davetapson

Haha - damn, Murphy's Law strikes again. But maybe the $5.8k is well spent if it keeps her away... 🤣 I should see if I can buy it off you, but that would probably trigger her to come... Thanks Wayne. At least it gives some hope.

Hey @Wayne Potgieter If you are watching this thread at all, I have questions... 🙂 My mom was living in CapeTown in what we thought was a full service old-age place that we put her in to before we left. It seems they can deal with anything - apart, it seems, from dementia. She was beginning to lose it, and was getting her card skimmed when getting fuel etc. (as well as Standard Bank stealing money out of her account, can you credit it) and basically had all her accounts emptied more than once. I eventually decided 'sod it', this can't continue - and got her out here. I went back to SA, cleaned out her flat and am in the process of selling the Life Right. Luckily I had got her a Parent Holiday visa thingy previously on which she can stay a further 17 months, taken in six month chunks. But we need to try and make another plan to get her residence... There is a Parent Visa Lottery - is that what you are referring to above? Did they enter? If so, how long did it take?

Dang, that's good going.

Yeah - I remember having this discussion with my father a long time ago - his comment was "Well, the bank ain't gonna lend you $1M to bet on the stock market, but they will lend you that against a mortgage.". Suspect now is as good a time to buy property as any. Although we just fixed a portion of our mortgage hours before Reserve Bank dropped the rate, so I'm not sure I'm one to listen to.

We sent them on three day sailing holiday activity thing just after we arrived, at Murrays Bay Yacht Club. I'm not sure what happened, but it turned them both off. I have a boat, but loading it up on to the car roof is unwieldy - I've just not managed to overcome the inertia to get it and the kids out. It's somehow just easier to call a mate and go fishing in the inflatable. But I need to get on to it.

Quiet on this thread, ay? Agree with we don't enjoy the gulf as much as we should. Had a meeting with self last weekend and did a circumnavigation of Rangitoto/Motatapu in an inflatable that I don't use enough. Did some fishing in the Rakino channel and that looks like it's going to become one of my new favourite spots. I see that trailer sailers go for effectively free - it would make more than a little sense to buy one and go 'camping' in the Gulf. A slight (not) altercation with the tax man means that I'll not be doing this for the next year or two. Speaking of investment properties - I've always hankered after a mini-commercial unit. Doing a bit of W.A.B the other day, I investigated the really really nice units around the corner from work in Orbit Dr. The last one that was sold went for $770k in 2023 and there are adverts to rent it from the normal estate agencies for $36k / yr. So an immediate, real return of over 4%. Not that I'd want to rent it, because I want to build boats / cars / motorcycles in it. If I was a young single bloke, I'd buy one and live in it! PXL_20250308_234809529.TS.mp4

Weather... My step-daughter has just started a job with Daily Mail in Sydney - $24/day bus fare and current hour and a half commute from Frenchs Forrest where she is staying with family friends. Seems a decent single room will cost close on $500/wk. Can't say I'm not slightly jealous tho!

Damn. I, I don't know how, managed not to include my middle name when filling in our application... doing five people's worth of application can do that - you pay more attention to their's than yours. I emailed them to point this out - I hope like hell it doesn't kick it from 'automated' to 'manual'. What are the chances of that not happening. Aargh.

Also the weather can be k4k.

Yeah, I've wondered about this too. My go to thought is that doing races in SA was about the safest way of getting out on a bike, so that's what you did. Also, there wasn't much else to do (if you see what I mean?) Also, it was mostly flat - compared to NZ. Here, you can cycle wherever you want, with little concern about safety - so you get the 'well, I can do it any time, so why bother now' kind of thing going on, plus there is a lot of other stuff to do on the doorstep - sea fishing, fly fishing, kayak fishing, hunting, hiking, going places and drinking coffee. My free time that would have been cycling time (races etc) in SA tend to be trout fishing / kayak fishing / hunting at the moment, with the second two a far second from the first. Plus finishing off a sailing dinghy, which will become sailing a sailing dinghy when it's done. And starting a new one. Hard as it may to believe, it's just that there are other things that are better or have a better return to time/effort than MTB'ing. That said, I'm going go do Sani next year with my brother, so it looks like I'm going to be eating my words. And speaking of which... There used to be a race Colville / Port Charles / Port Jackson / Colville on the Coromandel. It would be all kinds of awesome. I'm thinking of trying to organise some ad-hoc kind of raid there - 'hey, a bunch of us will doing this route, leaving 8 am on xx//xx/xxxx. First one back gets a chocolate bunny." or somesuch. I'd do it for sure. Mostly gravel and hills, some track between Port Charles and Port Jackson...

Ha, just applied for our citizenship - it's only been two weeks but I'm checking every day... I renewed my UK passport at the same time - 5 mins on an app, one selfie, and 'send your old passport to us at xxx with this reference number..." Started renewing the kids Saffa passports: - certified copies of unabridged birth certs (why? they have the originals - they gave them to us? - pp photos of kids, endorsed by a JP who has to see kids - certified copies of everyone's passports, kids and parents (why?, they issued the damn things in the first place?! - certified copies of parents UK naturalisation certs. Why, we gonna lie about being citizens of another country when you make it so hard for us to dual citizens? If I didn't think I'd like to be keeping my kids passports valid 'just because' I'd chuck it in as a pointless exercise. JP's all over must be getting carpal tunnel / tendonitis / tennis elbow / stamping exhaustion just due to SA govt lameness.

Ha - Congratulations!! Best thing ever...

Hi Byron Try this as a start? https://www.strava.com/activities/5070686274 Braam does a lot of riding on the shore - have a look at some of his tracks...? https://www.strava.com/athletes/39332328?oq=bra

Kids being let off school early because of weather. Don't these schools know why we send the kids there..?! Now, when I was a child, I had to swim 7 miles to school, holding my breath the whole way... Garage is flooding again (in rental house, thank goodness.) It's like these 1:100 year events aren't.

And that's my quarterly catch up... 🙂 Current situation as per video below... cell phone camera making it look way more cheerful than it feels. My daughter, who now works for NZ Herald tells me that weather warnings have been phoned in, looks like we have some interesting times ahead of us (again)... And in other news, we have joined the property market (Rothesay Bay, around the corner from British Isles should you like a quick pint), so like a bunch of you guys, now own some of the most over-priced real estate in the world. Long may it stay that way... Wrap up, stay dry, Dave 20230509_113057.mp4