Revenge of the Beaurocrapcy

To process the sale of the house, the lawyers need a rates certificate from the local municipality. Unfortunately that's on computer. Which is bust. And while told us it would be fixed by Friday... (last Friday) it wasn't. So... funeral Monday, and Tuesday B went in and begged, harrassed - and gave them a cheque for another 6 months - so they cannot claim we are in arrears, and they promised to send it off. We're out of pocket, of course, but if we don't get it all in to deeds office by friday, we won't be paid in time for the movers, and then everything falls apart. I love a little extra stress, and relying on other people who haven't shown themselves models of competancy in the past. It makes me SO relaxed...

dreams and reality

Went in - on the way to the dentist and then down to Durban to see my mum (who had a really bad day) to the local municipality to collect the rates certificate for the Lawyers handling the house sale. The lawyers are supposed to do this, but we're... shall I say we appear to be more reliable and motivated. Um. Mooi muni's computer system is down, dead. Possibly revived tomorrow, when they pull the stake out of it's heart, but no knowing if they have any records at all. At the same time we went to collect the post - and found a bill and report from the bug - people (who checked the place for borer)... with a note saying Lister and Lister (lawyers) had no record of the sale (AAAAAieeeeeee!). Called them, and they claimed to have been looking for it. We then proceeded to the town of Escourt (which has a dentist (and one that doesn't fill me with cald grue. I am a total woos with dentists) as I'd woken with a nasty dull ache during the night - he squeezed me in between patients and found a filling had 'leaked' and was developing an abcess under it. So we also booked a thorough dental exam for before we go as I gather dentists are my own problem in Aus and expensive at that... and conspicuous by their absecence on the island. We also got the exhaust we'd wrecked on the way off the dirt road fixed. Ah logging trucks - how I love thee and what you do to the road. Drove down with a circuit into the red-brick and decaying Victoriana Pietermaritzburg to drop bug-report in with Legal-eagles/beagles/feegles (you choose). Pietermaritzburg is like Launceston... after exposure to dangerous amounts of radio-active spiders, and toxic growth-hormone, with added mini-bus taxis and pedestrians. Went on down a freeway with more cars than Tas has people (and I am not kidding... much), and saw my mother. She's not doing well today, and talk of a stepdown has been put on hold.

I tried to distract myself on the way home by designing weird houses on land I don't own yet. I have a friend who has done a book on Nature-inspired type architecture... Maybe I need a Roger Dean house, like a mushroom. Or something like a norse longhouse...