All was going well with the new wireless broadband USB adaptor for my laptop up until Friday when I broke it! All I did was pull it out of the USB port and the thing came apart on me. I took it into the shop I purchased it from Saturday morning and they told me they couldn't replace it there, I'd have to ring up Telstra and ask them to send me a replacement. So I rang up Telstra and eventually get through (the phone services over here are even worse than in the UK, even worse than BT in fact) only to be told I'd have to wait 5 days for a new one. That's completely unacceptable, I can't afford to wait 5 days especially while I'm looking for work. Anyway, I told them to cancel my account. And I took the adaptor back to the shop and got my money refunded.

I was back to square one - no internet. I then went in Vodafone to sign up for one of their packages but of course I didn't have my passport with me or any other form of identification that they would accept. By this time the shops were shutting up so I knew I'd have to wait until Sunday. So I went back this morning with I.D. and applied for the Vodafone package, only to get refused because I failed the credit score.

They weren't very helpful at all. I explained the situation - it's hard to pass the credit score when I've never had credit in Australia and when I haven't yet got a job. I told them I was willing to pay for 12 month usage in advance but they weren't having it.

I then made my way to the 3 shop to give their package a go. They have different rules and couldn't accept the passport - they needed to see something with my current address on, and it can't be the tenancy agreement. The thing is, we haven't had any bills yet to our new address so I thought I was stuck.

I went home extremely frustrated to say the least. Anyway, luckily, our first bill arrived today for electricity. So I'm going to try again tomorrow. It could still be a problem though with the credit check. I explained to them that while I haven't sorted out employment yet I'm still officially a director of a UK company so hopefully that could be taken into consideration. I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

So to summarise, I still love Australia but they really need to sort their telecommunications out. I'm still without a landline - we've been told it will be fixed on Wednesday. It took us days to activate our mobile SIM's because Vodafone was going through an IT upgrade that seemed to last a week (I don't think much of their change control!). I can't get ADSL to the house, and I'm not having much look with wireless broadband.

Besides that everything else is good. Rach did a good days work yesterday. She was originally only going to work in the morning helping set up for a wedding reception but she got asked back in the evening to help out. I'm not sure if she'll be doing it again though. She didn't mind setting up, or even helping the soux chef in the evening, but she draws the line at washing pots. I don't blame her - we're not that desperate. Yet.

I'm typing this from the Carina Leagues Club, which we've just become members of. Think Phoenix Nights but less Northern UK. The beer is cheap, so is the food. There's a live band on (sorry, 'turn'), and there's a kids club for Lauren. What more does anyone want from life! I'm going to have to get to grips with the language though. I asked for a beer and they asked me whether I wanted a skooner or a pot. Pot sounded larger so I went with that. I got an half! Skooner is the pint glass.