Yesterday was a big day, and one of unexpected discovery, too. And it was all because certain things that needed doing again. It also paved the way for more adventures. And all of it was just ordinary life.
I took my car to get a Warrant of Fitness, a legally required annual safety inspection. For most o the years I’ve been in New Zealand, we’ve taken our cars to the VTNZ location in Glenfield on Auckland’s North Shore (and I shared a photo on Instagram last year). This year, the nearest loctions meant a choice between two places, each about 25 minutes (more or less) from our house, so I chose Pukekohe because I had some shopping to do there. As I said in the description for the photo above, it was quite different.
At the North Shore location, there were (from memory…) several lanes for cars, one for trailers, and one or two for trucks. At Pukekohe, there was one lane for cars with or without trailers, and two or three for trucks. Clearly it’s a much more industrial area than Glenfield is. It was also very busy.
Another thing surprised me when I was there: There were a large number of fairly young teenage guys, often there with someone I assumed was their parent. I thought that was odd, until I remembered that VTNZ locations now process driver licences, too, something they didn’t used to do. So, I was used to seeing older people at VTNZ, and working people bringing their commercial vehicles in for inspection, and that made the young guys look out of place. In a few years I won’t even notice them anymore.
Everything is also far more automated now. You give the clerk your car’s registration (licence plate) number, and they prepare a form that the inspector fills out (it may be electronic, for all I know—I didn’t actually see them do the inspection). In the old days, they filled out a carbonless form by hand and gave it to the driver who would go outside and place it on the driver’s seat in their car. Much more efficient. Busy as they were, it no longer than it used to at the Glenfield facility.
After that, I went shopping for supplies for a couple different projects I’ll blog about later, stopped at the grocery store, then headed home, arriving back just after Nigel. Like I said, just ordinary life.
But since I learned things yesterday, I’ll share something here I didn’t share on Instagram: That photo above is of a decal on the floor showing customers where to stand (which is why the front of it is worn). There were several of them around the L-shaped counter. There, now you know something you didn’t before, too.
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