All about Vegemite Vix

Well not all about me obviously, this is the internet.

Vegemite Vix is an award winning Kiwi travel & lifestyle blogger.

I moved with my three kids, my dog, cat, a guitar and twenty boxes of books, from New Zealand to North Hampshire in the UK in August 2008. Why in God’s name did I swap beautiful beaches for Blighty, pavlova for pork pies and sand, surf,sun for …. snow… and sleet…?

You’d be surprised how often I’m asked that question, but in truth, I did it for lots of reasons – work opportunities, opportunities for my kids, but mainly for the love of my Englishman this crazy man I met and fell in love with in Paris in June 2007.

This is the story of our experiences, of our brave adventure. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re sad, but always – at least I hope so – meaningful.

This is our story about how to really live – wet-paint-on-your-fingers-live – in another country as an expat or a traveller a long way from the places, the people and the land you call home.

The Vegemite Vix blog is all about travel, expat life, lifestyle, wrangling teenagers and all those funny things that happen when you’re doing all of those things!

Home again

After 4.5 years living in England I returned to my home country, New Zealand in December 2012. Now living by the sea in Auckland, I’m blogging about travelling, (yes Kiwis can fly!) expat life (I’m not the expat this time), and wrangling teens. If the last five years are any indication, there will be lots of laughs yet to come. Don’t miss them!

Come with me for the ride!

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Email me at vix at vegemitevix dot com.

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Work with me

In my ‘other life’ I have worked as a Marketing and PR specialist for over 20 years, in New Zealand, Australia and the UK, working alongside some hefty IT brands you might have heard of (Microsoft, Apple, WordPerfect, PriceWaterhouseCoopers etc). In recent years this depth of experience has been enhanced by the social media marketing experiences I’ve had in building this blog and an engaged community.

I offer consultancy services via Digital Discussions and can through the wonders of modern technology work with you wherever you are in the world – as long as there’s internet. Consultancy services I offer include:

Copywriting and content creation
Blog building and WordPress taming
Social media planning and tactics
Training programmes (Social media, Engaging with bloggers, Global PR etc)
Public speaking and presentations

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http://newdaynewlesson.wordpress.com/ Susie

Congrats on your new page. Btw can't find an email to contact you anywhere on here. On purpose?

Don't know what it is I just did, but on the right hand bottom of the your page there was a register button. Clicked , logged in and seems like I was then on a dashboard for wordpress but not mine. Any ideas?

Also wanted to tell you switched my home page around so the link to my page is back to:
http://newdaynewlesson.wordpress.com/

will update your link in mine as well.
hadavis1966

I came to England in 1991 from NY. All for the love of a man. I often wonder why I swapped it all. But hey I've been hear awhile now and consider myself an anglophile. Thing is I still sound like a yank so everyone treats me like one. I look forward to keeping with up with your blog.
vegemitevix

Hi there! Thanks for tuning into my blog, it's great having you here. I think there are a few of us who've given up our homes to follow our men! I'd love to go to New York, have been only to the west coast, Utah and Nevada. Next stop the big Apple!
Jonathan

Hi,

We invite you to be a part of the BETA launch of The Travelpad.

http://www.thetravelpad.com/betalaunch

Look forward to hearing from you.
Anonymous

Hi there, wow how are you finding life in London after Aussie? It is a change that’s for sure. Drop me an email at vix@vegemitevix.com and we can have a chat. Or jump into Twitter and follow me!
http://twitter.com/helloitsgemma Gemma Mathieson

hi, I found you via Moments of Whimsey – 40 follow (I’m of a similar vintage so it is a self indulgent interest), and have tracked down your blog which I have very much enjoyed. Thank you. I will be popping back.
- Anonymous
  
  Hi Gemma, not sure why I haven’t noticed these posts on this page and responded to them! It’s great to virtually meet you, and I hope you are still popping back as I do blog quite frequently. I’m in the throes of putting up a Vegemitevix Like’s page and a few other goodies. Cate at Moments of Whimsy is a great pal of mine – any friend of hers is a friend of mine! Vix xx
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http://www.marymcandrew.com Mary McAndrew

Hi I too fell in love with a crazy and funny Englishman and dream of living with him in the UK someday. It’s so sad to be apart for 6 months at a time. I’m due to go back this Spring but worried about being turned away at the border because they gave me a hard time before, they said because I stayed for 4 months last time and want to stay 6 months this time then I must be setting up residence!!
Any advice about getting married there in UK? Can I just go with no visa and we legally get married while I’m there? I heard if I have some kind of visa they may not allow it. We’re not ready to jump into marriage yet.
Great blog, I hope to read lots of your posts. I have posts on my blog about my painting in Northumberland and the Lake District.
thanks! Mary
- Anonymous
  
