Where we are at now

While I wait for Mr Kirsa to make me a cup of tea, I will give a run down of where the drama's have left us.  (yes he takes THAT long to make tea!)

Lease at WG

We have now reached an agreement with the tenants to end the lease, releasing us both from it.  They have signed over the full bond to us and the girls father has very generously paid all outstanding rent.  We have had an exceptional outcome and avoided the court process which is a huge blessing.  I hope the two young tenants have learnt a valuable lesson over all this, and hope too they recognise when people are trying to help them.  So we have rent paid and enough money from the bond to repair the major damages like the pool, ride on mower, flyscreens, cleaning inside, replacing fence rails.  Certainly a great result for what could have been a financial disaster.  I wont ask for any more lotto wins!

Note .. just received my 'tea' .. it tastes very much like coffee .. sigh

WG and the state of it

We went out on the Saturday and Sunday to assess the damage and make a list of all the work to be done.  The pool was in such a state that it had to be pumped out, pressure cleaned and refilled.  Had to also evict a family of Maned Geese ( I think they are also called the Australian Wood Ducks?  Mum?)  who had moved in.  Went around and made a big long list of all the jobs to do.  Put the word out that we needed some help this time.  There was 10 days work to do in only 4 days of Easter - we could not take a week off work like we did last time.  I was heartened to get so many people offer their help - for the physical help they offered and the emotional boost it gave us.

The Easter weekend came around, we had the pool guy come and start pumping out on the Friday.  While I started cleaning out the stables, Kim cleaned off the roof (so many branches and leaves).  We cleaned off all the duck droppings around the pool, and cleared out all the rubbish from the sheds and around the paddocks, stacked into a pile on the lawn.



Kim Blower Vaccing the roof, Tommy marking his territory (he did that to EVERY post .. thats about 400!)  This is before the mowing was done.  My beautiful white fences stood up really well.

Saturday was an early start.  We arranged breakfasts, morning teas, lunch and lots of drinks for the workers.  By 10am most volunteers had turned up and the place was a buzz of activity!  Chainsawing, Whipper Snippering, raking, moving junk on the Ute to the rubbish collection on the road verge.  Sweeping, weeding, stacking up the bonfire pile with branches and trimmings.  The compost bays once empty, were filled with grass, leaves, manure - very exciting!  It was a hot day, but with so many hard working people, an awful lot got done.  By the end of the day, we were very tired but so glad by all that was achieved.

We had planned on a sausage sizzle in the evening, but most people had left to pursue other things!  So it was a very pleasant evening spent with Cam and Abby, Julie and Mark from across the road and a BBQ, snags and a few well earned drinks.  I went to bed that night very tired and very content.

Flooded showroom

So in the midst of all the WG drama, the gods throw in a bit of a red herring.  They thought it would be a laugh to burst a water main in Hay Street, spewing litres and litres of water into the air and into our basement.  We got the call from one of our techs Sunday lunchtime ... and yes it was Aprils Fool Day.  When we arrived at the office, the insurance assessors for the water corp were there and they came and had a good look. Rescuing what we could off the floor, we then had a very long wait for the initial water removal by the contractors.  Uncle James was our sanity saver and arrived with Gin and some company.  There was no point in being anything but resolved at this point, not much we could do but save what we could.  Its all insured. 

Monday, and the insurers send in big fans and dehumidifiers and the dry out process began.  It took 7 days to dry out the carpets and at this stage it has done a very good job.  There is no musty smell and the carpets are bone dry.  They will come in this weekend to clean the carpets and deodorise them.  We have lost only about $2000 worth of stock and water damage to 3 or 4 display shelves. 

Again, very lucky.

Ash

The Monday that I should have been sorting out a flooded office, I was in hospital all day with our Ash.  He was having an operation to correct his deviated septum, not a very comfortable procedure but one that we hope will help his sleep problems.  Although he was at the private hospital Mercy in Mount Lawley, I had little faith in the nursing there to leave him alone.  I found from my own experiences there, that you need to watch your care very carefully and not have faith that you will get a good nurse.  He was a little scared too, so of course I would be there as long as he needed me.  It was really nice actually, we got to have some good talks especially when he came back from surgery and he was a little gone on the pain killers.  No matter how old they are, they are still your babies.

His sexy socks and gown!

He is recovering really well and he should see some difference to his breathing in another week or so. 

Finances

Have just done the first quarter review for the finances and KPI's.  Its looking OK, but March was a very big month with projects and sales - it has pushed up the profit but its an anomaly.  The trick now it to repeat this next quarter.

Maybe I do need to ask for the lotto numbers to come up after all.