Nice people thread part 7 - a thread in its prime

Generali

We took the kids up to Caves Beach and also had a look at a piece of land that we are considering buying up there. I'm not sure about it: it's in a nice spot but it's not very flat. Flat = cheap to build on = good. It's in a really nice little town, good for Newcastle and Sydney. I'm not entirely sure though. The price is jolly good, we'd get it for $100,000 plus change for a 1/4 acre block and we wouldn't pay stamp duty as FTBs. In addition we get a $25,000 Government grant towards building a house on the land so a good deal all round.

We'd have a home for a year (you need to live in it for a year to qualify for the grant) and then could rent it out for a tidy profit.

On the way home my daughter said, "2010, that was ages ago! There was no hopscotch, no pencils, no washing machines."

kabayiri

Talking of temperature changes ...

My sis in Calgary has visitors over in Calgary, Canada for the Xmas break. They have come from Cairns in Oz.

The Cairns/Aussie summer. What's that? 30C+?
Well, Calgary was -21C the other day!

I suspect they are in for a shock

zagubov

DW was teling me about Piers Morgan getting in an an argument on American TV about gun crime. Telling them a few home truths they didn't like the sound of it seems.

Apparently he quoted about a drop in murders/suicides in Oz when guns were banned there but can't track down any info.

Do gen or viva or other NPs have any info on this- sounds interesting.

Everything else to do with US and guns sounds depressing and frustrating.:(

Generali

kabayiri wrote: »

Talking of temperature changes ...

My sis in Calgary has visitors over in Calgary, Canada for the Xmas break. They have come from Cairns in Oz.

The Cairns/Aussie summer. What's that? 30C+?
Well, Calgary was -21C the other day!

I suspect they are in for a shock

This time of year it's 30-33C every day, very humid and a thunderstorm in the late afternoon almost every day.

http://www.bom.gov.au/qld/forecasts/northtropicalcoast.shtml

They won't have the clothes for the weather and no way to buy them. My wife's Grandma lives in Townsville, just down the coast. There is a standing family joke that she has only a single, lightweight cardigan that has lasted her for 20+ years. They made a mini photo album containing photos of her wearing this thing at pretty much every family gathering in the cold parts of Australia, i.e. everywhere in Brisbane and south of there.

There isn't winter and summer in Cairns as it is tropical, they have 2 seasons instead. The lowest maximum temperature this year was 22C and that was an oddity. The maximum daily temperature in Cairns hasn't been below 30C this month.

They won't understand how being in cold weather works if they've always lived up there. All that stuff about staying dry, using layers, retaining body heat and how to keep a house warm. That is utterly alien to them. I drove me barmy for ages that I'd get a room nice and warm when we lived in crappy rentals and the missus would go to the loo and leave the s0dding door open:mad::mad::mad:. She simply didn't understand or so she claimed although I notice these days that she'll put the air con on with the window open. :mad::mad::mad:

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

...
They won't understand how being in cold weather works if they've always lived up there. All that stuff about staying dry, using layers, retaining body heat and how to keep a house warm. That is utterly alien to them. I drove me barmy for ages that I'd get a room nice and warm when we lived in crappy rentals and the missus would go to the loo and leave the s0dding door open:mad::mad::mad:. She simply didn't understand or so she claimed although I notice these days that she'll put the air con on with the window open. :mad::mad::mad:

Absolutely! They have never left Cairns; never seen snow. :rotfl:

I think that will change.

The good thing about our Canadian houses; you can open all the garage doors automatically from inside the cars; you hardly have to step outside. Even the decking from the house to the hot tub is heated. They have it cushy

Generali

kabayiri wrote: »

Absolutely! They have never left Cairns; never seen snow. :rotfl:

I think that will change.

