Transformations #2

I haven't had much sleep this week: quite apart from the dog barking at the wind all last night (Toby, I hope your big floppy ears are burning...), there has been a lot of burn-off smoke, a lot of late night working and some sleep-walking children to factor in. So I wasn't terribly impressed to find that the concreters were planning a 6:30am start this morning. But it was worth it: darling daughter and I achieved our showers and dressing before they arrived and disconnected the gas bottles at the back of the house, and by the time we made our (uncharacteristically early) way to school this morning half of the concrete was already down.

































































The nice large square area in the above photograph is where we used to put the bins and recycling, but no more! Once the vegetable beds are back, there are permanent planting of shrubs and flowers, the living wall to shade the back of the house and a few tasteful tubs I reckon this is going to be a lovely place to sit so I'm planning chairs, a table, and a good coffee...





















Toby had to stay indoors most of the day (I didn't think paw prints immortalised in concrete were the finishing touch we were looking for), but it has set enough now for him to be allowed a night-time stroll. The gas bottle has been reconnected, we have hot water and cooking facilities again, and I can have a lie-in tomorrow! I will need it as I've promised to take darling daughter to see the Smurfs movie in the morning. * gurgle *

Transformations

Do you remember when our friends built us a veggie garden in the wasteland behind our house? Well we've just trashed it, but all in the name of home improvements. We discovered last summer just how bad mould can be! It was everywhere: clothes, furniture, cupboards... I am not someone who usually reacts to things like that (skin allergies, yes; hayfever, yes; other respiratory problems? No!) but even I was wheezing, despite wiping everything down repeatedly with tea tree oil, eucalyptus oil... and whatever other home remedies were recommended by those experienced in the ways of "Coffs Harbour mould".

Once the humidity levels died away and the mould went too we researched our options to prevent us going through the same thing again, and it boils down to sufficient ventilation under the house + facilitating water moving away from the house. You know how hard and often it rains here... buckets of the stuff, especially over the summer, and we've built fairly close to the hillside, and on clay. Consequently the vegetation around the house retains water, the clay prevents water from draining away, and the position of the house doesn't maximise cross-ventilation under the house. Well, you live and learn.










































Last weekend we dug out our veggie garden (* sniff *), but only temporarily, and relocated the plants to the big veggie patch down the hill. The wonderful soil brought in by our lovely friends went to fill up the planter box built into the side of our verandah, which has languished, unloved and full of big bits of polystyrene (packaging materials: useful to add bulk to the bottom of the planter so that we don't need to find 1.5 cubic metres of expensive soil to fill it!). The clay at the back of the house has been dug and compacted to slope away from the house and towards the agricultural drains that will be put in along the edge of the hillside, and concrete will be laid on top, both to help the water run towards the drains and to give us (finally!) a smooth, hard path around the house. There are planting areas built into the new layout which will give us both the veggie and herb gardens back plus room for permanent planting, and the lower batter of the slope will be weed-matted and planted up with something nice, although we haven't yet decided what. There will be enough room for a table and chairs out there, which is a nice sun trap in spring and autumn, and we'll finally be able to use the big washing line.

The next step of the process is to put two big fans into the crawl space under the house: they don't use much electricity (useful when you're on solar power!) and will have timers so they don't run all day, but in theory the increased circulation of air, combined with reduced build-up of water, will mean less mould.










































Lastly, we're taking the opportunity to provide some extra shade in summer by planting a 'living wall' along the back deck. We discovered that in mid-summer the angle of the sun over the ridge of rainforest at the back means that it shines into the hall and the laundry for several hours in the afternoon, which heats up the whole house. We're putting in big wooden posts, tensioned with the sort of cables you see around swimming pools, and we're going to grow vigourous but deciduous climbers up the frame! Current favourite suggestions include wisteria, grape vines and kiwi fruit, but I fancy filling in the gaps - if there are any - with things like runner beans, so we'll see how we go. It's very exciting.





















And this is the planted-up planter. We absolutely should NOT have gone to a garden centre last weekend, and when we did we should NOT have enjoyed a very nice coffee and cake in their lovely cafe, and when we'd spent the money we don't have on that little bit of indulgence we absolutely should NOT have eyed off the specialist grower's new consignment of bromeliads... Somehow we found ourselves at the till with a trolley load of shade-loving tropical goodies, trying not to look at the total. I felt the least I could do was plant up the planter box immediately.

