Insulating a house – I mean, how hard can it be?

By | | A Fyne House, Epic DIY
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The answer is “quite hard” apparently… but well worth it. Our wee cottage on Loch Fyne is idyllic but seriously under specified for Winter on the west coast. The walls were built with *zero* insulation – an inside skin of plasterboard, some air, and an outer skin of cedar cladding. It leaks heat like a radiator, meaning that you never get properly warm, and what warmth you can get comes at an obscene cost in terms of fuel.

So, as part of our “big works” ™ we are adding insulation to the walls – and not a small amount either.

all of the stages...

all of the stages…

First, we remove the outside cladding from the wall, which exposes all of the internal gubbins of the wall – timbers, electrics, you name it. The first task is to clear out all of the dreck – mostly horizontal noggins which were there to support the external cladding timbers. We started using a variety of tools before settling on the multicutter (cracking bit of Bosch kit) for the timbers, then the angle grinder for removing the old nails (knocking them through and pulling the old nails was taking ages, and flexing the timbers like crazy… )

Once the bays were clear, the next step was adding 25mm battens to the back of each bay – this acts as a back stop for the insulation, leaving us with a nice 25mm service duct for running future cables and the like. Once the battens are there, the spark in me wants to see the mains cables all tidied up, clipped to the timbers and secured. The house was re-wired without removing the plasterboard, so a lot of the cables simply pop through a hole in the top of the wall and hang down to the fixtures – not good practice. once these are all secured, we staple the first of our wonder fabrics into place – we are using DuPont Airguard reflective as our VCL to help stop interstitial condensation and keep the place breathable but toasty. We are using Celotex PIR insulation, so there’s not so much advantage in using the reflective air guard rather than the regular stuff (only a couple of percentage points in it…) but out here on the edge of the world, facing into the weather off the loch, those extra points are worth it.

Once we have the cavity all lined, and the fabric stapled into place, we squeeze in some celotex. From my ukha days I remember the self builders raving about kingspan insulation, and I can see why. this stuff is insanely good. we cut the big sheets to size on Scotland’s most scenic work bench…

20131226_143652

and wedge them into the bays. Once that’s in place, we add an OSB skin, also stapled into place with a proper nailgun/stapler. After that comes the *really* expensive membrane – seriously, this was over £500 for a 100 metre roll! It’s Tyvek reflex – again, the top of the line reflective stuff for an extra few decimal points of performance. This one doesn’t just get secured in place – it gets taped with aluminium tape across all of the staple marks, or any nicks and scratches to ensure it becomes completely draught proof.

On the outside, we add some timber battens, vertically first – these are humped into place with the “big” nailgun – my gas fired hitachi monster, which helps to secure the OSB and earlier stuff into place. on top of this – we put the same skanky old cladding board back on… for now! the plan is to replace these with a super smooth, dirt resistant, water repellent silicone based super-render in a few months (when the glazing gets done).

It’s shaping up really well. Now, we just have another 29 metres of wall to do!

a very Fyne house…

By | | Diet and Weight Loss, General Mumblings, House Stuff
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Two whole years again, but now it’s time to start blogging again. Why? because some pretty incredible things have happened…

The first was being diagnosed with a life-changing condition, and suffering a fairly rapid decline in my health, the second was purchasing a lovely wee house on the shores of loch fyne.

So, the illness. I have a gene which is carried by about 17% of the UK population – a version of the Human Leukocyte Antigen called HLA-B27. Combine that with the common gut bacteria Klebsiella Pneumonia, and I get my spinal bones slowly fusing together and an excruciating level of pain… it’s called Ankylosing Spondilytis, and it is not fun.

Facing the prospect of only being able to work for 3 or 4 more years (if I was lucky), we set about finding somewhere good for the spirit to retire to – a bungalow somewhere by the water, with a nice view. We had a short list – waterside, with a forest nearby for walks, and a nice view of the mountains.

