Painting and Removalists

No guesses for what we've been doing over the last couple of weeks.....painting... painting and yet more painting. I think we are getting better with our accuracy as most paint, these days, seems to be going where we're aiming it.

I think it was quite telling about the states of our minds when we realised just how excited we were getting about actually putting some colour on the walls! It is a strange thing painting in white, a real challenge trying to make sure nothing is missed and incredible just how many shades of white there are. Of course the missed bits only show when the paints dry and all the brushes/ rollers etc are washed and put away. Just the bathroom and shower areas left to do with the especially formulated wet area paint. But first, I think mainly for the sake of our sanity, we had to use some colour. The colour we chose for most of the walls is a very gentle creamy colour called Soothing Balm. It reminds me of clotted cream teas from Cornwall... happy days... and it is indeed soothing. There will be more colours in the rooms soon once the right ones are chosen.

Chatting to one to the local paint experts whilst on a recent paint hunting expedition he told us back in 1947 the colour chart of a popular paint manufacturers held only a choice of 7. It is a tad different now and mind boggling.......

Once all the painting for all but bedrooms 2 and 3 is done we'll have the pavers to lay, which will hopefully be this weeks job done.

The builders are going to line the showers and cut the tiles for the wet areas. After a quick floor tile laying lesson it'll then be down to us to tank, lay the tiles and waterproof everything.

AND there is a rumour that our front and back doors will arrive next week.... yippperdeedodah...

We did take a wee bit of time out every now and then, I have headed off to the veggie patch, things to harvest and also not wanting to miss the planting season. Everything seems to be growing at a massive rate of knots.... I will never cease to be amazed. I've put in more peas and they have already started to pod. The runner beans needed harvesting, I noticed flowers were starting to come again on the new stems, so I've cut them back to see if I can get a longer growing season from them.

It's also time to harvest the, parsnips, shallots and garlic. Our first Strawberry was of course delicious, hopefully there will be more to follow soon. Rick has kindly rigged up a chicken wire protector for them to keep the birds off but I've also got to keep an eye out for lizards. Another first for me. The Sweet Peas are amazingly still going strong, I am loath to take them out till they are well and truly finished. Tomatoes are forming but the Basil and Thyme haven't fared so well. And the potatoes are going great guns, it'll be great if we managed to get a crop by Xmas.


Rick's time out has been working with the 1960's International tractor. Shifting some of the large rocks and trying to level out the ground, which has been churned up by all the large building machinery.

A zen moment

The tractor is quite a character and to me sounds very much like a happy traction engine chugging along. A great little work horse which needs a bit of loving when we (Rick) has a wee bit more time.

The best bit

For me anyway was getting the call to say my goods and chattels will at last be arriving in Naracoorte Sunday evening. The removalists would like to unload first thing... which turned out to be 7 am Monday morning. Keen or what. Slightly bleary eyed but extremely excited we arrived at the block and didn't have long to wait before hearing the sounds of a large lorry approaching.

Before they started unloading Deb and Fred arrived to very kindly lend a hand. Fred was just excited to be there. I did feel a bit of a Princess to watch the four of them (Fred not included in this) toiling up the hill with some pretty hefty loads. It was my job to tick off the boxes (173 all numbered) and direct them into hopefully some sort of 'easy to understand later' type of order. As far as I can tell all is present and correct. 

To think the journey it has all been on from almost two years in store to a massive journey half way around the world involving two huge container ships, fumigation and everything to arrive here. So far I've found just one garden pot was broken. All the things we need to use at the moment like Mum's decorating things, ladders etc were strangely the first things I have found and unpacked. Amazing.