Still connected, YAY. We have had some rain, thunder, lightening the whole bit, yesterday there was 21mm in the rain gauge and this morning there was 16mm, keep it coming and that rain tank full.

I am not a shoe person at all, if is comfortable than I wear it, don't wear heels, must have some tread, must be comfortable. However I must mention my last acquisition, the best shoes I have bought in a while (I don't buy shoes), they don't match any skirt but I can wear them with my shorts or with jeans and It doesn't matter if they get wet. They are not stylish but very practical, they are my new gum boots.


Aren't they pretty.


Of course they perfectly match the holey straw hat that seems to be glued to my head these days.


Here is my kitchen, I hope in the very near future will be organised enough and have benches clear enough for me to get back into cooking. I actually bought a packet of biscuits the other day, apart from rice biscuits I can't remember the last time I bought a packet of biscuits. It is so not us to have bought biscuits that I even feel weird eating them, and I really don't want to think about what is in them, so I won't :)


My camping cupboard is still sitting on the veranda with the tool cupboard, when my partner in crime and life gets home we will be able to move them into containers and get them out of the way. Mind you, I don't think we will be doing much camping for a while, though it is nearly like camping here a the moment with all the wandering around in the mud and all :)

I am feeling very time poor at the moment, spending so much time driving up and down the mountain for the school run and various other things. However the bus is back on Monday, though we now have to meet it at 7.30am, fifteen minutes earlier than before (much groaning from me). Anyway, I am looking forward to having the time to do the things I should be doing like cooking and gardening and getting on with our new life here. Should be only a few more weeks and routine will start to kick in, YAY :)

We are still actually connected, so I have emailed people to let them know our email address, however the connection does seem to drop out from time to time so we are hoping we are still online in a week. We have given ourselves a week to sort it all out, I think it will be fine, as long as I don't have to swing off the roof again any time soon :)

We had our new container arrive yesterday and what a mess. The truck got bogged in the middle of the paddock, twice, and the second time we couldn't get it out. The poor truck driver, he was a really nice guy and he had to wait all day for someone to come out. That is actually making a very long story short, so in point form here are some details.


* The truck was bogged about three foot
* It was very hot.
* There was lots of digging going on.
* There a very large truck stuck in the paddock which wasn't going anywhere
* The truck was listing to the left
* The truck kept getting lower
* It wasn't funny till way, way later
* We now have a huge muddy mess to fix including drainage pipes that got squished.
* We are probably going to get another bill.


This is a happy photo of the container before things started going wrong.

I had to drive our number one and only son to school today (please let this be the last day and the bus be on the road tomorrow) so while I was there I went and bought a new shovel. Well, let me tell you, buying a shovel is like buying a letterbox, there are lots of different kinds.


There are post hole shovels, square shovels, light shovels, pointed shovels (not sure if that was a name but the look pointed), shifting shovels, digging shovels, digging and shifting shovels (I got one of these, it is also pointed), long handled shovels. Now don't get these confused with spades, the difference between the two is a spade is girly thing and a shovel is a manly man thing. There is nothing wrong with girly things (like spades) but a manly shovel is much tougher (and spoken in a much lower manly voice), so we have a manly, tough, digging and shifting shovel.

Last night we had another blackout, it was the second on in a month, not sure how regular this will be but we are ready. We have torches, rechargeable batteries and solar charger, solar charger for the all important IPOD belonging to our number one and only son(unfortunately for him I don't think I have unpacked it yet) and of course we have our handy dandy generator. This is currently sitting on the front veranda with the rest of our stuff, and so is close to the meter box if we have a blackout and I need to plug it in and start it :)

So I had now better go and start putting everything back into the original container, the one that didn't get moved due to unforseen circumstances :) It will be staying put and we now have to create a plan D for the extension. So best go do some work and work off those biscuits I just ate :)

I think I might actually be back online. Last night I was hanging off the peak of our roof helping my partner in crime and life attach an antenna so we could receive more than one bar (reception wise). So now we have two bars and that, it seems, is all we need to receive good reception. Though of course my partner in crime and life wants to eventually make it much taller, not sure why, guess it is man thing, everything must be bigger, faster, taller, smaller.


We look like the Beverly Hillbilly's at the moment. You know when they are in their truck, piled high with trunks and furniture and Granny sitting in her chair on the top. Well, that is our house at the moment (without Granny) and today it is worse because the shipping container we ordered arrives today so we had to empty the other one so it can be moved. So lots of things piled up on the veranda and out the back and my partner in crime and life isn't sure why we bother to lock up as there is so much outside.