I suspect you're right! I think they'll have some very interesting experiences with the combination of living in a climate which is a daily survival situation in winter and the Aussie, She'll be 'right attitude.

kabayiri wrote: »

The good thing about our Canadian houses; you can open all the garage doors automatically from inside the cars; you hardly have to step outside. Even the decking from the house to the hot tub is heated. They have it cushy

Sounds very nice. I bet modern Canadian houses are set up for the cold like Aussie ones are for the heat: very nicely indeed. My favourite hot weather adaptation is at Changi airport where the have an outdoor, cooled (not with air con strictly speaking as I think they use water evaporation) bar. I want one!

lostinrates

Gift giving emergency strikes. One In law is coming to m and I said to dh ' um, what did you get for X'. And he looked at BMW blankly and said 'but, surely you, um...'. ' nope, dh, your sibling, your responsibility'. Dh is now stuffing a bag full of branded client merchandise he assures me his sibling will think is darling.

Hmm. At least iot gets some of it out of our house (I find nothing darling about this stuff at all!)

vivatifosi

Good luck with emergency lir...

Just heard from my cousin in Qld. Her husband is a volunteer fire fighter (rest of time he's a paid paramedic). He has had to go out fight fires all Christmas and got back 4pm Boxing Day, so I think that's the things happen in 3 box checked.

Aunt has fractured ankle, check
DH has flu, check
Cousin's Christmas postponed due to firefighting emergency, check

Hopefully the remaining couple of hours will go off without a hitch.

kabayiri

Generali wrote: »

...
Sounds very nice. I bet modern Canadian houses are set up for the cold like Aussie ones are for the heat: very nicely indeed. My favourite hot weather adaptation is at Changi airport where the have an outdoor, cooled (not with air con strictly speaking as I think they use water evaporation) bar. I want one!

When I was out in Canada I let my inner Anal Retentive mode out for a bit by spending some time in the boiler/heating room. Yep, in a couple of houses they seem to have a whole room full of boiler / heat recovery devices / and really well labelled pipes.

Which is all very well, but no remote control of the heating provision. This surprised me.

I've been trialling this British Gas web based heating control system for a while now back in Blighty. I think it shows potential. Like a true saddo, I study the graph of real time temperature change, and try to set up a heating schedule which is comfortable - not warm. In the spring I plan to put in zonal heating control to gain more efficiency.

...but then DH comes in to the house and 'whacks' the controller on the wall to full; complaining of the cold; defeating my plans.

Old habits die hard :rotfl:

lostinrates

kabayiri wrote: »

When I was out in Canada I let my inner Anal Retentive mode out for a bit by spending some time in the boiler/heating room. Yep, in a couple of houses they seem to have a whole room full of boiler / heat recovery devices / and really well labelled pipes.

Which is all very well, but no remote control of the heating provision. This surprised me.

I've been trialling this British Gas web based heating control system for a while now back in Blighty. I think it shows potential. Like a true saddo, I study the graph of real time temperature change, and try to set up a heating schedule which is comfortable - not warm. In the spring I plan to put in zonal heating control to gain more efficiency.

...but then DH comes in to the house and 'whacks' the controller on the wall to full; complaining of the cold; defeating my plans.

Old habits die hard :rotfl:

What I would do for a friend like you who liked heating systems:rotfl:


ATM I am getting unhealthily interested in the pressure guages on mine. I don't know how, but somehow I think they are indicative of a problem. The one that included the tank and the rads has been swinging from o.2 (when I refilled it, I know from gdb and ...was it all the Ss or zag helping me before, that it should be at one maybe one and a half) but it has swung up to over two at times. Christmas eve it was heading up towards two and a half so I coerced dh into helping me get some water out of the stystem to reduce the pressure.

I am not looking forward to dealing with people about this after the Christmas break. I think they know it and there plan is to wear us down so that 'we have learnt to live with it' is good enough instead of , it works how it is meant to'.

I also have a mild concussion from the lid of the pellet hopper crashing down on the back of my swollen bonce. Ouchy.