INNER JOURNEY OUTER EXPRESSIONS

As the move to Australia looms closer all the financial assets and avenues are in a melt down. Generally there appears to be a shedding of assets in South Africa, whether it be to reduce costs or because a significant number of people are considering or going ahead with emigration I don't know. I was offered R50 000-00 cash for a vehicle, whose book value is R73 000-00 and was told that this would be the best price I would get if I wanted to sell. The same again for my wife car being offered R15 000-00 less than the book value. The house has not sold yet and the price has been dropped by R260 000-00 which is a 21% drop in price. The last two weeks have been the Cherry on the cake, the Rand value has dropped through the floor boards, so the money that we manage to scrape will be greatly devalued against the Aussie Dollar (From R5.93 to R7.60 to the Dollar) Lord when is it going to stop. The few things I do have to be grateful for, is a wonderful loving family with an exceptional wif...

Boy is selling a house hard work. Every weekend the house has to be in show room condition. Inmost cases that means both days as people want to view the house Saturday and the show is on Sunday. We have had show houses every weekend for the past 4 weeks and I can't remember just relaxing. But I should imagine that it's preparing us for the hard work in Australia. It's 36 days until we get on the plane and head down under to a brand new life and literally start over again, due to the strength of the dollar and the costs of the move. We have also had to cut our losses on several occasions in order to be able to make this move.BUT it is all worth it.

Sunday the 5 October we had a show house so we cleaned the house, handed over to the agent and headed off to the shopping centre to burn a couple hours. When we returned, pu;lling into the driveway all of us looked at the wall and notice that the brass numbers for our house had been removed. This unfortunately is due to the metal prices going up and things like brass numbers will fetch a good price. 

After the cottage had been vacated by my father, we had to clear the old furnisher and bits and pieces he had left behind (Thanks Dad). Well one call to Viginia (a lady who had collected other stuff from the verge in the past) and she was at the house like a shot, as the stuff would be for free if she could arrange to move today as we had yet another show house and needed to clean. One   phone call to a neighbor or son (that couldn’t be established) and he arrived with a short wheel based bakkie (UTE) and said it would be no problem loading all of the stuff. We couldn’t believe. Well it all fitted: 2 x tables 2 x Side tables 1 x headboard 1 x couch 1 x microwave oven 1 x wall unit A deck chair and dish rack ,and of cause don’t forget the kitchen sink. The women was so excited that she couldn’t stop giving my wife a hug every so often.   Well this is the first step in clearing out the house, soon we will have to sell all our worldly belongings in the main house a...

A meal fit for a King and his Queen, Two Steers “Good Guys” and Miller’s (for me) and a Savanna Dry for my lady.

One of the things I'm very excited about is getting back on a bicycle, i sold my Specialized Epic back in May '08 as I had miss timed the arrival of our visa. I have begun gaining weight, losing fitness and the emotions run riot as there is no where for me to blow off steam. But there is one dilemma . With the cash I am gearing up to spend of a dual suspension mountain bike, similar to the Specialized epic I let go, there are so many choices but I have starting getting down to what I can afford, and what I would like to ride. 1) Trek Fuel EX8 2) Santa Cruz Superlight 3) Pivot Mach 5 Funny enough the lesser know of the three bicycles the "Pivot Mach 5" has  the best reviews from riders and magazines alike. The problem seems to be the availability of the bicycle in certain locations and countries.  At present Adelaide cycle shops do not stock the Pivot, BUT after tracking down the agents in Australia I have established that they intend doing the foot work in Adelaid...

Well the tickets have been booked, we (wife, kiddy and I) only need to fork out R24800-00 for a lift to Adelaide Aussie (Very worth it). We will do the transaction in the morning via the internet (wonderful tool) and then it's confirmed 24 November (12h35) - Durban (RSA) to Johannesburg (RSA) 24 November (17h50) - Johannesburg (RSA) to Perth (AU) 25 November (14h00) - Perth (AU) to Adelaide (AU) - New Home Thanks to my beautiful wife for all the hard work in pushing them through so quickly