Easter

Well here we are at the end of April and things are dragging out a bit now. The build is still not finished but we are happily making a new home and trying to squish old routines and habits nto new perameters e.g. weekend cook-ups, working in the garden and getting some exercise. We had Bernie and Jacqueline up on Good Friday and we did manage to get a big breakie cooked and consumed. The garden  now requires sweeping rather than mowing. Our new exercise regime is proving, quite surprisingly, to be the most enjoyable. We leave in the dark (can you believe it?...even on public holidays) and have been exploring around the East End and out to Nobby's headland. I have begun a (another) new project. I take a photo from the same spot each morning  and I am going to put a whole year together in a screen saver.

Other things:
The herb garden is taking off, even the basil is thriving. 
The front door is now tiled and clean. Because all the walls are not parallel, the was impossible to find a straight edge so it looks a bit skewiff.

We are delighted to have birds around - currawongs don't even sleep at night but dark around  chortling and screeling all night. I quite like them even though they are not city birds. They should be up in the mountains catching stink beetles. I have a friend who calls them "murderers" because they can so viciously kill other birds. They remind me of my childhood in Gosford so much.We also see willy wag tails on our morning walk.

We have hung a few paintings and I am experimenting with placing a few photographs of the building in the past on the wall coming up the stairs. Interestingly, some of the wall spaces are so large that  they look better bare than with small paintings in the space.
We have finally been able to empty out most of the boxes which have crowded the downstairs (although we are going out to the lock-up to bring in some more boxes today.) Laura wiil be delighted about this!

Bernie and Jacqueline arrive in a festive Easter mood

They have a nice car...VW

The challenge of weekend cook-up

Now where is that egg lifter???



Bern and Jac



balcony

Going for evening walk

The front door; still looks a bit gaol-like

Evening walk

The sunset through Hunter St from Telford Park



Looking up the stairs: playing with where I will put historical photographs of the building



The tiling at the front door and the inlaid mat. A lot neater and cleaner now

Boxes cleared...space at last!

Lester is exhausted!

Space at last!

The new table

This is the first photograph of my new project: only 364 to go...

Lester cleaning his new barbie. We cooked steaks on it last night

Herb garden thriving

Garden

Bernie couldn't resist Sally being pretty cute in her new "kennel".

That's all for now...we aren't finished yet.

18th April

We are now in our third week of habitation at 59 Hunter St. Small progress has been made in the  finishing off phase but clearly, the final details are going to take quite some time yet. I have decided not to get perturbed about this, although it is frustrating that after cleaning the house up another tradesman arrives and the place is full of dust again. and some of the paintwork has been damaged (again) and needs retouching.

The glass has been put  out on the front balcony and on the stairs. Tiling has been semi-completed at the front door. I have worked on reorganising clothes and linen storage and more significantly, unloading the books. I am looking forward to five days at Easter to work without interruption and establish some order.

The other night we had a visit from the Priettos. We sat out on the garden and ate coconut gelato from the shop next door.  Another shop which  I find I frequent is the Danish Bakery. It makes wonderful fresh croissants and kringles.

defying altitude sickness, I have sorted the first half of the fiction collection

Glass ballustrade

Chris Prietto took this photo of Stockton the day we left

Another photo taken by Chris

Night on the roof garden

Sally investigating the garde. It has since been repainted

Sally check out the neighbours.

13th April

Further building development has occurred: John has come and replaced many power plugs with four outlets instead of twos. The painters finished off yesterday. The garden has had its second coat and the "eating box" is now the colour peat. It is a  deep olive green. The doors on the wardrobe work well. They are bronze mirrors and reflect the garden. The pop-up downdraft is working well and now all computers are on line. We had some trobble connecting my computer to the  internet with wi-fi but I was able to  call on our neighbour in the computer shop next door and he was able to solve the problem. (It was more significant than - turn off your computer! It needed a  new driver to run the program.) He and his wife are from Argentina and we had big chats all day. His little boy is often around the shop or in the Gelato shop next door and we have noticed him before because he is so cute.

Sally is becoming very comfortable. As we were putting out the garbage she wandered off down the road and I found her in the grog shop! Just dropped in to check it out! We are experimenting with other routes for our morning walk. Today we went up the hill to King Edward Park and went by Slippery Hollow - the kids will remember we used to play there when we lived at Tyrrell St.  Getting quite used to those 5.50 wake-ups but it is lovely to see the sunrises every day.

The funniest thing that has happened is that yesterday morning we realised that not only had we not locked the front door but we didn't lock the surgery door either!!!  Had we known, imagine how freaked out we would have been! I think we are not in proper routines yet and it may have been because Sal had wandered off (into the grog shop...)

The pop-up downdraft  in action. That steam just sucks sideways.

Still pretty messy upstairs but we are gradually sorting things out



More mess being sorted. We are still awaiting arrival of the bed




The bronze mirror works to  reveal more of the garden



Still waiting for the paint to dry.

11th April

Today the first of the big mirrors arrived for the bathroom. Tactical expertise managed to get it up the stairs, however, it became evident that the hanging light and the tap needed to be removed before it could be stuck to the wall. Much hilarity, and here are some photos...

Manoeuvring the  big mirror up the stairs

Sally has found her favourite spot

Sorry about the spooky eyes...

10th April

For all of you who are interested in following theminutae of my life - here is some more.

We have spent the day trying to get our lives organised a bit and lester has said that I am allowed to write that he is now more relaxed. He is not a lover of chaos and is appreciating the imposition of some order.
 I feel that I have averted Alzheimers for year s today. I have not just learnt one new thing today, but I have got my head around the new hotplate and kitchen structure and I am sure that would add up to twelve months of new things to learn! I managed to cook a leg of lamb last night and tonight I managed a risotto and chicken romana. The kitchen is designed to have a wet side and a cooking side. This means that I have to prep all ingredients on one side and then move over to the other side to cook. This is terrific but requires organisation. Laura organised the kitchen in a way that the cooing utensils were on one side and the  serving things on the other. All very logical ... and it is working well. The Neff cooktop seems to cook much faster than the old gas stove in Stockton and it seems to be hotter. The induction mechanism needs some getting used to.

We managed to clean up many boxes upstairs today and we sorted clothes. We went out to Mayfleid and brought in s few boxes of stuff. The cd's are now in place and it all looks good. We bought some herbs and planted them and a couple of plants for the big boxes as well.

Laura played with the camera whiilst we got my desk and computer together and Lester began to unload his wine collection.



walking this morning



The Pilot Station and cormorant

Sally basking on the roof

Lester is working on creating his wine cellar

CD and DVD storage

Champagne in place 

Lester at his desk

Getting the computer connected - upstairs

Risotto and Chicken Romana - new learning experience - induction style

Bathroom

Laura leaving for Sydney



  It will be interesting how much progress towards finishing the build happens this week....!