Taff Down Under 26

Oh where to bloody start? I know, I’ll go bang my head against a brick wall again. Long and stupid story for you, about our move.

It’s all Robbie and Michael’s fault of course. These are two friends of LeeAnne’s who had been living in the UK, and had returned to Canberra with their two kids, to resume a life without the constant bad weather, miserable people, crap food, and all the other things that you really have to be a Brit to appreciate. They had rented a gem of a house about ten minutes drive from us. We were envious. Unfortunately they had only a short lease on that place and had to move on. So they found another place, equally gorgeous, and we were equally envious.

You may or may not know that the house we were living in was actually "owned" by LeeAnne’s mum, Mary. She has said for the past x years that one day she would want to sell the place and use the money to finance her retirement. Not a problem. She also said that any amount of money she got over $200,000 she would give to LeeAnne, as a start to buying her own place. Very generous of her. So on this understanding, LeeAnne had continued living there, and was looking forward to getting her own place eventually.

Unfortunately the goalposts were always shifting. First it was; "well you can live there as long as you like." Then; "I’ll want to sell it in 3 years time." The next week; "I’ll be selling it in 18 months." Nothing like a bit of doubt and uncertainty to keep you on your toes, eh?

 

Not only that, but having mum as a landlady made for some…friction… to say the least. You see anytime that anything went wrong with the house, it was our responsibility to fix it, the exact opposite of a normal landlord / tenant arrangement. However, whenever we wanted to do anything to the house to give it more of our taste or style, it suddenly became her decision, usually "NO."

Also, I always felt like I was living in a big part of LeeAnne’s past. What with all her history there, nursing her father through his terminal illness in the house, Bethy being born there, her life with Glenn, Glenn still calling around, there, etc etc. And if it was like that for me, god only knows what it was like for them three?

So what with housing markets being what they were, and everyone predicting that they would soon go downhill, we thought it would be in everyone’s interest for us to move out into another rented property, and for Mary to sell. This would make it easier for her to get the best price for the place, and we were more than happy for her to have a larger slice of the pie out of the sale price, than the amount she wanted, to put aside for herself.

Also we fancied some of what Robby and Michael were getting for their cash.

 

So I broached the idea to LeeAnne, and she jumped at it. The following Sunday we were having tea at Mary’s and so we raised the idea with her. She took it well seeing as it came out of the blue.

So we started house hunting. The net makes this so much easier these days, doesn’t it?

We saw a place in the next suburb, and decided to drive around and have a look. It was a brick place, not particularly inspiring to look at. I got a good feeling about it and told LeeAnne so. She gave me a "look", one of those looks that makes my bollocks shrivel, and then a dozen reasons why it wasn’t suitable. Fair enough, I know my place.

In the next few days we run up a list of places, one, just down the road from us seemed ideal. We didn’t want to move too far from our suburb as Bethy’s at a great school, and all her friends are in the locality. We strolled down the road, and saw this place. It was perfect, just perfect. So we applied for it, only to be told that, as we were pet owners, we could go take a flying fuck at the moon.

"But the place was advertised as "for families," said LeeAnne. So she drafted a letter to the landlord, offering her qualifications, and even going so far as to offer an increased deposit and a higher rate of rent. Same story.

So LeeAnne, being a person who knows her way around these things, put in a formal request to the relevant authorities that places being advertised as "for families" should carry suitable reference to pets and their acceptability.

We saw more places, and none of them seemed suitable. One was ok, but had been owned by a mad Greek old lady, recently deceased, who’s presence could still be felt in the place, it gave me goose bumps.

So I said "Let’s go have a second look at the first place we saw, I got a good vibe off that." This earned me another "look", but to be fair, she did agree to go. We drove down, no appointment or permission to view, but who gives a monkey’s about things like that?

 

 

As I said, from the front the place looked entirely undistinguished. So we strolled round the back. It had a large, a very large, well kept garden, with vege patches, fruit trees (four apricot, a lemon, a peach, and an apple) and a chook run, also a double and a half garage. Very nice. Then we, by climbing on various things we found and stacked up, looked in through the kitchen window.

"I want it!" was all I heard from LeeAnne.

