29th January

You will realise that there has been some blog neglect happening here this week. This may sound a little like, "why I have not done my homework..." but I have had a couple of diversions this week. Firstly, Lester and I had to celebrate our thirtieth wedding anniversary.  Then there was the diversion of Kieran's being knocked of his bike in Sydney, by a motorist who opened her car door onto him. After an evening in RPA Emergency, he stumbled home bruised and lacerated but substantially in tact, luckily. (That is the second time that has happened in this family. John Rosen was swiped in Hamilton many years ago when he was living in Newcastle.) Then I became involved in the addictive and time consuming process of searching the net's real estate pages, looking for a place for Bernie and Jac to buy. This took a few evenings and today they have a list of twenty places to "open house" (yes, I know it's not a verb!) today. And then there was the fire..... really! Skip the next paragraph if you  think this is a lame excuse.

Sally (hero dog) slept inside  on Monday night as there was thunder and she was freaking out, as she does. About 3.30 she came into the bedroom and pawed at the bed, which I tried to ignore. She kept circling the bed (her toe nails annoyingly clicking on the boards and even pestering Lester on his side of the bed. Needless to say we were getting pretty annoyed with her. I tried to get her to go downstairs but she wouldn't budge from standing next to Lester. I eventually gave up, defeated  and dozed off, only to be awoken by an explosive noise and bright orange light and commotion coming in the window from the balcony. The house over the road was fiercely burning and billowing black smoke filled the street. So, Sally was obviously able to smell it before it blew the windows of the house out. The rest of the night was filled with five fire trucks, multiple ambulance and police vehicles; all whirring and wizzing their red and blue lights...so that was all the sleep we got. My excuse...I went to bed early on Tuesday. (P.S. No-one was in the house. The tenant had moved out that afternoon. We apologised to Sally and have been very nice to her since!)

This does not mean that no progress has been made on "the pad" this week, although Australia Day and RDOs coincided and shortened the working week.

Lester and I spent our  Australia Day, transfering belongings from the old lock-up into a larger lock-up. It was incredibly hot over there in cementland in Mayfield, pushing trolley loads of archived medical records and offsprings' belongings. However, it was a satisfying activity. We sorted all manner of junk and discovered some of the boys' stuff which I have been, falsely as it turns out, accused of throwing out.

I have been talking colours and fabrics with a designer. I love doing this although the decisions become harder to make with various options to weigh up.  I really like Porter's and Resene paint colours and textures. The carpet has been measured up but the colour not finalised yet.   I have talked with Bobby about the details of the cabinets in various spaces, including the stair voids. It is a good feeling to finalise these loose ideas which have been floating around in the grey matter for almost a year now. We have decided to do away with the cavity sliders in the bedroom, for various reasons. Principally because I am liking the idea of fabric curtain dividers.

We have decided not to get the ethanol heater. It is pretty expensive for a stainless steel box and we cannot fit it into the bookshelf as we had first been told. There are also some problems with the exhaust for the kitchen. The salesman was not helpful when I rang him back to ask where the rectangular fitting was. Apparently, they don't exist, or it is back in America. He was much more helpful when he was selling us the thing. Anyway, it seems we will have to get something made. The other problem with the kitchen exhaust is that it will have to be ducted well away from the air conditioning unit and the bedroom window upstairs which will involve attaching something like a stink-pipe to the back wall.

The kitchen detail is gradually filling in, as it the plumbing upstairs.

Sally - hero dog!

House fire  over the road

Australia Day revels: our new, organised lock-up. Plenty of room for more stuff!

The pop-up kitchen exhaust system; (Lester in back-ground!)

Kitchen detail. The glass doors have been fitted.