What has happened to our garden?

Our camera has been given a good workout of late, the Doctor has been taking photos of our stuff that we are selling in preparation for our move. I took the opportunity to take some photos our garden to show the good work that has been done. My only regret is that is was not done by the Doctor or my hands. Well, we helped but our friendly gardener was the mastermind behind it.

Anyway below is a preview of it. It think it actually looks quite respectable.


Till next time, haveagoodone...

What has happened in the last two months?

Has it really been two months since I last posted? Surely it hasn't has it? OMG, it has been two months since I last posted. I wonder what has happened?

Well the topic of my previous posts was the gardening work that was being completed. Well I am proud to report that our garden is back into a reasonable state. Will try and get some photos later. We have small lavender plants under our living room windows and eagerly waiting for them to grow and start emitting their fragrance. The Doctor is diluting the remaining soya milk that I drink with water and feeding the lavenders. The next task will be to unjam the window locks and open our windows (as well as hope that good weather returns) to enjoy the lavender fragrance. In the meantime we are burning essential oil (the Doctor bought a couple of large bottles a few years ago so we are using them up).

The other big garden feat was our rose trees have been removed. Now I know that some of you reading this will shriek in disbelief that I have removed rose trees; but not being a gardening body I find it really difficult to care for them in the loving way. If they didn't have thorns, I may be a bit more sympathetic but alas they do so that is there fate.

We have had a few other bits and pieces done around the house, mainly in preparation to hand it over to a property manager in July when the Doctor and I change our environment. We are due to have another meeting with the property manager on Monday, so I'm sure that they will be more stuff to do (and more money to spend).

For those of you who didn't know, I tried to start a small online business last year. Had a really cool name - well I thought so anyway - called it Kiwi DownUnder. Even got a web page done and everything. But unfortunately things hadn't turned out as profitable as I hoped. The business idea I had was to import brand name men's underwear from overseas (mainly from the U.S.) that were not available in New Zealand and sell them here online. I think I had about 250 pairs in my first batch, but as at the start of the year I still had just under 200 pairs. The Kiwi's don't seem to be as embracing of online shopping as overseas. I think Australia has close to ten online stores; but then Australia has 23 million people where as New Zealand has 4 million. My only competition that I could find was Boywonder and his prices were more than double mine. Anyway considering the future move, I had to do something to clear my stock so I took them to Trade Me (eBay is not in New Zealand and Trade Me is New Zealand's equivalent) at a discount price. Well I have now about 20 pairs left and rather large hole left in my wallet. One of the buyers - I think he was buying to resell himself - will buy the rest from me. So that is another thing done before we move.

The other issue we have had was with our accountant. I am reasonably financially literate and combined with my interest (maybe I should say compulsion with spreadsheets) keep all my balls bouncing exactly as they should. The job for the accountant should be quite simple. However I am having a lot of trouble getting return communication from the accountant so the Doctor and I have decided to go with a new accountant. Hopefully this one will work out better; at least we are having two way communication and I think that is a good start.

The final bit of news I think to bring you all up to date; the Doctor has gotten through to the final stages of his job application in the Taiwan University. His name has even appeared the University's web site as teaching English translation and interpretation. So it appears all systems are go on that front.

Well it's time for me to go, Suze Orman has started and I need to watch my financial god.

Till next time, haveagoodone...