Re: Tasmania??
 

Hi Kay :) I'm not sure whether sea air is mean't to ease the symptoms - but my hayfever in the summer always seems better if i am at the coast...
Maybe it's the sea-breeze blowing all the pollen away! ;)
I would imagine the injections are some kind of antihistamine...although i must admit i dont know anyone personally that has jabs for allergies... We all just suffer! I've only suffered from hayfever for the last few years - never had it prior to that so it's most annoying! :frown: But the over the counter hayfever tabs are just not working this year! I'm having to wear my contact lenses more than normal as i find they help stop my eyes being really irritated....

So your husband has been grey since his twenties? have people ever thought he was older than he is because of that? I think it looks fine on people - at least he's not succumbed to the old Grecian 2000 brigade!!! :D
My OH has been going bald since his twenties so there's not a lot of hair left to notice much grey!! ;)

talk to you soon
Cathy :)

Re: Tasmania??
 

Hello there. Need some advice from someone who knows a bit about laptops (i know nothing! ;))
If we were to buy and bring one with us when we eventually move to Tas - should we be able to literally just plug it into the phone socket at whatever holiday accomodation we have - or if in a rental house in the phone socket there to get dial-up internet connection?
I really dont understand how it all works....although i use the computer at home and in the office for hours - i only know what i need to know (if you get what i mean!).... I'm starting to feel like my Mum&Dad - technology is running away from me - i'm so out of date with things !!!!! :)

Any advice would be appreciated
thanks
Cathy

Re: Tasmania??
 

Hi

Counting down the hours now, can't believe how quickly the last 10 day have flown by! Just about sorted now,l ast minute things like selling my car and last items in house to sell, had a garage sale on Sunday and got rid of most of the leftover things.

We fly Friday at 22.00 hrs and get to Tas on Sunday afternoon, still does not seem real, waiting for it to sink in.

Was a bit flat at the weekend after my family had gone, felt very sad that we are making them sad too:(

But now very excited and keep telling everyone from the postman to the shop assistants (whether they want to know or not;))

Will check in again soon.

Sam

PS Glad to hear that Carina and her family have arrived safely:thumbsup:

Re: Tasmania??
 

ouch the hayfever sounds annoying, I actually googled and there does seem to be some evidence of coastal areas easing it? so you need to buy a lovely house on the beach :thumbsup:

no dont think people have thought colin looks older, maybe from behind :rofl: but he actually looks pretty well for his age 48 the old bugger. It runs in the family, his cousin used to dye his hair and it looked pretty good but colin wouldnt succumb.

BTW we are not married came as a defecto couple, sounds like we were fleeing Russia or summat doesnt it :lol: we have only been together for 5 yrs.

I bought a laptop when we arrived. the first rental didnt have a phone line so I bought a mobile wireless usb thingy, jeez very expensive and had to sign up for a 12 month contract but it worked well and I could use it anywhere we went.

your computer needs a dial up modem in it to access via dial up, think most will have one in or you can buy one. so yes you just need to sign up with a provider then plug phone line in and your off, there is a pay as you go option like topping up you do on your mobile or you have to sign up for a contract. but dial up is very slow and if you like to downloads stuff its not the best or cheapest option.

I know most hotels have WIFI where you just plug in but i've never used one so cant comment. Laptops have a built in wireless card so you can pick up the signal.

I have now got WIFI modem so i've got wireless broadband anywhere in the house with no wires, the modem still has to be plugged into the phone line.

there is also satalite but not sure of that??

have a look at this link it gives you info on plans and what you need to use em

http://www.bigpond.com/internet/plans/

I'm not recommending bigpond btw there are probably much better providers out there but we are a bit limited up here LOL but it gives you an idea :)

Re: Tasmania??
 

Hey Sam.....the countdown has now begun then! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

I've PM'd you.....

Good Luck with everything that you need to still sort out....and we hope you have a very safe and enjoyable journey over to Tas! :thumbup:

One day you'll look back on this and remember all the stress as a distant memory! :D

talk to you soon!
take care
Cathy
xx

Re: Tasmania??
 

Yes your laptop will work ok but you will have to have a different telephone socket. You can get them at Dick Smiths etc. My old Toshiba worked in NZ and Tassie. I had broadband in Tassie though. Just buy an adapter or a new figure "8" mains lead that has an Aussie plug on it and fit it to your power supply. Assuming your laptop power supply is multi voltage. Most are. If it says 100-240 50-60hz or similar on your power brick it will be ok. I did have trouble with my wireless card built into my laptop but the supplied USB dongle worked from Telstra (Big Pond). Speaking of Bigpond and broadband, my connection was terrible and not much better than dial up. But work mates had other ISP's that were far better. May have just been my rental house. But be carefull of what package you go for from any of them as they are capped and can cost you a small fortune. If your laptop is a Dell it may be harder to get what you need as Dell like to have parts that are not standard and specific to Dell. But i think you should be ok. Enjoy Tassie, tis beautiful and then some.
:thumbsup:

Re: Tasmania??
 

Hi Kay, :D:D Just what i wanted to hear.....a house is required then as near to the beach as possible (for medical reasons!) :lol:...

