7 posts tagged “australia”

i'm sure it's a misunderstanding. my lovely mama has said she didn't ask for it, but yet there it is on the invoice - 3 years of income tax ready for lodgement plus the deadly little line that is about to do me out of AU$500 or so: "Cancellation of GST registration and finalisation of BAS requirements". my accountant has always been a lovely chap and i'm sure he hasn't turned into the evil accountant of doom just because i'm three years overdue with my income tax. i mean, i'm finally doing something about it, right? that should be a good thing.

it started very simply. i sent off an email with the details for my 2005 tax return so he could pull that together for me. all very straightforward. however, i suspect that wires got crossed when my mother called him to ask a question. i suspect the conversation went something like this:

kindly accountant: well, we could do this and this and this
well-meaning parent: that sounds perfect!
 (... after a pause of some weeks ...)
minim: wtf???!!!!?

it's not the end of the world, really - i mean, i had always intended to cancel the gst registration, but only once i'd sorted out this batch of tax returns and possibly not until the end of the year when we will be shifting all our website hosting stuff across to the uk so i don't have to strain my (non-existent) australian finances past the point of respectable credit record. and i certainly did want all three years' worth of tax to be done by him - but i would have thought he'd find it easier to do them with, say, expenditure details. i know i didn't have much money coming in, but there were still regular outgoings and my closet-cataloguer's soul likes all this sort of stuff to be orderly and complete and everything allotted to its proper account and so on, even if it's 3 years overdue (actually, it's probably 3 years overdue *because* of wanting the orderly and complete etc. takes so frickin' long to do!)

anyway, about to steel myself to call him and find out what actually happened so i can at least stop being so deeply bewildered at what's going on. wish me luck!

update: well, someone beat me to it and he was on the phone and likely to be for a while and with an appointment to follow, so i have had to resort to yet another email. hopefully this one will have more luck than the previous ones...

yup. they've gone. no more wisdom teeth, and i am amazed to say that i have suffered no bruising, no serious pain (yet - i run out of panadeine forte tonight, but haven't really been needing to take them every four hours like i was instructed - mostly every 6-8 hours and then only cos uncomfy rather than in screaming agony). i had heard that i was likely to come out looking like a victim of domestic violence and had even planned for that eventuality with an idea for a black and blue themed birthday party for next week but it looks like that idea will have to go out the window cos merely pink and a bit swollen.

so all in all, not terribly traumatic. coming out of the general anaesthetic was a bit nasty as it tends to be and even swallowing water was hard at first, but by the time i got home in the afternoon on monday (they took them out about morning tea-time) i was doing ok with the liquids. yesterday was a bit nasty - was feeling quite nauseous for a large part of the afternoon, which i think was a lack of food, but i'm now able to eat solids again, albeit squishy ones - overcooked pasta, rice cooked in chicken stock (very nice, actually) softish cheese - so that has passed and overall i'm feeling ok. so back onto the cd-ripping. today i've been working my way slowly through my collection of cds from sony's stravinsky edition while listening to an assortment of recordings from my mother's collection - some arvo pärt, prokofiev and shostakovich piano music, etc. apart from a slight achiness and the rather nasty heat in the middle of the day, it's been really rather nice. midgemuckle is making us teriyaki chicken for dinner, so hoping i'll be able to
consume some of that too. yum!

oh, and of course the jelly. today's flavour is raspberry - tomorrow's will be blackcurrent, and after that i think i might be feeling brave enough to test out the pink lemonade flavour :-)

although perhaps i should wait to pass judgement until i talk to my doctor about my insulin levels tomorrow, but so far things are going ok. i had my dentist appointment today, which i was really nervous about (always am these days, scared he'll find something appalling), and more so for today as i thought i had a cavity, but it turned out to just be normal [for me] sensitivity for which i was prescribed strawberry flavoured tooth mousse. i do have to go back for two more visits in april though to fill a few holes which were tiny a couple of years ago but which now are starting to look threatening, which is an expensive bugger, but better to have it dealt with, even if the whole dentist experience ends up costing nearly $800 which i hadn't planned on, and i'm happy that it's just a couple of fillings and not more hideous root-canal work.

poor djelibeybi's trip to his dentist was not so relaxed, i fear. he broke a tooth in rome the other week and when he went in to the dentist, they found that another tooth had cracked and so he needs two crowns urgently, with one more recommended although at $1200 apiece, he's decided to put off the third for now and hope it doesn't need to be attended to within the next year and a half. eep! well, at least we have a recommendation for a dentist in ealing if he needs it.

