Ken

Mr Five and the Big "E" had been with us while it rained for the week before Trev arrived, so if he was expecting to settle back and relax for a day two while his jetlag subsided he was sadly mistaken.

Perhaps it was because the temperature in Bristol had been a balmy minus three when he left, and we were now, just two days later dragging him off west of the Range, in temperatures approaching forty degrees, that he seemed so spend a goodly part of his time in the front seat with matchsticks propping his eyes open.

On our way out we'd seen all manner of things foreign to a Pom; empty roads, flood markers, utes with testicles and we'd even heard bellbirds.   It had been quite a tour, but we'd promised much, much more.

During previous visits to the Jondaryan woolshed we'd been shown the place by ex-shearers or jackaroos with names like "Bluey" or "Curly" who had dogs called "deefer" and rollies hanging from the corners of their mouths or unlit behind their ears, and we'd been regaled with tales of the good old days in the sheds.

We had made no small point of explaining to our guest that he was about to leave a lot wiser than he already was, indeed, the best was yet to come we insisted. Perhaps we should not have painted such a vivid picture.

Today we were introduced to "Ken". I have of course no disrespect for those with that moniker, after all my own brother stands tall among them, but this particular "Ken" had clearly left his gabbing equipment in the crib room before he set off.  When, just one sentence into his patter he apologised, informing us that he'd had a week off and hadn't got all the necessary stuff back into his head yet, we may have been wise to have backed slowly away there and then.

But we didn't, preferring instead for the benefit of our Pom, to fill the gaps with our own formidable repertoire of anecdotes and lies.

The highlight of Ken's entire discourse and perhaps the day if not the year, arrived during our tour of the wheelwright's shed, when pointing sternly at the brick hearth in the blacksmith's corner he turned to all who were still listening and remarked, with words that will ring in our ears for ever:

"That's an original concrete, thing."

A final touch-up

With the echoes of the scruffy horde still faintly audible along the hallway, and half of them returning within the week there seemed that there was no time like the present to get the last of the walls sanded and sealed before hanging up the handyman tools for the year. 

 Given the choice between doing nothing and continuing to work on the house for the next few months it doesn't take a giant intellect to work out what I'd rather be doing, and with "visitor season" fast approaching, we have concluded that it's time for "pencils down, hands away!" 

By now though, all the walls have a new sealer coat, ready to be finished once the ceilings are done, and really only detail work will remain for the new year. 

 So on with life it is!

Happy New Year - Backdated!

Happy New Year to all, backdated of course to make it look as though I didn't forget. In a number of European countries, nothing is more important than time away from the "office" in the peak of summer. 

How we've chuckled as we've walked past restaurants in resort locations closed at the peak of the holidays as the family concerned take a well earned break, seemingly oblivious to the fact that their businesses could be seeing record turnover due to the influx of holiday makers. We thought we might even go hungry in Paris one summer evening last year as we walked from one establishment to another unable to find one that didn't have a hastily written note wishing us well while the owners frolicked somewhere else. 

It's those "this would never happen at home" experiences which make travel worthwhile, and there's no point in grumbling, after all it's all kind of quaint if one thinks about it. 

We didn't rise till well into the morning on New Year's day, and on the spur of the moment we both decided that we'd start the year quietly sipping coffee, with perhaps a toasted something while sitting beside the beach at Moffs. It's not something we do often, and as we walked in the bright mid morning sunshine, we could almost smell the coffee being roasted before our very nostrils. 

But it was not to be. Moffat Beach you see, can now be ranked as a truly international destination, vying in the quaintness stakes for a position among the best Europe has to offer. 

The evidence? 

 On every door a handwritten sign which read: "closed for the holiday".

Chaos and Cholesterol

Chaos is, I have come to understand, like cholesterol.  There's the good kind and the bad kind, and it's been of the former for a few days when every man and his dog squeezed in under our unfinished ceilings to celebrate Christmas, life, noise and anything else they could think of.  Concurrently.

Our long suffering neighbours had guests of their own, but they suffered in silence, perhaps not willing to show their faces lest we should spill over into their house as well.