Rain, rain, go away

Have I mentioned that it rains quite a lot in Coffs Harbour? Apparently we usually get 125mm in November, and 13 days of rain in the month. Not too bad. Well according to the Bureau of Meteorology we've had 464mm (almost half a metre) of rain in the last 2 days, with 354mm in the space of 6hrs on Friday evening alone. And it's only November 8th.

We haven't been badly affected: darling daughter's school remained open, as did local shops, and so although driving has been hazardous it hasn't been that bad. About 45 families in central Coffs Harbour have been evacuated due to flooding but it isn't as bad overall as the March 31st floods, thank goodness. We don't yet know what's happened on our block. We were up there on Thursday morning, before the rain started, and the building work was coming on apace. We were there with the electrician, placing power points and a TV point around the walls of the office/studio building, and watching the roof joists going up on the main house. But on Friday the builders weren't able to get up there and I'm not yet sure if that is because the road was blocked, covered in water or washed away again... fingers crossed it's not the 'washed away' scenario, because that will be a huge financial headache as well as delaying the building, which isn't good news!

Then the good stuff

Which is the Class 2 camp I went on with darling daughter last week! Three blissful days at Woody Head, which is near Iluka on the northern coast of New South Wales. Practically Queensland, in fact.





















Woody Head camping ground is slap in the middle of Bundjalong National Park, and has kilometres of pristine beaches, safe swimming areas and shallow snorkelling so it's perfect for kids. There's also a fabulous rock platform with deeeeeep rock pools, places to fish, a kiosk that serves decent coffee and it's clean. It's so good, in fact, that I've picked up the brochure and plan to spend some time up there with my family.
















The whole thing was new to me: I am unfamiliar with Australia's National Parks, know nothing about that part of the coastline, have never been to a formal camping ground and I've never taken 20 children (5 of whom have special needs of one sort or another) away for three days before... on Tuesday evening before we left I was seriously asking myself WHAT WAS I THINKING? I mean, I'd only got off a plane a few days beforehand!





















In fact it was really good fun, if very hard work. Ruth, the class teacher, is amazing: calm, well-prepared, doesn't need to raise her voice, and completely organised. Also, we weren't in tents but were staying in the conference centre which is two huts with bunk rooms for the children and private rooms for most of the adults, plus a fire pit, a barbeque and a fully-equipped kitchen so we weren't roughing it at all. Some of you may sneer and say it wasn't really a camping experience, but for this lot it was enough. The children rose to the occasion magnificently: the tears on the first night (many of them had never spent time away from both parents before and missed their mummies and daddies dreadfully, so I got to give out LOTS of cuddles, which was nice) gave way to unadulterated enthusiasm by the next morning. Ruth had organised teams with one adult and several "helpers' each to do various tasks: prepare breakfast/morning tea/lunch/afternoon tea/dinner, clear it up, do the cleaning on the way out, serve food, make food... and they did it all with very few complications. I was really impressed actually: 8 year olds aren't renowned for their organisational skills, patience or dexterity but they completed their tasks and were able to take responsibility for things like having a shower after swimming in the sea, cleaning their rooms, packing and unpacking and keeping things tidy.

Tomorrow it's back to school and they will spend a few days de-briefing and learning from their experiences and each doing a page in a book I'm going to make for them. I'll make a box with compartments for treasure we found on the trip, and I'll turn all the drawings and writing into concertina books to go into the box. The class will be able to keep it as a permanent reminder of their adventures.

It was a lovely break from reality! Now I have to get back to the real world and focus on things like the accounts, business cashflow, getting the car serviced, the house-building project, Board stuff for the school, oh... and also doing some of my work! I'm finding shuttling between two houses very tiring as it adds a good 2 hours of driving each day, and I'll be glad to get back into our Korora house, hopefully next weekend. It will be a filthy pit but at least we'd be sleeping in the same place as our belongings.

House building

If you want to update yourself about the progress of our house...







... have a look here!