The only reason i asked about whether people asked if Colin was older than his age is because i work with a man who has been grey since his twenties - and even though i think he looks very good - people always seem to add another 10 years onto his age - so although he's 40 they think he's in his
50's bless him! But his face is a bit haggard as well - so perhaps thats the reason rather than the hair! :sneaky:

Sorry for assuming you were married. I really shouldn't have done that as it annoys me when people assume that me and Andy are married as we're not either. We've been together for 9 years this December... i dont know where that time has gone it's gone so quickly!
Not sure whether we'll ever get married, sometimes we think about it but i think we're happy as we are.... we did get engaged 6 1/2 years ago - on holiday in Kenya but then a few months later we moved into our current house together - and a few months after that i fell pregnant with our daughter Eden and things like marriage then got forgotten!
We did wonder whether we should do it whilst still here in the UK so that all our friends and families would be there....but then i thought about having to get so much stuff changed if i changed my name that i've disregarded the idea again! Most people just assume we're married. I dont think our next door neighbour realises we're not...she's quite religious - so would probably be horrified to find out we're living in "sin"..;)

Oh before i forget - Andy had a moan at me last night for saying that he'd started to go bald in his twenties - he reckons it was his early 30's.....so i'll correct myself there (although i know in pics i've seen there's definitely receding bits there!!!! :lol:).

Thanks for all the info about laptops.....i still find it a bit confusing....but seeing as it's quite early still - i'm going to go into the link you gave me a bit later (when i've woken up more!)...
But i gather it's worth us bringing one with us when we come over anyway....might start looking at what offers are about....

Cathy
:)

Re: Tasmania??
 

Hi Lenmil :) thanks for all the info. I know we dont know when we'll be over in Tas yet, but i think we'll keep an eye out over here for the special deal's some of the computer shops do on laptops....and perhaps get one if we see a bargain. I'm so addicted to my Emails / british expats and a few other sites that i check daily - i think i'd go into cold-turkey without a pc for a few days and i dont fancy having to keep going to a internet cafe or library etc unless we had to - especially as we'd have the kids with us.

How are things going with your current agent? have you had any viewers?
we've taken our house off the market temporarily - but it will be going back on when we return from a holiday 1st week of August...
A lot of the houses around my way have gone from having "for sale" signs up to having "to let" signs up....so not much is moving....:(

I do hope we all get to Tas soon....

Cathy
:)

Re: Tasmania??
 

Still trying to sell our house. Getting more agents round for advice, but some are already playing games. There must be a better way than trusting these people to sell your house.

Re: Tasmania??
 

I agree, i would have thought that the government would have done their best to avoid the start of another property recession. I know they're trying to prevent people getting into too much debt (hence the withdrawal of so much lending) but it doesnt help the people that need to sell their property at the moment... I am just very glad that we did validate our visa's last year when we did and didn't just wait till we'd sold earlier this year before going..
I hope you manage to find a good agent that you can trust to do their best for you....
Cathy
:)

Re: Tasmania??
 

One of them (estate agent) actually let slip that they went round to a sellers house (down the street) and told them about our house may be going multi agent. So they dropped their price by another 15K and the agent told us they are emigrating. They had a fixed price of £3400 for selling. So they get that amount no matter how much we sell for. Sly is an understatement.

Re: Tasmania??
 

That is a bit sly isn't it...:sneaky: It doesnt surprise me though. I think some of them can be a bit underhanded as long as they get their money. The agent we were with was on a percentage so we were surprised that they wanted to keep getting people to drop their asking price - but then they were probably thinking any commission was better than nothing.
When we wrote the letter for our agent and Andy gave it to him - he made a comment about "how much money" they had spent on marketing our house....yeah right. We know it doesn't cost a lot for them to use Rightmove and we had only been in the local papers twice in the 3months... and they certainly didn't follow up too much with phone calls to us or even some of our viewers as we never did get any feedback from two of them...
They couldn't have been in too much of a rush to get their for sale board back either as we took it down ourselves a few days after it came off the market - and it was down the side of our driveway for about a week before we noticed it had gone...
We know of a couple that are trying to sell their house and they have actually split up. I feel for them, must be hard having to still live together until a house sells....and who can afford to move and rent and pay a share of a mortgage nowadays...

Re: Tasmania??
 

Hoorah, I'd never thought I'd ever be happy about seeing some decent heavy rain!!! Last night and today is the first time since the spring that it has rained continuously night and day. We were getting really desperate, would you beleive though that the sun is out already:) We really needed a good down pour, hopefully we will have a few more days like this to get the grass green again!

With regards to hayfever Cathy, yes I suffer too and it does ease by the sea, so go with that and buy a house by the sea:thumbsup:

I brought our laptop out with us, ours as with most these days has an in built thingy (that's the technical term :lol:) that connects to a wireless router. We are with Bigpond too and don't seem to have any problems, although when we first moved in our telephone line had a fault, once remedied worked a treat. We have the wireless router from bigpond and have it in the Bedroom and the main computer has a dongle thingy (another technical term ;)) that connects to the router, so it can go anywhere, it works very well.:)

Re: Tasmania??
 

definatley :thumbsup:

yep most think we are married too, but naa I have no inkling to get married the only stipliment I made is that everything be in joint names over here :lol: well you never know whats round the corner do you.

oh how did you like Kenya? would love to go :)

not so much rain here last night but crikey the winds did you get them? must have been that tailend of the gale force 10 in Melbourne, I thought the frigging roof was coming off :eek:

all blue skies and calm today its weird isnt it :lol:

Re: Tasmania??
 

Yes we've been getting really high winds all week, today has been blustery on and off as is the rain. When the rain eased off earlier I thought great I'll take the dog for a walk and collect some fire wood, I got halfway down the drive (bearing in mind our drive is huuuuuge) when the winds picked up again and nearly blew me and the dog back to the house!!! The weather is too changeable for words. From my house I can see the top of the mountains are covered in snow, Duncan said some of the log trucks are having problems passing with the snow in the forest. I hope we get some :thumbsup: (I'm just a big kid at heart:D)