Christchurch I went, and this time I was on my own! Rob and I sometimes have slightly different opinions on maps, basically I use road signs to find my way around and Rob uses maps and it sometimes causes a little friction when driving around new places as I’m trying to concentrate on driving and look at the signs whilst Rob has his head buried in a map, trying to find the road name! We always end up having a little giggle over this as I think Rob is slightly obsessed with maps! (hee he Rob!) So for me it was quite liberating driving around Christchurch with not a map in sight!!! Amazingly I only took one wrong turn! I found a hairdressers and got my hair cut to a more controllable length and style then headed off for a wander around the shops. It struck me when I paid for my hair that it was the first time I had used my credit card since we had left the UK, amazingly I had gone for a whole year without personally making any banking transactions! I remembered that I had gone to use my card when we were in Norway

but had forgotten my bank number due to me only getting my new joint account number days before we came away! A whole year without having to deal with a bank - another liberating feeling!!!

After a brief look around the shops, I went to an internet café as I had arranged to speak to Rob via messenger and see how he had got on. We were both really nervous about this US visa business as so much was riding on us getting a visa. We hadn’t really thought about it before we came away or before my Mum and Roland and Cath, Andy, Sue and Eddie had booked their trips to the US, it would have been catastrophic for us and them if we hadn’t have been able to get a visa!!! Thankfully though all was good and Rob was in full possession of 10 year US visa, after all the hassle of getting an appointment they issued him with a visa the same day!!! I then headed back to the car park and sat for a couple of