I climbed up and had a look in. The kitchen had been recently refitted, it was wonderful to behold. So we looked in as many windows as we could, without being done for burglary, and it looked good. Ok, so without getting our hopes up too high we made contact and arranged a viewing.

The couple that owned it, a Fijian-Indian couple, met us there the next day. Looking around the inside we were blown away by the space, the fittings, and the terrible paintings and posters they had hung up there. (A wolf baying at the moon?) In the kitchen was something we hadn’t noticed from the window view, a dishwasher, oh the fucking luxury! It also had a unit top gas hob, with a huge wok ring on it, also a fan assisted electric oven and grill, my ideal combo! There was underfloor gas heating, beautiful polished wooden floors throughout, four bedrooms, built in wardrobes in two of the bedrooms, a separate laundry, separate shower room, separate toilet, and a fully fitted bathroom with a second shower in that too.

We were dead keen, but they said they had another couple interested, so we should get our application in soon.

When we got home I commented to LeeAnne about the lovely spicy aroma the house carried, unfortunately due to her sinus problems she hadn’t smelled it. It was not intense, just a house you knew had had a lot of spicy food cooked in it. Quite appealing.

We did all the paperwork that day, and LeeAnne wrote a lovely letter full of half-truths and outright lies, about what wonderful people we are, and how our pets are not manic, homicidal feral animals (to be honest, only the cat is, and I suspect one of the goldfish is too).

We waited in keen anticipation, fingers crossed, and planned how we should burn the place down if we didn’t get offered it.

We got it! (So they couldn’t have seen through the letter!).

Wonderful. So ok, now to move.

 

 

 

 

 

They said we could start moving in on the Thursday of that week. We met up with them and signed our lives away, we also discussed which of the bits and bobs of the furniture they had there we should keep or not. They were ever so obliging. They let us keep a modular sofa, a couple of wardrobes, and several other items that would only have gone into storage otherwise. They also left us the picture of the wolf howling at the moon, very kind of them

Our neighbour at the old place, the lovely Neil, earned our undying gratitude, and a bottle of his fave bevvie, by lending us his trailer for the car. I managed to wangle five consecutive days off from work, without biting into my holiday allowance, nice of them.

We shifted the beds first, as we wanted to sleep there that very night. Bethy was sleeping at her grandmothers for those two nights as it was awkward for her to be involved and expected her not to be too excited to go to school. We set aside boxes for stuff to go to the Salvo’s, and LeeAnne promised to be ruthless sorting out her wardrobe. (In the end she did manage to get rid of a scarf.) [You arse! – from LeeAnne!]

 

There were several heavy bits of kit that need professionals to shift, so we started scouring the Yellow Pages for movers. We had hoped to get the guys who had shifted some stuff for us earlier in the year, two very old guys who made me feel so feeble and fucked by lifting stuff I couldn’t shift with a bulldozer on steroids. We couldn’t find them unfortunately, but we did happen on the wonderfully named "Alldun 1 Go".

They came round the next day, straight from central casting by the look of them. The main man was an enormously fat geezer, he had a "plumbers crack" you could have parked the front wheel of a Harley Davidson in. The other, who neither of us heard a word from the whole time, was skinny as a rake, old as the hills, and had a beard that made him look like he was eating a dead goat. But they did the job without fuss, and were ever so obliging, and charged us less than the estimate (Cash in hand of course!), so we were well pleased.

Our new house backs onto Mount Painter, my favourite place for walking the dog, I get up there four or five times a week now. Mr Nicol will be ever so pleased that I’m getting so many photographs of it. (I’m still waiting for him to mail me, promising to get rid of his bead curtain, if I "STOP SENDING HIM PICTURES OF THE SAME FUCKING PLACE!!!" as he kindly put it.)

Just down the road, about ten houses away, is a small row of shops, with everything you could need there. A supermarket, which doubles up as a off license and Sunday newsagent, a Chinese/Malaysian take away, and a picture framers. Ok, maybe the picture framers isn’t essential, and maybe the offy isn’t a good idea for a lazy fat bastard like me, but you get my drift.

 

 

 

Arranging things, and putting things out in a new place is great fun. We had a happy couple of days, unpacking and fiddling with things and each other. But then I noticed a very worrying trend, LeeAnne had changed, and not for the better.

