After two years of pain, heartache and bullshit, we collected the keys to our new house from the builders yesterday. So, finally it’s ours! (oh…. yes, and the banks!). We are lucky in as much as we have been able to get the carpets in, the walls painted and the floor tiling done – most people aren’t able to start any of this until hand over, so although the builders have messed us around chronically, at least we are slightly ahead of the game in that respect.
The paver has reached a compromise with us and is prepared to finish the rest of the job, which is another relief! I’ve got the carpet installers coming tomorrow to explain the butcher-job that they’ve done on our new, virgin walls and we have the blind company coming on Thursday to sort out the issues with those. The alarm was connected today by our friendly tech, Jason.
We had to go into the builders offices in Perth to collect the keys. There was a manual as thick as your arm with all the information on the appliances and all the guarantees etc and we were given the keys and a little ‘congratulations’ gift. However, as soon as we got back to the house, we realised the bleeding door key doesn’t fit the front door!! We had a choice of ‘white wine’ or ‘white wine’ as all the red had gone (surprise!)
There’s still a lot of cleaning to be done in the house. I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much dust! Actually, that’s a blatant lie, obviously. Have you seen my housekeeping skills? Paul and I leave memos for each other scrawled in the dust on my desk. I get all my ‘mothering’ skills from my Mum. Hoovering is done diligently once a fortnight (whether it needs doing or not!). I bought a carpet sweeper today in Woolies. The old fashioned one that was used in the days of dinosaurs and no electricity. I remember my Nan used to have one. I was excited to unpack it tonight and had 10 minutes unbridled pleasure tormenting the pants off the dog before the kids took it off me and spoilt my fun :o(
So, everytime we go to the house now, we have to take something with us; that way we’ll slowly start to accumulate our things at the new house without having to break our backs doing it all in one hit.
We had a fab trip out on the boat on Sunday - our longest ever journey. We made it all aroung Garden Island and the small island to the top left is Rottnest. We were only about 16 miles away - that's our lifelong ambition, to take the boat to Rottnest! Oh, we're such salty sea dogs!
The 'E' is Secret Harbour (home) and the 'S' is where the boat is moared in Mandurah. Good going, eh?
We anchored twice too (aren't we getting efficient) and Paul and the kids did some fishing. We didn't catch anything (or see any dolphins as close as Paul did!), but it was fun trying.
And last for today, here's a photo of Miss Parcel, just because she looks beautiful and thoughtful in it:
Cheery bye!