  Hi Mary, sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you! The whole immigration thing is a complete nightmare! My experience was horrible and culminated in an appearance at the Immigration and Asylum Tribunal Hearing. We won the case and I was granted Leave to Remain. My understanding is that if you want to come here to get married you have to actually apply for a visa for that purpose…it’s something like a prospective spousal visa or something. If you are here you cannot move from a visitor’s visa to a spousal Leave to Remain status, and that is the only way to go. Otherwise you run the risk of deportation or expensive legal wrangling. The best thing to do is to go to the UK Border Agency page and read through their details. It changes all the time so you literally need to keep in touch with that page. I wouldn’t recommend you go to an immigration lawyer. We had three in the end and only one of the three was actually useful, the others just cost us money. Hope you can find your way through the mire… Vix xx
Catlover

Nice to dicover you, Vixi. I shall try to connect with Twitter to read your blog. As an older woman suddenly single and not knowing what to do! I appreciate tips…support… not feeling completely alone!
- Anonymous
  
  Hi Catlover, great to meet you virtually online. Becoming suddenly single is
  so different, there’s so much loss to try and get your head around, but
  saying that I’ve learnt that there are some wonderful opportunities too.
  When I first became single (even though it was my decision), I grieved, but
  after a while I realised that it provided me with a chance to rediscover who
  ‘Vix’ is without the definitions of wife, mother, career woman etc. Now
  happily married I sometimes even look back on that difficult period of my
  life and realise that in the midst of all that pain there were gifts too. In
  NZ we like to exhort using the Maori phrase – Kia Kaha – which simply means
  - stay strong. Vx
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http://www.thewrongwayhome.com/ Izy Berry

You fell in love in Paris? wow. Maybe I need to revisit that city…
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Ben

Hi

My name is Ben and I am one of the editorial team here at Publishers Network.

I have just been on your website and I thought it was a great opportunity to contact you regarding a small project I run that may be mutually beneficial.

What You Get:

1. A page of our high end editorial content.
2. Completely unique material, written just for you to your exclusive brief.
3. A page that google will love and generate you new visitors.

At this point, you’re probably thinking ‘what do we get out of it’? Well, we’d place a link back to one of our content clients within the editorial. The link would be completely relevant to both the article and your site. The quality of our partner sites is our main priority, and I can assure you that all of our clients are recognised corporate brands, so the quality of the page or more importantly your site is not affected. We already have a precedent – most of our publishers have said they do not mind the brand association that goes with such links.

We can have your free content written to your brief ready within a week, so if you are keen to participate in this program just reply to this email for further information on getting started.

Before you go any further, it’s worth saying a little about us. Publishers Network is a company based in Norfolk that works with publishers that are looking to generate revenue from their sites, providing different content strategies that webmasters may not have considered in the past.

I hope you find this email of interest and I look forward to hearing from you.
- vegemitevix
  
  Hi Ben
  
  Thank you for your interest in Vegemitevix.com
  
  Unfortunately I am uncertain whether we could work together as 1) I write all the content and do not subcontract out content 2) If I partner with a brand then I expect that brand to offer a service or product related to my blog brand and of interest to my readers 3)I only offer brand partnerships for a professional fee 4)All paid-for links will be marked up as ‘nofollow’ in accordance with Google’s own regulations. All promotional posts will also be marked as advertising feature.
  
  If you think you would like to work within these guidelines please do reply and I will forward Vegemitevix’s advertising and media pack.
  
  Kind regards
  Vix
  
  *Vegemitevix*
  
  *A Kiwi expat Mum living well in the UK*
  
  http://www.vegemitevix.com
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  here.
Ginnie

Hi there,

I hope you are well and are having a good week.

I’m contacting you from Search News Media, a content agency based in Windsor.

We came across your site and we really like it and in fact we work with a number of clients that would be a great match with the content and style of your site. We’re more than happy for you to provide us with a title you think will match your audience or we can send you a few ideas to choose from and either you or we can produce the content.

Happy to discuss ways we can make this all happen and any ideas you may have, and hope we can work together moving forward.

Looking forward to your response.

Thanks,

Ginnie Richards