You see, one of the things I’ve always loved about LeeAnne, and there are many, is her ability to go to a mall, spend less than three minutes in the place, and come out with only the two things she intended to buy. Nothing else, no "bargains", no "I just had to have it[i/]", no "[I]well it’ll come in handy in the future."

But that had changed! My god, she was actually browsing in some places. And even feeling things, and asking questions like; "Do you think this would look good in the living room?"

(To which of course there is only one possible answer; "What do you think love of my life?")

Well that’s the answer to use if you want your bollocks to remain unscathed. On no account reply, "Do I look like a fucking interior designer to you? Have I suddenly developed tits, or turned gay?" Not unless you want to spend the next month in the spare room wanking the night away anyway).

We went to a drapery store. Yes, a fucking drapery store, I was just so embarrassed. Ostensibly we were there to get some material to make curtains, as LeeAnne had heard that they had a sale on. (Hang about, when the fuck did she start noticing sales, more to the point when did she ever notice drapery shop adverts???)

Some of the stuff they sell in these places is weird isn’t it? I mean who, outside of some of my clients that is, would want a matching "Elvis Duvet Cover, Lampshade and Toilet Roll Cover" set?

Bye the bye, why are these places always full of old women? What the fuck do they do there? I mean by the time they’re seventy, old biddies normally have enough bed linen to cover a small county. I’m sure it’s because they make their own clothes, either that or there’s a "Mad Clothes For Strange Old Biddies" shop I’ve never encountered.

 

Must make a change from the post office for them I suppose. Have you ever noticed that no matter how many windows they have open at the post office, there is always a logjam of old biddies at each one? And they all seem to know things about the post office, and their services, that we cannot imagine.

"I’d like to send my son in Buttfuck Illinois, that’s in America you know, he’s doing ever so well for himself, got his own cactus ranch.

What was I saying?

Oh yes I’d like to send him a postal order, by carrier pigeon post, and pay for it with my "Masonic Lodge Mad Old Biddies" credit card, discount scheme, please.

Where did I put it? I had it yesterday at Woollies.

And can I have it the new issue, semicircular, "Anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar," stamps, but the non-perforated, self adhesive ones, not the other type with the green edging?

Yes dear, and while I’m here do you mind if I spend several hours rearranging and cataloguing forty years worth of shite that I keep in my hand bag, and hunting for my purse which is actually under my nose on the counter?"

Anyway, LeeAnne wanted to buy a mile of material to make curtains for the new place. But then she started browsing, bad move. "We could do with new doona covers for Bethy’s bed, a couple of them in fact, and it’s about time we got a king size doona ‘cos I’m fed up of waking up with all the doona on your side of the bed and me freezing me tits off, oh and while we’re at it we may as well get a new mat for the bathroom, and the shower room, and the toilet, oh and if we’re getting a new doona we need a couple of covers for it, and pillowcases, and we really do need a curtain for the hall window, one of those fabric blinds type, and a new door mat…."

By the time we got out of there the owner was shutting down the store, and desperately trying to source some stock, in order to open the next day with something on his shelves.

But the best one of all was the fridge.

Our fridge in the old house was a massive bloody thing. It was great for filling with beer, though it never seemed to stay that full. So we measured the space in the kitchen that was set aside for a fridge, and reckoned that it would fit with about 5 mil clearance. No worries.

But when the "Alldun 1 Go" guys tried to fit it, we noticed there was a bulge in the wall, and it wouldn’t fit in the gap. So we stuck it in a convenient place, admittedly it did look out of place in the dining room, but it was ok, and that was that. Or so I thought.

LeeAnne lasted two days.

"Only one thing for it!" she said, smiling, "We’ll have to get a new fridge."

 

Brief interlude;

It’s Sunday morning here, and I’m at work. The local chemist has an account there so we can get med’s for our punters. They are less than efficient. This morning;

Me: "I’d like these charged to our account please."

Pretty, but dim, till girl: "Sorry you cannot have these medications on that account, your name is not on the list of authorised people."

Me; "Yes it is."

PBDTG: "No it’s not, I can’t give them to you sorry."

Me; "That’s my name there, top of the list."

PBDTG: "But these medications are for Joe Punter!"

Me: "Yes, and I want to pay for them on our account."

