crazyscot

Two weeks ago we had Snowpocalypse 2. Last week was glorious, with temperatures hitting 20C. This week isn't looking quite so impressive, but still pretty fair. And yet it's still August, morally February if one naively believes that the austral seasons are six months off from those north of the equator.

We've been food shopping at the weekends since C started work, and are surprised. I wouldn't dream of visiting the supermarket on a Saturday afternoon - they're inevitably heaving. Yet we've found the big Countdown stores to be fine. Busy, yes, but nowhere near heaving; able to park near the store entrance, and not needing to queue for ages. OK, if you go to the shopping malls at that sort of time, they're busy - I guess with people who shop for the experience - but evidently the average Kiwi does their food shopping at other times. Just when is a mystery, as they don't seem to do so on Sundays either, nor the occasional evening that we've gone... Does an NZ passport carry with it the ability to use a hitherto-concealed eighth day of the week? I Think We Should Be Told!

Last week I received two letters from HMRC, dated a day apart. One of them thanked me for my leaving-the-UK form, said they wouldn't consider pre-emptively refunding my tax paid this year as I'm already on Self Assessment, but have I considered joining the Non-Resident Landlord scheme to get my rent paid to me without tax taken off? The other letter (surprise surprise) thanked me for my NRL application and confirmed that they have approved it. Left hand, right hand, etc.; but I don't expect any different. At least when ringing the IRD here to activate my online self-service account the process was straightforward and efficient, so while I will have to fill in one tax return for each of the UK and NZ next year, I don't expect the latter to be in any way taxing (ho ho). Famous last words...

This afternoon I am sitting in at home, waiting for the removers to turn up with our kit. They're late, due to the MAF inspector turning up very late, but I've just had the call to say that MAF have released our kit and so it's on its way. At last!

The van turned up, eventually. They sent extra people and managed to unload all 187 pieces, and unpack the furniture, in two hours flat. We have gone from rattling around a mostly-empty house to being somewhat hemmed in by boxes. It's not quite as bad as at the flat, because we have so much more space: the bulk of them have gone into the spare room (where I fear they will languish until we next move).

We've unpacked a handful of boxes, including some kitchenware (would you believe it's rational to hug a saucepan?!) and opened a fair number of others to survey. As expected, some have already been opened and resealed with tape reading "OFFICIALLY OPENED BY MAF BIOSECURITY NEW ZEALAND PURSUANT TO THE BIOSECURITY ACT 1993". We haven't heard from the movers that we screwed up with our declarations (though I suspect the inspector's lateness might have caused them to be less fastidious than they might have).

Nothing appears superficially to be broken, but we haven't opened up all the boxes yet, let alone powered up the computers, TV, piano etc (not that I'm going to immediately in case there's a condensation issue - not that I can as I haven't assembled enough plug changers yet). However, in the boxes that I have looked into so far, I have giggled at one (1) Yellow Pages, Cambridge edition (OK, rejs points out it might be useful as a monitor stand); and I grinned at the memories evoked by a bag of smithereens which used to be a pink Freeview box :-).