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Scream if you want to go fasterPosted on Monday 14 May 2007 at 06:23 - Post Comment
That's what they would always shout on the fairground rides down at Southend seafront during the Airshow Weekend there. If it was a 'roundy, roundy' ride then Toni would scream, and I'd just wish I could get off. If it was an 'uppy, downy' one then I'd be having a great time whilst T would be a little green around the gills.
And that is exactly what this emigration malarky seems to be like. One day I'll be riding high, feeling on top of the world, whilst T will be fed up with it all. 2 days later and vice versa - I'll be just wanting the world to end and T will be as perky as Pinky's mate of the same name!
Let me explain. The whole spilt wine saga has properly buggered the laptop keyboard. I will soon be getting my slippery paws on a spare keyboard to use in the short term, while the goal of actually getting it fixed will hide in the shadow of our bank statement until either pay day finally arrives or I win the lotto. So, I'm updating this whilst at work (on my own time boss, honest!
So, Friday night and I am all set to sort out the sticky keys. Prise the first one off - the ctrl key. On hindsight maybe not a brilliant starting point, as 10 minutes later I have broken not only the titchy plastic pieces that fix it to the keyboard, but the ctrl function is now stuck on permanently. God knows how, as there's no pressure on it and the key is absent, but there you go. So, in trying to type on the board, or even in surfing the net, loads of random ctrl stuff comes up - most of which I have never even encountered before. As I said - it's buggered.
It seems to be 'Andy's Breaking Stuff Week' as in the past 5 days I have not only seen off the laptop, but have broken a rather nice wine glass, and finally have managed to knacker the rear wheel of my only means of transport to work. Namely, my mountain bike.
Maybe these images can convey in picture form what I fall short of communicating in more than a few words:
It started off with a little jaunt through Hagley Park on a beautiful sunny Saturday:
Being full of the joys, I decided to try my hand at testing the limits of my ability:
Of course, this lasted a whole 10 minutes before my ability was found lacking and a heavy landing from a monster, death defying 1 foot drop off, led to this:
One buckled rear wheel, and one sheepish Andy. Never mind though as I can get a replacement nice and cheap, right? Erm… wrong as it turns out. A new rear will be the thick end of $80 (more than I paid for the bike!) and a second hand one would be $35. Well, ever the pikey off I went to get a cheapy steel second hand one. After an hour of going to the shop, them fannying around in finding one, and me getting it home – I found that it didn’t fit, and by that time the bloody shop was shut until Monday. Grrrrr! Anyway, as a result of all this tomfoolery, Saturday afternoon for me was not a good day as I was proper down in the dumps. Still, these things are sent to try us and we have to plough on through. So, Sunday rolls around and I decide to read through the preliminary house building contract that Canterbury Homes have sent us. I wish I had done this before, as on the very first page it says that in order to proceed with the signing of the contract we must have ‘agreement in principle’ for a mortgage to cover the cost of the build. Except we don’t have this – just an ‘estimated nod of the head from our bank that we would be able to get a mortgage if Toni was in full time work’. So, that’s that knocked on the head for the time being, and we will just have to soak up any building and material price increases until we can afford the house of our dreams. Come the evening, we were a very gloomy Toni & Andy and in the end we just went to bed to get to sleep and forget all about it. Come Monday - how things can change. 7.10am in the morning, and the phone is ringing with a days work for Toni. Nice! I have a good day at work, and so does T. She gets home to another phone call from a school in Ashburton returning a call she made to discuss a job that they have. The resulting conversation ends in them asking T to go and visit the school, the town and the headmaster as he is interested in her applying for the work. And get this – it’s a year contract! To say we were a little excited is an understatement. Now Ashburton is a small town about 1 hour from So, T is going to arrange a visit to the school later this week, and if that goes well then we are both going to check the place out over the weekend to see if we can live there. It is apparently a bit out in the boonies, but skiing is only 20 mins away. Loads of fishing too, so that’s sounding good to me! Ah well, it might all come to nothing – but from feeling as if it was all going down the pan 48hrs ago we are now feeling much more chipper and confidant. PLUS – T has had another day of supply today, and from that has now got a half day booked tomorrow which is great news. Let’s hope it continues!
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) awaiting a Trade Me auction to end, but that's another story I'll come back to...
