It's the little things #1

Among other things that made me smile today, was being able to go out to my rose garden and select a few perfect blooms to place on my desk. This made me smile because it set the tone for the day ... it would be a writing day (well after the work was done). 

It has been hot here in Perth, oppressively hot at times, the upside of this is the rampant plant growth, provided they get the water. This little Honeysuckle was only planted early December and already it is almost to the top of the wire. We can smell it all over the property, when the wind blows or on a balmy night. It thrives in this sheltered spot next to the potting shed and growing up the chook pen wire.

This is the temporary vege garden. Made of lupin straw bales and filled with soil we had scrapped off the shed site, it has proved to be a great bed for our summer crop. I enriched the soil with rotted cow manure, mulched with sheep poo and lupin mulch. This is only 4 weeks of growth, with most plants starting as seeds in the ground. I think the bore water is having a very positive effect, which was pointed out to us when we had the water tested. The shade sails were a must when we had days of 40+ and then a week of 35+ weather. In this bed alone I have:

• Chili
• roma tomatoes
• rocket
• asian greens
• thyme
• tarragon
• zucchini
• sage
• and of course the cheery little marigolds

And in the other bed is:

• sweet corn
• cucumbers
• watermelon

The back of the stables became a temporary garden where all the pot plants were dumped when we moved. They have been in rehab ever since, but will explore them more in another post. Here are the last of the grape tomatoes, which have been producing for weeks now. The little petunias have done well considering this is a very hot spot in the mornings and they are in very little soil. Growing up through the tomato bush is my favorite climbing pelargonium, I thought it was dead, but water and care have restored it. We are picking lots of basil, mint, sage and parsley from here too.

So the journey to contentment is continuing, I hope yours is too. xx

Bring it on ..

Bring it on ... the last words on the last post. Did I really challenge the universe with that?

Swapped my office at Basso to a nook at WG ... so much nicer

Well I did, and I got what I asked for. 

Today is the first day in months that I feel I can lift my head and see the progress we have made. (as in we have been head down, bum up working for what seems like an eternity). Remember that move in date we had? 1st December if you forgot. Well it kinda got shunted forward by a month and I am typing this from the desk in the corner of my lounge room at WG. 

Yep. We are IN!  I could just now say that the Journey to Contentment is over, we are living in our little bit of paradise and all will end happily ever after.

Except, we all know that life is not like that.

There is always more to the story. 

The move began as a temporary measure when we had painters come to paint the granny flat and persuaded us to paint the rest of the house as well. Wow, as I write this I realise there are so many things that have happened which all need an explanation. Now that I have time and energy and a desk I can go back and write the posts that will explain all the happenings.

So, painters invading the house, the WG house is now empty of tenants and my folks had booked it as holiday accommodation for 10 days. We gatecrashed their party and wickedly put them to work helping us to move. Small price to pay for a free holiday!  Not a full house move, just enough to live and be comfortable. The idea being that Basso house will be left mostly furnished so that it can be 'staged' to sell. We have the very great indulgence of no time limits other than those we self impose. 

In a way its an annoying way to move house, in dribs and drabs, but I guess its not nearly as bad as trying to live in a house while its being painted. The other advantage of moving bit by bit is that it gives you a chance to find homes for all the stuff as you go. The logistics are that we are moving from a 5 bedroom 3 bathroom house to a 3 bedroom farm house. The name of this game is Decluttering.  We go to Basso, fill up a car or a trailer with stuff and come home and locate homes for it. 

Being an old house, there are no built in robes or linen cupboards at all. We have purloined one whole bedroom (just as well we have no kids at home anymore) as a walkin robe. Wall to wall IKEA has created the ultimate in wardrobes. (When I walk in there I feel like some rich mans wife with a whole room to store her frocks!)

My girls in their new home ... happy hens

The chooks have moved in, the doggies have their beds, I call this place home now. It still makes me smile during little moments - looking out to the trees as the sun comes up, watching the ducks and their ducklings on the stream, the kookaburra's that come at dusk and laugh hysterically, cleaning the beautiful jarrah floor - even pegging clothes on the line makes me smile.

This is still a journey, I guess life is like that. Contentment is still not 100% but it is certainly closer than it was last week. 

So yep, Bring. It. On.

Minty has found her contented spot.

Again, with the planning.