PBDTG: "But you’re not Joe Punter!"

Me; "Yes, I know that; I’m me." (Pointing at my name on the list and holding my ID card next to my face.")

PBDTG: "But Joe Punter isn’t on our list."

Me; "Can you get your superior please." (Under my breath; "that’s just about anyone who can walk and chew at the same time.")

PBDTG: rings bell, slightly older PBDTG walks over and sorts her out, then turns to leave.

Me; "Wait a minute, this is where entering our account details into the till makes your system reject your passwords."

SOPBDTG: "Beg your pardon?"

Me; "The last seven times anyone from my team has got medications on this account, entering our details into the system causes the till to reject all passwords."

SOPBDTG: Enters the transaction into the till, system rejects her password.

Me; "Ah hummm.."

SOPBDTG: "That’s funny I’ll…"

Me; (Interrupting) "Get Mark?"

SOPBDTG: "get Mark."

Me; "And Mark will wander over, tell you to do a written note of the transaction, and say he’ll get it sorted out by next week."

SOPBDTG: "I’ll get Mark."

Mark: "Hi Taff."

Me; "Hello again Mark, guess what’s happened?"

Mark; "Ok, Julie, do a written transaction for Taff and I’ll…"

Need I say any more?

So we got a new fridge.

Just before we moved to the new place we had a rep over to sort out our going Broadband. There’s a deal going at the moment where you sign your life away to get broadband, digital TV, gas and electric all through one company. We signed up, but let the rep know we’d be moving, and that the deal we wanted was for our new place. "No problems," said he.

Ok, we’d moved and rang the phone company to let them know they could move our phone number to the new address.

"We can’t do that, there’s a porting order for November the 11th on that line."

"Why?"

Well the owner must have put it there."

"But we’re the owner and we didn’t."

Sorry, can’t help you."

So we phoned complaints.

"There’s a porting order for that line for November the 11th. "

"We didn’t order one."

"But there’s one there, so you must have."

"No we didn’t."

Oh, it’s from your old telephone company. Talk to them."

We talked to them, they agreed we didn’t have a porting order. They, kindly, phoned the other company and confirmed that we had no such order in.

We contacted them again. They still refused to move our number. We contacted the ombudsman. Take it away LeeAnne….

 

Telstra Corporation

Bill Disputes

GPO Box 9901

MELBOURNE VIC 3001

 

Re: Account Number: Bill Number:

I wish to dispute the above mentioned Bill and refer you to my complaint submitted to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman on 9 August 2004.

I wish to dispute the paying of two line rentals as from 9 August 2004 when I attempted to have one number transferred to my new address (also as above) and cancel the other number.

I was appalled on that day that despite your organisation knowing I was moving address on 11 August 2004, and new tenants were moving into my old address, I was unable to transfer my number and the cancel the other number.

I was initially advised it was because of a "porting request" in from Optus for moving my first mentioned number to their service on 11 November 2004. This was not the case in the end. But the lines were still in Telstra'’s control until, apparently, 11 November 2004. Yet I was denied access to the service that I (as your customer) required from you (as my provider).

I was also denied the ability to cancel both of my numbers and as a result they remained "live" at the premises I vacated from 11 August 2004 until I was EVENTUALLY able to cancel them several weeks later.

I would like to remind you that I am your customer, Optus is your competition. I saw no service provided by your organisation to myself in rectifying this situation. I had more service from your competition.

I was also forced to acquire a new phone number at my new premises in order for me to be able to properly complete briefings and ministerial responses as part of my work duties. I wish to dispute the payment of connection to this service.

I feel recompense is owed to me by your organisation for the loss of productive work time from my home office. I have been seriously inconvenience in having to advise all my contacts, (including the AFP as I am on a voluntary roster to assist with interviews of underage children outside work hours) of my new phone number. I was unable to complete work at home during the period of time I had no phone service.

I would like you to amend my Bill and remove any rental for the two lines mentioned above as well as removing your charges for having to connect a new service. It is my belief that you should have been able to cancel my second line and move my first line to my new address on 9 August 2004 and I would not have been confronting these charges in the first place.

A copy of this correspondence will be forwarded to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman for information.

Regards

 

 

LeeAnne

5 September 2004

 

They agreed that the company was out of order, and gave them 10 days to rectify it.

