Cass - yay your mum is ok, but i'm very sorry to hear she has had so much flooding. I will admit to having spent some sleepless moments in the middle of the night contemplating what might've happened to yoru friend A after they were turned away from the evac centre. Have you heard from her at all?

MP - poor N, that sounds like it must be very painful.

Arte, I've got to say the NZ system sounds pretty robust, I love the idea of first 20 hours free, then you pay over that. Makes total sense. Yes the education system here is different in every. single. state. Defence families have been lobbying for standard school systems for a couple of decades, it is a nightmare because some of the states are really wildly different to others.

Trill LOL at A thinking it was an all-boys place