Flintstones carport

This 'Flintstones' carport was a safety hazard (it was leaning on one side and it was held up by a steel rope tied to the house!) so it had to go. FIL was hard at work for a whole weekend to remove this carport.

Roof is almost gone.


Four columns left.


Nearly done.


All gone.

Snaps around the house (1)

Lara playing in the chicken coop:


Zeb and the chickens got along fine. The problem was the fencing around the hosue and the chicken coop. We kept finding Zeb in the neighbour's backyard, front yard or inside of the chicken coop (eating chickens food and their poo!). Today we found Zeb lying in the chickens' house! I was seriously thinking about getting rid of the chickens after they pecked a couple of people and kept flying out of their chicken coop. Life is very busy when you keep finding your chickens and dog wondering around in places where they shouldn't be!

Lara entertained herself on moving day:


Moving day (removalists moving big items) was brought forward by 3 days for a variety of reasons, we then took what was left by ourselves over the next few days - it took more trips than we imagined. Moving early and getting sick (cold) meant we only painted half of the house. There are still many boxes in the garage and study, they will have to be sorted out slowly.

Simon's new vey important, had to have it toy - line streamer:


Nothing escaped the streamer!
Many neighbours came over and said hi. They all commented on how the garden already looked a lot better. We have some ideas about what we want to do to the garden. Exactly when and how we will implement these will take some time to work out.

Making progress

We took possession of our new hosue on Friday. We have been there whole day every day since then. There are so much to do!

We had 3 unexpected but welcomed visits on Saturday. The neighbours on the left told us a few things about this house - it was built just after the war by a physicist and his wife. It was a shame that the last of the original owners died last week so we wouldn't be able to speak to them.

We bought $500 worth of paint on Sunday. The colour was decided at the last minute (Stowe white won over Berkshire white at the end). Simon now has the big job of painting the whole house before we move in next week. Both Simon and I are a little run-down and Simon's coming down with a cold and wouldn't stop sneezing today.

The new tenants signed the contract on the weekend so we now have a date we have to move out. It feels like things are really happening whereas before it felt like we could move out next month or next year when there was no date in sight. Removalist booked today. We also took things there every time we went (the 2 places are less than 5 minutes away). We are making good progress towards moving.


Grand-dad working on the gutters. The condition of the gutters is not bad.
They just need a good clean.


Chickens having a feed. Lara loves the chickens and wants to see them all the time. The chickens were a little scared of us on Saturday, but by Monday they were picking the bag I had the food in as soon as I walked in. The chicken coop is pretty dirty (as well as the rest of the hosue) and it needs a good clean too.


One of the few photos I took of the inside was this blurred one.
Lara was probabaly saying 'Mum, Honey ate my cheese!".