Sunday 30th March 2008
After all the wine last night we decided to have a lie in this morning, fortunately daylight saving finished today so we gained an extra hour in bed, the kids didn’t, they just got up an hour earlier and watched a film that Marisa has bought.
We are now into autumn and it’s time to get out the woollies, the weather today was only about 31 degrees centigrade today and we still had to wear sunscreen, according to the weather forecasters the temperatures are due to take a big dip this week with the possibility of it going down to as low as 23 degrees and the chance of some rain and thunder.
The locals are already starting to go about in trousers instead of shorts and are wearing fleeces, they are however still wearing their Thongs (flip flops) so we are assuming that when they start wearing shoes winter will be upon us and we can turn off the air conditioning.
We dropped the kids off at the park while we did a bit of shopping and checked out the opposition just in case we ever decide to do Sunday Breakfasts. After about an hour we picked up the kids and went home for lunch, watched a bit of Aussie Football and chilled out until it was time to go to the beach again.
This time we went to Bunker Bay, it is about 30 minutes from us and it was absolutely gorgeous, it is very sheltered with a soft sandy beach and lovely warm water. Unfortunately our swim was curtailed by the arrival on the scene of a rather large Stingray, Carolyn had seen something dark moving in the water about 4-5 feet away but thought that it was a large clump of seaweed being carried along in the current. The people about 30 feet further along the beach from us who obviously know what to look out for in the water had seen it swimming past us but didn’t say anything because the didn’t want to startle us and possibly make things worse.
They did however get out of the water themselves because it was swimming their way and they told some other people further along who were in its line as it swam in the shallows feeding, when we noticed that there was nobody in the water apart from us and everyone was looking at the water and pointing we thought it might be prudent to get out and find out what was happening.
We asked the people closest to us what was happening and they told us that they had seen the Stingray swimming along the shallows and pointed it out to us, we followed it up the beach and it was coming in really close to the waters edge, it was a big one with a wing span of about 5 feet. Apparently you don’t normally see them that large so close to the shore.
We walked back down the beach to our bags and decided not to go back in the water today although the kids weren’t worried and carried on playing in the water, we decided that we would just keep an eye out for the Stingray just in case it or another one decided to come along, after about 10 minutes of watching the Stingray came back again going back along the shore in the opposite direction. Apparently they will avoid contact and if you splash around a bit they will swim off, but this one was a bit to big to be testing out theories on.
We had Lamb Chops for tea and put the kids to bed early ready for school again tomorrow. We did a bit of swotting in the evening because we have got a meeting with the letting agent of the Café tomorrow and we want to make sure we know what we are talking about and make a good impression.
Almost forgot, while we were out this morning we popped into the local Video store and that is what it was. This store is big for a video rental outlet and you wouldn’t believe how many videos they have in there to rent, while the rest of the world embraced DVD’s and are getting ready to do the same with Blue Ray, Busseltons video rental store is jam packed with video. They do have DVD’s, just not as many of them and the latest releases are the same films that we watched on DVD when we were still in the UK 5 months ago. We’ve been here for just over 2 months now so in theory, for us any films released here in 3 months time will be new releases and we won’t be able to criticise anymore, although we will have to go out and buy a Video Player, although at least we only have to buy a VHS one because they’ve stopped using Betamax now.
Showing posts with label Daylight Savings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Daylight Savings. Show all posts
Monday, March 31, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
1st day at School for Ian and Carolyn
Friday 28th March 2008
We made sure we got the kids to school early today, after all we couldn’t be late for our first day of listening to the children read. It was relatively harmless, there were only a few words we didn’t know and if we hadn’t been there the teacher wouldn’t have been able to listen to them all on her own so we will be going back next week.
After that we went to the house to do a final Pre-Settlement viewing with the agent, we pointed out all the things that we knew from the surveys needed fixing and found a couple of others that we thought we may get away with. Some of the electrics were not working when we got there and the agent was straight on the phone to an electrician who, luckily for the agent was working close by and came straight over to fix the problem. It was a shame the electrician was so close in a way, it was quite funny watching the agent sweating over the possibility he might have to take a cut in his commission if it didn’t work and we put in a lower offer.
The electrician fixed the bits that were not working and just as we were about to leave the owners turned up and we introduced ourselves, they seemed quite pleasant but we didn’t really get a chance to chat because the agent was desperate to get us out (they obviously don’t approve of buyer and seller talking to each other out here). Outside we spoke to the agent about the bits we weren’t happy with and he tried to fob us off saying I don’t think you can ask for this and I don’t think you can ask for that, so we just stood firm in the knowledge that there is only a week before we are due to settle (exchange) and the small amount that we are asking for is nothing compared to what the cost of us pulling out would be. The agent said he would talk to the owners and see what he could do.
We then went appliance window shopping again and managed to strike up a couple of what we feel are good deals, well it is a darn sight less than we would have paid in the UK. While we were shopping we got a call from the realty agent asking us to pop in and see him so when we had finished we went straight round to his office. He had apparently spoken to the owners who had agreed to get everything that we had listed fixed, the only query was that the cook top that they would be fitting to replace the faulty one may not be exactly what we would want so we might want to do a deal whereby they pay for a cook top and installation and if we want a different top we pay the difference, which sounds good to us as we were going to change it anyway.