Planning is always at the heart of every great endeavor. I love this stage. It's exciting and thrilling and all possibilities are open and without constraints. Your imagination is the only limitation.

So it sounds a bit contradictory to list and organise every tiny detail into a closed schedule, that would seemingly impose constraints.

But just because you plan, does not mean you can't be creative and think big.

Even an artist plans.

Planning is how I cope with the stress that will inevitably come with such a large project.  Planning is the thing that gives you a long list of delicious check-boxes to tick.

So, what am I planning you ask?

Two weeks ago, I would have replied that I was planning our move to live at WG. Planning to pack up the current house, get it ready to rent out, find a good agent and then tenants. I would say I was planning how we will fit all the furniture in the new house, how we will manage the dogs, chooks, cars, gardens at WG. How to resettle Mr K's mum and pack all her things and store them.

Today, I have all this to plan and one tiny detail more.

The 'one day' extensions to WG house, the ones we thought we would wait until we had lived there a few years and get a feel for the house and how we live in it, have just suddenly and surprisingly time traveled back in a giant leap into the present.

How did this all happen? It started innocently enough. Mr K had some reservations about the move to WG, not that he didn't want it to happen, but rather he needed a few 'essentials' done before it seemed to him that we were moving forward instead of backward. The house at WG is pretty basic. It's a three bedroom, 1960's farmhouse. It has been very nicely done up in places, like polished jarrah floorboards, and lovely wooden window and door frames. However, other things are just very basic, like the shower is just a painted cubicle, the bedrooms are pretty tiny, there are no WIR at all and one basic linen cupboard. All things I can merrily live with, but Mr K is giving up a very big and suburban house to go-a-farming with me.

The kitchen was renovated 10 years ago, and will be ok as it is, for a while anyway!

All of which was fine, he was happy to move, until it came to his Precious. A pot-holed, gravel driveway and no carport or garage is no way to treat a pedigree Jaguar. To have her constantly covered in red dirt and live outside in the elements is too much to bear for this highly bred beast. Mr K said the compromise was to bitumise the driveway and build a carport, both things I was in agreeance with as I secretly didn't like the idea of my lovely new white car getting the same treatment.

The gravel driveway and nowhere to house a pedigree.

The problem was, where to build the carport so that it fitted in with future plans for extensions. Also, where to stop the driveway so that it didn't have to be dug up at a later time when we had finalised the plans. Solution? Get an architect to draw up some concept plans for an extension now, so we know exactly where the carport and driveway will go.

So that's what we did. Which if course was where the whole train derailed and ran away with us. Mr K and I have always had in our hearts and minds a 'one day' ideal house. We agree almost 99% of what this looks like. And WG was blossoming as a building site to build this dream home. It had all the elements. So when Mr Architect arrived to view the location, and his face lit up and he started getting all animated and sketching things on his pad ... well we too let go of all constraints and got excited, silently both making the decision to plan and build now, not two years from now.

We justified it to each other on the way home. It will be much better to build now than to be living on a building site. It will be cheaper to do all the land clearing at once, so while we need to do groundwork for a carport, we may as well do it for the building site. We need to match the building materials for the carport and the extensions. If we are borrowing to do the driveway and carport, we may as well borrow it all in one lump sum for the building too (we really were making excuses now).

Main bedroom. Love the floors and light, but no cupboards at all.

By the time we got home, we had convinced each other that this was a no-brainer and we were now in fact going to build the new extensions now.

Jodie, get out your notebook and start making lists. We have planning to do!

Good Things come to those who wait ... and wait ... and wait ...

The title of this blog is Journey to Contentment. It started in April 2010, the same year that we bought our dream property. It was New Years Day 2010 that Mr K and I first saw it. We had been looking for a property just like it for years and we both knew we would know it when we saw it. Many a weekend was spent with a weekend real estate paper and long drives and animated plans. We traveled from Toodyay to Wandering and everywhere in between, finding little gems and letting our imaginations run wild. We came close a few times, but each opportunity had more minus's than plus's.

The Real Estate Agents picture - this is what we saw that special day.

On our way to a friends for a New Years Day BBQ 2010, we took a detour to just 'check out the area'. We both saw this house, set right back on a few acres of grass, a farmhouse nestled in trees with wide verandas and everything we both always loved. As we drove along the road frontage we excitedly said to each other that this was exactly the type of house we wanted. At the very edge of the land, near the driveway I saw this sign out of the corner of my eye. 

