Seeing clearly

One thing that medicare in Australia pays for which the NHS in the UK does not, is eye tests.  So Barnadi and I both got our eyes tested down at an optician in Richmond.  My motivation was so that I could investigate getting contact lenses again, but Barnadi just wanted a general check up.  The good news is that our eyes haven't gotten any worse in regards to general vision.  The bad news however is that there is slight discolouration on the macular of one of Barnadi's eyes, an early warning sign for macular degeneration.  A further eye test involving  looking at a dot on a grid and seeing if thelines look wavey or not confirmed it.  We are lucky in a way that it has been spotted this early and the optician advised that good dietary intake of vitamin A, C, E and Zinc may help reverse or at least halt the progress.  It looks like it is more than just vitamin D that Barnadi is deficient in, which is odd as our diets are almost identical and we eat plenty of  fresh fruit and veg.  He has been given a copy of the wavy line test and if it doesn't get any better or ever begins to get any worse he should get his eyes tested again.  The optician was very good though and took the time to answer all our questions and we never once felt rushed, we left feeling positive that there was something we could do to help prevent it getting worse.

Our second appointment today was with Barnadi's accountant in Thornbury.  In Australia it is a legal requirement for everyone to do a tax return at the end of the financial year, unlike the UK where only private business and the self employed have to do their own assessment.  You can do the tax return on your own, but because we have investments we decided it would be safer to get an accountant involved.  It was definitely a good decision as he calculated that I qualify to receive a full tax refund whereas Barnadi will receive most of his tax back.  So between us we only paid $200 tax for the time we have been in Australia.  We should receive a nice cheque for $2600 within the next two weeks from the tax office.  This will be a great bonus for our current savings.   Next year should be quite beneficial for tax returns too as the tax free earning threshold will go up from $6000 to $1800 as an attempt by the government to offset the effects of the carbon tax.

In a final note, I have received a second letter from Bayside council regarding our parking fine.  It pretty much repeats the first one verbatim, so it seems unless we are willing to go to court  we have no choice but to pay it however unjust it may seem.  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by this outcome.  Still fingers crossed, there's a $50 million jackpot on the lottery tonight, that would put a single parking fine into perspective.