We then went to the local showroom to check out the price of cooker tops and bumped into the house owners who were doing the same thing, so we exchanged numbers with them so that we could avoid dealing with agents and said that we would wait for their call and we were sure we could agree a price.
We then went to see the settlement agent and paid our Stamp Duty before a bit of lunch and de-clutter of the emails in the Café. From there we went to an insurance broker to organise house insurance as we are supposed to be signing for the loan on Monday and need the insurance before they will release the funds.
After picking the kids up from school we went to another insurance broker to get a quote before going down to the beach for a swim. Today we went to yet another new beach, this one was recommended to us by the salesman who we are going to buy the Fridge/Freezer/Dishwasher/Washing Machine/Dryer/Iron/Kettle/ Toaster and Vacuum Cleaner from. It is in a small cove called Meelup and it was gorgeous, gently shelving beach, crystal clear water and no Jellyfish (stingers), which we found out today aren’t baby Jellyfish but full size ones which is a result because we weren’t looking forward to meeting the big ones.
We are into Autumn over here now and the nights are starting to draw in, the nights are cooling down and during the day it can go down to 25C degrees so it’s only a matter of time before we put on our sweaters. The clocks go back an hour tomorrow night, we have had an hour daylight saving (summer time) as they call it over here so we will not be able to go down the beach in the evening for much longer although apparently in a couple of weeks time it will start raining for about two months so we probably wouldn’t want to anyway.
We got home at about 8pm after stopping off at a bottle store to buy a box of wine which Carolyn got stuck into whilst watching a load of TV adverts interspersed with the film Love Actually.
We made sure we got the kids to school early today, after all we couldn’t be late for our first day of listening to the children read. It was relatively harmless, there were only a few words we didn’t know and if we hadn’t been there the teacher wouldn’t have been able to listen to them all on her own so we will be going back next week.
After that we went to the house to do a final Pre-Settlement viewing with the agent, we pointed out all the things that we knew from the surveys needed fixing and found a couple of others that we thought we may get away with. Some of the electrics were not working when we got there and the agent was straight on the phone to an electrician who, luckily for the agent was working close by and came straight over to fix the problem. It was a shame the electrician was so close in a way, it was quite funny watching the agent sweating over the possibility he might have to take a cut in his commission if it didn’t work and we put in a lower offer.
The electrician fixed the bits that were not working and just as we were about to leave the owners turned up and we introduced ourselves, they seemed quite pleasant but we didn’t really get a chance to chat because the agent was desperate to get us out (they obviously don’t approve of buyer and seller talking to each other out here). Outside we spoke to the agent about the bits we weren’t happy with and he tried to fob us off saying I don’t think you can ask for this and I don’t think you can ask for that, so we just stood firm in the knowledge that there is only a week before we are due to settle (exchange) and the small amount that we are asking for is nothing compared to what the cost of us pulling out would be. The agent said he would talk to the owners and see what he could do.
We then went appliance window shopping again and managed to strike up a couple of what we feel are good deals, well it is a darn sight less than we would have paid in the UK. While we were shopping we got a call from the realty agent asking us to pop in and see him so when we had finished we went straight round to his office. He had apparently spoken to the owners who had agreed to get everything that we had listed fixed, the only query was that the cook top that they would be fitting to replace the faulty one may not be exactly what we would want so we might want to do a deal whereby they pay for a cook top and installation and if we want a different top we pay the difference, which sounds good to us as we were going to change it anyway.
We then went to the local showroom to check out the price of cooker tops and bumped into the house owners who were doing the same thing, so we exchanged numbers with them so that we could avoid dealing with agents and said that we would wait for their call and we were sure we could agree a price.
We then went to see the settlement agent and paid our Stamp Duty before a bit of lunch and de-clutter of the emails in the Café. From there we went to an insurance broker to organise house insurance as we are supposed to be signing for the loan on Monday and need the insurance before they will release the funds.
After picking the kids up from school we went to another insurance broker to get a quote before going down to the beach for a swim. Today we went to yet another new beach, this one was recommended to us by the salesman who we are going to buy the Fridge/Freezer/Dishwasher/Washing Machine/Dryer/Iron/Kettle/ Toaster and Vacuum Cleaner from. It is in a small cove called Meelup and it was gorgeous, gently shelving beach, crystal clear water and no Jellyfish (stingers), which we found out today aren’t baby Jellyfish but full size ones which is a result because we weren’t looking forward to meeting the big ones.
We are into Autumn over here now and the nights are starting to draw in, the nights are cooling down and during the day it can go down to 25C degrees so it’s only a matter of time before we put on our sweaters. The clocks go back an hour tomorrow night, we have had an hour daylight saving (summer time) as they call it over here so we will not be able to go down the beach in the evening for much longer although apparently in a couple of weeks time it will start raining for about two months so we probably wouldn’t want to anyway.
We got home at about 8pm after stopping off at a bottle store to buy a box of wine which Carolyn got stuck into whilst watching a load of TV adverts interspersed with the film Love Actually.
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