Birthday Celebrations

It was Freyja's birthday on Thursday.  She and Simon celebrated by going to London on a Magical Mystery tour which involved food, more food, drink, taking in a show, stumbling upon a creepy toy museum and catching up with friends.

Jim and I celebrated by going to VicRoads and converting his British driving licence into a Victorian one.  Then we headed to the Medicare office to get him a Medicare card so he can access Australian health services.  We possibly shouldn't have gone at lunchtime, when there was one Medicare officer trying to deal with several enquiries.  And I possibly should have thought to print out and fill in the application form before we went.  Still, we got there in the end and he now has both a driving licence and a Medicare card - so two forms of identification :-)

We ought to see about getting him a Tax File Number so I can send him out to work. His bridging visa allows him to work - although I think he would prefer not to.  And I don't think we can get him a Senior's card until his resident's visa is approved.  His Medicare card states that he is a visitor and you need to be a resident to get the Senior's card.  The turn around time for the resident's visa in Australia is between 18 and 24 months.  Simon and Freyja's application (for Simon), which was submitted in London, is being processed now.  Obviously far fewer people submitted applications in the last week of June in London than did in Australia!!!!

Jim and I occupied the rest of Thursday by unpacking a couple of the boxes that came over from the UK.  We repacked most things, not having anywhere to put them, nor having any use for them at the moment.  But I was glad to see some more clothes, some notebooks and pens, and a few other bits and pieces that we have left out of the boxes.  Alas, Jim's radio controlled clock doesn't work.  I looked it up and the National Measurement Institute (who would have thought that there would be such a thing!) says that the relevant radio signals don't reach us in Australia.  I could set it up as an ordinary clock but we have plenty of those and there doesn't seem much point. We'll give it to the next passing visitor from the UK where it does work.

We might unpack some more boxes over the weekend.  There are only three or four left to unpack.  It night be interesting to see what's in them. Apart from my Toast and Marmalade crockery set, which I am assuming is taking up most of the remaining boxes.