Phoned immigration to speak to my case officer today, she had a voicemail saying she was on holiday for a few weeks.  I managed to gather from a random phone operator that my file had been passed to someone else.  Whom?  I have no idea.  Wait time frame?  No idea.  I got so close, I could almost smell my stamped passport!  And now its slipped away again into an abbyss of red tape and more holiday leave than any other industry in the world. 

We received a letter from the tenancy tribunal to inform us that we have an appointment for mediation on Aug 29 with the rental agency. I think we know how this is going to go, Janeane's annoying drawl of an accent proclaming she's done nothing wrong vs Steve and I pushed to the brink of insanity by her doing absolutely nothing.  If a compromise can't be reached, we're prepared to head to the next stage of court.  In our last property, we walked away.  This time, Janeane knew I wouldn't take crap and we've been treated like second class citizens.  We shall fight to the death!  It would be the best outcome if we she released us from the tenancy and compensated us.  Then we could move and get on with our lives.  Worse case scenerio, we wait for a court date and as time ticks by it heads closer to the end of our tenancy anyway.  That will just be annoying!

Steve's away in Aussie.  LUCKY barstard!  We woke up at 4am, we had an hour to get to the airport.  He said I could drive because he knew we'd get there in time.  First time EVER I've driven us anywhere and he actually didn't comment on my driving.  Any part of it.  Even running a red light.  It was weird!  We arrived just as the flight was boarding, and Steve was allowed on.  A much slower, tearful journey ensued on the way home.  I was shattered.  I dropped Moons off at school and then chased around the house trying to clean up.  It'd gotten really messy.  Its now 4pm, Moons is in her 'I must touch everything' kind of a mood, everything has become a toy and everything has to be narrated.  Pip has learnt to crawl, sort of.  She's kind of dragging herself around like a mamed Vietnam war solider, occasionally falling on her head, then screaming about it.  This is made worse when Moons tries to 'help' her back up - usually by her head, I shout, Pip screams.  The house is noisy, my blinking is increasing for longer periods.  I've decided to take the girls away tomorrow night for a change of scenery.  These last couple of weeks have been an endless loop of doctors, hospitals, chemists, with some shopping thrown in.  Admittedly ysterday we took a break from the norm.  The weather was beautiful and I suggested that we all head to the beach, I had loads of fun driving on the beach through the water in my landy.  I started to get this sense of anything being achievable, that I was a God of 4wding.  It was about that time that I sunk the landy in water so deep that we had to climb out the windows because we couldn't open the doors.  The landy was well and truly stuck in the mud.  We ended up having to call a tow truck.  Of course we got the p*ss ripped out of us by other 4wders, ESPECIALLY toyota drivers, one even stopped to take a photo.  To add further damage to my pride, as I tried to lean over and hook up the tow to the thing at the front, I slipped and fell into the muddiest, murkiest water I've ever seen.   Its the first time I've ever bogged a landrover!  I usually just blow them up, so this was good for me!  For christmas I've added, winch, to my list.

It was a great day, best fun I've had for a while!  I'm looking forward to the weather changing so we can be out more.

As I was writing this, my phone rang, it was motel that I had been enquring about online, turns out, a bigger unit is available but he'll give it to me for the same price!  AWESOME!  So that's all booked!  I would say I'll be recharging the batteries, but with two youngsters, I don't think so!  Still, I'm looking forward to taking Moons to the farms, its about time she had a good treat, she's been so strong in the face of all these health problems.