We're homeless again

We’ve got a house! Oh no we haven’t.

Went back to the house in Bronte this afternoon to have a proper look around. The problem with the Australian rental market is that you have to view properties in a 15 minute time slot, so you don’t get chance to cast a critical eye over the place, so it was good to go back and spend more time there.

When we saw the house today, we noted that the hot water pressure is dreadful (a trickle comes out of the tap), the range cooker doesn’t work as it should, there’s no grill, some of the blinds are broken beyond repair and well, it’s not really worth $700 per week of our money, even if it is close to the beach.

As things stand this evening, we have said we won’t pay more than $650 for it, but in all honesty, I don’t think we want to spend such a huge proportion of our income on rent, so it’s back to the drawing board.

So once again we have no home. But we do have a 20 year old Toyota Corolla that we’ve paid about £400 for, which we intend to use as a second car. We bought it because the house in Bronte was too far for Darren to walk to work…..yes, we may not need to have bought it after all. Don’t ask.

The best thing about the old banger is that we had to drive to Illawong this evening to buy it. I’m very fond of Australian place names, so this pleased me greatly (and one day I’ll make it to Wollongong, Dubbo, Wagga Wagga and the Bungle Bungles). The worst thing about the car (and there’s a list) is that I had to drive the hire car back from Illawong at dusk (along the motorway). I’m still not au fait with driving an automatic and the windscreen wipers and indicators are on the opposite side to the UK so the on-off drizzle caused me some difficulty. Oh yes, and we drove back under the runway at Sydney airport, which was quite a distraction.

Darren thinks I’m driving the banger next week because the hire car has to go back tomorrow. He’s wrong – I’m keeping the hire car.

Today, after we decided not to rent the house at Bronte, I must admit, I wanted to come home. It’s all such a faff, I’ve got a perfectly good house in the UK and Darren starts a seven day stretch of work on Friday, so it’s me and Ella against the world after that. When we were driving to Illawong this evening we passed a British Airways 747 taking off from the airport, which made me cry, and I can’t even pack away some Dairy Milk for solace because it tastes rubbish.

Must persevere, must persevere :(