Admin!

We have taken some time out to do things that need to get done so that life moves along as smoothly as can be expected under the circumstances - in spite of the technological advances of the day, it is still a fact that you have to 'do stuff' to get stuff to work! For example - the internet banking that I want to have needed me to send signed forms back to the guy at Head Office in Auckland, and also to appear in person at one of the branches of the bank with a photo ID and a proof of physical address. It was of course, also a really good reason to take Jo to work yesterday morning and then have the car for the day! It was a completely deja vu experience to walk into the bank and find the tellers sitting behind beautiful marble counters with their computers to one side of them and not a glass panel in sight - you walk in the front door of the bank, no security gate, guard or door in sight, walk up to the lady behind the counter and can have a decent conversation about what you need to do without having to smooch up to a little round hole in bullet-proof glass and yell all your most personal and private financial affairs out for the entire bank to hear - alongside where I was standing, there was a young Mum with her little girl up on the counter beside her and the bank teller being able to reach out and touch the little poppet's blonde curls!
That all being done, I guess I should have a local bank account within the next few days or so - as things stand at the moment, I can deposit money into the account, but can't take any out (not that there's any to take out at this point!)

We found a wheelie bin on the property at the back of the house - full of garden refuse. This particular one, and there is a choice of about three different companies who do the wheelie bin thing in our street every week - turns out to be one of the more expensive varieties - $12.00 per pick -up so we decided to go for the one our neighbours recommended - $8.00 a pick-up fortnightly - but what to do with the wheelie bin we don't need? Called the company and got, wait for it, an ex South African on the line! From Toti and been here three years - was interesting to get another perspective from a South African in Auckland who is slowly but surely getting all of her family to move over here! She says she won't settle here until all her kids and their families are here too!
The recycling thing is pretty big here - each home was issued with a largish, square open topped bucket a couple of years ago - these are filled with glass and plastic for recycling and put out on the kerbside along with the ordinary refuse on rubbish day - each home therefore has three distinct 'piles' of things on the kerb - big black bag of regular refuse, plastic bucket with glass and plastic and then bags of paper and cardboard parked seperately. On refuse day, there are three different lorries that cruise by - the first collects the black bags only, then later sometime, the plastic bins are emptied and left upside down on the kerb - lastly, the bags of paper and cardboard disappear and the job is done for another week! This of course, is seperate from the wheelie bin thing for garden refuse - different wheelie bin companies on different days of the week, so on any given day, you might see wheelie bins on the kerbside here and there, but all will have yellow lids; another day, the wheelie bins that you might see, all have red lids and so on. All VERY organised!
Our house simply didn't have a bin for recycling, so I went onto the website for recycling here in Hamilton and discovered that the owner of the property must provide a new one if the original one is no longer there and that I need to contact the 'manager' of the property to get him to get the owner to do that! Found that our manager has an e-mail address so mailed him yesterday with the request and will wait and see if we get the desired effect!
If all else fails, I guess we could go and buy a bin from the local authority but they cost $20.00 and we would have to leave it here should we move somewhere else, so are not keen on that route.
I found out yesterday that Hamilton Hairdressing School is always looking for people who are willing to have students cut their hair (under supervision of course) and that the cost is zero - I'm not too sure about it yet, but when I notice that a simple little cut will cost about $50.00 it's worth looking into! (that's R250.00 folks!)
We know that we have to stop thinking in Rand - we will go totally crazy if we keep doing it, it's just that we still don't always know if the dollar price is a good one or not - but we're getting better at it!
Dis al!