Car

I bought a car on eBay yesterday.

Turns out that was the easy part. I live in New South Wales, so the whole car-owning thing is taken to heights not even dreamt of by car drivers in NZ, or even car driving regulators.

First there is the "rego". Then the forms. Then the pretty colour-coded 'slips' of various shades. And the insurance.

And of course, the money!

It appears, after only being a car owner for just under 24 hours, that car ownership in NSW is the ultimate blend of scam-encouraging, red tape binding, totally over-regulated, over-priced and over-paperworked inefficiency.

I've often bleated on about Australia's over regulation, and willingness to tax and tax until you can't feel the pain anymore, but this is the worst yet. I must have had some idea in the back of my mind that it would be this bad. That's probably why I've walked, and walked and walked and never taken the car owning step - for three years. That's a lot of walking, on some very warm days. Some very warm train rides and some very long bus rides.

And I was right. Car ownership here is a nightmare. A complex, expensive nightmare and I'm not even going to start on the all the environmental stuff. And the time wasting of sitting in traffic etc. I haven't even experienced that yet, although I did only narrowly avoid a toll road while managing to get lost while driving home from the car seller's place last night.

In the process of transferring ownership from the very nice bloke I've bought the car from, I have to have him sign his original registration document, and I sign it too. Then I take that, and another "change of ownership" form to the Road Transport people. With ID, which has to be a NSW driver licence. I have one of those. So that's three pieces of paper. Then because the car is already registered to June - although I am "re-registering" it in my name, the original rego the previous owner paid is still valid til June. And so is the "green slip" compulsory third party insurance. This is the first of three 'slips' they talk about here.

Don't forget the visit to the RTA involves taking a number like a Chinese restaurant and watching for half an hour while half the people ahead of you give up waiting and leave.

The others are a 'pink' slip which is like the warrant of fitness back home. The previous owner had one of these so I don't need to do that til June either. Then there's another colour, I can't remember which, for any modifications done to the car.

Starting to get confused yet?

As for the money, when I go to transfer the ownership, I have to pay a "stamp duty" which will be 3% of the value of the car. The previous owner told me it is standard practice to lower the agreed price, just for the form, so the new owner pays less stamp duty. Typical, I thought. But I went along with it. I will also have to pay a transfer fee. Of course. So that's at least $200. Just to change the ownership.

Then in June when it is registration time, I will have to get a pink slip from a garage, and a green slip from my insurance company. The green slip is considered to be just your average government cash-grab scam. It's also about $200 and is some kind of government funded insurance for when I run over a pedestrian. It pays the pedestrian's hospital bills. Not mine. Nice.

Finally - I think - there's ordinary old insurance. I went with comprehensive insurance and that's $850 for the year. The area we live in is considered safe so that's helped bring the price down. Usually it's $1000 or more. I also got a slight 10% discount - cos I'm a girl. Don't go thinking they went tough on me because I was a new owner/insurer - they told me they took my NZ driving and insurance history into account.

Everybody knows it's expensive to have a car. I'm not complaining about that. It's just the mind-boggling complicatedness of it all.

I can't help thinking - there must be LOTS of people who just don't bother. The more complicated and expensive the system, the more people who bail out of it altogether.

I used to work with a girl who used to say (in NZ) "your warrant of fitness is due 30 days from the day the cop stops you". And she was right. I hate to think how many people have an attitude like that here, and who could blame them!?

Mozzie Magnet

Okay so I'm not someone who likes bugs.

It's only a couple of blogs back that I went on - at length - about my total dislike of the moth, especially the big brown Sydney variety.

Now I'm on about mozzies. Mosquitos. I've come up against them before, but never like this. In NZ we have sandflies, and they can be pretty sizeable and can slow you down with a decent sized lumpy, itchy bite. But they just don't compare to the Aussie mozzie. These things have staying power, attention to detail and determination that makes the Kiwi sandfly appear only slightly more troubling than a baby lamb. The Sydney mozzies are out to get me. They love me.

I'm scratching right now as I write this. I've suggested to friends I could hire myself out for outdoor parties, to ensure no one else gets bitten. The Mozzie Magnet Girl. A mozzie will fly past six people to get to me. I've seen them do it.

I must be tasty. I've read that scientists know some people are more appealing to mozzies than others, but they don't know why. Where the hell are they wasting medical research money when they could be figuring that one out?! Baldness? The mental health effects of soap operas? People like me are out here really suffering! I have at last count six bites on one leg and four on the other, in various stages of aging. I have four on my back, two on my feet and one on my bum. Don't ask.

Last weekend I'm out in the garden planting a shrub that was a gift, so I had to make an effort, even in the blazing heat. When I get back inside I realise I've been bitten by a mozzie down my back FOUR times. I was wearing a tee-shirt at the time. How did it get me? Did it fly up the sleeve or bite me through the shirt? A couple of weeks back I arrive home, stop at the front door to put the key in the lock, and while I'm standing there for one minute fumbling for my key, I'm bitten twice - once on each ankle. How did they do that?! Do they attack in tandem?

