Phoebe has shown interest in the piano. She takes a somewhat perverse pleasure in practising whenever I remind Imogen or Rhiannon that they should be practising their instruments. I am playing up to this and making a fuss of her and trying to channel this enthusiasm as best as I can. It seems to be working. Speaking of music, I am attempting to learn a grade VIII piece, Rondo Opus 22 by Sor. Challenging doesn't do it justice.
The pool seems to have lost most of it's chlorine. We added what we thought was the right amount and overdid it a bit. However after a week or so and some rain the levels had returned to normal. Shame it's still too damn cold to use. We added some clarifier as well, which helps remove some of the ultra fine particles, which can otherwise pass through the filter and back into the pool.
I had an email from the guy who cooked us dinner the other week. He is a graphic designer in addition to being a chef. Er..yeah...anyway, he claimed that he designed websites on the side and had a "mate" who coded them up for him. This necessitated me pressing my business card into his hands with a directive to give me a call if his "mate", who by all accounts was becoming more expensive and vague actually let him down. Lo-and-behold I get an email asking for a quote for none other than his mother's new website. I went and met with him and his mum, discussed various possibilities including a CMS option and hosting. The quote was accepted and the site is now live. Huzzah. Even better, he's passed my details onto someone else.
I've also started work on another site based on their graphic designer's mock up. Alas this one's going to be time consuming, because the client wants to mico-manage the whole thing and is a little demanding about exactly which font size to use...
A couple more domain registrations have come my way, and I am now hosting a site that is going to be launched nationally. This has necessitated me acquiring another host just for the launch - it would be rather embarrassing if he thing fell over on day one, as new high profile sites tend to do when everyone + dog tries out the website.
The rates bill has been resolved. I still find it rather harsh that you get a demand for $950 and a threat to add 10% if you don't pay on time. Under the rebate rules, we were entitled to a full rebate of $570 since our "income" for the last financial year was, ahem, bugger all. We missed a trick with the portion of last year's rates as we would have been entitled to a rebate on the year we weren't in the country. The problem however is that the IRD have not given us any proof of the income we haven't had, and without that, the council won't grant a rebate. I explained that we had no proof to the council, who insisted we get the IRD to write something to that effect. After several phone calls to the IRD, I finally got through. The IRD person suggested that we print off a statement from the online services website that said there were no details. Apparently this rather flimsy evidence is what the council were after. Sure enough, this proved to be the case. I appeared in person at the council offices, presented the evidence and subject to a clarifying phone call "upstairs", a full rebate was granted.
Our sofa, which we bought nearly a year ago and had to have fixed, has broken again. This time it's snapped clean in the middle. We reported it to the shop. Three times. Despite this, the manufacturer never bothered to call to arrange a time to fix it. We did a little bit of research which lead us to believe that the consumer guarantees act was on our side here. In short it says that goods sold must be fit for purpose and of sufficiently durable quality. We went back to the shop and said as much. They did try and offer us an upgrade, since the items of the same "quality" weren't going to gut it, but there was nothing that really grabbed our attention. We ended up with a full refund a few days later. We did a tour of various furniture shops, but ended up buying a suite from TradeMe for $500. If it lasts a year, then it'll be worth it.
Sunday wasn't a good day. Rhiannon's laptop decided to die, an event that was accompanied by a huge amount of wailing and whining. The weather also took a turn for the worse, with thunder and lighting directly overhead, and hail stones, some of which were approaching cherry/olive size. Fortunately nothing broke, unless you count hordes of children running around outside trying to collect them all up and colliding with each other. I have no idea why they are still in the freezer.
The laptop was collected by Computer Solutions, who whisked it up to Auckland for repair. It transpired that it was the power brick that was at fault, which seemed a little odd since the old one was still giving out power. A 10 day lead time was quoted. Argh! Madam has been making her presence felt and generally getting in everyone's way by stealing whatever hardware is available to continue her online life, the details of which no one is allowed to know. Fortunately, the lead time turned into a couple of days and Madam returned to her darkened room to exhaust what remains of our monthly data allowance. No thanks, of course, for the $90 repair bill.
Imogen had been badgering us for a fishing rod for a while now.
We finally gave in and took her to get one. This if course necessitated a trip down to the Mount to try it out. She actually manage to catch a couple of fish - lane snapper. They were unfortunately too small to eat and had to be thrown back. One didn't make it though - a passing cormorant got an easy meal.Rhiannon and Freya both managed to get themselves into the paper with various school events. Rhiannon was recognisable from a distance,
but Freya was most distinct.We went to the Tuesday pub quiz at Rain bar - and managed to come second winning a $50 bar tab. We did have a little help from our B team, but were still a long way above third place.
Craig announced this week that he was moving out. It came as rather a shock, particularly as we hadn't been winding each other up for several weeks now. It turns out his boss has just kicked his girlfriend out and wants a lads only bachelor pad for a while. Although the rent is a bit less, he's going to have to feed himself, sort out his own internet and wash his work clothes, gym clothes, posing clothes, etc, etc. He seems to get through more clothes than all his sisters put together, so good luck with that.
Our builder told us that he's coming next Monday to start work on the office/bathroom conversions. This was also the day that Di managed to reverse the Odyssey into a parked car, cracking the bumper. Apparently the reversing camera wouldn't work fast enough and she couldn't be bothered to wait. Sigh. I also met with the director of another internet firm, who seemed interested in my development capabilities. We had a loose agreement that any odd jobs might come my way. This came through quicker than expected with a call on Saturday. He wanted a couple of sites revamping and the details will be discussed next week.
Sunday I was VWed. Wayne has bought a rather ancient Toyota Lucida MPV since he and Vicky have impending parental visits, and carting them all about with the kids requires more than the usual five seats. Sadly, it had no in-car entertainment. I'd bought a CD/Radio off the catchoftheday website a few months ago, with a plan to fit it into the Mirth Mobile. Sadly I could not figure out how to remove the old one, and as the Radio is just dandy, I slung it into a box and left it there. Wayne was keen to have it, and bribed me with some beer to install it. The connectors were incompatible, but a trip to Repco provided one half of the solution. The other required a judicious amount of soldering, and it all went quite smoothly. That was until we tried to push the unit into the dashboard. It was too big by about 5mm. A problem such as this called for a beer and a large amount of air to be sucked through the teeth. Measuring things up, it seemed that the fake walnut veneer on the dash might be filed down, and a few metal protrusions persuaded not to. With such a fine end to a Sunday afternoon, we decided that the pleasant weather was conducive to a barbecue, and the beast was fired up for the first time this season. Sadly, the weather turned by the time we were all assembled, so the BBQ was dragged into the conservatory.
The builders turned up on Monday, and demolished the walls. The
electrician didn't, so operations were suspended at about 4PM. We have concerns that the bath which we don't yet have might not fit through the doorway, so a trip down to Plumb in was in order to measure up. I wanted a corner bath, and the measurements are such that this is actually the only realistic option. A regular bath would fit, but it would be cramped by comparison.
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