Musical Beds

Last night I dozed off on the Z bed (we're in a three bed apartment with two double beds and two singles). Rhiannon therefore slept with Di, although she refused to sleep on my side, something to do with me being a stinky unclean bloke or something. I woke up again at midnight, so I decided to fire up the laptop and watch the text commentary on the Monza GP. A 1-2 for Brawn GP. Turned back in around 2 and was actually woken at 6 by the tribe switching on the telly and the lights.

This morning was another bright and sunny day. Craig and I got the 36 Bay Hopper in to Tauranga and visited the AA shop. There seems to be some sort of tie up with the AA and the government department of transport, since they have all the licence transfer forms that we're going to need to get an NZ licence. Having joined the AA I plumped for some TPFT insurance. There's a $400 excess and an additional $400 excess because of our non NZ licence. The policy also covers us if we're hit by an uninsured driver so long as we get the registration number - this alone makes it worth having. I was quite pleased that the AA seemed to think the $2900 I'd paid for the Mirth Mobile was well below the book price which was around $7000. My initial concern that the $1500-$2500 guide price from the auctioneers indicated that I might have paid over the odds appears to be unfounded.

Fully spammed up we got the Hopper back to the apartment and took the Mirth Mobile out for a jolly to look over a house on Excelsior Place, right along Papamoa Beach Road. This was a very exclusive area and the house was barely 2 years old. A very large 4 bed house with a carpeted double garage. The agent indicated we were in with a shout as the owner is a bit choosy, however the rent is $500 a week which is a little more than we want to pay. We also took an exterior look at a house on Papamoa Beach Road but it was a bit rough. Another house that's not yet on the market on Arabian Drive looks promising, and the rent is only $360 which seems more than reasonable. The house with the pool on Motiti Road was actually a bit small, and not even the novel electric sliding gate and garage door made me think it was worth it. The house next door is actually up for sale and might well be what we're looking for. The pool was nothing much to shout about and swallowed what remained of the garden space which was pretty non existent.

Having viewed all the houses we wandered off into Tauranga to visit the Pak 'n' Save - a local supermarket chain which is generally a lot cheaper than the likes of Woolworths. Diane also managed to find a pink (as opposed to blue) car seat for Phoebe from the adjacent Warehouse, but at a rather steep $59. I was delighted to have found a box of PG Tips, but looking at the box when we got it home, it transpires the best before date was 2006! Hmm. We brewed up and it tastes just fine, but perhaps we need to be a little more careful in future.

We also noticed that the Mirth Mobile seems to be leaving a trail of water behind it. It isn't engine coolant, since it's completely clear. The current suspicion is that it's condensation from the air conditioning which we were running at full tilt, and it was certainly much worse later in the evening when it was cooler and there was presumably more moisture in the air.