1000th Visitor

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Summer is Here-God help Us

Well summer is well and truly here, with little rainand level 4 water restrictions around the corner it is the complete opposite of the UK. At the moment the thought of a long summer seems awful. All that unrelenting heat!! In preparation I was up in the roof again putting in mineral wool insulation to try and cool the house down through the summer months. Without the insulation we would need to have the air con on all day. I figured Saturday was the day as the weatherman had predicted rain (I should have known better) anyway I spent about an hour and a half in the roof and cane out looking like I had been for a swim. It must have been 50 degrees up there. After that there was only one thing to do-go for a swim (picture above). The only thing missing from this picture is a beer for the reason that I am on a detox programme for 2 weeks, that is for another blog though. Yes I bought a beer fridge then went on detox!!!!

Sunday Sar's and I went for a nice cycle along the beach at Burleigh Heads- really slow and relaxing followed by a lazy afternoon at home in the garden, building walls and watering the garden-you know the things you never have time for......

Beer Fridge

We have lift off, I feel that Friday last week Sarah made the most important purchase since we bought the house and in doing so welcome a new to our family. Yes more important than any car, computer or dining room table. We bought a BEER FRIDGE. Needless to say with the purchase of such a piece of equipment comes much responsibility so we did the right thing and filled it with beer. We are pleased to say by Sunday evening after we had been down at the beach on our bikes we arrived home and found the beers icy cold-brought a tear to my eyes! Just to make sure it wasn't a one off Sarah also tested one followed by 2,3 and 4. Yes they were all cold. All the signs are there for what should be a cracking Ashes summer.

First Visitors

Well about bloody time, just when I swas losing faith in our feathered friends and their lack of interest in a free feed, these to little beauties decided to cash in. I set up these feeders about 2 months ago to try and attract some of the amazing bird life into our garden though up until now to no avail. This is a yellow headed Rosella and a crimson head Rosella and funny enough this is the first time we have seen this species of Rosella's since our arrival.

Hopefully they have moved off and started spreading the word.

That way I will be one step closer to being known as the "bird man of brisbane" where little kids run past your house to scared to look in for fear of seeing you. Excellent!!!!!

Work Work Work and some play

As you can see from the above pics it is easy to work out what we did over the weekend-garden work. I had hired the dozer for 2 days so it was a case of get as much done in that time as you can. All in all we did a massive amount with a lot help from Sar's folks. In total we dug up just over 4 tons of dirt and moved it off the the tip. These little machines are fantastic, besides being great fun they also allow you to get a lot done in a short time-we moved all the stone coverings from our garden, all the bark from the garden beds, took about 6 inches of clay off the front garden and levelled out the entire back garden. The only down side being that the wheels on this machine has destroyed most of the grass in the garden so our house now looks like a construction site. We are glad it is done though as now we can get into some serious planting knowing that all the major earth moving has been done and anything that grows now will stay. It was extremely hard work that had us going from 9-6 both Saturday and Sunday and being completely shattered at days end when we sat back and sunk a few well deserved icy colds and Shandy's.

Sunday was the big NRL grand final between the Brisbane Bronco's and the Melbourne Storm. Our neighbours were kind enough to pop over and introduce themselves on Saturday and invite us to their hous eto watch the rugger, these are the people who's house had all the noise during the State of Origon games, so we quickly accepted. Going over there was like stepping back into London time and particularly Cottenham Drive as Chris has converted his double garage into a pub with a large projector for the game and a pool table. A good time was guarenteed as the Bronco's came through a tight one. As it turned out most of the street was there so we got to meet a few more of our neighbours at the same time and it was good to watch a rugby game in a crowd again. I am sure there will be many more of these type of occasions to come.

Criminal Mastermind?

A burglar has arrested after he left a trail of washing powder from his victim's house leading to his home, Gauteng police said.Full Story