My place

I haven't been as chirpy as I want. Nor as chirpy as I have been pretending to be, neither.

The last few days I have crashed late afternoon and slept right through (fibbing a bit there - waking up around 8pm to do the drug thing, and the other drug thing - email!) and then sleeping through till the kookaburras start yodelling outside at dawn.

Back to St Vincent's on Thursday for the post-op check-up. I don't think I am tired cos of anything sinister, it is just that I was expecting miracles and that might take a few more weeks. It is only 5 weeks since surgery so p'raps I am still also recovering from all that anaesthetic stuff, etc. Not to mention a long time not being anywhere near 100%...

I have got PAGES of lists of things I really MUST do around my home. Poor neglected place. There are spiders fighting other spiders for space in the layers of dust. You get the idea...

On the Australia Day weekend (AD is January 26th for those of you who can't rattle off the national days of other countries...) Newstead Live! happens again. Lovely music!!!
The Beez - from Berlin - are the headline (international) act again. And again, they are staying with me. Hooray! They are all so lovely, though I was fucked totally last time with all the late night dinners we had in the week leading up to the Festival cos they arrived 5 days ahead of time. Not that I minded, it really was such fun.

BUT I WOULD LIKE TO DO SOMETHING MORE TO THE HOUSE BEFORE THEY GET HERE!!!!


This is what the pantry looked like before I got flooded. TWICE. Once 12 months ago today, and then again in February. So all the water came in through the damp-course (haha) and flooded the floor. And then a million bush rats and mice moved in to keep warm and dry.

Back in June S4, his darling Clancye and their mate Isaac came up and spent a few days moving everything out of the pantry, and S4 and I went shopping for all sorts of lovely paint, plaster, big wide pine boards, cans of expanding gap-filling foam, etc etc to be able to make the pantry vermin proof.
S4 used a big can of the sticky scary alien gap-filling stuff but there are still some gaps in the rammed earth walls that have to be mudded up. He also added a couple of ceiling beams to add false ceiling over (under) what is already there so we can add another layer of insulation to make it REALLY cold in there. On 40* days (like last week) it is only ever about 18* anyway. We still have to add the plaster. And paint it. After I mud up those gaps...

So - this is what my pantry contents still look like. Piled all over the kitchen table, under it, and in a couple of other temporary cupboards I bought at the Tip Shop (for $15...).

Poor old sink cupboard from the Tip Shop with more groceries etc stuffed uncomfortably into it. And still with the old sink intact but with a great lump of melamine on top of it so I can use it as  a proper bench. Temporarily...                                                                 

And I wanted to rip up all this revolting crappy not-enough-cement-in-the-concrete floor and lay more bricks like in the bathroom area.  And to add a couple of courses of bricks as a base under the Rayburn so it is up to the height of the one I grew up with. And because it isn't impressive enough without it's majestic four ovens. So it needs a plinth.      

But that isn't one of the things on my list(s).          

Installing the butler's sink I have sitting out in Outer Bungolia is on the list. Which means building a stand for it. And doing some plumbing, but that is OK cos most of it is sitting waiting from the temporary laundry trough that is still where I wash dishes. (Right photo below)                                                                                                                   

In the Library I want to consolidate all the bookcases (there are a couple more on that mauve wall at the far end, and a big one to the left of the doorway, as well as another on the east wall (about over my right shoulder from where I am taking this photo). And there are three more cases in Outer Bungolia which really should be in the Library so that all the books that are stacked two deep on some of the shelves can be allocated a proper home. And I want to add strips of timber between each to join them, and then paint them.                                                                                               

But that isn't on The Current List either.                                                            

                                                              

Both the floor in the kitchen and these bookcases are all on The Next List...                     

The bathroom is on This List. All of it. I haven't got a photo of it, but I think there is one on my website. Shall have a hunt for it and add the link to it if/when I find it.                        

It is ghastly.       Functional but still in the realms of "Bush Humpy".                                 

Not "primitive" - it isn't that good...      I shall spare you. For the time being...      

                                                                                         

The ABC Radio have just put out a warning for extremely high winds in a cool change that is hurtling up from the south west of the State:

"Issued at 9:45 pm EDT on Tuesday 10 January 2012.

Weather Situation

An active cold front approaching southwestern Victoria tonight will move rapidly eastwards across the State overnight and Wednesday morning.

Damaging winds averaging 50 to 60 km/h with peak gusts around 95 km/h are forecast for the South West, Central, West and South Gippsland and East Gippsland forecast districts and over parts of the North Central and North East forecast districts. Coastal and exposed elevated areas are the most likely regions to be affected.

The State Emergency Service advises that people should:

• Move vehicles under cover or away from trees.
• Secure or put away loose items around your house, yard and balcony.
• Keep clear of fallen power lines."



The tree feller fellows

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Poor Just as well I had this 'heaving' tree cut down in Dec 2010. It was really close to the house (just to the left of the photo) and I was always concerned each time I came home after a bit of a breeze that it would be lying down on my home (and then I wouldn't have to do anything about the pantry or kitchen. Hmmm... Lovely old tree is still cut in lumps waiting to be stacked. Should add that to the Next List... We (we is not the real we cos I only paid and pointed etc, didn;t actually do anything lumberjackly) left one piece bench height - I might add a basin on top of it for the bathroom. Cos there isn't a basin in the bathroom yet. I could figure out some way of making a hole for the drain-pipe stuff. And some cute dish for a basin. I bought glass drilling bits at Aldi a few months ago just so I can make a plug-hole in something basin-like.  Ignore the 'poor' under the tree photo - it was the start of a sentence and attached itself there and I don't know how to remove it without removing the tree photo. If I can live with it then so can you.    

Doesn't my home look lovely!

PS. And I am going to give the blog a New Year freshen up sometime soon, too.