RTA

Thursday:

Moving state means I have to change my driver licence instead of just getting a change of address sticker put on my old one. It's free though, thank goodness considering I still have four and a half years to go on my five year licence. There isn't an RTA (roads and traffic authority) office really near here, but there is one near where my sister-in-law works so I organised to have lunch with her last Monday and made the trip over there.

My hair was perfect for the photo ID, make-up good, clothes nice. All my documents ready. I got a ticket and waited patiently to be attended to. But there was a problem. Because I had a driver licence in this state, New South Wales, in my youth in my maiden name, they now needed to see my wedding certificate. Even though I've had an Australian Capital Territory driver licence in my married name for the past thirteen years. Not good enough, sorry. Frustrating. But I quietly went away without venting my annoyance and unpacked some more boxes and found my wedding certificate and went back in today.

Hair only mediocre, sore eye, wasn't looking forward to photo. I needn't have worried. The office was much more crowded and I had to wait an hour, only to find I still didn't have the documentation I needed. They had very specific requirements as to proof of change of address, the only one from their list that I could access was a copy of the contract of sale for buying this house. And of course a copy wasn't good enough, I needed the original (currently in the hands of the lawyers). Why did I ever think it would be that easy!?

What a waste of a morning. I will have to go in a third time after getting a signed declaration from someone who lives in NSW and has known me for more than 12 months (luckily there are plenty of those around).

Today was ridiculously hot. I drove the kids to and from school as it was too hot to ride (Tim fixed Jasmine's bike last night, it's fine). Picking up Aiden is always a small hassle because by the time I've collected Jasmine there are no close parking spots at Aiden's school. Last week the storm opened just as he got out of his classroom and we practically swam back to the car, today it was struggling through the magma heat a couple of blocks, feeling our skin crisping up like pork crackling. Tomorrow is forecast to be even worse, 41C (105.8F). We've put water bottles and juice boxes in the freezer for them to take to school, they might still be cool by lunchtime. And we've got air conditioning and ice cream to come home to. I'll be staying safely at home the rest of the day when I'm not ferrying the kids around.

I remember a persistent rumour back when I was in Primary School that if it got to 45C they had to let us go home. That turned out not to be true (how could it be, with a lot of parents at work!) but they did let us sit quietly in the classroom and gave us free icy poles (like frozen lemonade) from the canteen. Last year (or the year before?) we were driving home from a beach holiday when it got to the high 40s, even over 50 in some places. It was fine in the car, but every time we stepped out it honestly felt like getting into an oven. That was an unusual heatwave, even the 41C predicted tomorrow is a bit excessive and we wouldn't have more than one or two days like that each year. I suppose they are going to get more common.

I've been really sleepy all day. I foresee a summer full of naps. I've stalled a bit on the unpacking and haven't even looked at my novel yet. Cool change on Saturday, hopefully we'll get more done on the weekend.

Bad hair day ... and contract exchange

Thursday:

Tomorrow is the last day of term 3, and I realised this morning that meant I wouldn't have any time to myself for the next two weeks. So I booked in a haircut. They had a spot free at lunchtime which I went to, but I've never seen it so busy there. Often it's just me, or a couple of other clients, when I go during the week. But today it was packed. Maybe 'cause lunchtime?

My usual hairdresser had actually left so I got a new girl. I told her what I wanted, had my massage (which was lovely) then my hair was washed (lovely) then they put a conditioning treatment on my hair and wrapped my head in a hot wet towel for 10 minutes, while I reclined still in the hair-washing chair. I've never had that before. Actually I think it was a lot longer than 10 minutes, the hairdresser was probably working on someone else. I drifted off, and woke very groggy and dopey. I'm not sure that having a hot head for so long (plus recovering from flu?) was good for me. I'd been feeling pretty good today, apart from my neck glands still swollen and sore, but I was now feeling a bit unwell again.

So I paid little attention to what the hairdresser was doing to my hair, and only at the end realised that her interpretation of "I'm growing it out so keep it as long as possible but I want a fringe (bangs) put back in" looked like this:

I hate it. It looks horrible. I was there for an hour and a half and my head looks like a bowling ball. I wanted to look like this:

Of course I didn't say anything. I can only hope it will look better once I wash and style it myself instead of the sleek blow dry.

I was quite stressed and unhappy and I hadn't eaten a proper lunch yet, my grocery shopping after the haircut did not result in a trolley to be proud of. Back to my old response to negative emotions.

Contracts on the house we are buying were/are supposed to be exchanged today, but as of now (4pm) I still haven't heard from the lawyers. Exchange of contracts is when everyone is locked in to the price, the date etc. We've signed ours and given the deposit, still waiting to receive their signed contract. So frustrating, as we all verbally agreed to everything over a week ago. It's a six week settlement period, and we're running out of time before we really need to move. Tim starts six weeks from Monday! We're down to moving on the final weekend.

... email at 4:11 - contracts have been exchanged! Yay! We'll have a house in time for Tim to start work in Sydney. Just. Big relief that that part is done and locked in.

Now I just have to finish packing, organise schools, removalists, sell our Canberra house, etc etc. Lots of work, but less stressful than not being sure we had the house.

Spinning wheels

Wednesday:

Had one of those days when you feel like you are just spinning your wheels.

I started well with a nice walk to the fruit markets. I filled up my backpack with strawberries and mangoes and grapes and nectarines and even a few cherries. Yay for summer fruit! Then back home I had a long list of little admin things to do that wouldn't take long, I thought.

It took four calls to one place, throughout the day, before I finally got through at about 7pm. Another place had no bookings free before Christmas but wouldn't book any further in advance than that and told me to call back in January. A third place put me on hold a long time before sending me through to someone else, who eventually gave me a number to call that turned out to be just back to the first person... Another place had an automated phone system that didn't have any options I wanted and wouldn't put me through to a real person. I tried to download an interactive iPhone app for the uni course I want to do but apparently my phone is too old (it's a 4s, I've had it about 18 months I think). By the time it was school-pick up I had achieved exactly nothing! Hours of sitting on the phone or trying to navigate online sites.

I persisted over the afternoon and early evening, and did eventually manage to tick off quite a few things. But I got no writing done, when I thought I would have hours and hours today! Silly me. Oh well, it's not like anything terrible happened today, just a bit frustrating. At least I got my walk in!