once again it feels like we never left sydney, which is odd, after nearly 2 years away, but at least this time i'm enjoying it more. i think after nearly 2 years in england i can sort of almost nearly see sydney through english eyes. the sunshine really is rather nice. the colours are sparklier. when it rains it goes all green or purply rather than just grey. it's quite nice to be warm after the long winter - by the end of february even i tire of being chilly. and of course, it has much better medical facilities :-) i'm certainly not ready to move back and i suspect when the time comes there'll be a certain amount of kicking and screaming, but that's two years off at least and by then i hope i'll be able to appreciate the good points and not lament the parts where london is way way better (not too hot mostly, better concerts, better art galleries, more professional opportunities). hmm. but i'm glad i'm not hating it like last time. and today's dental verdict has me feeling a good deal calmer too.

and of course it's lovely seeing the parentals too. i do miss them, even if they do sometimes drive me nuts when i do see them. i guess it's a parent/child thing - presumably i drive them nuts too! we've already been treated to fudge cake and were offered strawberries this evening, although we were both too tired to take up the offer and really appreciate it. tomorrow i think i might take charge and cook dinner so they don't feel too much like we're freeloading. which we are, of course, but i don't want them to *feel* like we are :-)

only 12.45 and i do believe i'm ready. i'm 99% packed - just a few last minute things like makeup and hairbrushes and deciding which jumper i want to wear on the plane, and i didn't get my expenses done, but i'm packing my receipts and will post them from australia if i have to - and no particular panic attack on the horizon. even djeli's still up and it's pretty much unheard of for me to be ready before he's been in bed 2 hours. i bet i've forgotten something vital. the bag is pretty full, but most of it is easter eggs - we did a special trip to hotel du chocolat which is my favourite chocolate shop in the whole wide world (and yes, i'm including lindt chocolate in that) and bought the most awesome eggs for my parents. drool will happen. oh yes. the plus with this is that i'm having to pack *around* easter eggs, which leaves space for things like orchestration books and watercolour paints on the way back.

so tomorrow at 7am, we leave for the airport and the prospect of a 22-hour flight. gawd i hate those things. but i have my book (danny wallace's join me! which i believe is hilarious. if it's even half as good as yes man i'll be a happy passenger), my magnesium tablets, my fabulous greek anti-travel-sick chewing gum, i'll be buying a copy of wired at heathrow - the usual. five minidiscs at the ready. i have headphones. i have a headphone adaptor so i can wear comfy headphones while drooling over casino royale and more restrainedly watching the devil wears prada and other films (or possibly just casino royale several times in a row). so sydney here i come. to see my lovely parents, who i have missed (even if i don't show it and don't keep in touch with them very well). and to get my wisdom teeth removed. and to celebrate my 34th birthday. and of course easter.

so if i'm a little erratic in my posting over the next six weeks, please forgive me - i'll be back soon enough, even if it feels like a lifetime!

i have just stared, dumbstruck with horror at 1 1/2 episodes of something called "australian invasion". if anyone is ever looking for a complete summation of the stereotype of the australian in london, this is it. so crass, so ignorant, such abuse of the queen's english i can hardly bear to relate it.

oh, and anyone who proclaims "aussie aussie aussie oi oi oi" under any circumstances should be shot.

i am going to bed now. i fully expect to have nightmares.

When do you start your holiday shopping?
Submitted by Murphy.

hum. started it about 2 months ago, hoping to finish it tomorrow. damn postal deadlines. we had hoped to make the seamail deadline this year, but that was in october and we only got back from greece a week before it and both too sick to be bothered to think about christmas. this year i actually have a fairly complete and do-able present list, which i'm hoping will make things easier. presents for UK bods can wait a little longer, but i'm hoping to not have to think about presents at all (apart from how pretty they look under the tree) from about 10 december. i cannot believe that i am so organised. something has to go horribly wrong now...

Are there any snacks, food or candy that are no longer made that you desperately miss?

when i was a child we used to be able to get these amazing marshmallow biscuits - they were pretty simple, but really delicious: they had a thinnish biscuit base - not shortbread, more just a normal sort of plain biscuit, topped with a big puff of white marshmallow and all of it covered in hundreds and thousands. so so yummy. i think they were made by arnotts but i can't even remember the name of them now, just what they looked like and how they tasted. nowadays the closest thing you can get is the biscuit and marshmallow puff (but smaller) all covered in chocolate, which is frankly a little predictable. don't get me wrong, i love chocolate, but there was something so glorious about the hundreds and thousands. like fairy bread with a marshmallow.