Life In Australia

It seemed like we spent the whole weekend picking things up. On Saturday, my husband went to pick up a vacuum cleaner that we had had repaired. As we don’t have a car, he had a 20 minute walk to the factory and a 20 minute walk back, carrying the vacuum cleaner. Fortunately, it is a light-weight vacuum cleaner with a handle and it was not very hot on Saturday – about 20 degrees C, so that made it easier.

On Sunday, we went to pick up the baby car seat that I had bought on eBay. We had a short train ride and the seller met us at the station with the car seat. We put the car seat on top of the hood of my son’s stroller, came back on the train, and walked home from the station.

Once we got home, we found out that the shoulder straps did not fix into the buckle. I rang the seller and explained and she discovered that she had fixed the wrong buckle to the wrong car seat after cleaning the two car seats that she had for sale. She offered to drive around to our house and swap the buckles. This was accomplished later on in the evening, so we now have a fully functioning car seat. I am especially pleased with the car seat as it is in very good condition and it will mean that we don’t have to waste money on hiring a car seat every time we hire a car.

I read in the local paper that the council is thinking of introducing a “community car” scheme, whereby there would be two or three cars “floating” around the local community. If you needed a car for just a short time, then you could book online, go to the place where the nearest car is parked, and get in and drive it using a special code or key.

This would be great for us, as there are some occasions when having a car, for just an hour or two, can be very useful. The minimum length of hire would be one hour, so it would be a cost-effective way of hiring a car for short but essential journeys.

However, it would also depend on where the nearest car was parked. If we had to go some distance just to pick up the car, it may be easier to just go and pick up what we have to pick without a car anyway. As we have demonstrated this weekend, it is not always difficult to pick things up without a car!