House things

So this is what the north wall looks like at the moment - new rocks, carefully concreted in, chimney has a new brace, weatherboards removed and replaced, window frames primed and now we just have to finish the undercoat on the new boards. We can't decide what colour to paint the house so we've booked in an online meeting with a colour consultant! I have never done such a thing before in my life so I am quite intrigued by what they do and will report back. 

It is a work of art and we are very pleased ... if only it wasn't about a tenth of the outside of the house! Carpneter has moved onto the kitchen wall, which was resting DIRECTLY ON THE DIRT. This isn't good, so he's dug down, put in a concrete footing, created drainage on the outside and is replacing the bottom couple of weatherboards where they had started to rot. We are hoping to save the beautiful yellow rose but it's not looking very pleased with life.

This doesn't look very exciting but when he took off the weatherboards it turns out that underneath is still the original slab hut! This is very old school - no framing and probably not sawn timber. But it all seems solid enough... It should see us out :)

I have come down to the beach for a couple of days to get away from sawing, hammering and having to get changed in the bathrooom. It is very peaceful here and I've been for some lovely walks. Not quite swimming weather yet.

Things that are yellow

It's time for daffodils again, and they are as glorious as ever. We have at least a dozen distinct varieties, and it's fabulous to see which pop up where. There's a particularly lovely drift down by one of the fruit trees.

I made a vase-ful of different sorts, with wattle for extra yellowness.

And the other yellow thing is the floor of the studio. I chose commercial vinyl because of the colour, but it's been a bit of a dud because it marks so easily. I think it is quite hardwearing - if you have commercial cleaners come round every night with one of those big polishing scuff machines - but for domestic use not so great. And it was very expensive. 

Never mind, I'll put cheap rugs on it, and I have always wanted a yellow floor. The last job was to sand and stain (three coats) the deck - which I've now done. Here's the before.

And the after. Very satisfying. 

The outside is definitely one more thing that is yellow! All the exterior painting is finally done, including the steel covers the studio guy unexpectedly put over the end nibs for protection (happy about the protection, not happy when I realised I'd have to get the paintbrush out again). I've moved most everything in, although it's not set up 100% as I want it. I think I'll have to work with it for a while and then see where to put things, and where the lighting needs to be, and what more furniture I need (if any). I already know I need an armchair to sit and admire the sunshine :)

Cat is happy

Our cat is a creature of routine, and really hates it when we go away. Or go out in the morning. Or move the furniture. Or have the afternoon coffee on the sofa instead of the sunny patch on the spare bed. So she has been super cuddly since we got back, which is very lovely, except this is how I eat my breakfast now.

And my lunch. I'm sure you're not meant to let cats clamber over your dining table but I don't care any more. She purrs SO loudly and gets cross when you try and take a photo. Or a sip of your coffee.

Speaking of cute pets, the builders brought this round for a visit. She was part of a litter rescued from someone's farm and my husband had said he was interested. I was not 100% convinced that we needed a kelpie/collie cross puppy in our lives but look how adorable this damn dog is. 

Crazy. She even smelt nice. Anyway, the couple who did the rescuing decided they wanted to hang onto her, which is fine by us, because we are not set up for puppies at all. But gee she was cute.

The builder was determined to find where our roof downpipe went (no sewerage in town, it's all septic or just downhill somewhere) and eventually did, and cut the end off. It disgorged three feet of disgusting which is now all over the lawn, but probably better there than in the pipe. Another delight of an old house.

Brisbane and back

We've had a little ten day jaunt up to Queensland to visit my husbands parents and many other friends and relatives. We did a lot of socialising - including a trip up to the Sunshine Coast to see the new grand-niece who is six weeks old and exceptionally cute and cuddly. Their local beach was beautiful but look at that storm on the way! We did not have the usual glorious settled August weather. 

My husband had a birthday. We don't deliberately time our trip so that he gets a chocolate cake cooked by his mum, but it is very nice when it turns out that way.

It was also a chance to try the car on a two day journey - it definitely took two full days, but we had no hiccups charging. Sadly I am now a fan of the Tesla supercharging stops ... mainly because there are twelve of them at a time. We had a couple of times of turning up to a shopping mall that had four chargers; to find one broken, one the other type of plug and two taken by people who were probably off doing their shopping. The infrastructure has not quite kept up with the number of cars, and the summer holidays could be a bit exciting. We might stay home.

I also bought a new phone because mine was losing charge at a ridiculous rate, and I'd already replaced the battery twice. The new phone has a much nicer camera, so I took a lot of arty photos. Of trees and things. And people.

This is the city looking back from the art gallery. We went into the city twice - once to the art gallery and once to the modern art gallery - and took the opportunity to walk around West End, which is an old working class suburb (now quite fancy) in the middle of town. Most of my husband's ancestors seem to have been born, lived and died within two blocks of each other; I've heard lots of stories so it was nice to wander around.

I took arty photos of old houses.

We went on a rainforest walk (damp, lots of trees, do not recommend). 

Other than that it was a lovely few days of sitting and chatting, bracketed by two days at each end of driving and driving. Great to get away and great to come home again.

Getting to spring

The wattle comes out in August, and ours is true to form. It's very pretty and yellow but always makes me think of cold winds. We have had some biting winds the past few weeks.

I finished my pastel portrait. It's not very good but it's still probably the best portrait I've done. It's certainly the best one I've done in colour, which adds a huge layer of complexity to it. I'm going to try again with another face, and see if it gets any easier.

Finished my crochet rug

I am most pleased with this. Not because it is very good, or very complex, but because I did not have any idea how to crochet, and then I learnt how, and kept doing it, and made a little lap blanket. It also used up a few half balls of wool, which is satisfying.

I finished it in a single line of crochet, which I also did not know how to do, but followed a youtube video and it turned out fine. It is terribly wavy on the edges, even after I washed and tried to square it up with soup cans, but I don't mind. It now has pride of place on the sofa.

Haulin' and burnin'

We had another burn pile for bits and bobs lying about. Sadly it was a day I had quilters and art class so I didn't get to light things on fire, but my husband had a lovely time.

My role was limited to taking nine? ten? ute-loads of wood down to the bottom paddock. Yep, I drove our ute to one part of our vast acreage, threw lots and lots of shitty pine onto it, then drove it to another part of our vast acreage and made a big pile. It felt very countrified, and getting rid of it felt even better. That pine is never-ending, and you can't burn it 100% of the time or it gunks up the chimney. Apparently.

I pulled apart some of the burnt-down compost bins too, so I could take it to the burn pile and finish the job. Also bits of crap wood from the lavender shed re-vamp (still in progress) and a heap we meant to chip but it's now too dry and dead to chip properly. 

I took a photo of the smoke as I rode off to quilters on my bike. We had to take some trees down on the shared access road a while ago (professional job, they were enormous). One of our neighbours has put iron flowers in the stump. I think they look very cute.

My garlic is up ... just another six months before harvesting! It is not a speedy crop. 

I also had a birthday. We threw away all the old manky birthday candles when we moved house so I got a household candle. It worked perfectly well and the cake was delicious. Number one and girlfriend came out to stay the night and we went out for dinner and then had cake and played scrabble by the fire. Perfect.