The Wing-Friends and Other Books

In Blogger's slideshows images are greatly reduced, so lose much of their impact. And captions added to them in Picasa Albums vanish, so the images shown above are: the Milky Way, the Orion Nebula, Earth, Earth with New Zealand circled, New Zealand, Auckland & the Hauraki Gulf, Waiheke Island, some native NZ forest, a Fantail and chicks, various doves, etc.

(If you want to see the first ten images in their original size, they are in a posting made on the 24th of November 2011.)

My book The Wing-Friends is an imaginative tale of a small brave boy, a magical adventure, a magnificent Pegasus and the wonderful Kingdom of the Pegasi. It has been given very good reviews, and virtually every reader on Goodreads has so far awarded it five stars. It is available here. Some of my other writings are available as e-books, such as The Lower Deck, which is an over-the-top take on Waiheke happenings--sort of.

Saturday 2 September 2017

HOUSING INFLATION IS INSANE

We all know that the increase in the price of houses is insane, but I have just checked the current capital value of the house I bought in 1978 for $34,500. It is now listed by the Council at $540,000.

The Reserve Bank's inflation-calculator says that $34,500 is now $213,555, which is less than half $540,000, so the price of that house has rocketed far ahead of inflation. $540,000 is 2.52 times $213.555. $540,000 is 15.65 times $34,500.

The house was new, three bedrooms, in a good neighbourhood in Birkenhead, in a cul-de-sac off a cul-de-sac off a cul-de-sac so it was quiet. Lots of bush, close to schools and a supermarket. I got it on a deposit of $5000.

Crazy, indeed!