Almost there
I think we're mostly settled now. There is still a whole lot of tidying that needs doing (much of which won't be done until Colin gets his graphics card back so he can set up his computer) and there are a few bits of furniture we need to acquire. Otherwise, I think we're on top of it. This is such a quiet neighbourhood, not much different from St Kilda. And we have two big shopping malls with everything we need about equidistant from our house. Not to mention the Brumby's and butchery down the road. Yup, I could definitely get used to living here.
There is a lot of stuff I've yet to do though, as it may require some local knowledge I don't yet have. If any Christchurchians would like to take a look and help me with some hints and recommendations, it would be much appreciated!
In other news, thehollowmen received two apologies from BP after the poor service we received the other, one from the head office and one from the local branch manager. They were going to educate the staff at our local branch about customer service in the case of their own equipment breaking and damaging a vehicle - their air pump was broken and let down the back tyre on the motorbike to something like 12 psi, and all the attendant said was "go somewhere else to fix it or call the AA." And then he didn't even bother put up an Out of Order sign. After much faffing about, he agreed to letting us use their telephone, but by that stage we wanted nothing more to do with him or that BP and thehollowmen rode very carefully up the road to a service station. The AA could have helped us, but frankly we didn't want to use one of our free callouts for something as trivial as air, and we would have had to wait around the BP for an hour or two with Mr Grumpy Attendant shooting us the death glare every so often. Fortunately no harm came to the tyre, and I'm glad they're actually going to do something about it.
There is a lot of stuff I've yet to do though, as it may require some local knowledge I don't yet have. If any Christchurchians would like to take a look and help me with some hints and recommendations, it would be much appreciated!
- Find a GP who is taking on new patients and has a clue about auto-immune disorders
- Find reasonably priced sources for second-hand furniture, that do deliveries if we can't fit it in our car.
- Find a helpful travel agent that isn't associated with FlightCentre so I can book my tickets to Norway
- Get in contact with local temping agencies as I'll need some sort of casual work until August. I have already got contact details for someone at Manpower who is apparently jumping up and down with glee because they're short of admin staff, but it doesn't hurt to explore my options.
- Acquire some sort of social life!
In other news, thehollowmen received two apologies from BP after the poor service we received the other, one from the head office and one from the local branch manager. They were going to educate the staff at our local branch about customer service in the case of their own equipment breaking and damaging a vehicle - their air pump was broken and let down the back tyre on the motorbike to something like 12 psi, and all the attendant said was "go somewhere else to fix it or call the AA." And then he didn't even bother put up an Out of Order sign. After much faffing about, he agreed to letting us use their telephone, but by that stage we wanted nothing more to do with him or that BP and thehollowmen rode very carefully up the road to a service station. The AA could have helped us, but frankly we didn't want to use one of our free callouts for something as trivial as air, and we would have had to wait around the BP for an hour or two with Mr Grumpy Attendant shooting us the death glare every so often. Fortunately no harm came to the tyre, and I'm glad they're actually going to do something about it.