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Saturday 14th May 2005

What a tiring day! Brendan came over this morning to help me out with some work in the garden. I was in the garage and had started painting some of Ann's parents' old furniture that we have, with special paint that sticks to glossy formica. I had to sand it down and put on two coats, but it looks much lighter and brighter in white than in dark brown.

When Brendan arrived, I gave him some gloves that I had bought for $2 the day before, and we went down the back of the garage to carry all the paving slabs that had been piled up there. After a few journeys, we had taken them all to the side passage of the house that is unsealed gravel and soil path. I now need to lay all of these slabs so that the foundations of the house do not get washed out by heavy rain, and that termites do not burrow into the joists. There should be just enough to lay a single row of pavers - all for free.

Brendan and I then started on clearing the garden, chopping up some of my prunings, and then building a compost heap in the back of the garden. We found a couple of metal stakes that I hammered into the soil, and then attached the plywood panels that had been used for shipping over some of our pictures from England a year ago. We cleared out an area of the soil, and found large (rather attractive) rocks in the ground, followed the row of them behind the shed and found a large heap of great looking stones that will make a great looking rockery - the only problem is that the gap between the fence and the shed is too small to get a person in - or the rocks out.
We were impressed by how well it all went together, a nice big area for all my prunings - there will be plenty of them when I chop out most of the old and overgrown plants in the garden.

The next job for me was to prime and paint some of the pipework at the back of the house. Now that the old water heater has been removed, there are gaps on the wall where the pipes were painted cream over and the original wall colour - pink. I found a large tin of exterior textured cream paint in the shed, and so whipped it out and started slapping it on the walls and pipework. I had primed the plastic pipes with the same paint that I had used to cover the formica, so that the top coat would stick - but the undercoat is bright white so I had to cover it with the textured top coat. After a few minutes of painting, we found that the tin of paint that had come from the shed was a slightly different shade to the wall - too light. I then had to make a decision - leave the primed white pipework and pink bricks, or put on the textured paint that is a slightly different shade. I decided to get rid of the white and pink, but that leaves us with a dilemma - re-paint the whole wall in the lighter colour, or try and get a small tin of colour to match!

Finally, it started to rain today - the first rain that we have had in Adelaide for a few months. Much of it has run off the surface, but will still got that great smell of summer rain.

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Sunday 15th May 2005

A bit more of a relaxing day, we decided to drive to Angaston in the Barossa Valley to have a coffee and a look around. We went to the 'Company Kitchen' which is not part of a vineyard, unlike most of the other places to go to eat and have coffee in the wine region. It was a bit disappointing when the coffee and 'cream tea' scones came to $20 - and worse was that the scones tasted like they had just been unwrapped from a supermarket wrapper. Thomas had a great time, as there was a large lawn to run around, with a very big olive tree and leaves being blown in the wind. Thomas was chasing the leaves and found it really funny when the wind was blowing them around.

We drove through the Barossa and took in some more of the scenery and dropped in at Saltram Wines and St Hallett wines, as we know that they sell their wine for less than the bottle shops do ($8/£3 a bottle). Then we took a new route home, through the tree-lined roads to Williamstown, which ended up coming out at Tea Tree Gully, only a short drive from our new house.

Cathy came over to see us, and so Ann gave her a birthday present. As it was her first visit, we gave Cathy a guided tour - but really, when Cathy came in, she asked Thomas to show her his room, and Thomas charged off to his bedroom. Thomas then lead the rest of the tour, until he got as far as his DVD player - when he insisted on watching Teletubbies, and the tour contined on without him. By the time we had sat down in the lounge with a bottle of bubbly, Thomas had abandoned his Tele watching to join us and be sociable. Cathy's present was a framed photo of her godson, wrapped in red cellophane. Thomas was really excited to see the picture of himself, and then started playing with the cellophane to see the world through the red plastic.

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Monday 16th May 2005

In South Australia, it was a bank holiday today. It's been a bit overcast, so a little cooler, but we all took advantage of the extra day and had a lie-in. Thomas slept until 7:30, and so when I got him up, I started to prepare a fried breakfast, it's great to just sit and drink fresh coffee and read the Sunday newspapers.

When Thomas was having his afternoon snooze, I took advantage of the time to do some more work in the garden - raking the 'thatch' out of the lawn. All the dead grass from within the lawn made a pile nearly a foot deep and tree feet across - just from the back garden.
Thomas was still asleep, so I got started on the path at the side of the house. In the survey, it was pointed out that there was no path or concrete to seal the foundations of the house from water damage or from termite access. I started on scraping out the gum tree leaves, and then found that I need to dig out the gravel and soil, because otherwise when I lay the paving slabs, they will be higher than the damp-proof course. So, I started to dig, and then realised that I would need to lay gravel under the concrete, so started to sieve the soil away from the gravel, to put the gravel back in to the hole that I had dug. I now have a pile of dusty soil and a 300mm row of 15mm gravel that is 80mm deep.

This afternoon Liam and Shirley dropped over, and we all sat outside to have a coffee and chat. Liam has offered to get the replacement coving for the top of the new kitchen cabinet that we built together - I hope that he is more successful than I was...
Ann and I were intending to go out shopping at Big W for some bits and pieces for the house - but then Liam reminded us that it is a public holiday and so everything would be closed.

So, we went to Bunnings (again!) instead. I wish they had some sort of rewards scheme or points awarded for each dollar - I would get some significant payback! When going around, I saw so many things that I want need may eventually get, including packaged drainage systems and lots of cool handles for the kitchen cabinets. More money to spend - later...

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Tuesday 17th May 2005

We got the sad news about Kylie today. We have tickets for the 'Showgirl' concert in Adelaide, which Ann queued for over an hour to get the tickets for, and got sold out within a few minutes. We were really looking forward to the concert for months, and now we don't know when it will be on - if at all. It's good that she was diagnosed at the early stages.

Ann had an agency interview today, and they tested her, including 'data entry' that Ann has not done for years. Ann got a good score, and the agency said that they would let her know if they find anything.

I have put some more pictures of Thomas up, and some pictures of the inside of our new house.
I never said that our phone number for the new house has stayed the same.

At daycare today, Thomas had a tuna mornay and then slept for three hours - when he was 'handed back' to Ann this afternoon, they expressed hope that Thomas would sleep tonight.

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