"Stop" I yelled ... It said 'For Sale'.

We discounted it. Sadly but resignedly, this area was WAY out of our price range. On the way to our friends, we dreamed and let our imaginations run wild that one day we would buy some land and build that type of house on it. We felt happy to have just seen a perfect example of what we could achieve one day. It was great Mr K and I felt the same way and had the same vision. This was enough. Of course, this didn't stop me having a little fantasy, somehow finding the money and imagining myself living there. Fantasy is what I lived on.

Closest picture I can find that represents what was in my head. Even this doesn't compare to my special place now!

At the BBQ, Mr K and I were still enamored by the vision, so of course we mentioned it to our hosts, one of which was in real estate. She said, why don't you phone up the agents and see what they are asking for it. My stomach turned over at this comment - excitement that we would ever entertain this step and dread that my fantasy would be extinguished by confirmation this was out of our league. Its the same reasoning I give when I have lotto tickets which I never check - I don't want to confirm the end of the fantasy by finding out for sure its not a winner.

But we did make that phone call, and I watched Mr K's face closely for a clue. He had his poker face on, so when he got off the phone and gave a listing price that was a lot less than I had ever hoped, I was like a eight year old just told I was going to the Royal Show with $5 pocket money! Our real estate host friend, in true fashion, then fueled and facilitated the fantasy and the rest of this story has a happy ending which I have written about before. It was also the birth of this blog.

Links to a smattering of Wattle Grove posts :

• Its the Little Things
• My Place
• Dear Santa, I Wanna Poneeee for christmas
• 150 Posts
• Today was first time in ages
• Mop Up Day
• Building Stable Yards and Doors
• Demolition Day
• Planning Day
• Farm Day
• Bonfire Night
• Aww Gawd, is it Monday already?
• Progress so far
• Being kind comes back to you
• We have a special visitor today
• Where we are at now
• Wow! What Week
• So how's the Journey so far?
• Poached egg for breakfast

Today I can say that the waiting, at least, has an end date! 

That strange marker of all things new, Christmas* 2014, is the date we have given ourselves to have moved in by. This property has a special place, a little magic corner that everyone who goes there says the same thing ... "this would be a great place to have long, leisurely lunches."

Time for plans. And where better to share them than this blog and all the wonderful readers who have shared this journey.

Mr K and my Dad having 'lunch' by the stream after a hard days work on the stables.

* strange for an atheist like me

My Secret River - Wisemans Ferry

My Dad, Mum, dog Cindy and me.  I LOVE this picture - taken on my river abt. 1968

Sometimes, a book comes into your life that opens up a vein and lets you bleed your past and hidden memories for a while. Such a book has come into my life, and yet, I resisted reading it for a long time as I had a preconceived idea that it was a book that would preach at me.  Funny how our minds work.  I  'eased' into reading The Secret River by Kate Grenville by first reading the book she wrote about writing it.  Called Searching for the Secret River, Grenville created an inspiring book for writers - the how and why and where - of writing a novel.

Standing in a book shop, reading the first paragraph of Searching for the Secret River I caught my breathe at the last two words...

In the puritan Australia of my childhood, you could only get a drink on a Sunday if you were a 'bona fide traveller',  That meant you had to have travelled fifty miles or more. Around Sydney a ring of townships at exactly the fifty-mile mark filled with cheerful people every Sunday. One of them was a little place called Wiseman's Ferry. 
(Grenville, Kate. Searching for the Secret River. Melbourne (2006)

Will become one of my top 5 books for sure.

Wiseman's Ferry is the place I have always called home. Its a strange notion, as I only spent about three years of my life there, yet it holds the strongest memories and yearnings in me.  Helen Garner wrote about this notion too, in her short story Writing Home in the book, The Feel of Steel, ... "Whats home supposed to be, anyway?"  Only one other time did I feel like I was coming home, and that's when I flew over the checkered fields of England for the first time and wept with an emotion I did not understand - I truly felt like I was now home, yet I have never lived there and was born in Australia.

I have lived in Western Australia for 86% of my life, yet it still, does not feel like my home. In my heart, I am still a Sydney-Sider. All the significant things in my life have happened to me in WA - meeting my best friend, my husband, owning a horse, having my children. Just shows how powerful our early memories are.

