Automatic For The People...

So, the new car. It's an automatic. Not so good for some of the rough spots around here, but pretty easy when dealing with the town traffic. It's a Suzuki Escudo, 2.5l petrol, fairly economical, & pretty peppy, which is good for passing large trucks doing 5 kilometres per millenium. We've had to do a bit of work on the transmission since we got it, but she's running pretty sweet now.

Of course, we need to upgrade a few things to deal with the roads here, like better tyres & stronger suspension (and a bullbar, some spots, a winch, recovery kit, & perhaps a roof-mounted RPG for dealing with the traffic here). I've included a picture of what it could look like...

Which I think is much better, on the whole. I still miss the old Battle Truck, though. That thing would've had a ball here. Anyway, it's good to be mobile again, I can get to work every day without worrying how, the same for Aimee, & we get to get away occasionally.

As for work, Aimee's still rocking at the salon, & I'm now managing a French wine & cheese shop for some friends of ours who are away over Christmas. So, lots of wine & cheese for me, but also lots of responsibilities, like paying the rent & utilities, keeping the shop stocked, dealing with pain-in-the-ass customers, & trying not to melt as the wee little air conditioner struggles to keep the temperature at around 32 degrees. Celsius. Seriously, 3 freezers, 3 fridges, & the sun shining straight in the shop-front are a bit much to handle on a sunny day. I wish I was back in the height of NZ summer, because it's cooler than my "air-conditioned" shop. :)

Anyway, off now, I'll try to keep up with regular updates now I have a laptop & can get sketchy internet through my phone.

Perhaps we can have nice things after all...

Just a short post, the first update in a long while.

The News In Brief:

1. We now have a car. A Suzuki Escudo (Vitara for the Kiwis). Needs upgraded suspension & tyres to deal with Africa properly, but it's fine for the moment. Finally a decent reliable vehicle to get us around in.

2. I have a new laptop, courtesy of Dell, my parents & Phil, & finally brought over by a very generous chap who's coming to work with Aimee's parents. For those interested, it's an Alienware M17x, with Core2Duo 2.66ghz processors, 4gb RAM, 1TB of storage in a RAID-0 2x500gb config, & dual SLI 1gb video cards. Screamin.

3. I finally got to fly my paraglider over here, just a few short soaring flights, but it was brilliant after 5 months of not getting out.

So, thing are finally looking up, although not at all in the ways we expected when we came over here. God seems to have pulled a few strings, so that in the long view, we've managed to upgrade a few things we'll need, which should help us in the long term over here. I'll write more in detail about the car & other things in subsequent posts, but for now, rest assured that we're still alive, & now back in contact with the outside world.