That, as it happens, is one bloody expensive list if you want it within a reasonable commute from Glasgow… so we cast our net a little bit further… and found St Ronans; a lovely wee bungalow right on the east shore of Loch Fyne.

We bought it in January 2013, and have been gradually doing it up ever since.

Oddly enough though, the AS diagnosis is actually a good thing – because after a decade of worsening pain and gradually decreasing ability to move around, I have two things – an answer to what is happening, and a method of control and treatment. Turns out there is way to block the activity of the Klebsiella Bacteria – by eliminating Starch from my diet, I have been able to completely recover in a little over six months… by locking out rice, potatoes, bread and pasta, I now have no pain, and essentially the prospect of a normal healthy life.

So, suddenly, our retirement home with the slightly negative undertone has become the chance of a lifetime to build a grand design. We’ll be turning it into a two storey building, adding a viewing deck, and possibly a hot tub… it’s gonna be a lot of fun.

And what did they do Next?

By | | General Mumblings, House Stuff
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Two years since our last post! You would almost think that nothing had happened in between…

…and nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, we emigrated (back) to Scotland in April 2010, moved back into our old house, and got new jobs. It’s been the busiest 18 months of my life, working on an epic project of great epicness. Jen has been working away in the health sector, gradually plotting to take over the world (as indeed, we do every night)

The blog here is geting re-animated for a couple of reasons – firstly, there’s a need to get the house cleared out a bit. After learning the lessons of living “lighter” by traipsing around the globe, we are feeling the gunk starting to pile up again – and I don’t feel like either giving everything away on freecycle, or the hassles of ebay. Going to try a halfway house of “make me an offer” from the blog here.

The other reason… well, the feet are getting itchy again. Not sure where to this time. It might be Boston, or Sydney. Maybe San Diego, I hear it’s nice this time of year…

Christmas Dinner and Boxing Day (2009)

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We had an AMAZING buffet for dinner, seafood like you would not believe (snow crabs, cray fish, sushi, shrimp) but there was also beautiful salads and steak and roast pork. And the dessert buffet! We both ate waaaaaaay too much, eyes most definitely bigger than our bellies finally. And a nice bottle of champagne to go with it.

Feeling bagged full, we reckoned if we didnt go for a walk immediately, we would collapse into bed straight away, so changed into trainers and went across the road to Hyde Park. After a few moments, we went back to the room to pick up a camera as the place was full of bats. Not little ‘was that a bat, an owl, or just a seagull’ flying things, but proper, honest to goodness could be a Bat Signal bats. Loads of them. Google tells us that there are so many of them they were trying to cull them fairly recently.

Today (Boxing Day) we walked down to Circular Quay and then across the Harbour Bridge. Not up and over the bridge, just the standard pedestrian foot path. Some impressive sights to be seen there. Some excellent shots of the Opera House from the other side.

Later on, we decided to go out to Darling Harbour and see whats going on there – I had spotted it has a shopping centre open to 9pm, thats NINE AT NIGHT! We are so used to Perth closing at 5:30pm that shops open till 9pm are a huge novelty. (We have repeatedly mentioned The Fort being open till midnight on the run up to Christmas and how that would never happen in Perth)

On our way down a young guy ran across the road in front of us, slipped and cracked his head on the edge of the kerb. We tried to help him up, but he was totally spaced and just lay in a puddle in the gutter. After trying to make sure the passing cars didnt drive over him, we managed to get him moved, and spotted a lot of blood coming from the back of his head. Grabbed a passing bloke to phone an ambulance, and then the guys mother arrived (he had ran on ahead to get something when he fell). We managed to move him to in front of the Apple Store (The staff were closing up and checked he was OK rather than trying to move us along coz he might stain the glass 😉 ) He came round properly and was rather embarrassed about getting an ambulance, but he had bled a lot and didnt remember falling or being moved  so must have been very concussed. So we waited till the ambulance arrived before leaving them.

So, we got our walk round the harbour after that bit of excitement, and it looks amazing. Gonna spend some time there during the day! Just had some FAB room service food, and looking to head to bed. Carpe Deium once again!