I devoured Searching for the Secret River in a day, and I could not get to its big sister quick enough.  Now three quarters the way through The Secret River, I have slowed down and am savoring it slowly, like a good drop of port on a cool night.  I don't want to leave the place, its my childhood place,   where all my memories come from, its my home. When Grenville wrote of the tides and colour of the river, I am taken to times when we crossed the ferry and I stood on the edge and watched this majestic river. When she talks of the flats and the cliffs and ridges, I am taken back to long walks, exploring the bush behind our house, playing on those flats, swimming in the river, my dad crossing all the way to the other side to steal a watermelon and the wonder that such a heavy thing can float. I recall my Mum milking a cow in a field and the sight of my river one side and the cliffs the other, the thick grass and flat cow-pats, the old farmhouse that I still yearn for. I am not at all religious but there is a derelict church on the side of a hill that I always said I wanted to get married in. I have so many warm and golden memories of this place - my grandfather and boats, my catholic friend and her many brothers and sisters, the smell of rain in summer, the thrill of playing in a cave, moss on rocks, getting purple while sitting in the mulberry tree on  the river, crabs in the mud, dead animals floating during a flood, the whip birds, poplar trees, winding roads, my baby brother, my happy parents, my tiny school of 17 kids.

The Ferry that takes you to Settlers Road and my home.  I can still hear the chug, chug and the sound when the ramp scrapes up the bank.

The house my Dad (and Mum) built as it looks today - note the rock wall.

My Brother, Cindy and I with Dads rock wall in progress behind us.  The mountains all around still feel familiar to me.

I have a lot more to say and show about this place, some good writing fodder.  

Is there a place you call 'home'?  Why?

Searching For The Secret River

A confession - I need ANOTHER bookcase

Sorting just some of my books on the dining table

A small sample of bookshelves in my reading room

My books (mostly) in Mr K's study

I already have eight.  But I need another one.  Does this constitute an addiction?  

I have been trying hard to buy books electronically (last count was 56 books on my kindle) but there are just some books that have to be real. And I really did try and cull the books, I took about 10 boxes to the book exchange.

Since we renovated last July, I have collected another 4 shelves of books, and as they have no home at the moment, they are stacked beside my bed, beside my reading chair, in a basket beside my reading chair, on the coffee table in the lounge-room, on my desk, on the floor beside my desk.

I am not sure where this new book case will go.

Maybe challenging myself to read 100 books in 2013 was not helping this addiction?  I see a trip to IKEA in my immediate future.

Billy Bookcase - I want one with doors this time. I will have to rearrange my office.

Housework - how to trick myself into it

Each week, I have to come up with a way to trick myself into doing the housework.  It's like I am a perpetual Peter Pan when it comes to the very normal (and necessary) job of cleaning my house.  There are WAY better and more fun things to be doing with my precious days off.  I was so successful the last few weekends that I manged to do very little, not even a proper vacuum, just a run around with the handheld vac.  I don't know whats wrong with me? Other (grown-up) women seem to manage it.  It's not that I am lazy (or am I?), or don't love a clean house (I do).  I just resent wasting good time on such a non-productive activity.  How come I have no housework discipline Mum?

I have run out of excuses - its too hot, I have an assignment due, I don't feel very well, I deserve a day off, I have a new book to read - and today I HAVE to clean the house.

So, I am going to do some method acting.  I will be the very sexy and volumptious (well I have that one nailed) house cleaner for Hank Moody (aka David-drool-Duchovny) in a upcoming episode of Californication.  Of course he will notice me, as I go about washing toilets and dusting the furniture.  I will give this role my all, pretend that I am just a regular suburban house cleaner, really get into the grove of it.  That's what method actors do isn't it?  

Bonus will be a clean house, and a nice little daydream.

Or.

I could just go play another re-run of episodes 1 to 5 and hang the housework!  Hank seems to like dirty women :-)

Writing gets in the way of Blogging!

Sorry my fellow bloggers and readers - I have been MIA of late, but the time away has been spent in very pleasurable pursuits - writing courses and endless assignments.  I thought I might share a recent exercise where we had to go through a newspaper and find something to write about.  It had to be 600 words, with only the first 300 submitted and the rest 'summarised' as if we were submitting it to a magazine for publication.  

I found an advertisement in the Real Estate Section at the back of my local paper that had a by-line that just captured my imagination.  

