Saturday
21st May 2005Blog |
May 21st to May 27th 2005 |
Autumn 2005 |
It's been a tiring week for us all. We have all had a slight cold, affecting us all in different ways - Thomas' nose has been running like a tap, I have had headaches and Ann has been under the weather too.
This morning we went to the Village, where I had my haircut
and we then bought a new baby gate. In the old house, we had only one entrance
to the kitchen, and so we managed to get a baby gate from Kyle and Heather (in
exchange for a bottle of Coriole Chenin Blanc) to prevent Thomas getting under
our feet in the kitchen. Now the new house has two entrances to the kitchen,
and it has been difficult for the last few days with Thomas getting excited
by the shiny new oven, and being able to open the pantry cupboard and get out
his own biscuits. I have nearly tripped over him whilst holding hot pans, and
I am concerned about knives, raw meat, flames and cleaning chemicals.
Luckily, Baby Target had 15% off today, and so we managed to get the same brand
as our other gate, which was really lucky, as when we got it home, we needed
to use some of the left-over extension parts from the old gate to make the new
gate fit...
I spent the afternoon doing more to prepare for the footpath along the side of the house. Very boring, tedious and dusty work, but I spent 4 hours digging soil, sieving the soil and shovelling the resulting gravel into the trench I dug to make a bed for the paving that I found.
Liam has been unable to find the coving that I need for the top of the kitchen cabinets, which at least tells me that I had not missed an obvious supplier! I don't know what we are going to do about it, either keep looking, take it all down or replace it with something new.
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Ann has been ironing like a mad woman this weekend - as she knows that for two days this week she will be working, and so needs to keep on top of the household chores… It's a never ending job, to be a mother…
We had a strange call from Linda this morning, she asked if we had any boxes - and we have got them coming out of our ears! I spent a few hours collapsing the boxes down so that I could store them in the shed, so when she came over this morning, I selected some of the stronger and least damaged boxes, so that Linda can put the contents of her old kitchen in to them, whilst their new kitchen is built. Brendan kept Thomas busy, and I showed off the latest stage of the path down the side of the house. We have just enough pavers to complete a narrow band down the side of the house without having to buy anything more than a few bags of sand.
I put a couple of coats of blue paint onto the old bedroom
furniture, and it looks very bright, but still very good. I had put two coats
of undercoat on, to try to cover the brown Formica, but it turns out that the
blue paint that we have bought would have covered just as well, so the undercoats
were not necessary. Never mind - it was fun doing it.
I now have the old stereo out in the garage, we had nowhere else to put it.
It's really old and not very good quality, but it's a way to make use of it
without it going to waste. I rigged up an aerial, so now I can listen to the
radio whilst I am 'tinkering'.
Ann and I went down to our second home - Bunnings - to look at shelves. We want to put up some good looking shelves in the lounge so that Ann can show off her Swarovski collection, and I want to get some shelves for my study so that I can put away some of my bulkier books and files. When we looked around, and found what we wanted, I added up what the cost of one shelf would be - and when it came to nearly $120 we had second thoughts. The brackets and shelves add up quickly, and the glass corner shelves are very expensive. We ended up just getting a slab of pine and two brackets.
For dinner we had the dilemma - do we roast the chicken in the barbeque or in the new oven? Then I realised that we have a rotisserie in the oven, and so we both decided that we wanted to give that a go! After taking the oven apart and working out how to insert the appropriate bits of metal into the right holes, we set if off - spinning over the roast potatoes. The instruction manual for the oven does not mention much at all about using it or maintenance - only installation, and so when I worked out that one of the bits of metal that I did not know what to do with was the handle for the grill tray, we were both quite relieved.
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Yesterday, whilst tinkering in the garage, I noticed a poster
on the wall. It was a brochure style plan of kitchen cabinet carcasses. I then
realised that it was from the supplier of the kitchen - Duraform. The address
of Duraform is only 2 minutes from my
work, and so I thought that it would be helpful for me to drop in during lunch
to get the coving moulding for the top of the new kitchen cabinet that Liam
built, and to see if I could match the work surface to get a new benchtop for
the side of the oven.
I was happy to see that they sold the laminated benchtops, and even managed
to see a bit of the moulding
in a cupboard (it was an off-cut and not on display). I then went to the reception
desk to ask for a quote, but they told me that they don't sell to the public,
and that I must contact an authorised reseller to get a quote from them.
When I contacted Halliday Hardware - their advised reseller, they told me that I had to fill in an official quote request form (only available from the Duraform office that I had just been sent away from), and that the quote would have to be done by Duraform, but only through Halliday Hardware, and then they would send the quote on to me. It's all very difficult - plus, I can only buy the moulding in 2.4m lengths, even though I only need 0.6m! I will have to get teh quote and find out how much they want to extract from me...
Thomas is saying Daddy and Mummy more often now - he will
point at us and call out to us, until we say 'yes?' or 'good boy'. When I come
home, he will notice my car pull in to the driveway, run up to the window, pound
on the glass and call out 'daddy, daddy' and then run to the door to greet me.
It's very sweet, but the problem is that when Thomas wants his dummy, he calls
it 'daddy'. It's strange, as he can say 'mummy' and 'daddy', but not the combination
of the two for 'dummy'. Ann was saying that Thomas is trying to pass some sort
of comment, but I think that Ann has been talking about me behind my back...