ARGH DAMNIT. Bloody Weather.

By | | Australia, grrrr
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So, one of the recurring themes of our time in Australia is how god awful the weather is – especially combined with the crappy building quality.

We have spent so much of our time here in the pissing miserable wet, or cold to the bone that it really rankles. The thing is, of course, that we come from Scotland and are well used to a bit of cold and wet.

What causes the angst here is that we seem to be living amongst people who are in a constant state of bloody denial about the weather.

We had a new guy over from the UK for a few weeks – and when out walking for lunch, one of the Perth locals proceeded to tell him that it was sunny for 9 months of the year, and that you  could go for months without a cloud in the sky. When I called this as BS, they insisted that last year was unusually wet – when I pointed out that this year has been exactly the same… they tried to blame global warming (which, of course, doesn’t exist the rest of the time).

So, in classic style, here we are in Sydney for christmas/new year. And it’s raining. of course it’s bloody raining. When we get back to the UK, I will make it my life’s mission to find ever advert showing Australia as this sunny paradise, and add some bloody rainclouds to it.

At least we are in Sydney – a proper global city with stuff to do in the rain, rather than stuck in the arse end of nowhere. (where, ironically, it’s 30 and sunny today).

I could scream.

Christmas on Bondi Beach

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, Uncategorized
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It’s been a pretty eventful couple of months. I have handed in my notice at RMAP, and it is probably a surprise to nobody that we are moving back to the UK!!

We are not there yet, but at this point, it looks like there isn’t a job for me back in Scotland (only Oxford) and as the whole point of moving back home is to be with friends and family… ending up 400 miles south isn’t what we had in mind.

Anyway, it seems that there will be enough interesting stuff happening to do some more blogging again (unlike back in Dullsville Perth), so it’s time to kick off the blog again.

We landed in Sydney yesterday (xmas eve) and are now prepping up for Hogmanay out on the Harbour. This is real bucket list country – yesterday we wandered down to the harbour to see the iconic bridge, and of course, the sydney opera house. The feeling of standing beside such an iconic, recognised the world over building was something else – almost as big a rush as seeing the pyramids.

A magical evening of cocktails sitting in the elegant bar, as some guy played christmas music on the piano, and a nice long lie.

We hit the gym for an epic session (not bob), got ready and headed out – Sydney’s public transport was largely running, and the train out to Bondi Junction was reasonably busy – then the buses (standing room only) out to Bondi Beach.

So… it’s basically like Irvine, or burntisland. Very much like burntisland, in fact, with the same fine white sand. And the way people are huddled around windbreaks trying to keep warm. In the rain.

As with many of our experiences of Australia, the weather has played a large part in making it entirely average. You can see even more so here than usual that the tourism people here earn their money ten times over by carefully picking which footage is used in advertising.

Anyhoo, the rain is likely to last until Thursday, so we may have a single good day out of our eight day holiday to enjoy the beach.

At the moment, we are sitting relaxing in our gorgeous hotel room waiting to head down for dinner – which will hopefully be rather nice, especialy after the “bondi burger experience” of lunch. shudder.

Water, water everywhere…

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, grrrr
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It’s been some time.. and as usual, our blogging has been somewhat erratic.

Almost everything in our lives seems to be about water right now – whether that’s keeping water out of where we don’t want it, or keeping it in where we do want it..

The last major disaster was when the rain got a bit harder than usual (for anyone who still believes that Australia is warm and sunny most of the time, remember that this is a lie, and australia is very, very wet.)

We heard odd sounds from downstairs – either we were being burgled by some man sized frogs, or there was a lot of slopping and splashing going on… that would be the water peeing through the ceiling, soaking the spare PC, and a bunch of stuff on the table. In typical blog style, we made a video:

That behind us (but not fixed of course – our letting agent is waaaaay to slow to let a little something like WATER COMING THROUGH THE CEILING get them all flustered, oh no…) we move onto the latest nightmare.