A Permanent Holiday at Home  - Now that sounds just lovely doesn't it?  Perpetually living your life on holiday, all from the comfort and convenience of your own home, no need to even pack.

The advert leading line was in bold type and just below this was added – resort feel inside and out adds to appeal.  A large colour photograph of a sparkling blue pool, waterfall and palms took up most of the page, balanced by a paragraph of text and six smaller thumbnail pictures.  At first glance this seemed a novel idea, a permanent holiday – yes please!  But it was the last two words that made me think again… at home.  Yes it had an inviting ‘resort-style’ pool, tropical gardens, an outdoor entertaining area, a ‘sweeping open plan living area and games room’.   But something just didn't add up.

From certain angles it did remind me of a villa I once stayed in Bali, with palm trees, swimming pool, large, elegant bathroom - very resort-style indeed - but with a Bali twist, namely beautiful Balinese staff to wait on my every need.  

“Ah, good morning Mrs Jodie.  You want pancake for breakfast today?”

“Yes, Wayan, that would be lovely, thank you.”

“You want fresh pineapple juice Mrs Jodie?”

“For lunch today, Made make Pad Thai, you happy about that Mrs Jodie?”

On goes the day; after breakfast a swim in the (clean) pool, coming back to a freshly made bed and the house maids washing the floor.

“Sorry Mrs Jodie, be finish soon.”

Get my book and go and recline on a daybed in the gardens, all lovingly tended by a team of gardeners raking, watering, weeding.  Later in the day, maybe a facial or a massage.

That is what I call a holiday.  So, tell me more about this house for sale that will be a permanent holiday home?

I can see a chef’s kitchen with no chef in it.  Does this indicate that I will be doing my own cooking?  I see a very white and sparkly bathroom – it got that way by some hard work and spit – who comes in to ‘do your room’?  The pool looks lovely in the picture now, but how much time will be spent vacuuming, scooping, tinkering to keep it that way?  Same goes for the gardens.  All that sweat, effort and dirt don’t spell holiday.  Also noted is a laundry and clothes line – which would indicate that white towels and clean sheets would not just be miraculously appearing on the bed.

I have perused the photo’s in the adverts very carefully and not seen any spa treatment brochures or room service menus, so I am beginning to doubt the honesty of this advert.  No mention of the number of staff this comes with, no mention of what time breakfast tomorrow is.

It’s a long bow being pulled I think.  I am starting to get the distinct impression that this is just an ordinary home, that will cost me $750,000 for the privilege of doing it all for myself in a home that just looks like a resort.  By my calculations, for the same money, my husband and I could live in Bali for 20 years – as if we really were on a permanent holiday.  No brainer really.  I can pretend 20 years is pretty permanent.  I don’t think we will be making an offer.

Busy Day Today (or not ;-)

'The staff have all voted to have the Staff Christmas Party at our home again this year' ... so declares Mr K, all proud like.

He takes this as a sign that our staff love us and want to come to our house as they think that's neat.  He sees this as just one big Friday night after work drinks - on steroids.  With lots of food and a pool.

I see this as a big pile of hard work.  Which is fine, I am happy to show our staff how much we really do appreciate them, to say thank you for all their hard work, to spoil them for a bit.  But, guess who gets to do all the work that Mr K just can't see?  All the 'little things' that only women know about?

It's like that old joke that does the email rounds, the one about the husband who tells his wife she can have the night off and he will do the BBQ for their guests.  He stands turning snags whilst drinking a beer - she shops for all the ingredients, cleans the house, makes salads, sets the table, gets platters ready for the meat, makes sweets, clears the table, washes the dishes ... and he asks her afterwards how she enjoyed her night off cooking?

This will be our fourth year we have had the end of year party at our home.

The first year I had caterers in.  Lovely food, useless service.  It cost a small fortune, more than if we had taken everyone out to dinner. We had leftovers which would be great anytime except for right before Christmas when I need my fridge empty.

The second year we had the waitress of our local cafe, who was a cooking student, come and do it.  I worked harder than ever and my kitchen looked like my kids bedroom after they had searched for the missing Lego piece. 

Third year, I said ENOUGH and we went out to a restaurant.  I will admit that the party was flat, we sat at a table and had to behave ourselves. We were in public.  (I really didn't care this year, it was right before I had a hysterectomy, I was in no laughing mood!)

