Easter Holidays

Here we are, back in Auckland again.  It’s a short term though, only 10 weeks, and there’s a bank holiday in that.  We did a bit of travelling during the holidays, round the Hawkes Bay area, and then down to Feilding (yes that is the right spelling).  Back to the grindstone now though.  I had a look at the school website, and I noticed it’s still the same, no changes made at all, the HM’s blog is still from last November, and the school still offers the Legion and computer programming as activities.  I really do think it’s about time they woke up and fixed it, but from what I hear, they are in a lot worse trouble that an out-of-date website, with a staff turnover of about 15%.  One of the selling points offered to us was that the turnover of staff was zero, with retirements being the only loss.  There’s a common factor running through this, and it could be something to do with management.  Not that we care any more, we’re glad to be out of it, and judging from what I’ve heard, it was the best move we could have made. 

The school wrote us a very snippy letter about six weeks ago, asking for a bucket full of money to fix up the cottage we were staying in, and they wanted to charge us for cleaning carpets (they were so filthy when we moved in, we had to put rugs down to cover them), a broken bath (???), electricity and gas bills, which they have been paying for us as per their contract with us, and a lot of other things such as holes in the walls (I had got permission to hang pictures from the landlady), and for moving a lot of stuff that our so-called friends had promised to move for us – just as an aside on that, these people offered to buy all our furniture from us, but we haven’t seen a penny yet, and we really don’t expect to.  It just goes to show doesn’t it?  By the way, in case you’re thinking that this is sour grapes on my part, our contract with the school was that the school would provide accommodation for us ‘At no cost to yourselves’.  They have short memories don’t they?