HELLO From New Zealand

jwil

Congratulations on the new job!

Sorry to hear about the blood tests, hope it's nothing serious.

NoOneAround

Hope all OK Chev.
x
NOA

chevalier

So the medical issue I mentioned earlier is in the watch and wait phase. I have made best efforts to tell affected family, which included cousins, so that was a bit hard. But I am fine in myself. Just another treat potentially for later life. Sigh
Work oh my life. So I am pleased to say I am up to speed that they want now, so that is good, means I am not being audited every five minutes. The standards are very very strict. Like leaving a comma in the address field is a big no no. And I am like seriously who the heck is looking but still I am doing it so there you go.

You know when you go to an interview and you think, yeah nah. Well I had this vibe about the boss of this place, but I thought I was being paranoid. But turns out I wasn't. I have to say he is fine to me so far but for people who have been there for 30 or 40 years he has been a recent and decidedly unpleasant shock. I attended a union meeting and bearing in mind these are mainly ladies in their late 50's and over I have never heard so much vitriol and bitterness about a work place, pretty much ever. And bear in mind I worked for Royal Mail for nearly 10 years.

The irony was that the day before I had gone to the health board welcome day, and it was all inclusiveness and working together. like what it should be. And then this meeting the next day. Like wow! So a real dichotomy there.

On a lighter note I had someone whos given first name was CJ the other day. No not initials their given name! Like wow. And one of my colleagues had some called - yep. How on earth that got past the naming people here is beyond all of us!

The work itself remains interesting and yet I am looking for another job. I can see this one going very wrong in terms of the politics before Christmas. Oh yeah that was the other thing. My OH and the boys are at jamboree over new year and I thought great I will take my mum away. But nope not allowed the time off. Really peed off about that. I now have to go in the ballot with everyone else which is a pain.

right must go
chev

*Robin*

Hello Chev, :hello:

Sorry to hear the new job may not be long-term.. But maybe the boss won't last himself, as all the very long-established employees have taken against him? Keeping all digits crossed that it all works out in the end - and you get lucky in the holiday ballot!

Re health issue.. Hope it's one of those where it is helpful to know in advance so any potential catastrophe can be avoided. Forewarned and all that. :cool:

chevalier

so a bit of a rant about not getting on and doing things and ending up feeling very guilty about it.

so DS1 when he was 12 I noticed that he couldn't get his arm to go up the side of his head. This was particularly noticeable when he was swimming back stroke in swimming lessons. To be honest it was just when he was starting to not want to go to lessons and generally be hormonal for the first time so I thought he was swinging the chain. Those swimming lessons were really the last time I got to have a good look at his back/shoulders as pretty much after that, it was not cool to be seen unclothed in front of mum, and OH wouldn't notice things like that if it had a big sign painted on it.

so years rolled round, and we finally go and lo, he hasn't got a problem with his shoulder he has curvature of his spine. the first thing the GP said was that his shoulder (the one he has a problem for) has a droop, classic curve spine sign. I am absolutely gutted and really quite upset with myself that I let this slide for so long.

The service I transcribe is paediatric orthopaedics and adult orthpaedics, so I hear about this type of thing every day. It is going to be a tough few years, and we could have started down this track three years ago. DAMN

Eager_Elephant

(((chevalier)))


I just wanted to say that you are not alone and to send some hugs.
It's so hard to know whether to bother the health system with things or not - I didn't want to be one of those parents who was always taking their child to the GP for no good reason.


You did what you thought was best at the time and remember DS was a teenager so he could have mentioned his shoulder again at some point although I find boys particularly like to hide their symptoms.


Hope the treatment for DS goes well. (((Chev's DS)))

chevalier

Thanks EE. I guess there has just been a whole load of things that have been piling up for a few years.
When I was working nights it left no brain power for thinking about it and OH couldn't organise the proverbial in a brewery without loads of nagging, so I might as well do it myself. Which is why we are doing stuff now.

I am very thankful that the health service have at least acccepted the referral so now we are just waiting for the appointment. Sods law dictates that it will be when the boys are on camp this year but hey ho we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

on top of the physical we are getting both boys tested again educationally. At $950 :eek::eek::eek: a time, it is a VERY expensive assessment, but I have always been told that there is no way of getting this on the local system. So if we want them to have help in school (particularly important for DS1 as he has the equivalent of GCSEs next year) then they need the assessment. I have no idea how poor people get the help that they need. And even so it will put a dent in our savings to say the least.

Anyway I hope that whatever the answer is for DS1 the prognosis is good.
chev

chevalier

Talk about a roller coaster.
So money is flooding out as quickly as my additional flows in. Sigh. All I want is my own house, I sodding hate renting. Don't get me wrong my landlord is fine in a lacksadaisical way, but the whole house is painted dark cream and it just looks dirty. Yuck. And of course each week we are paying him $550 that we could be paying for a mortgage.

Now they want a 40% deposit, so on an average $600,000 nothing house that is $240,000 who the heck has that sitting in their bank account, oh that is right speculators:mad:. So then we come to selling our UK house. Which would be a no brainer. But the exchange rate has gone from $2.40 to the pound to $1.72 to the pound since brexit! So we would lose even more money in the exchange rate that previously when we said it was a no go.

You know what I am really scared about the future at the moment. I just can't see a way of getting out own place here. I turn shhh 50 next year and I worry that we will be still renting when we retire and the where would we be.

My brother is a financial adviser and he was suggesting we went interest only on our house in the UK or even sell it and get a couple or rental properties in a less expensive part of the country for some income. But then I worry about leaving any assets in the UK as I think it is all going to go down the toilet, probably for years when section 51 is triggered.

Oh stuff it I don't know boo hiss.

chev

chevalier

anyone got any ideas?

Chocforever

I don't know the amount of equity you have in the UK property and so it's not clear to me whether you could afford to buy a suitable house in NZ even if you cashed in the UK property for the deposit. What sort of mortgage term would you plan to get? Using your example, $360k, is a lot to pay off over 10 - 15 years and even on interest only, the mortgage will be higher than your current rent.


Have you got good work/private pensions or were you planning on releasing equity to partially fund retirement?


If you are truly committed to staying in NZ for the next 10 years and think the children will stay there when they grow up, I would buy in NZ because that's your home. You have gained from UK house price appreciation. You'll probably lose some of that on the exchange rate if you cash in over the next 2 -3 years but I think you just have to accept that if you need to cash your investment in, so be it.