Late night choccy run....

I’m becoming immersed in the property thing. I’ve now got quite a few books about it, as is my way, and I’m trying hard to make some sense of the rules here, the predominance of negative gearing and the admittedly more long term view of the property situation. I’m impressed with the amount of literature on the subject here, and have been happy to find that there are SOME authors whose opinion of the readiness to prostrate ones lifestyle to furnish negative cash flow from property investments is similar to mine. (Cautious) However the ready availability of property in the UK for which rents can be levied that equal or exceed the mortgage costs is not the case here. On the other hand there is a plethora of tax breaks that are designed to encourage property development and renting. For example it is possible to buy a new property here, and offset the cost of the house (but not the land) against your income as a depreciating asset over the early years of the mortgage.

I’ve also been trying to do other stuff, such as apply for jobs, and list my CV with agencies. To date however I’ve not ACTUALLY done this! (Although Daile is helping right now by looking for suitable stuff and e-mailing them to me). Nor have I submitted the plans for the house to the Logan City Council. I’m a little concerned that I’ve not done these things, since they are priorities, but I have been busy….

One job that I’ve been doing a lot of work in preparation for was a job as a ‘trade manager’ at a major hospital. However, having spent a day an a half on research in order to answer the questions on the screening form, I hit a brick wall. They asked for specific information about the mandatory maintenance tasks that pertain to the fire system of a hospital. Now I’m not that bad at finding stuff out on the Internet, but I could find nothing about that. Finally, with a little help from Bernadette (who works in a hospital), I was able to boil it down to the contents of a single Australian Standard called AS 1851-2005. However, to get a look at this, you need to pay for it…and the price is a ‘healthy’ $175. If anyone feels like trying to get it for me, I’d appreciate it…but don’t spend too long. I discovered that there is an obligation on the government to provide copies of the Australian standards at public places such as Libraries, so I went down to the local one and asked. They said that they had access to a digital copy of one that was ‘similar’ – but it turned out not to be. I’m a little frustrated that;

1. they are asking for knowledge of information that is obviously designed to filter out those of us that have never done that job….and
2. that the government see fit to make a law about the things that have to be done in terms of maintenance of fires systems in a public hospital, and then have the audacity to charge you to find out what the law is!

Aside from that…for those of you that have been trying to make contact via Skype, we’ve still got some issues: Daile’s computer is still playing up and the wireless bit is constantly falling over…mine is having a terminal problem with the sound card and the link to the microphone, meaning I can’t be heard, and Wayne’s has been hijacked by a virus that has changed his Skype password! Why? We’re considering getting Daile a new computer….or her having this one and me getting another.

….and lastly, Matilda has had a fairly good couple of days at school. She’s able to read all the ‘sight words’ that she’s been asked to read for her year….AND all the words that she would have been learning next year….so they’re trying to get some books in that are at her level. She can also do all the maths they would have been teaching her. Interestingly, this seems to have upset her…and she’s worried that she’s ‘not doing it right’. Turns out that she’s learned a form of writing that is different enough in appearance that the other kids have been telling her that she’s doing it wrong! The teacher has, I understand tried to put them right. Difficult innit? She and I went out tonight by ourselves to get chocolate….which seemed to help. God I’m such a bad influence!