My first Australia Day!

I celebrated my first Australia Day last Saturday with a bit of work in the garden supported by the whole Millis family (they are so helpful, it is brilliant!) and then a delicious burger BBQ all with stubbies, flies and Aussie pants.


It was so hot that day that I decided to christian my paddling pool, Great IDEA!!! James filled it up and Craig chucked in some ice cubes... aahhh!!! What a relief!



It is unbelievable how many flies there are since the big rain. Quite disgusting! We have put up a fly trap, wondering if it would work. Over the next 24 hrs we were mesmerised (especially with that hangover)by watching this plastic container fill up at an amazing speed with hundreds and hundreds of flies. Absolutely yuk!!! If you feel squeamish about flies, do not click on this to enlarge!




After setting this much needed fly trap and enjoying family BBQ lunch we went into town with Vanessa, her friend Christy, Paul, Davo Craig and me and drank and danced from 3 pm until early morning hours. What a day! We had great fun even though we missed the cockroach races and every body was very very pissed and dressed in silly variations of the Australian flag.

kitchen progress

I am so very very happy with the new kitchen! James has done an excellent job in fitting all the cupboards in and making some of them. It looks like a million Dollars and I cannot imagine every moving out again!!! We finally have some storage space and the whole room looks so much bigger and lighter already. Fantastic!


Next week Thursday the tiler will begin to do his magic and by mid Feb we should have a whole new home! I have to get back to knock off nasty bathroom tiles but wanted to give you a quick progress update.

Our new kitchen is emerging at last!

We have finally started putting the new kitchen together and I am so excited to see it emerging from the chaos of boxes all around. Thank Sweden for IKEA!

A piece of home

Last week we finally managed to get our two liftvan boxes out of quarantine in Brisbane.It was very exciting and I am so very happy to be reunited with my belongings and all my clothes and shoes. It has been 13 months!!! Any girl would be deadly impressed!!! I had serious shoe withdrawal symptons!

The quarantine inspection at the customs office was very daunting but the officers saw Craigs mountain bike, expertly cleaned by my dad in spite of freezing temperatures in Germany (THANKS DAD! U the best!) and from then on we had a pretty easy ride. Thank goodness! The people before us had mud on some shoe and had to pay for the cleaning and pay a fine and a reinspection. Luckily, we were just able to get it cleared and take it home. The boxes were about 2.3m high and wide and a meter deep, very awkward dimensions. Craigs nephews helped us pick them up on their UTEs. Very Australian! It was the scariest thing, those huge wonky boxes with all our worldly goods precariously balanced on the UTEs, much higher and quite a bit longer than the vehicles themselves. I keep seeing it tip over in a curve and all my lovely shoes spilled out on the street... but nothing like that happened.


Now they are here in the house and I can barely move with boxes everywhere. We are planning to start work on the kitchen later this week (Thank you IKEA!!) and after that the house will get new tiles and floors. Hence I have not really started unpacking. I will wait until after the renovations. Anyway, I must go and look at my shoe collection again...

My birthday BBQ

Yesterday we had our first BBQ in Collingwood Park on the lovely new Weber that Santa brought. Delicious! Even the weather cooperated and it did no rain until after we finished eating. Amazing! At the moment there is a cyclone brewing at the coast which means we get a lot of wind and rain. Everything is turning greener day by day.
As soon as it stops raining the sun comes out and it is this unbearable humid heat again. BIG SIGH! I know you are all jealous of our warm temperatures but honestly, it can get a bit too much!!!

I had a lovely birthday with lots and lots of birthday wishes via Email, post, phone and text and even a few presents arrived on time in the post, thank you very much to you all. It meant a lot to me to be remembered by all of you and made me smile.