anything goes and I can tell you some people push this to the max. I love seeing the high school kids all looking so different and clearly enjoying expressing their individuality. I noticed in Sydney all the kids strived to look the same, it was "clone city". I hope the social freedom is still so strong in future years.

So yes I'm still adjusting to my new City but I do like it. I'm sure I will even start to love it fairly soon.