Another time - this week while cooking on the barbeque - I'm bitten on my feet, once on each foot. Not remarkable - except that I was wearing socks! Little bastards.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet I have been able to do a bit of research on this, driven by my husband saying 'do something about it' when I start bleating AGAIN about another bite.

So I found a couple of sites, one that had some really good tips for using natural remedies to either protect against bites, treat bites or even keep the damn things away from your house altogether. It's got a great name: http://www.mosquito-kill-net.com/ and the tagline is "The Buzz Stops Here". In my case I'd prefer 'the itching and scratching stops here' but I suppose that might have given the wrong impression through a search engine.

Anyway this very good US site has some handy hints and makes the useful point that not all treatments and remedies work for everyone the same. A good point to make, as I've been covering myself with commercial DEET type products and it simply doesn't work. Believe it or not I've been using Vicks VapoRub, which I have traumatic childhood memories of, but it works a treat on mozzies. They won't bite you if you smell like a tub of Vicks. Nothing will.

Of course there are places where you just can't go smelling like a tub of Vicks, anywhere outside your own home for example, so I'm going to have to try a few other remedies as a back-up. This site suggests vanilla, rosemary and tea tree oil. Also an essential oils mixture of clove, eucalyptus, geranium, orange, palma rosa, rosemary and sage, which sounds lovely!

The one thing I don't want to do is resort back to using the mosquito coils - the incense-like slow burning chemical pollutant which unfortunately works very very well outside. They are also apparently full of lethal carcinogens and should never be used indoors - which I have done in a night of desperation. Sigh.

I'm also trying to improve my own reflexes - so I can tell when I'm being bitten and I can slap the little bastard flat before he can do any more damage. Trouble with this is I find I'm tending to over-react to any little skin twinge, and that coupled with my bad eyesight, finds me standing outside cooking on the barbeque, slapping away at my own freckles. Needs work.

I'm going to plant rosemary, catnip amd marigolds in my garden and I'll try not to get bitten four times through my shirt this time. I might wear a jersey and a coat. And boots.

The fight goes on.

Mainstream

I popped up in the mainstream media this week - albeit with my name spelt incorrectly. Journos are good like that.

The Sydney Morning Herald has this light-hearted section called "Column 8" which is intended to be for little bits and pieces of general discussion about life, all generated by readers.

I found myself leaping to the keyboard this week to respond to this item:

Column 8, Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday Jan 3"I was browsing through my new 2006 diary," writes Fiona Choy, of Castlecrag, "and noticed that Tuesday, January 3 is marked as 'Day after New Year's Day' in New Zealand. I found it puzzling to say the least." Could it be that the day after the designated New Year's Day holiday, which would have been yesterday, is also a holiday in New Zealand, and thus falls today?"

So they printed my reply in the paper today and here it is online ...

Column 8January 5, 2006
URL: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/01/04/1136050494936.html

And if that doesn't work:
"The Day after New Year's Day (Column 8, Tuesday) is indeed a public holiday in NZ - a much needed and sensible one it is too," writes Kiwi Leigh Catkey, now of Concord West. "Your head's only starting to come right by January 3. I bet I'm not the only Kiwi who arrived in this country, didn't know it wasn't a holiday here, and happily failed to show up for work. Nobody cared, so I reckon it should be a day off here too." This is the most astute thing we've heard a New Zealander say since "Piggy" Muldoon described the exodus of Kiwis to Bondi as having raised the IQ of both countries."

Well - I don't know if being compared to Rob Muldoon is a compliment or not (my Uncle Bill says it is but he's a nice chap) and my husband Greg says it's just as well they spelt my name wrong cos otherwise the company I used to work for would want to be paid back for the day off they paid me for, back in 2004. Now I can say it wasn't me. Obviously they will have to remain unaware of this blog. Which I'm sure they are, as nobody knows about it except that park ranger guy (see previous blog).

They used a bit of literary licence to shorten it ... this is what I sent them:

Yes Fiona, (Column 8 03/01),
"The Day after New Year's Day" is indeed a public holiday in NZ - a much-needed and sensible one it is too. (Yes I am a Kiwi). Your head's only just starting to come right by Jan 3 and another day off means two really decent short weeks if you have to work in between the 'stats' - not just one.
I bet I'm not the only Kiwi who arrived in this country a few years ago, didn't know it WASN'T a holiday here, and happily failed to show up for work on this particular day. Nobody cared. So I reckon it should be a day off here too ..."

This is the second time the SMH has printed something I've written. They are so discerning! It is interesting I get a much bigger kick out of seeing 'opinion' I've written printed than I used to get from seeing news stories I'd written printed. I guess the opinion is me. The 'facts' in a news story were not.