General Update.

So today is Friday the 13th - not being at all superstitious ourselves about the date, we thought this morning about the people all over the world who really do spend the day in their beds and out of harms way, since they are so convinced that something dreadful is sure to happen to them.
Having been just over the 'ditch' from Australia for the past two weeks, we can't fail to be struck by the enormity of the devastation in that country with the incredible fires that have taken so many lives - I would imagine that Friday 13th means not a thing to them - there is just such outrage here too with the thought that there have been arsonists certainly involved in the fires - admittedly, nature burns the bush periodically and we all know that Australia kind of expects fires at this time of year, but the assistance of arsonists is just too incredible to fathom.
Evidently, there have been sporadic fires in the bush here in NZ as well and in the course of our travels over the weekend around the Coromandel region, we noticed that every little 'place' - be it a town, or just a small area where people live, has a big 'fire hazard' board up right by the main road. The markers on these boards were all around the 'dangerous 'zones, just beside the 'extreme' - meaning that the bush is very dry at the moment and the risk of fire is very high.
We have however, had a bit of rain these past couple of days which has calmed the kiwis down a bit as far as the 'enormous heat' is concerned - but of course they are all complaining about how humid it is! The temperatures are still making headline news here - yesterday evening's opening story on the main news bulletin was that the temperatures in Auckland reached a high of 32.4 degrees C in the course of the day and that this was the highest recorded temperature since 18 seventy something! I guess we should not be so surprised then that the kiwis are all a-fluster regarding the heat!
It is overcast again this morning and really quite pleasant outside - I think the forecast for Hamilton today is 27, so it looks like the 'heat wave' has passed for the moment.
We aren't too sure how the whole 'on arrival' thing works now that we have been here for two weeks - we suspect that the company pays our 'digs' for these two weeks and thereafter the bill should be to our account - that is a scary thought since we have just parted with a real fistful of dollars for the 'bond' on our house. Therein lies the dilemma - we can only collect the keys for our new place on Wednesday morning so we don't quite know what to do with ourselves between now and then without running up a serious bill.
We called in on Cor and Mariaan on Wednesday evening for a coffee and ended up being talked into staying for a braai - they have said that they will see if they can find us a spot for the interim days but if nothing is forthcoming, we should just move in with them. They apparently have a spare room and are only too happy to put us up - naturally, that is not at all what we want to do, considering it to be a huge imposition on them. In chatting about it last night, I said I thought that if we were in their position, with SA families arriving and having the wherewithall to help out, we would be quite hurt if they didn't take us up on the offer of accommodation for those couple of days. It appears that we should be out of the suite by 6am on the day of departure anyway, so that means that in the course of the day today, we should come up with somewhere else to hang our hats.
Evidently, the stadium just up the road from our Motel, is the Hamilton ground which plays host to the rugby games that the whole world will be watching - the whole world being SA and Oz and NZ - the first one of interest happens here in a couple of weeks - the Sharks against the Waikato Chiefs (our new 'home team') - Cor tells us that the entire South African Hamilton contingent goes to all the games where any South African team is involved - wives, kids the whole lot! We are really looking forward to being able to wave our Cheetahs flag - it just has to get here from SA! Cor's 13 year old daughter is quite disgusted that her dad has a Blou Bulle shirt! - that's quite weird to us since she left SA when she was about 9 so what does she know about the Blou Bulle? Interesting! She evidently supports the Stormers - also interesting since they moved over here from Kroonstad (of all places! - we realised that we were all in Kroonstad at the same time although we didn't know them then!) Cor is originally from Namibia and Mariaan from the Freestate where her family still farms - she says she has been working really hard on getting them to think about coming over here, but so far hasn't been able to convince them.
You will be interested to know Janet, that Cor and Mariaan's littlest daughter, (three in March) has just started at the Montessouri kindergarten in Hamilton and is, like Julia, impressing everyone with how she plays with something and then does the 'pack away' thing before tackling something else. It seems that the whole concept really is taught 'world wide'!
We are hoping to set up things like local bank accounts today and want to arrange to have a land line and broad band installed in our new place so that it is already there when we arrive on Wednesday. I have an idea where the local library is - (you don't generally cuddle up with a good 'laptop') and we have found out where the best butcher is - a South African who's business is called The Mad Butcher - I wonder what that refers to!
There are quite a few companies who hire out appliances and TV's and so on for the things that we aren't able to scrounge, so we will see what we have when we move into our place and then possibly hire the odd things that we are missing - like a fridge for example. Things obviously vary in price, but are hired out at a weekly rate - like everything else - it looks as though a fridge freezer will cost in the region of about 25 dollars a week - sounds really cheap! Do the sums - not so cheap!
Otherwise, not much news - all's well really - Jo's cold a whole lot better and he seems to be doing really well at work - he says the job he was doing in SA is handled here by about seven different guys!
Mail us people - we also look forward to hearing from you guys!
That's all!