Selling Your Hind Teeth, Pussycat

Di went to the dentist today. It turns out one of her back molars had cracked and the rather large filling was loose. The only solution according to the dentist was to root fill it and crown it. $3000 please. SAY WHAT!? You've got to be bloody joking! Apparently not. Di has the back two missing on one side already and doesn't miss them and insisted that they pull it out. This cost $290, still daylight robbery. Neither of us can believe quite how much dentists charge in New Zealand. We were never able to find an NHS dentist in the UK and so we'd gone private and were used to paying £500 or so for a crown, but being charged three times as much is beyond a joke. The worst bit is that one of Di's other molars is in need of a crown and one of the ones done in the UK has apparently been botched (same dentist as the kids, who have had all their fillings replaced for much the same reason). So we could quite easily have been spending the thick end of ten grand on teeth. Ringing around other dentists, we discovered that they all charge pretty much the same price. They are without doubt a set of bandits. It would be cheaper but more carbon intensive to fly back to the UK, get your teeth fixed, take a holiday and then fly home again.

Thursday was also a dead loss since the power went off at 8:30 and did not return until 16:00. Apparently it was a scheduled maintenance period, but nobody told us or any of our neighbours. I was expecting a couple of emails, and managed to get on line by plugging the wireless router into a DC power inverter which in turn plugged into the fag lighter in the car. Fortunately I had brought a ten metre phone extension cable with me (sockets/plugs are the same as the UK) and this was just about the right length to reach from the bedroom to the car. The speed was probably down a bit, but not noticeably.

On the web front, a friend in the UK wanted my opinion on their site which they're doing using a diy flash set up. My comments were that it was unlikely ever to come up in a Google search because the Googlebot cannot read flash. As I am in need of a few reference sites I offered to take on the design of the site. He bit my arm off. What have I done?

I investigated getting an 0800 phone number today. I am minded to sign up for a VOIP number with Kiwilink which costs $10 per month, assuming nobody phones you. It strikes me that it looks more authentic to have a land line number rather than just a mobile. Di returned from poly today with news that one of her friends on the course may want me to look at her web site and give it the once over. Apparently it's been put together by a graphic designer but they get no hits. It looks the part though, but it seems it doesn't work. I also considered whether I should register for GST as I'm going to be dealing with businesses. Registration is voluntary if your turnover is less than $60k but it would mean I can claim back GST on any expenses which will be useful. On reflection I decided to leave it until we move otherwise it's more paperwork to change the address.

We noted that the estate agents had visited us and there's now a large "sold" sign slapped across the advertising board at the end of the drive. It would appear that we're definitely sold. Nice of someone to tell us.

Di and the kids had gone to V&W's in the afternoon and later on I wandered on down as well. Wayne was just about going mental with all the kids milling around. He insisted that I accompany him to Bayfair for a spot of shopping. Sadly this included a twelve pack which we set about demolishing over the course of the evening. We temporarily removed ourselves for a spot of dinner and that's when I got a call from Halo Financial. They agreed to take a 0.7% commission on currency exchange, so I went with then for the first half of the house money. Getting the bank to arrange the transfer involved a few phone calls back and forward in order to verify I was who I claimed to be. Fortunately this all proceeded OK and the transfer was made. I have also put on a couple of buy orders which will either buy when the rate hits the right value or buy when it's about to plummet, a so called "stop loss" order. Which ever one triggers first cancels the other. Thus we don't need to panic if things start to go south. Obviously we may need to make a manual order if the rate doesn't move either way.

Returning to V&W's, we finished off the beer and wobbled off home in the wee small hours.

Saturday started with a hangover;-) Not massive but just enough. The major irritant however was the stray cat which seems to have decided we are its owners. It has apparently gained the name "Tigger" on account of being a rather cute grey tabby. The damn thing keeps leaping in through open windows and generally trying to ingratiate itself with all and sundry. Naturally it has done a remarkably good job on the kids, particularly Phoebe and Freya who keep picking it up and carrying it around and generally making a fuss over it, wanting to give it bowls of milk and food etc. Di went on a mission to try and track down its owners (it has no collar) but all the neighbours had no idea. At this point with a house move pending the last thing we need is an animal about the house (we have enough two legged ones;-)) and thus I am now officially Mr. Grumpy because I want nothing to do with it. Although it is a cute and cuddly pusscat. No! Stop it!