{"id":1550,"date":"2013-02-24T10:24:12","date_gmt":"2013-02-24T10:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=1550"},"modified":"2026-05-26T05:03:34","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T04:03:34","slug":"troubles-at-home-though-its-not-our-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2013\/02\/24\/troubles-at-home-though-its-not-our-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Troubles At Home, Though It\u2019s Not Our Home"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first half of February was spent house-sitting for Louise and Geoff while they were cruising on a yacht off the coast of Tasmania near Hobart.\u00a0 We settled in nicely at the Wilsons and anticipated lots of walks in the nearby Lane Cove National Park which unfortunately never actually happened.\u00a0\u00a0But it felt rather luxurious having a kitchen four times the size of our whole campervan!\u00a0 I also enjoyed finding our car covered in crepe myrtle blossom every time we went out to it; it\u2019s quite pretty when you drive off and the pink blossom sprays all over the windscreen. \u00a0It was handy being able to constantly spread our paperwork all over their dining room table in an attempt to get on top of everything that we needed to get done.\u00a0 Thank you very much Louise and Geoff for lending us your lovely home and the company of the incomparable Charlie.<\/p>\n

We caught up with many more friends and we took our niece, Victoria, out for lunch; an early celebration of her 21st<\/sup> birthday, as the next day she was flying off to Phuket in Thailand for a week.\u00a0 We also viewed quite a few movies; Rodney now has a \u2018Seniors card\u2019 so he\u2019s loving the half-price movie tickets.\u00a0 We\u2019ve seen \u2018Life of Pi\u2019, \u2018Silver Linings Playbook\u2019, \u2018Searching For Sugarman\u2019, \u2018Lincoln\u2019, \u2018The Impossible\u2019 and best of all, \u2018The Intouchables\u2019, a brilliant French movie; if you get a chance to see it, we recommend you do.<\/p>\n

\"An
An interesting Bug<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

On February 6th we finally went round to Garland Road to view our house and we were both so spun out by what we encountered, that neither of us actually did have a proper look around; we didn\u2019t even enter the front bedroom!\u00a0 The place was a dirty, untidy mess and I couldn\u2019t believe that the tenant hadn\u2019t made an effort to make the place look nice before the owners popped in.\u00a0 What shocked me more was that the rental agents thought it was fine!\u00a0 We also found out quite a few alarming details of the past tenants’ bizarre behaviour and then visited all of our neighbours to apologise for what they\u2019ve been through in our absence.\u00a0 Then more problems started, resulting in weeks of very unpleasant stress and sleepless nights dealing with our seemingly incompetent, property agent. We re-checked the figures regarding damage, cleaning, repair, rubbish removal and unpaid rent from the previous tenant and discovered that the agents had very many errors in their accounting, the major one being that they had entered our \u2018returned bond\/deposit\u2019 as \u2018rent paid for August\u2019. This meant we couldn\u2019t claim for unpaid rent for that month as the Insurers used the statement as proof that we had received the August rent.\u00a0 We demanded a meeting with the agents and when we finally got together we had to accept all their excuses, but still couldn\u2019t get them to understand our need for accurate accounting. We spent days going over and over every dollar that was spent, paid, received, or unpaid and I compiled Excel spread sheets for the Insurers.\u00a0 Finally, after I had sat on the agent’s doorstep, refusing to move until I could get a final bit of proof regarding the bond, we felt that we had everything we needed to make an insurance claim. Fortunately, our Insurers were really patient and understood the struggles that we had with the agent.\u00a0 On presenting everything to our assessor in person, he had the claim signed off and the money in our bank account in two days.\u00a0 The sense of relief that we no longer had to waste any more time on fighting the property agent, was tremendous.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Chinese
Chinese New Year in Sydney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We\u2019ve decided to not leave the current tenant in there after the year\u2019s agreement is up; we\u2019re going to move back in and put our home back in order in late October, when we get back from our next European trip. There\u2019s a lot to do including re-sanding and re-sealing all of the wooden floorboards from the front door right through to the back door, hopefully this will remove the dog-wee stains.\u00a0 \u00a0 The carpets in two bedrooms have to be ripped up and replaced. And we\u2019ll repaint all the walls and fix up the dog chewed skirting board, etc., etc.\u00a0 We\u2019re hoping we can get it all done in the month of November, before our friends Bill & Ang come to stay.<\/p>\n

Halfway through February we left West Chatswood and said goodbye to our new chatty kitty mate, Charlie, who we will really miss.\u00a0 Mind you, I bet he has forgotten us already.\u00a0 We moved back in with Vanea and Peter in Willoughby and we now wake to the sound of one or two butcherbirds outside our bedroom window.\u00a0 They are a bird with an amazing repertoire of song and for some reason it seems such an Australian sound to me.\u00a0 I love it.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=KfaplSc5ieM<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"
Rodney digging for Vanea and Peter (they weren’t down there……)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rodney has been trying to earn our keep with some digging and we\u2019re being as helpful as we can with the cleaning, washing, bug removal, etc.\u00a0 He\u2019s booked and cancelled flights and hotels all over the world, finally resigning ourselves to the fact that the ski trip to Japan and the brief replacement ski trip to Colorado were off the agenda.\u00a0 The drive up the coast was also cancelled, changed to a trip down the coast for us to spend some time alone together and then we turned it back around to a drive up the coast.\u00a0 All we knew for sure was that the flights to England were booked for March 16th<\/sup> and that that\u00a0booking was not<\/span> going to change.\u00a0 We\u00a0had planned\u00a0to start our next journey in Eileen travelling south from Denmark, but we\u2019re now going to leave Eileen in England and fly to Zurich to ski in Arosa, Switzerland for a week over Easter, so we may be taking the campervan on the boat over to Holland later in April and heading south from there.\u00a0 Then again this may just be \u2018Plan 24E\u2019 and things could change again in the retired world of Rodney and Laura.<\/p>\n

\"Balmoral
Balmoral Beach on a beautiful day<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Shag
A shag on a rock at Balmoral<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Not sure what happened to our plans for a relaxing time in Sydney, I guess it was a silly plan.\u00a0 We had thought that we would have time to enjoy Sydney and remind ourselves of why we love living here, but somehow we\u2019ve been wrapped up in everything else but.\u00a0 However we have managed to enjoy a few days at the beach. We\u2019ve picnicked at Fairlight Beach and we did drive down to Balmoral Beach on one beautiful day and strolled in the water from one end of the bay to the other, with an ice cream in hand; I wished we had gone for longer with swimmers and towels to hand. \u00a0So I finally got my body board out of storage and we had two lovely mornings at Freshwater Beach catching waves.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Balmoral
Balmoral Pool<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unfortunately on Feb 23rd<\/sup> the weather took a big turn for the worse and the rain came down\u2026..constantly.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Stormy
Stormy day at Curl Curl Beach<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Curling
Curling waves near Curl Curl<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cHome is your shelter from storms, all sorts of storms\u201d.\u00a0<\/em><\/span> William J Bennett<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

That must be why I feel a need to have a home again, or even just a campervan……!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"A
A shadowy couple…..<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first half of February was spent house-sitting for Louise and Geoff while they were cruising on a yacht off the coast of Tasmania near Hobart.\u00a0 We settled in nicely at the Wilsons and anticipated lots of walks in the nearby Lane Cove National Park which unfortunately never actually happened.\u00a0\u00a0But it felt rather luxurious having […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8426,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions\/8426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}