However doing all you have done on the side of the road must be a challenge. Don't you even have any off street parking that you could an "eziup" on to keep under cover. That makes doing work on cars very challenging.
My friend - this is why we don't live in England. It's unbelievable what goes on in west London in those relatively-expensive areas like Ealing/Hanwell. I saw people trying to change engines on the side of the road with traffic going past - where there was only room for one vehicle to get through. A miserably-dank apartment (sorry, "flat"), built about when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed (when Hamilton was a swamp), costs as much as one of our four-bedroom houses but has no shower. Things like outdoor taps either don't exist, or there's no hose in miles. It reminds me that my garage - though cramped with too much stuff to trip over - is actually a nice working environment (I actually have everything I need). But I only have undercover parking for three cars, unlike you, rawill!
I think if I lived in England - let's just say that every time I go to England, I pick up a rental car, and even finding somewhere to wash it properly is a challenge...!
It's OK if you live in the English countryside like my Uncle and cousins, but then they hardly have a pair of screwdrivers between them. The biggest concern in my Uncle's garage is whether a garden fork might fall on the Porsche. I think the isolation is about the same as the New Zealand countryside and even when you get to the huge city of Exeter (bigger population than Hamilton) you find that it doesn't have things we take for granted, such as half a dozen bolt suppliers and an electronics component shop.
Easy enough for me to skite but now I retract my comment to uCof before, I forgot he lives in two places a long way apart (somewhere in London, and somewhere in Wales)... so I'll let him off, having nowhere to work - poor guy.
Sorry everyone - my close friends from uni (three of them have moved to England permanently) all point out the far better cultural scene, the opportunities for cheap travel to Europe and - well, anywhere, really - the great tourist sites, their classy London flats, the way they "don't have to own a car", earning four times what I earn, the Supercar club, track days... England has its good points
And as for Chas - well, I hoped he knew what I was saying
-Alex