KAT SAYS:
Week number four brought a bit of positive news for us re our household goods from Sydney.
Delivery of our goods is nearly three weeks late now, and still, unfortunately, even with the first portion arriving, more then 2/3 or our "keep forward" items including the so-called "Priority Box" of urgently needed items weren't found -- which left us speechless. It was really hard to comprehend any reasoning behind this outcome. What's going on Allied -- is there anyone there who cares?
Last week brought a small breakthrough in Rob's work days -- for the first time he managed to escape the office before dark to have a couple of half-hour kiting sessions after work! He said that the local wind is 100% better than the wind in Sydney. Unfortunately, it looks like, the summer kiting will be possible only for another few weeks and then Rob has to dust off his surf boards.
Just to clarify this pic, Rob is not kiting and he's the one on the beach trying
to communicate with two kiters that he'd like to borrow their pump. :-)
I've been frantically looking for a house and it looks like we might have found what we've been looking for. Fingers crossed. BTW it's quite an experience looking for a house here. VERY low vacancy rate and very poor service from most real estate agents. Luckily, we did find one (from a referral in Rob's office) who has been really helpful and taking us to properties not yet listed. Last Friday after we finished a house inspection we're asked by the landlord if we want some lobsters. Of course, we said "yes", in particular because these were freshly caught, already cooked and FREE of charge!!!
So far, we eaten two of these gorgeous creatures --and they were delicious!
Last Friday, I also secured some work in local Health/Wellbeing centre where I'll be teaching Pilates at the end of month. I'm not certain about the hours and it might be around four to six hours per week. I can't wait to get back to regular Pilates teaching again.
We're really looking forward to next week as we're going to find out if the selected house will be ours .....
Sunset around here blows my mind -- it's so beautiful.
ROB SAYS:
Whew. Work is full-on, but interesting. Already doing several 12 hours days a week but it's quite enjoyable. Great people and loads of challenging but satisfying projects. About to roll out a Public WiFi along the foreshore; Launching a trial of a new Unified Communications systems throughout the Council; ramping up training in our Digital Hubs for Enterprise customers; organising a sister city visit to China for the Mayor and Councillors; a whole day with the Dept of State Development rep from Mumbai; building relationships with the head of Durak University and satellite reps from Combined Universities branches; managing debate on deregulated trading hours (yes, trading hours are still regulated here...) assisting new digital enterprises in town to get off the ground; trying to work out the logic of the NBN rollout plan; about to lose my temper with the inability to access the internet reliably when I'm not in the office (despite less than 1.5 km proximity to the Telstra tower and exchange); amongst a gazillion other things.
But with all that, still managing to catch the odd glimpse of sunshine and sunset at the end of the day and even managed to get a kite in one day after work at Back Beach, after flagging someone down from the water to borrow a pump. (My pump is in the "Critical Items" box that has still not arrived from Sydney.
A word of advice -- Steer clear of Allied Pickfords on your next more. Big promises and friendly people, but they've not kept a single promise of their original sales pitch. Our "Keep Forward" goods were all supposed to have been delivered by 17 Feb -- and we're still waiting for them to locate 2/3 of them, including clothing, office items like my computer, kite pump, and most of my surfboards, amongst many others.
Enough for now. Fingers crossed we get the house organised soon and Allied finds our goods soon!
Rob