The fourth year, feeling SO much better I threw caution to the wind, having learnt from past experiences about caterers and cooking students; that I can do it better, quicker, cheaper and cleaner than anyone.  I made one little mistake - I got all elaborate and made lots and lots of canapes from scratch, far too many choices. 

Fifth year, this year, I am older (boy am I ever) wiser (I think!) and under the misapprehension that I have it all sussed.  I have simplified the menu, bought things that are fiddly to make, like four dozen mince pies, frozen spring rolls, and cheezels.  There will be huge slabs of roast meat, fluffy bread rolls and gravy - the majority of our staff are young lads - give them meat, bread and beer.  A few salads to keep the waif girlfriends happy. 

I have written a huge TO DO list for Mr K.  He has his jobs allocated.  Lets see if he is as keen to host the party here next year <wink>

All I want for Christmas ...

All I want for Christmas ..... is two months away, alone, completely alone.

Utter solitude. To travel back in time would be nice too.

Georgiana Molloy (1805 - 1843) - isn't she beautiful?

I read a lot of old diaries and biographies of pioneer women, or women who lived on farms or in the country. Women of centuries ago who sometimes had no choice but to be on their own for months on end. Like Georgiana Molloy (1805 - 1843) who in 1829 came with her husband to live in Augusta, Western Australia. Her biography, written by Alexandra Hasluck, (Portrait with Background: A Life of Georgiana Molloy - Melb, 1955) is one of my all-time favourites.

She lamented the isolation and filled it with writing letters, her journal and collecting botanical samples to be sent to Captain James Mangles, who was a keen botanist. I love reading of her day to day life - but what resonates with me, now more than ever, is the calm, slow pace of life. It's like a balm to my stretched, hectic, over-full one.

I know there were tragedies, children were lost, life was physically tough, but surely she felt a calmness that life was settled, it was predictable, there was a slow, yet deliberate rhythm. When I read of her walking in the bush every day to collect seeds, or sitting down to write, I feel a yearning for that part of her life. I know she would probably envy mine, my household gadgets that make every day easier, but I wonder too if she would want it to slow down?

I guess it is the minimisation of external stimulation that appeals the most. No TV. No phone beeping or flashing to say the world is contacting you. No cars, or trains, or planes or sirens. No emails, or the double edged internet - with so much information to seek, yet so overwhelming. Back then, you actually looked forward to visitors, not dread them like today.

Berringarra Homestead - build in 1882

Many years ago, Mr K took the boys and I up north to stay at the station that he had worked on as a teenager. (He was also conceived at this station, but that’s a whole new story!). He still loved this place and was excited to share with me why - the rammed earth station house with wide veranda's and wide walls, the bower shed where the jackaroos slept in the midday heat, the red, red dirt and blue, blue sky. The river gums, white and majestic, the dry river bed that belied its strength, the eagles and wild goats and bungarras. I saw what he saw and fell in love with it too.

We found out that it was for sale. I dreamed of buying this isolation. This life. It was to be a fantasy played out over many, many years and still, if all of the planets and stars lined up, and Mr K said come on we are going to live there, I would be packed in a heartbeat. By outback standards its not that isolated - only 660km from Perth, the nearest big town is Meekatharra a mere 170km way. The historic town of Cue 180km.

 

 

But like all fantasies, would it lose all it's lustre in real life?  I still would like to try .. even if it was just my Christmas present for two months.

 

Bloody smoke detectors!

Was woken both yesterday morning and this morning by our smoke detector going off at precisely 5am.  Yesterday, the ear piercing (and now I know that's a real state, my ears were ringing) sound made both me and the little old lady dog jump out of bed.  Not good for her, she is old and blind and arthritic, and not good for me as I am just unfit and not nimble anymore.  Poor little girl, she hates high pitched noises, so there she sat shivering and shaking while I tried to find my dressing gown.

Of course by the time I did (find my dressing gown), and opened the bedroom door, the alarm had stopped.  Did a quick check for smoke, of course nothing.  The detector is hard wired into the ceiling but has a back-up battery that obviously needed changing - so like a very loud baby it let me know.

Mr K?  My knight, the man of the house, my protector?  He was sound asleep - the sleep of the dead!  So really great device this - it goes off when it shouldn't, and doesn't wake half the occupants in the house.

Mr K did redeem himself however and went down the shops to buy a new battery (and a spare one for next time).  He fitted it and all was well.