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Ann had trouble sleeping last night, a mixture of apprehension and excitement about the job today. Ann also managed to prepare everything for Thomas' stay at daycare and brief me on what to do.
Ann took the Obahn in to the City, whilst I took Thomas in to daycare on the way to work. It was really quite easy and convenient for both of us - we both got in to work on time without any problems, and Thomas was quite happy to be dropped off. Ann had told me where to put the dummy, bag, drink, fruit etc. when dropping off Thomas, but it turned out that Thomas knew where everything was to go, and he showed me.
Ann had a good day at work, managing to progress well and get a lot done. She is in the office of one of the partners who is off climbing Everest, so unfortunately she is on her own, but on the other hand it's a great view! There was a fire drill in the office, and when Ann was returning, she bumped in to an old colleague in the lift. He was pleased to see her again and caught up on what has happened in the last 5 years since she last worked there in October 2000. He didn't twig as to why Ann was in the lift, and even asked her which floor she wanted...
I unpacked the last cardboard box from moving today. It was
a box of CDs and computer games, including some CDs that we don't recognise.
After a bit of discussion, we worked out that they must have been left behind
by my mother when she came over at Christmas time.
Typically, today was the first day that the house was empty during the day since
we have moved in, and today was the day that they tried to deliver a parcel
that my mother had sent from England nearly three weeks ago. Eleanor has been
quite concerned that the parcel had not yet turned up, and the day that it did,
we were not in!
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Another day at work for Ann. When she arrived, she was very distressed to hear that they were not yet ready for her, and almost sent her back home. Ann asked if she could do anything for anyone else, and that kept her busy for a while.
I had to go to collect the parcel from the Post Office, but when I got there, I found that it was only open from 9am-5pm and so I then had to go back during my 30 minute lunch break. Frustratingly, there was an old woman in the queue in front of me who was sending a parcel to Denmark, and when she was asked what was in it, she listed off foods and a toy gun and was told that it may get rejected. When she was told that it would cost over $90, she complained that the contents was only worth $20... At that stage, another assistant turned up to open another counter for me, but the old woman was still trying to argue down the postage cost when I left.
Thomas had a great day at daycare, filling up his clothes with sand to bring home. I picked him up a little earlier than I had written in the book, as I had a meeting that finished early and left straight after. Thomas gave me a big cuddle when I arrived, which was good as none of the staff there had seen me before.
It still has not rained properly in most parts of Australia, and it has been in the news that Parliament House in Canberra has been unfortunately loosing water from the fountain at the front, enough water to keep a few farmers' crops from dying.
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Today I had a massage at work. It's subsidised by the University,
and it only costs $6 for 15 minutes, to be prodded by a burly man with very
strong fingers. A couple of weeks ago, he gave me a massage whilst I was sitting
in a chair, but this week, he had a full padded table with the hole for the
face.
The last time that I had a massage like that was when I went to Cyprus. The
'health centre' features of the hotel were frequently pushed to the guests,
and my brother was the first to take advantage of a massage. He had a shoulder
and neck massage, and I noticed that the massage was given to him by a very
attractive redhead, so I decided to sign up for the full monty. When I arrived
for my full body massage the next afternoon, I was a little shocked to see that
it was being given by a very large, hairy Greek man, who would not have looked
out of place in a wrestling ring. I must have made a reaction, because when
he shook crushed my hand he asked if everything was OK. When he took
me into a small room and asked me to get undressed, I carefully climbed onto
the bed - face down - and clenched my teeth when I heard him oiling up (it later
turned out to be his hands) - as I was unsure as to what was going to happen.
The massage was tough, but relaxing, and I nearly fell asleep at the end.
Today was Australia's Biggest Morning Tea for the Cancer Council, and both Ann and I were involved. At the University, there were cakes and savoury nibbles, and most of the IT department came along. Ann is involved in a play group on Thursdays, and today she was rostered on to help with the setup. Ann arrived in plenty of time to prepare, and started on cutting up cakes and carefully laying them out on plates. Later, when the cakes were brought out, Ann was dismayed to find that the cake was laid out differently - so someone obviously did not approve of Ann's handywork!
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It finally started to rain last night, I could hear the rain trickling down in the middle of the night. It was not much, but enough to get the dust out of the air and all over the cars. I'm sure everything will suddenly turn green over the next few days, and then die again if there is no more rain.
Ann took Thomas to his grandparents early today, and then
took the bus off to work for the morning. It was only another couple of hours
of work, but it allowed Ann to see that she can do 2½ days a week with
no problem.
Thomas had a great time, but Shirley was disappointed that Ann did not bring
the Teletubbies DVD, as Thomas was hugging his little Po doll and demanding
to watch the DVD.
When we got home, I was furious to find that there was water coming through the ceiling in our bedroom. A man in a passing car shouted to me that there were some tiles missing from the roof. My first thought was that the wind was not strong enough to have damaged my roof, so I leapt up the ladder that we have borrowed from Liam a few weeks ago, and had a look at the roof. In a valley that is not visible from our footpaths, there were four tiles missing. The tiles were removed by the plumbers when they installed the new gas hot water system, as some of them had been slipped up under the tiles from the row above.
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