I came home to an odd noise (there’s a pattern here). this time, it was a sort of muffled rushing sound.. y’know in a movie when the good guy presses his ear to a wall, to more clearly hear a distant rumbling – only for the distant sound to burst through the wall?

that didn’t happen – which is a shame, as my life would be a darn sight easier if it had! Turns out the agent didn’t think that the rushing sound (and the fact that our hot water remains stubbornly lukewarm, despite consuming more gas than essex) was enough evidence of a leak.

They wanted to wait until we could actually see water damage.

After much (angry) conversation, I decided another video was in  order:

Of course, by this point, we have probably consumed around five THOUSAND litres of water – all of which has been dumped fairly directly into the foundations of the house here. I am sooo glad this isn’t my house – but my sympathies are with the owner. Can’t imagine he’ll be too happy to see that the agent wanted to actually see his property damaged before they would call a plumber..

Can you say ‘underpinning’ ?

Paddle faster…

By | | Australia, House Stuff
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I hear Banjoes!

So, we have now completed our move from Joondalup down to East Perth – which took a few trips of the Ute and 207.

In the end, we didn’t hire a ‘man with van’ for the bulky stuff, but instead, took the cover off the back of the Ute.

We decided to take the biggest load first, in the belief that if that went okay, everything was downhill from there on..

Sofa on the Ute.

That didn’t look quite precarious enough though, so we added the two seater as well:

Two Sofas

That went fairly well, and we drove off down the freeway chewing on some long grass stems, plucking away at the Banjo… (well, the guitar hero Wii Guitar at any rate…).

Still not redneck enough for you? 😀

in that case, may I present…

Yee Haw

Teach the wife to fish…

By | | Australia, Food
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…and her fingers end up smelling of fish? 

sorry 😉

We spent the day out fishing with Ian and Jenni (the other ones) up at Exmouth – we had intended to head across to the Murion islands, but the weather was a bit rough (to put it mildly)

We pulled off to the sea just north of the big Navy VLF grid at Exmouth and started trolling – dragging rods through the water as the boat moved.

We caught a decent sized Mackerel – as my first experience of seeing a fish bigger than a trout being pulled from the water, I was quite surprised at the fight it put up – not that much of a shock really, considering that the next thing to happen was a spike to the head and it’s gills cut out. yowch.

After a while, Ian reckoned he had found a good area for bottom fishing – so we pulled up to a halt, and dropped some baited lines to the bottom – I got a bite instantly! two actually:

fish

Jen then went on to catch another snapper herself – but by this point our camera was acting up.

It was a brilliant day – we saw a couple of giant turtles swimming past the boat, and had a great time. Once back on land we scaled the fish and Jenni cooked them on the Barbie – delicious.

The little ute that could…

By | | Australia, Interesting! (Well, for me)
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Well,  the old ute has done us proud – all the way from Perth to Exmouth with only some minor niggles.

We got prepped and ready at 5am – a truly awful time to be up and about, to be honest, as the sun wasn’t even up.

Ute Prep at 5am

We got all of our prep finished, checked the straps on the Kayaks one last time and headed off.

The drive is just over 1500km (900 miles), so we took it in turns to drive (apart from Mark, who is still unable to drive like a self sufficient adult…). Even with the breaks and turns, driving for 14 hours straight is pretty tiring – something the local police know only too well:

Targetting Fatigue

it was worth it though – . we were treated to an amazing spectacle.

As we drove out onto the cape range, the sun was setting on the west – and as the sun was setting, the moon was rising into a sky that was absolutely alive with light – blues, purples.. it was pretty magical.

The pictures don’t catch the half of how amazing this looks, but hopefully give a bit of an idea:

sunset over the cape range

moonrise

About 12 hours in, everyone in the car (apart from Jen, naturally) started sniffing and asked ‘can you smell burning?’ We could, and it was – rubber burning.

We couldn’t see anything under the hood, but the problem became clear when we tried to turn into the next roadhouse for fuel – the power steering had failed!  Thankfully, the car was fine to drive without it, just a little heavy.