Our other house is slowly getting tidied up, we have decided to rent it rather than try and sell it. It is still taking longer than we hoped to get organised with it all and my partner in crime and life is working very hard to get it done, we are finding it a bit hard trying to stay on top of everything, get that place done, get things done here running up and down the mountain to do the school run while the bus is off the road (couldn't have happened at a worse time for us with everything going on)and do the regular stuff like washing and cooking. However, when it is all finished with it will be worth it and we will be able to get on with things like gardens and stuff and just being here.


We have finally put away the camping chairs, we now have a lounge to sit on but can barely cook in the kitchen as there is so much in there and we have to look through twenty cupboards before we find that thing we are looking for. I guess it will get organised in time, and hope no-one wants to visit too soon as not sure where the tea is :)

But the sunsets are worth it, and so are the sunrises with the flock of white cockatoos that we disturb when we walk past. This is what we have always wanted and when we have done the initial hard yards we can really enjoy being here :)

Well, I finally have a washing machine and don’t have to work as hard as a pioneer woman. They must have had it hard, and no wonder they only washed once a week, and yes it would have taken all day. I have been washing by hand for only about three or so weeks and all I can say is thank goodness for modern technology that has given us electricity, running water, computers, the telephone, toasters, temperature controlled ovens, and of course washing machines :)

We still don’t have the Internet connected but it has been promised that it is on the way….. I really miss the Internet. So a blog about once a week is all I can get on (hopefully that will change soon) but my partner in crime and life told me to keep writing anyway so I will, then I may post them all at once :)

We are still moving up here and another big push this weekend is on the way with us again hiring a truck to bring (hopefully) the rest of the furniture. We are living around boxes and stuff piled up till it gets here and hopefully with a bit of decluttering it will all fit.


We have now ordered our new water tank and have discovered that the current tank isn’t as big as we were led to believe. It is a 5,000 gallon (23,700 L approx) tank, not a 30,000 L tank (6,500 gallon approx.) that we were told, but that is OK, another one the same size is on the way. We are going to connect them and I expect them to be full at the end of the wet (actually well before that). We had to move a big pile of rocks were the new tank will go, and our number one and only son must have been thinking he might have to call the someone about child labor laws, but he survived. We are still yet to level the area but we have a couple of weeks before it arrives to get the area ready.


We have built ourselves an outdoor shower. Yes, we can now stand in the buff next to the dam and clean all that dirt and grass and sweat and grime off under a cold bore water shower. I think it is a very pretty shower, and we have decided that it is one of the many luxuries we have here. After mowing, moving piles of rocks, brush-cutting we are very dirty and hot (in a clean way for those whose minds tend to run away from them) and stripping off and getting clean is great (and we don’t have to drop grass and dirt though our shouse).



A shouse is what we are living in, part shed, part house and the word was created by a very smart eight year old who visited up here just before the move. I quite like the word and am sticking to it.

I Am Still Here

Well, I am having Internet withdrawal symptoms. Our number one son and myself and now permanently residing on our new plot of land and we still have no Internet. I feel so isolated, I can't read the news, I can't read my sites that I go to daily and I can't write my blog. I am on another computer just to try and catch up while we are waiting to have wireless Internet connected in a rural area GGRRRR I guess some things were not meant to be easy, and those are the things we really want so I suppose they are worth the hard yards.

I can't post any photos yet but am taking quite a few, though not sure if I will post one of myself in my new gum boots, old faded shorts, old holey straw hat and our new brush-cutter that I am using to cut a path to the creek and scare away the snakes. I think just my look would be enough without the very loud sound of a power tool.

We are enjoying it up there and don't seem to want to come to town, it is quiet and much cooler. We have met our neighbours and both seem good, one even invited us over for a few drinks on the weekend and we met all the family, they have kids the same age as our number one and only son and there are a few other floating around.

I started back Tai Chi classes today and it was great to catch up with everyone, I am dropping one class and will only do that one once a month and they will practice without me on the other weeks. I felt bad doing this but it is the practical thing to do and I will still continue with the other class. I plan on inviting my Tai Chi friends up when the dry comes and I am a little more organised (mainly with more chairs).

Well must go, I have school kids to pick up and take home, would you believe it, after only three days at school the school bus is taken off the road for two weeks to have work done. We are now sharing the school run with another dad and the bus driver has promised us a discount on our bus fare.

So much for only coming into town once a week, the best laid plans and all that, oh well......

Hopefully we will get the Internet soon so I can get back into my blog, I haven't really gone away, just hovering around and waiting, I hope it is not too difficult :)