... and even if you don't.

Been so long since I've updated the journal but it's also been very busy. We've had extensive flooding on several occasions but according to stats, 1967 was a much wetter year so I guess, we'd have to count ourselves lucky, despite the fact that it's raining again and the forecast for the entire next week is extremely wet to put it mildly.

I'm presently rather ticked at the Australian customs and quarantine office. To cut a long story short, my mom sent me some pregnancy tea which I can't get the ingredients for over here and which she had sent me before in the mail (customs opened, heat treated, charged for it and sent on to me). They intercepted the parcel because they couldn't read the ingredients which is fair enough, after all, you don't want to have all sorts of possibly dangerous goods come into the country just like that. After translating them to them over the phone they said that all they need is a confirmatory email from the manufacturer, then it could be heat treated and Bob's your uncle. After many emails and international follow-up calls, it arrived yesterday and was duly forwarded.

Today I received the reply. One of the ingredients on the list are raspberry leaves (which I can buy in any healthfood store here). Apparantly, I now need an import permit which is above $200 ... for 30 teabags!!! What really annoys me is that they could've told me that 2 weeks ago BEFORE sending me from Pontius to Pilate and back again. Obviously, I'm not gonna fork out that much cash for a bit of tea!

It's now been taking so long, that my stomach is settled enough to survive without the tea ... grudgingly though. Bubby is going to be a lively one judging by the amount of time she's kicking about in there and not sleeping.

I'm also happy that I managed to get Starcommand back off the ground and am updating with regularity again. Only fortnightly cause weekly is too stressful. But at least it's regular again and that's better than 3 updates, 4 months hiatus, 5 updates, 1 month hiatus and so on ...


And I'm wondering why there's only one emoticon showing up and I can't change the mood setting for the diary entry to something slightly more accurate ...