Up on the cape, the roads are basically straight. well… ‘roads’ is a bit generous..

roads

Still, despite the road conditions, despite the power steering, despite being driven for hundreds of miles… the ute delivered us in one piece to turqoise bay:

ute2

Not a bad purchase!

This diem has been well and truly carpe’d

By | | Australia, Interesting! (Well, for me)
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Bit of a gap – Alan and Penny went home, and Helen arrived.

Yesterday, we had the epic aussie road trip ™ and drove from Joondalup all the way north to Exmouth – around 1400km in one day. We set off about 5.40am with the first glimmers of dawn, and drove until 7.30pm, an hour after sunset – incredible.

We met up with the other Ian and Jenni (who arrived the day before yesterday), got some to tips on places to go and booted off into the blue –  Today we settled into the Ningaloo Maine park – Jen and I holding hands underwater as we snorkelled over a coral reef teeming with life..

An amazing experience, and one that lasted for huge chunks of the day.

After that, we got showered/changed and went for a drive through the park after dark – looking to snag the perfect roo picture… (to follow – we are on super slow internet via phone just now!!)

That and downloading the apprentice to watch when we get back to Perth… we may even have to do a back to back 2 week session!

weight loss, the violent way.

By | | Diet and Weight Loss
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I have found my preferred form of exercise for losing weight – and what do you know, it involves smacking the crap out of something. I’m sure everyone is truly amazed but there you go. 😉

We got a heavy bag along with the assorted ironmongery needed to hang it from the roof of the deck, and a set of gloves. Actually, to be completely accurate, we got two sets of gloves – a big set of 12 oz actual boxing gloves for me, and a small set of baby blue mitts for Jen. She looked at the pink ones, and just couldn’t do it.

My first outing was not great.

Working in IT, I have often felt that I am probably a bit ‘soft’ – I imagine that digging ditches for a living would make you a bit more solid. A few minutes with the heavy bag confirmed that – my wrists felt like I had been run over, my knuckles were all red and inflamed, and if truth be told, the hardest I had hit the bag… well, I would imagine a good number of teenage girls could hit a bag harder than that.

Some more googling revealed that, in all probability, I wasn’t doing it right.

I vaguely remember seeing boxers wrapping their hands in bandages, but hadn’t quite understood why… and now I do! I got myself a set of everlast wraps, followed a good intro online and got myself some wrapped hands. ooooh.

ian's wraps

Whether it’s the effect of the wraps, or a subtle bit of suggestion about yellow spandex… but I suddenly felt that I no longer had soft keyboard user’s hands, but a set of Wolverine claws. I resisted the temptation to punch the wall (much) and slipped on the big gloves.

I guess the fact that my wrapped hands could fit easily into the gloves, which now fitted a lot better, should have given a clue as to what went wrong the first time.. and man, can I hit hard 😀

ian with heavy bag

Since we decided to lose the weight, I have lost over fifty pounds. As the picture shows, I still have a long way to go, but the 20 or so pounds I need to lose to get back into the healthy range will be a bit less challenging when there’s a way to build up a good sweat that’s this damn satisfying 😀

the End of Summer…

By | | Australia, General Mumblings, grrrr
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And when they say ‘end’, they mean it.

It’s been noticeably colder in the days since the weekend when Alan and Penny flew back. last couple of days it’s been a wall of cloud again – which hasn’t happened for a few weeks… then the weather erupted on us yesterday.

Driving rain, howling winds and bitterly, bitterly cold.

Perth is confusing – it always has been for us. I look at a temperature gauge, and it’s reading 20 degrees, yet I am cold to my marrow, more bitterly cold than I have any recollection of ever being in Scotland.

I can remember back when Jen and I first moved into Windmillhill Street in motherwell – back in 1992!! – we didn’t have any working heating, and the windows were single glazed. At the time, i thought they were the worst windows you could ever have… the temperatures were down in the -5 range, and you could see your breath in the air when you woke up in the morning… and it *still* feels warmer than a 20 degree day here.