Except ... it went off AGAIN this morning.  Same bat time, same bat channel!  Same two people (well one people and one fury wanna be people) who were dragged out of slumber by the bells of smoke detectors.  I got the step ladder, climbed up to the wicked little white dome and pressed my finger in hard to its little button.  The noise stopped - but I was now rendered deaf. 

What?  Deaf I said.

Guess who was again sound sleep?

If it goes off tomorrow morning I am ripping it down from the ceiling, taking the plaster with it if I have to, and dumping it on Mr-sleeping-ugly-K - that ought to wake him.

What we did on the weekend - Outdoor Overhaul

Well, I lie.  This isn't just the result of one weekends work.  We have been working on this for the last 3 weekends, between social events, helping out Son#1 at his house, shopping; we have managed to get three quarters done on the outside area.  Which is pretty impressive for us - we have a deadline of 15 December when we will again have the staff Christmas party here (as we do every year) and we are ahead in the schedule!

In pictures, this is what we have so far.  It took me ages to get with the decorating groove on this one as I had no clear idea of a theme or colours.  This colour scheme kind of evolved.  I like it so far.

After we high pressure cleaned the decking, walls and rafters, we coated the decking in two coats of decking oil.  The new cane chairs look a little bland here.

 

Moved around the layout so that the table is near the BBQ and Buffet (that my Dad made).  I like the layout but it seems a little closed in.

 

 

Old jarrah table and chairs have stood the test of time but after 15 years need to be sanded back and re-oiled.  Colour scheme is mismatched and drab

 

By adding a red cushion from inside, we suddenly got the effect we were after.  I went and bought red cushions from BigW and put them on the cane chairs - made all the difference.  Mr K found the dining chair pads at Hardly Normal when he went to buy his mum a new TV!  They are perfect!

 

Loving this colour scheme now.  I think we have enough red now, so will leave it at that.  Maybe some palms and some darker wood furniture to give that Colonial East India look - think Passage to India.

 

Still some work to do on the furniture and some little tweaks but I am pretty happy with it all so far.

 

Walhalla - Victoria - Australia

Remembrance Day - almost a year ago.  Mr K and I did a little trip to Walhalla - the most amazing and quaint place I have ever been to.  Of course, I am yet to go to Tassie, but until then, this town is number one on my top 10 list.  It's funny that we went here on Remembrance Day 2011, as this little place keeps popping into my head - at random times and places and has done for 12 months now.

It was on a trip to Melbourne, or more precisely, Victoria, I am a Sydney sider by birth, and true to form, Melbourne as a city, holds very little appeal for me.  Give me big open harbours and sand-stone historic buildings any day.  The Victorian countryside however, I do like.  We went over to VIC for a few days R&R and exploring and one of these exploring days found us winding up the hills to a little ghost town called Walhalla.  It held a certain pull for us as Mr K's grandmother was born and raised there.  We even have a fern on our patio that originally came from here, handed down the generations.

I was expecting a typical old gold rush town, with some weatherboard buildings and remnants of a past place and time.  What I wasn't expecting was how breathtakingly beautiful it was and how it evoked in me a very strong connection and compassion for the people who built this town, who lived, loved and died here and for the tiny little population of just 9 people who now call this home.  Settled in 1863 as a gold rush town, and in its heyday a peak population of 2000.  Which doesn't sound a lot until you see where these people built their houses and business's.  It's a river valley, very narrow with very steep sides.  The flat part is only just wide enough for the river, a road (narrow one at that) and one house block. 

 

Everything else is built into the side of the steep hills.  If you have ever been to Wales, this will remind you of it, especially the flavour of mining and stone walls.  We walked from one end of the street to the other, absorbing the ghosts of past dwellers.  We walked up the steep hill to the cemetery, where the graves are dug into the side of the hill.  It's a beautiful, peaceful place to rest - for the living and non-living.

I spoke excitedly that day, when I saw a little cottage for sale.  Could we move here and live this life?  I know I could - Mr K just smiled wanly at me - too scared to say anything else.  I think it reminded me of a place I lived as a child, on the McDonald river, a tributary of the Hawksberry.  There were just 5 adults, and myself and baby brother, living in this little area on a permanent basis.  Walhalla took me back to this place of innocence, of simplicity and peace.

I could just see myself living here ...