House Sitting

To be able to own a vehicle we need to have a CRN (Customer Reference Number) this will allow us to register the vehicle. Sounds very bureaucratic and time consuming. We need various identification, passport, two bank cards etc.

When we arrived at the offices we were given the forms to complete, plus forms for Mike to complete to verify our address, plus a queuing number similar to a delicatessent’s. Before we had managed to get half way through the form we were called to window 3. 10 minutes later, all sorted. The brits would have been able to make this process far more tortuous and time consuming.

Unfortunately getting a SIM card for our old Nokia was not so simple. The Nokia works OK in England. Our iPhones have plans that allow roaming, using the 8GB data, unlimited call to UK and 500 minutes of international calls - we are sorted. Unfortunately it’s expensive for anyone within Australia to phone us, therefore we need an Australian SIM. Our Nokia is only 2G, that’s fine because we don’t need any data, but there isn’t a 2G network in Australia 😡 so we need a new phone. The Vodafone store do sell them $60 but don’t have any in stock, they do have the $159 available. The same story in Telstra store. The second hand phone store only sell upmarket phones - all with 1 or 2 day battery life whereas the cheap keypad phones can be left on standby for weeks. The suggestion is to go and get a phone from a supermarket.

Target is a big store, but no staff. When Mike eventually found some staff, they could sell us a phone, but couldn’t tell us about the various plans ... The Telstra store could tell us about the plans but didn’t have any of the cheaper phones so back to Target to buy the phone and try to sort out the plan online.

We had arranged to go to the house we will be sitting at 7:30 pm. M&R meet up with friends each Friday evening at 5pm at a bar in the small shopping complex near the house. A drink, back home for something to eat and then back to 19 Akuna Street for introductions and to be shown around.

This area of Brisbane is hilly. It was very steep walking up their drive, not easy for Bun in a skirt. Kami and Andrew are both teachers, well Andrew is a school chaplain which is a pastoral rather than a religious position. They have two kids, Hayley and Lochlan (Lachlan?). The house is 4 bedrooms, two with en-suite, an open plan kitchen/sitting room, a large balcony, back garden and swimming pool. This looks like a tough assignment for 4 weeks, but someone has to do it. Our ward is Penny, a 6 year old black Labrador cross Kelpie. She is very affectionate. Penny has her own dog door and spends much of her time on the balcony. 2hrs 15mins later and a number of games on a board game I hadn’t played before, we left and went home feeling quite happy about where we will be over Christmas and that the kids will have somewhere to stay too.Read more