‘Twas on the Wednesday evening that the daughter came to call. Yup… we’re all here. And is all hunky dory?? Well it’s a bit of a curate’s egg.
Let’s just say that I’m beginning to remember why her mother and I divorced.
Strangely, despite having arrived with not a lot of cash, they’ve managed to spend around $800 on foods, $1500 on a car… and lord knows how much they’ll need tomorrow for insurance and membership of a motoring organisation.
How come? Well, sad to say, but it seems an expected deposit in their account hasn’t materialised yet and to cap that we learn their UK debit cards won’t function in Australian ATM’s. We were all expecting this ‘deposit’ to fund necessities, but it not having arrived leaves us all with an obvious problem.
As far as the car is concerned, well they *do* need something to move around in in order to do the ‘tourist thing’ and the alternative to buying was renting/hiring. The cost of the two is roughly equivalent… even tho the car hire company would have provided a current car and they bought an 18 year old Mitsubishi Magna. The hire car would also have been far smaller but *would* have come with insurance etc.
The real benefits of this car lie in the fact that it might be sold after they leave to recoup some of the outlay and that it *is* big enough to carry 5 people whereas the hire car was relatively tiny.
Apart from that… and a few odd hiccoughs… we’re all still just about talking. So far…
The Eclectic Interweb 
seems to me Ive heard that song before!