The last two days have been spent in battle with my property manager in the UK who apparently believes that if she ignores all my relevant questions and simply repeats information that should be bleeding obvious, she will win. Well no. Despite their efforts to disguise the contact details of the tradie engaged to carry out the works urgently needed before the tenant moves in, I have been able to contact him directly and make my own arrangements with him so the new tenants can move in in a timely manner. Thank you Mr Google. There remains, of course, the issue of other outstanding works that will need to be addressed, but hopefully these can be sorted out over the next two months that I have just bought for myself as a result of that call. Needless to say, another advantage of making arrangements direct with the tradie is that once the new tenants are in, and the rent is paid for the first month (which should cover the property agents fees), I will be able to sack them (the property agents), which I could not do if they had dealt with the tradie on my behalf. Hah, to them!! I will of course need to wait till the matter of the outstanding bond is resolved, but will be asking to play a direct role in the evidence giving, so if the mediator rules in favour of the tenant they will also rule against the property agent - not me. Otherwise I have been continuing the clearing up of the study, with a major focus on filing today. Once everything is in its correct suspension file, I will still need to go through each file to provide some semblance of order, but at least this years tax return should be a bit more straightforward and involve less stress arising from rummaging through the piles of paper that slip slide all over the place. One disappointment in the exercise was that I had hoped it would uncover the missing external hard drive required for computer backups. But that remains missing in action ... I wonder if I can back up the laptop onto the desktop? I guess I would require a double ended USB cable to do that - must look for one when down in Hobart on the 13th (I know ...) for the interview which has finally been rescheduled.