We contacted them to see when they would do it. They said;

"As you have a complaint in with the ombudsman we will not be taking any action, until that time expires."

We asked them if they could connect the phone in the new house.

"No"

"Why"

"Not unless you take out a new number."

"At our expense?"

"Yes"

"Ok, we’ll do that then."

20 minutes later we have a new phone line.

Now they are sending someone round so we can fill in all the paper work for broadband again.

LeeAnne managed to get a $90.00 reduction in the bill for the sheer bloody chaos they had caused us.

So can I heartily recommend that if you ever have a chance, please do not use the services of TELSTRA, as they are completely shite.

Bethy is in seventh heaven of course! The first proper weekend we had in the new house we let her have Ginger Steph over for a sleep over. Bethy having her own room to entertain in is a wonderful thing. Especially since LeeAnne (who’s purse strings are now looser than a ten dollar whore’s knickers elastic) bought Bethy her own TV. ("Its a bargain, its got a flat screen!")

Then the other day LeeAnne was picking up Bethy from school and came across a very distressed Allene, crying her eye’s out, as the other kids wouldn’t let her play with them as she was; "too slow." So LeeAnne invited her over for a sleep over, but fortunately without being able to justify buying another TV.

The garden is now the place that is absorbing LeeAnne’s energies, and sucking the life out of my credit card. The vege patch in the garden was full, and I mean full to the brim with no other plants growing in it, of coriander. Very nice, but when you find yourself wondering if "coriander flavoured porridge" was going a bit far, you have to think of other things.

So LeeAnne did, she decided to become Barbara Good from "The Good Life". (She’s got the arse for it!)

At present she is lost in a world of peas, beans, tomatoes, and other vegetable products, all of which are going to be grown in our patch, along with pots of herbs, strawberries, fruit from the trees and other delights. Oh, and as it’s her birthday next week, she’s getting three chooks. I’m drawing the line at, and buying a cricket box ready for, telling her; "No you cannot have a pig. Just because, that’s why!"

 

My role, as the big butch handyman about the place, was fencing off the garden so the dim dog can spend his days outside. I like to think I’ve done a good job of it, it hasn’t fallen down yet, and I’m sure my leg will heal without too much scarring. You have ten fingers so that one or two getting chopped off doesn’t matter too much, don’t you think?

To test the fencing, I let the dog out in the garden while I got ready for work.

I came out to find the dog gone.

No problem, a few whistles from me and he’ll come rushing to my side like the good, faithful mutt he is. (Or at least like the good, faithful mutt he’s been since the "great thrashing on the corner of Bingara Street" episode. We don’t talk about that now.)

So I whistled and yelled and hooted and shouted, and then phoned work to let them know I would be late coming in as my stupid fucking mutt had done a runner.

So I spent a few hours searching the neighbourhood, no luck. I went all over Mount Painter twice, no joy. I was getting quite concerned, or to put it another way, I was shitting myself, as the dog has less road sense than the goldfish.

I was thinking it was just about time for me to go collect Bethy from school, as I’d phoned work again and told them to write me off for the day, when I had a brainwave! Whenever dim mutt had run away from the old house, we always knew where to find him as he went to a cul-de-sac round the corner, there was a bitch there he liked. He’s not had his nuts cut off yet, but she’s been snipped, so they had some very interesting fights. "I wonder if the bastard’s gone there?"

I drove round there and whistled, and along the road he came, crawling on his belly, half overjoyed to be found half shitting himself for the thrashing he was anticipating. I was so relieved, and let’s not forget he had crossed two four-lane roads to get there, that he was alive, that I almost forgot to beat chunks out of him.

Oh, in case you’re wondering, he was able to get out of the garden as some dim Welsh twat hadn’t shut the gate.

 

 

 

We picked up a new client the other day, first episode psychosis following a drug binge that I was in awe of. Poly chemical abuse didn’t enter into it, this guy tried blasting his brain past the Hubble space station to have a closer look at the cosmos. Respect!

So anyway, we get him, and he’s discharged from hospital, on no meds, and functioning amazingly normally for someone of 19 years. (Well for someone of 19 years who tried to do more drugs in one night than Keith Richards does in a month.)