I just don’t get it. Perhaps your mind see the brilliant sun and sets some sort of internal expectation, I don’t know..

Just that it’s back to being cold. really cold.

Helen flies out on Friday, and we are seriously looking forward to seeing her – but I am thinking that she won’t get much (if any) use out of the swimming pool. I tried it a couple of days ago, and had to get out because I was shivering so badly.

We are heading up to exmouth for a chunk of the stay though, so that should help a lot – it’s *much* warmer!

Welcome to Australia! Now F*$k off home.

By | | Australia, grrrr
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fowf

So we picked up Alan and Penny from the airport. It was great to see our friends again and we had a great time, which we shall blog about in due course….

The first bloggable thing happened less than an hour after they left the airport.

We loaded the suitcases into the back of the ute, and headed back to our place. We made a slight detour to pick up some rolls so we could start them off into the Aussie lifestyle and have a barbeque, with burgers.

As we wander from the carpark towards the bakery, a 4×4 swerves across the carpark towards us, the window rolls down, a head appears closely followed by the high class, typical Aussie welcome of

WHY DONT YOU FUCK OFF HOME!!!

Ian had made the cardinal error of wearing a Scotland Tshirt. That was it. So, roughly 45 minutes in the country, our friends get to experience the great Aussie welcome shouted at us.

Welcome tourists, leave your money in this bucket, then fuck off, we dont want you here.

My Video is here!

By | | Australia, Interesting! (Well, for me)
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What video, you ask?

Why the video that they took in cockpit when I flew in a fighter plane – that’s what.

So, naturally, I chopped a bit out of it (the whole thing is 20 minutes long), added some 80s muzak, and uploaded it to Youtube! enjoy!

Short Update!

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Its been a while since we have posted, this is because we have been busy.

My parents arrived two weeks ago and we have been busy keeping them entertained since.

Its been *brilliant*, I have a sore throat from gabbing so much. I am tired from sitting up late talking. Its been playing merry hell with my diet and exercise plan, but its been so worth it.

The last two weekends have been busy – last week we took them to the east and got some of the best pizza evah, then oop norf to Lancelin, swam in the ocean, sat on the beach and had a glass of wine/bottle of beer and totally chilled.

This weekend we went down to The Beach House (TM) on Friday night and used it as a staging post for a trip all the way to the south coast to see a treetop walk, made wood fired pizza, and then went down to Busselton with probably the best beach I have ever seen – it was gorgeous, clear, calm, sparkling waters and a 2km jetty to walk along. On Friday night we did some star gazing on the beach, absolutely stunning.

We will do a longer post later in the week once we have caught up on some sleep, but this has been fantastic for us – we have been more sociable than we have been in 9 months. Its going to be hard when they leave, but at least we have reinforcements on the way 🙂 My folks leave on Wednesday, and Alan & Penny arrive next Monday 🙂

Quick! To the beach!

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On Sundays theres not a whole hellish amount to be done here. Its not quite as bad as when we first arrived, the local wholesalers is open so we can get food which is good for a sudden MUST HAVE BBQ – GET BURGERS impulse. But what Sunday is good for is heading off to the beach.

beach1

So, we headed up to Lancelin. We had been there a couple of times, the sand is beautiful, the water is lovely, its all good. So, icebox packed with some fruit and, more importantly, wine and beer and cola we set off. Set up on the beach and chilled. Dad wandered off taking pictures (this is a recurring theme) and the rest of us had a swim 🙂

We dried off, dad rejoined us and we sat for a bit having a very civilized (but illegal) drink on the beach. Then it was time for another swim

swim

We packed up and headed back down the road, but spotted a sign for Moore River on the way back. I had been told it was somewhere nice to see, so we veered off and headed that way instead. Well worth the detour, it was a really pretty place.

moore

You can see the river doesnt actually flow into the ocean – theres not enough water! So, thats as far as it gets. I guess during the winter when the river is higher it will, but for now, you can stand on that sand bar and have a river on one side, and an ocean on the other.

