Dust Keeps the Furniture Warm

Wednesday, 10 September 2014

Another Quick Update

Progress report as of the end of August.......

The yard looks like this......

.........and our living spaces look like this........

The dust is thick enough to felt into a blanket, however, these pics will tell you the story......

Some may be a little out of order but you will get the idea. We are in the home stretch now and should be complete in about 2-3 weeks time.

Sue xxxx

Tuesday, 19 August 2014

Progress Report

The past couple of weeks have seen these changes.

Lucy the supervisor working out the next move......

After 19 years, he who put it up began to take it down.

......and down.....

This was largely my job......

....until we were at this point.....

Then we exchanged 2 dogs for 4 builders......

Ande pretty soon it looked like this.......

........and this.......

......and this......

By Friday afternoon we had this........8 cubic metres of it.......

Which was perfect timing because since then we've had strong wind and quite a bit of rain........

Apparently rain is good for setting a slab - in any case the builders can't take the next step until it has had about a week or so to firm up properly.

We have had a couple of deliveries in the meantime so things are set to move on either Friday or Monday - depending on what the weather decides to do.

The living room is currently a sea of boxes but so far I haven't needed anything already packed up. Wish me luck on that one.....

Sue xxxx

Sunday, 10 August 2014

South Pacific (Not the Musical)

Back home from an adventure I had never thought I would have the opportunity to experience - sailing the Pacific Ocean - albeit a tiny part of it, though enough for me. Our friend (with beautiful catarmaran) invited us to join him for part of his grand adventure which saw him leave Wollongong on Easter Sunday and return home sometime in October. (We were crew number 4).

That tiny speck in the ocean is where we were headed.

The northern group of Tongan Islands.

Much like the Whitsundays in northern Australia.

And from Google satellite maps it looks like this......

We arrived in Tongatapu at 2:30am and as we were scheduled to fly to Vava'u around 8am we thought it would be easy to go to the domestic terminal and settle in there to wait for 4 hours before we were supposed to check in. WRONG!

For a start, the 'terminal' (little more than a shed) was completely locked up, no kiosk, taps, toilets and little light. (You begin to realise how spoilt we are....) We were left to sit out the quite chilly night air on plastic chairs - or share the wooden bench with Milo - a young aussie bloke also joining a boat in Vava'u as crew.

We were taken care of though by a local family with a family member also travelling on the morning flight. They were well equipped with blankets and food and invited us to join them to eat or sleep on the ground with them. We chatted but declined their kind offers but did accept some water to drink. They kept a close eye on us and periodically asked if we wanted food or a blanket, even putting a blanket over Milo as he hunkered down on the bench trying to keep warm and sleep.

The family camped right at the door.

We were frequently 'serenaded' by roosters wandering in the vicinity and just on dawn bells in a convent next door, then churches in the vicinity began to ring. In a nutshell - zero sleep.......

Milo waking up.....

Around 6:30 cars off-loaded staff and the doors of the terminal creaked open. We checked our bags in and discovered our flight would be leaving at 9 (or thereafter).

Mercifully the cafe next door opened around 7am and I had the best toast and pot of tea I've had in a long time. Sometimes the small things make a huge difference......