They were not to know that that was never a possibility as the recent modifications at Dickyworld have been pronounced by all the attendees to be entirely satisfactory, and we all seemed to be able find a place to hide that suited our own particular definition of comfort as energy levels fluctuated without synchronicity.   Perhaps the renovations have been too satisfactory, as there is talk among all who were present of a repeat event!

Now the resumption of normal programming has begun.  The guest list has reduced to just Miss Lily and her Mum now, and the world is almost silent once again ready for the sander to start on the one remaining room I would have thought.

Perhaps I should wait a day or two, or maybe a week.

Oh ye of little faith!

To be fair, the paint has only its seal coat, and the Danish oil on the timber work, including the kitchen bench top extension is still a little tacky, but we got there with about twenty minutes to spare before the first of the scraggy hordes began to trickle in.

I don't understand the psychology of the deadline, what it is that makes shopping centres open on time when just the night before there was a year or two worth of work left to do, but what ever it is, it works around this place as well.

I think it safe to say that we've broken the back of the renovation, from now we'll be chugging along at a much more relaxed pace, perhaps our reporting will reflect that too!

And now for the Christmas tree.

Chaos!

Were one to categorise the degree of chaos we are currently living in, I think it would be apt to give it an "utter" rating.  We have reached something of a crescendo though, with dust having crept under every cover and a few walls still to go.

But there has been progress.  The keen eye may notice the new ceiling fans, which nicely compliment the light fittings now installed, switches and power points might even be functioning by week's end.   Of course Brendon our long suffering plasterer is almost done as well, and another two or so days of sanding walls will see me ready to start the sealer coat.

That is after I finish the temporary kitchen cupboard extensions of course.  

We are settling down to a dull roar now though with the messy stuff almost over until the new year when we tackle the ceilings, and we can see an end to the disorder.   Perhaps it's not an end, rather just the end of the prelude.

On Friday, the chaos returns accompanied by noise as well, the sort of noise that ear protection cannot reduce.  On Friday we shall be occupied by things other than building for a few days, as the scruffy horde descends, and the centre of attention turns to grandchildren, all three.

Perhaps I shall just snooze on the couch under the covers and they'll be unaware of my presence!

Itchy and scratchy.

The insulation in our roof may look all yellow and fluffy, which is exactly the way insulation is supposed to look, but on closer inspection there are some gaps. 

Large gaps. 

Our very own CSIRO says that a gap as small as 5% in the insulation layer will reduce its efficiency by over 50%. By my quick sums we have an efficiency of somewhere around minus 300% which is quite a staggering thought really and goes a long way towards explaining why, given the right conditions inside the house can become quite uncomfortably warmer than outside.  

If there's anything worse than being of large frame in a confined space, it's being of large frame in a confined space full of dust when the space is inside a roof and the temperature is unpleasantly warm, cutting up bits of fibreglass insulation while the next ten year's quota of perspiration does it's best to ensure that the little shards of fibreglass stick to any exposed skin and work their itchy way below the surface. 

Perhaps that's why when the insulation was installed in our place they got out as quickly as they could without actually doing anything particularly useful with the fibreglass batts apart from storing them in the ceiling for convenience of some future owner. 

 It's all a bit of a shame really, because having decided that one of us would need to fix the problem, every time I looked around for a volunteer she'd be off doing some important job and couldn't possibly spend an hour or so doing a fair imitation of pilates in a sauna while lying on a bed of nails. 

Realising that there's have to be compromise if we were going to make progress, I started last night, and worked till midnight pretending that it was comfortable, that I was imagining the heat, and the fact that my clothes looked like I'd just been for a swim in them would have been pleasurable if I actually had. The first half is done, and in only took an extra twenty square metres of insulation to fix. I'd do the rest tonight, but I still remember how uncomfortable it was, and I think I'll wait till the rash has gone and the itching  has subsided. 

 We had the western facing windows tinted yesterday too, so ready as we are to thumb our noses at summer, today the cool change arrived.