A Letter In The Post

I had a phone call from the tax people yesterday. Apparently the copy of the residence visa in the passports wasn't quite what they wanted. They needed the bit that showed the "residence permit", which apparently is the stamp applied by immigration when we landed, and in all cases is adjacent to the returning resident's visa which is stuck in the passport. Out came the digital camera and more photos were "scanned" by having Di hold the passports against the window while I went outside to photograph them. Don't knock it, it works and there are no odd fingers holding the pages open, which avoids all that tarting about with Photoshop. However before we faxed these over, a quick call to another Inland Revenue department revealed that they had indeed managed to allocate IRD numbers for the kids in 5 working days, and so we were able to quote these on the fax. Another call was received this morning confirming that they had everything they needed and that we would be getting a letter confirming our entitlement. The woman stressed that it was important to let them know when we start work, since more than 30 hours carries a different tax credit as well. It was again impressive that we were being chased up so that the government could give us money and that they were so helpful in the process, a point I made to the woman on the phone, who was appreciative.

The interview with the job agency wasn't particularly earth shattering and they have not a lot on their books right now. They had apparently already been contacted by the other agency I saw a couple of weeks ago, so it looks as if the balls are indeed starting to roll. I also had an email from a company that I found on the web who are local and do a lot of Linux work. They haven't any jobs just yet, but they wanted to have a chat anyway, so I'm going to see them on Monday afternoon.

Craig survived his first day at work, which was busy despite the inclement weather which has set in for the week. His only faux pas was to use the wrong coulis on one sweet. Nothing was burnt or sent back and as far as he knows no one complained. He's already begun sniffing around the waitresses and asking whether he count stay in the Mount if we had to move to Wellington or elsewhere if no jobs turn up here.

I have also upgraded our broadband to 20GB data allowance. The 3GB allowance simply was not going to work since it's not just office hours and also includes uploads. In the UK we managed on 2GB during office hours, 100GB off peak and unlimited uploads. Also the upload speed of the 3GB plan was pegged at 128K, which is rather sluggish. I have to say I've not noticed much of a speed increase, but at least it won't drop to dial-up speed when the data allowance is used up prematurely.