They also have free to use gas barbies there. Someone was cooking sausages. Apparently the smell was making everyone else hungry. Certainly the idea that someone was cooking sausages was enough to make me hungry.

Happy Birthday to Jen – 21 Again!

By | | Australia, events
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Hey, that rhymes..

Jen had one wish for her birthday – a nice big bit of meat, done well.

But before that, we went to Outback jacks again. 😉

Outback jacks!

Had a great steak – and also had a problem with getting our order taken. Only a couple of days with folks from the ‘old country’ and our accents have thickened up again.

It’s quite interesting to listen to what Jen’s mum and dad say, watch the waiting staff look at them in complete and total bemusement, then repeat the order (which sounds exactly the same to us) and see the dawning recognition.

The giant croc on the roof made a pretty good attempt at sneaking up on us again…

Be very quiet... I'm hunting roof crocs...

Jen’s folks don’t reckon that our accents have changed, but i guess they must have changed a little – we don’t get looks of bemusement in the shops any more… alan and penny can be the next ones to judge!

Anyway, after an excellent meal out, we drove to East Perth near my office to go to the Royal. it’s a pretty special little spot, and a favourite with the work guys. I don’t have any good pics – need to get one next time. had a couple of relaxed drinks down by the marina, then headed off to the embankment in South Perth to let Bob get his camera out.

The Faimly

A good night all round.

They’re Heeeeeeere…

By | | Australia, events
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Big Bob and Mary Doll (did I get that right BJ? 😉 ) have now landed in the land down under. We watched them coming from quite a long way away:

Tracking the flight

We went to the airport to watch the flight come in – Perth being flat, you can see it from a loooong way off, but rather than post a picture of what is essentially a white dot on a blue sky background, here’s one of the plane on the ground instead:

The In Laws have Landed!

Then we waited for over an hour in the entrance for them to appear from security. Jen and I debated whether Bob had insisted on hanging onto an apple from the plane, or attracted the anger and attention of security in some other way (smiling really annoys them). Still, eventually, they appeared, and much tearful hugging and welcomes ensued. nobody needs to see that, but we have the pictures. heh.

Off back to Joondalup for… a BBQ! what else?

I’m Special. Oh so Special.

By | | General Mumblings, grrrr
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At least Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs thinks so.

Back in 2005, shortly after the company folded, I had a fairly unpleasant letter from HMRC telling me that they had lost my details. This isn’t the same incident where they essentially lost the whole country’s tax records on a couple of CDs, but a more targeted one.

They lost details of Standard Life pension customers (which includes me). They told me that I shouldn’t worry, because they had put precautions in place to make sure that my records would remain safe.

It got weird, and eventually, I wrote a flaming complaint letter:

Dear Sirs,

I am shocked at the appalling level of incompetence and poor customer care that you have shown towards me.

I received a notice of outstanding payment from you (around £40) for tax year 05-06.

I contacted you to make payment, and enquire about whether this meant I needed to complete a self assessment (I had previously been told that this was not the case). The letter said that I should contact the Cumbernauld Office if I had any queries.

I called the Cumbernauld office, using the number on the letter.

The number held a recorded message indicating that this office no longer handled these enquiries and that I should phone a generic 0845 number.

I called the 0845 number.

Your assistant asked me if I was someone famous. Which was incredibly odd. It’s not the case – I work in an ordinary job for a PLC. They asked me if I worked in government service. Also not the case. They even lowered their voice and asked me if I worked in the military. Which would have been funny, if it wasn’t so creepy. Eventually, they said that I should phone Centre 1 in East Kilbride, as they could not access my records.

I called Centre 1.

They asked me if I was famous. “no, and I don’t work for the government either” I said. They said that they could not access my records, as they had been moved to Cardiff. They said I should call Cardiff.

I called Cardiff.