So we’re doing our bit, and he’s buying into the service well. Then one night, mother, who’s been complaining about every single action the health services have done, corners my co-worker, and gets her to book her in for: "just a quick chat, no more than five minutes."

Two and a half hours later, my colleague emerges, blinking into the light, and looking for aspirin. "The funniest thing was," she said "the silly cow kept on going on about how obsessive Joe is, then pulled out a stack of notes she’d been keeping on him, they were the size of twelve "yellow pages", to show what he’s been doing!"

Hmmm, I wonder where he gets his obsessiveness from?

OK, so Bethy is off school sick, and I’m baby-sitting her as it’s my day off. I decided to give the dim dog a walk up Mt. Painter, to take some photographs to annoy the shite out of Mr Nicol. Halfway up I come across a very sorry looking sheep, lying on its side and bleating pitifully. So, resisting the temptation to be very Welsh, I leg it to the other side of the hill, and knock on the farm door. It’s answered by a short lady with a distinctive accent. (Croatian? Argentinean? Zimbabwean?)

Anyway I tell her about the sheep, and she gets on the blower to her husband to go and see to it. "{I}You’re Welsh," she says, "I used to spend all my holidays in Wales as a child, I grew up in Liverpool.[/I]" (Ah a scouser! I was close then.)

Anyway we chatted about the UK, and how the weather there was worse this summer than we were getting in mid winter, and I bid her adios.

Half way down the path, her kid, a girl of about 8 comes running after me. She gives me a CD; "Mammy wanted you to have this as a thank you!" Very nice of her I thought. It’s a CD of her and her husband’s band, four tracks of their own self-written music. Don’t ask me what it’s like, I haven’t played it yet, she looked to close to being a country "music" fan for me to risk it…

Oh, the sheep was dead by the time I got back up the hill, and no I didn’t. Welsh I might be, necrophiliac I’m not.

At LeeAnne’s work that day the sewer lines were all up, so LeeAnne wrote Bethy a mail, asking how she was feeling, telling her about not having any toilets at work, and asking her not to mention going for a wee.

Bethy replied, and succinctly answered all the questions, and informed LeeAnne of how she felt, and told of my adventures with the sheep, and all in one brief sentence, thus;

HI DUDE TAFF GOT A CD BECAUSE HE FOUND A SHEEP I'M NOT 100% NEED A WEE BYE

Remember I was writing on about not having a working car windscreen wipers for 9 months? The other day it rained. This entailed a lot of buggering about, and resulted in LeeAnne having to drive me too and from work. Not satisfactory. So we bit the bullet, and I took it to the local garage, and they hummed and hawwed, and charged me a fuck of a lot of money to replace the wiper arm spindling gronkshafts, or something. Great, I now have working windscreen wipers. All we need now is more rain to justify the expense.

The cat remains well, he loves the "get well soon" cards and gifts, you tossers.

 

Oh and congratulations to Matt and Helen on the birth of their daughter, Gina! Apparently all is well; she looks like Helen and not like a semi-evolved simian as Matt does.

Poor old Helen, two kids to take care of now.

 

The Midwinters are on holiday in Korea at the moment, a bit too close for comfort for me. He is sending his account of the trip, if you know him you will realise that these are slightly surreal. They contain several pictures of cranes, the lifting type not the feathered type, for no reason I can fathom. One of them had a great shot of his daughter, in a bikini, send your bids now for a copy.

I was just about to send this off, when..

Sunday at work, the Psychologist answers the phone, and yell’s over; "It’s your wife!"

I take the call, and nod and "yes dear," "no dear", "of course that’s fine dear," "not a problem," in all the right places. I put the phone down, and tell The Psychologist; "LeeAnne was going to "trash and treasure" today, to get the weeks veg and fruit shopping done, guess what she came home with?"

the Psychologist had a few game stabs at it, but got nowhere.

"Go on then, tell me!"

"Ok, she got seven pairs of socks, four chickens and a lettuce."

"But you’re both vego’s, you don’t eat chicken?"

"Live ones."

"Is she ok?"

Yes we are now the proud owners of two Australorps, and two Rhode Island Reds, named Ginger, Roxy, Areatha (]big fat black bird) and Bob.

Life, as ever, remains…strange.