Well here it is a cottage repaired with new weatherboards. As we thought, the carpenters found things that needed repairing. Three stumps replaced as they were rotten, and also a rafter in the roof as well.
Polo,our cat, enjoyed the new space that was under the house and was watching the world go by.
All that is left to be done is the painting!

renovations (finally!)

These are before photos of the front of our house which are going to be replaced starting on Tuesday morning. The carpenters expect to be here for about three days. I will give you updates on the progress later in the week. The power lines and internet cables will be taken down on Wednesday for a day.

Just an update on our bushfires 65 people have lost their lives in the fires and more may come later. The sad thing is some of these fires have been deliberately lit. As well some have been relit after they have been put out. Thankfully the weather has cooled down and we had a little rain this morning.

my burnt garden

ROSE
This is my rose garden after last week's 40+degrees (105degrees f). the roses were struggling with the drought but i think i have lost them now.


ROSE BED


BURNT ROSES


FUCHSIA
This is what 's left of my standard Fuchsia.


GERANIUMS
Even the most hardy plants suffered.


CAMELIA
This 40 year old camelia might not survive to its 41st year.

Boxing Day Sale

Hi everyone,

I have been looking at all your posts and comments.
Hope you all had a merry Christmas?
Helen and I went to the boxing day sales because Helen wanted a portable d.v.d.
we found one at a well known electrical goods store (not Harvey Norman). When we went to plug it in it didn't start. I was already wary of this store as i had an experience once before with a computer dvd which worked for a few minutes then nothing. We had taken it back to the salesman who took it out the back to test it and then came back out and said that it was working fine. He wouldn't let us see it working on a computer and because we had already opened the package we couldn't have our money back or an exchange. This is so stupid as to find out if it is faulty you would have to try it first!
Needless to say i was worried we would have problems.
We went back the next morning and the man looked at it closely and said their was fingerprints on it. Mind you we had it for less than 24 hours. Mark said of course there was, we had to open the lid after all. Sure enough he sent it out the back to test it. Guess what? He said it was working! Mark said what about the charger and the man plugged it in and it didn't come on so we were right, yay!.
So they got another charger from another box and yes it did worked.
What was strange was that he could have given us a new box and kept ours. The store manager asked him why he didn't do that too. He just gave her a look and said he only needed to replace the faulty charger because our dvd player was working okay. Therefore I think the same thing happened to some one else earlier. Because we got a faulty charger with the dvd player that we purchased. The box had already been opened.
I have heard a lot of complaints about this store. They are very reluctant to give you your money back.

My Prize won for me by Kooka

This is what we won at our church fair. I have waited years
to win this. Mark bought 3 more tickets at the last minute.
It was a bit embarrassing as Mark was asked to draw out the raffle ticket.
To his dismay he said it was his ticket. He asked if he should draw another ticket.
I hoped that he wouldn't draw another raffle ticket and luckily everyone said that he won it fair and square.

This is a picture of my happy wanderer over the arch way. It has taken many years to get to this size. Sadly the flowers are just finishing:



Here is a close up:



This our jasmine at our front door. The perfume is devine. It was here when we bought this place twenty-seven years ago. It has survived all these years despite Mark's heavy handed hacking. I remember when my parents came to visit and were aghast at Mark's handiwork. He wasn't forgiven until after it had started to grow again. ha ha ha lol