Guess what? They asked me if I was famous. Then they asked me if I worked for the Government. After much tapping of keys, they insisted that they could not access my records, which were held at Centre 1 and that I should call them. When I explained that I had just spoken to Centre 1, they said that there was nothing that they could do, and I should phone Centre 1 back anyway.

I called Centre 1 (again).

I explained, and the assistant went and found a supervisor. The supervisor came on the phone and asked me “Are you a celebrity?”. I swear I could almost scream at this farce. Instead, I politely explained what I had been through that morning. She then explained that my records must have been lost. Not the “lost down the back of the sofa on two CDs” lost that your organisation seems to be so good at, nor indeed the “lost en route to Standard Life” lost that you wrote to me about a few months ago.

Just the plain old fashioned incompetent sort of lost. She insisted that there was nothing she could do, as the all powerful “system” showed that my records belonged to Cardiff and she couldn’t access them. “Perhaps you should call Cardiff” was her suggestion.

I called Cardiff (again).

Explaining to the assistant, he sought a supervisor. Explaining the joke of an experience that I had had, she said that the records were somehow lost in transit between the two offices, however she would check into this and call me back. She carefully took all of my details – and I mean *ALL* of my details. Address, dob, NI number, bank account my wages are paid to, employer, employer’s payroll number and most importantly, my home and office phone numbers.

She said that she would look into this and call me back. Perhaps because I was so beaten down by the process, I didn’t get a note of her name – which I regretted by the end of that day when I had not been called back.

When I had not heard anything for a week, I called back to Centre 1 again. They once more launched into “are you a celebrity”, then explained that they could not access my records which were at Cardiff.

I called Cardiff.

They said that my records were still not accessible, and that I should call Centre 1. I asked to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor apologised that I had not been called back, told me that they would look into this… and call me back!

The next day, when I had not been called back, I called Cardiff. Yet again.

This time, the very helpful man on the phone said that the records could take a couple of weeks to sort themselves out if I had just changed job (that happened about 9 months previously).

He then suggested that I simply make a payment and post it in. I asked where I would post it, given that my records were “somewhere in the system”. I also explained that I needed to confirm whether or not I needed to do a self assessment for the coming year, as I had two letters – one saying that I should, and one saying that I didn’t need to. He said “I’ll look into this, and call you back” – he then took my details.

So, would you like to take a guess? Was it third time lucky in the HMRC call back lottery for me? Was it stuff. I’m still waiting for my call back, as far as I know my records are still lost somewhere in god-knows-where, and you just sent me a blooming LATE PAYMENT NOTICE?????

I am a tax payer. I have paid every penny that I am due in tax. I would happily pay you what I am required to. I’ll complete whatever forms I have to. What I am not going to do is pay a blooming penalty notice for the sake of your muck up.

You wouldn’t take my money when I tried to pay – in what world does that make me to blame?

My daytime phone number is: 0xxxxxxxxx

My evening home number is: 0xxxxxxxx

Now, can you please, PLEASE, find where my records are, have someone call me and explain what it is I owe, or what it is you want from me, and settle this matter? I am waiting for your call – just as I have been for the last three months.

They got back to me. It seems that after my records were lost, they moved me to PD1 – which is the super secret tax office for celebrities, the politicians and ninjas. probably.

They sorted it out – basically, I have a ‘phantom’ tax record in the normal system, where I am still a Self Assessment person, and my ‘real’ record in the secret system, where I am not. easy, huh.

The hassle is – PD1’s not listed on the HMRC website (because they don’t really want to go shouting about the fact that footballer’s wives and the good and great get special treatment from the tax man).

And I just got a demand for my (overdue) self assessment. again. Complicated by the fact that this year… I actually should be doing a self assessment, because I am an NRL1 (non resident landlord)…

so, after finally doing the right handshake to get put through to PD1 (and another half hour of “I’m Sorry Sir, but I can’t access your records”), they inform me that the forms for self assessment are only sent out in April (when I was a PAYE employee in the UK, and didn’t qualify for self assessment), but I should somehow have just known that I would have do one now…

It’s great being special… sigh