They say things happen in threes, my first disappointment occurred the other week when, purely due to my own stupidity, I was not called back for a second interview. Oh woe is the world of instant communication, one little slip of the curser and hey presto I attached the wrong resume complete with a word missing… Sadly there is no excuse aside from paying more attention to work rather than finding work. Hey ho, the search continues.
Our second frustration is that Australian Immigration is doing a complete revamp of their points system, tightening up their borders and attempting to dissuade any waifs and strays from applying (unless highly educated!). This puts quite an obvious spanner in our plans as we do not yet know what the changes will be and, potentially, we may not have enough points to complete our application. However, we live in hope and are therefore ploughing ahead with gathering the information they require in the hopes that we might get our papers through before the changes. To that end Americo is writing his English test this weekend – a highlight in his life, I can assure you! He is feeling very hard done by that due to his Portuguese passport he clearly does not fully comprehend the lingo! Personally I am very smug with my British passport … no test required as CLEARLY, I speak the Queens English.
Now for the icing on this cake of woe..
The other day we popped over to our tenanted property as the washing machine was leaking, whilst there the tenants mentioned that the floor was lifting between the kitchen and the dining room. About two weeks later, having finalised suitable dates for the handy man to go forth and repair, we got a call……
The handyman explained that the problem with our floor is that there appears to be a leak, somewhere, which we will need to have seen to. Happily he carried on with his repair job regardless, only calling us after completing the work; I would liken his efforts to putting a band-aid on a severed leg – but I digress. We get the call and both realised that leaks, under the floor, are never likely to be good news. Although everyone else seemed quite casual about the prospect of the house floating off into the world!
Unable to get hold of the tenants we dashed over to see if they might be there, thankfully they were and that is where the good news begins and ends.
They pointed us in the direction of the leak, from a metre away I could hear it gushing out of the pipe, unseen and creating all kinds of havoc. We immediately called our insurers, spending the rest of the weekend in dialog and between one house and the other. Arranging a hotel for the tenants as water had to be switched off at the mains. Needless to say it was all incredibly stressful and highly dull to write about. The end result is this…
.. Two thirds of the floor needs to be replaced, the joists are soaked, dehumidifiers need to be brought in - all in all I am considering alcoholism as an escape route from the chaos!
You would think it ends there, but no.. the renters are having marital problems and it seems I have been relegated to the post of agony aunt. I am not quite sure how this situation came about as, quite frankly, I have some fairly major issues of my own. However, she is kindly keeping me updated with regular text messages highlighting the ruin of their relationship.
No, no, life really could not get much better than this!
Our second frustration is that Australian Immigration is doing a complete revamp of their points system, tightening up their borders and attempting to dissuade any waifs and strays from applying (unless highly educated!). This puts quite an obvious spanner in our plans as we do not yet know what the changes will be and, potentially, we may not have enough points to complete our application. However, we live in hope and are therefore ploughing ahead with gathering the information they require in the hopes that we might get our papers through before the changes. To that end Americo is writing his English test this weekend – a highlight in his life, I can assure you! He is feeling very hard done by that due to his Portuguese passport he clearly does not fully comprehend the lingo! Personally I am very smug with my British passport … no test required as CLEARLY, I speak the Queens English.
Now for the icing on this cake of woe..
The other day we popped over to our tenanted property as the washing machine was leaking, whilst there the tenants mentioned that the floor was lifting between the kitchen and the dining room. About two weeks later, having finalised suitable dates for the handy man to go forth and repair, we got a call……
The handyman explained that the problem with our floor is that there appears to be a leak, somewhere, which we will need to have seen to. Happily he carried on with his repair job regardless, only calling us after completing the work; I would liken his efforts to putting a band-aid on a severed leg – but I digress. We get the call and both realised that leaks, under the floor, are never likely to be good news. Although everyone else seemed quite casual about the prospect of the house floating off into the world!
Unable to get hold of the tenants we dashed over to see if they might be there, thankfully they were and that is where the good news begins and ends.
They pointed us in the direction of the leak, from a metre away I could hear it gushing out of the pipe, unseen and creating all kinds of havoc. We immediately called our insurers, spending the rest of the weekend in dialog and between one house and the other. Arranging a hotel for the tenants as water had to be switched off at the mains. Needless to say it was all incredibly stressful and highly dull to write about. The end result is this…
.. Two thirds of the floor needs to be replaced, the joists are soaked, dehumidifiers need to be brought in - all in all I am considering alcoholism as an escape route from the chaos!
You would think it ends there, but no.. the renters are having marital problems and it seems I have been relegated to the post of agony aunt. I am not quite sure how this situation came about as, quite frankly, I have some fairly major issues of my own. However, she is kindly keeping me updated with regular text messages highlighting the ruin of their relationship.
No, no, life really could not get much better than this!
