It has been requested that comments be enabled for all articles and not just the members section..

Request granted! 

If it wasn't for the food I wouldn't put up with this..

I don’t watch a lot of TV, however there is one show that I really enjoy. It’s the medical drama “House”.

After a particularly melodramatic advert for tonights episode, Mandy mentioned that they always ask in the ads if this will be the case that House cannot solve but that he always does.

I said to her that it was because every episode was like this -

HOUSE : I think it’s X
FOREMAN : It can’t be.. It must be Y
HOUSE : I really think it’s X
CAMERON : It could be Z
HOUSE : The patient must be lying .. It’s X
CHASE : Maybe it’s a combination of X or Z
HOUSE : I know it’s X and I am going to do this
CUDDY : You can’t do that, it’s illegal/immoral/unethical
HOUSE : (after ignoring Cuddy) I told you it was X

OK, It’s formulaic, but I really do enjoy it

It was a very strong temptation to go with this photo of a Sumatran Tiger , but I decided to go to something a little smaller (and further down the food chain..)

This little fellow was discovered climbing a palm tree in my back garden. My cat had earmarked him as dinner but I wasn’t going to let that happen. So I captured him.. With my camera at least.

Lia has been looking for a place to rent here in Perth. Something that is looking decidedly difficult.

I know that my parents, when they have rented out their properties have had no end of very good applicants that have made it hard for them to choose and the reason for that is that currently, here in Perth, the demand for property is outstripping supply.

However the real problem is the inability a potential tenant has in stacking their bets.

And what I mean by that is, you would think that the best way to secure a place to live would be to apply for as many places as possible and hope that you get one, however to apply for a tenancy means you have to leave one weeks rent as a deposit.

But it’s not just the cost of leaving deposits behind. If you are accepted for a place and you then decide that you no longer want it, you forefit your deposit. Murphys law pretty much guarentees that if you put more than one deposit down you will be asked to sign leases on more than one property.

So you find one place and you put your application in and you wait for a few days while the agent checks up on you, in the mean time you lose out on other places.

I know it’s an acceptable business practice but it does make it very hard in this climate.

---

While I am complaining about real estate agents, one of them really got my goat.

Lia, however didn’t want me to go in and make a fuss.

She had put down a cash deposit on a place and was not accepted so she had to go back to pick up her deposit. Instead of giving her back cash as she had given them, they gave her a cheque thus meaning she had to go to the bank and wait three days for it to clear.

Rude.. Very rude!

These pretty little flowers (I think they are buttercups) were growing in a plant pot on the Hay Street mall, in Perth

Last weekend it was a full house with myself and Lia and four kids. Very Brady Bunch, but kinda difficult logistically with 6 people and a car capable of carrying 5.

Despite worrying about it for the last month we actually managed to survive well with some help from my parents and the public transport system.

On Saturday we went into the city making it Lia’s first trip into the city centre since she arrived here on Tuesday night and we went by bus.

Perth is very bad for public transport but the bus to the city is once every hour which is not too bad so we went into the city on an all day family pass that cost around $7.50. I’d probably have spent that just on parking if I had driven in so I was happy with that.

The first thing we did was have some lunch. The kids had burgers and fries while Lia and myself had Laksa from a Chinese place at a food hall.

After that we walked around the shopping arcades and the two street malls before walking down to the river and the Swan Bells Tower.

Following that we took one of the free CAT buses to the Museum before walking back into the city and then taking the bus back home.

All in all, a very good day.