California Girl in Oz

Here's the latest kniting effort. It's actually all sewn together now, but sadly it's a bit small. I'm going to try to block it with steam to make it a little larger...it's my first time knitting with cotton, using Rowan Cotton Glace. Pretty color, though, don't you think? And it's not a Partridge in a Pear Tree, but how about this cheeky visitor to the apple tree outside our bedroom window a couple of days ago? In the few minutes I watched him, he devoured about 15 little apples! There are flocks of these sulphur-crested cockatoos that swoop into the trees in the yard here...very beautiful, raucous birds that can inflict a LOT of damage! It's New Year's Eve in Exeter, and we'll probably do our usual: in bed by 9:30PM after a glass of champagne! I tellya, we're real ragers around here! Hope you all have a safe and sane New Year's Eve. Here's wishing you all the best of all good things for 2008.

The builders wound up their 2007 activities around midday on Friday, and have departed till 7 January. Thought you might enjoy seeing where things are at this point. Here's the new "kitchen" in the garage. Pretty neat to have all this available out there...makes washing up after the cats much easier. I can also wash and dry their bedding easily, and it never hurts to have an extra fridge for wine, beer and soft drinks out there. This is the other side of that wall, with the new outdoor fireplace. The renderer has started with the chimney, and it's looking good. I think we'll use this area a lot, don't you? And here's our bathroom, just off our bedroom, with our closet on the left. The brickwork here will also be covered with sheetrock and painted...no brick will be visible anywhere. This is the view from our bedroom. The wall on the right will move to the right about one metre, and the opening shown will be much larger. There will be a large set of Fren

Woo-hoo! They've started demolishing the inside of our house, and here you see me (left), with my darling in-laws, surveying the damage. Feels SO good to have this kind of progress, especially given the terrible weather challenges of the past few weeks. DH looks like a happy camper, don't you think? Patch is inspecting a big pile of windows and enjoying the lovely sunshine this morning...yesterday was glorious, too! Now, this afternoon, it's beginning to cloud over again, and we are expecting MORE rain this week. I tell ya, we should be building an ark, not a house! Can you believe this incredible pile of lumber that's come out of the house? Patch and the others find this all very interesting...especially on Saturday, when there aren't workmen around to make noise! As you can see, the connection between the house and the new garage is still a bit tricky! We're thinking of auditioning for the high wire act next time the circus comes to town... Do you

Friday was moving day, and over the weekend we got settled in at our neighbors' house. The cats moved into their new digs on Saturday: What you see above is the two outdoor screened-in rooms, with the two inside rooms just behind. The cats are allowed to roam around freely outside this complex during the day, and then they get locked inside each night. Here's what the inside of one of the indoor rooms looks like. We'll be adding more places for them to "roost" up high on some shelves, I think, but this works for now. You can see Cassie lounging in the camp chair. Since not everyone gets along with everyone else, the division allows for the two more agressive males to inhabit one half of the complex, while the other five more mellow types live in the other half. And both rooms have this view from the windows and from the outside screened-in area: Meanwhile, at the house, here's what's happening to the kitchen: After a few hours of messy work, the s

Hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving in the States...eat some turkey for me, please! Business as usual here, but it started raining day before yesterday and hasn't really let up, and no end in sight...sigh! We're surrounded in a quagmire of mud...again. Time to get serious about packing things up here...we'll move out on 1 Dec. Not sure how we will go about schlepping all our stuff out to the new shed through all this greasy mud, but I'm sure it will happen somehow. Night before last, Alfonse, our little black cat, managed to climb onto the roof framing for the extension, in the middle of a huge thunderstorm. Lightning, deafening thunder, and constant rain. We couldn't find him at dinnertime and thought he'd come in at some point. That didn't happen, so at 10PM I decided I'd better make one more circuit and look for him. Wellies and raincoat on, flashlight in hand, circle the house in the rain and very slippery mud. Spotted him on the roof a

As you can see, I've managed to fill up this basket with socks for me. There are three (and a half!) pairs I've made for DH, as well, but they aren't in this basket. I've also got three more pairs for myself on the needles...I should try stopping knitting sometime soon! Here's how the slab looked when the crew finished pouring it and removed all the forming up lumber. That's the last time we'll be able to see this wide-angle view...it's now framing up and there are walls and stuff in the way. There is, however, a nice big picture window right in the middle of the wall, and French doors on either side. Here's how it's looking today. Roof trusses are going on now. Noisy, but very nice to see. There are thunderstorms predicted for later in the week, so I know they're gunning to get at least the plywood on up there ASAP. I actually started clearing out the kitchen yesterday. Can't tell you how TIRED I am of packing and unpacking!

Can you believe the size of this rig? It needed to be able to go completely over the house! Isn't this an amazing shot? Ross thought it looked like the cement was falling from the sky, it was so foggy this morning. The shiny part below that looks like a swimming pool will be our new living and dining room. The curved part where the guys are just starting to smooth it out will be the new verandah that extends beyond the living room. There will also be an outdoor "room" on the right hand side...cool, eh? A mucky job, but nice and cool this morning. As it warmed up and the sun came out, the flies also came...horrendous! Any Aussies reading this will understand what I'm talking about! The blowflies here are unbelievable. So all this activity happened between 7AM and 10AM. Now it's just finishing up the smooth surfaces. I'll post tomorrow how it looks when all the formwork is down, but isn't this GREAT?!

We've had sun for the third day in a row, and the place is a beehive of activity today. The deck that will be at the end of the addition, overlooking the dam, is being framed up. It's huge and curved, so a BIG job. In the middle you can see the new garage with its plaster on. Note the little section at the far left of the garage...that's two rooms where the kitties will live at night, or when we are away, with their own little screened in exercise yard, so they can either snuggle up in their two cozy, insulated rooms, or go outside and enjoy the fresh air, trees and birds, but still be secure. The huge truck on the left has the roof trusses for the new addition. I think we'll be seeing a LOT of work in the next couple of weeks! Hooray. The inside of the garage is looking very neat. And how about those cool stilts the taper/mudder is wearing? You can just see the kitties' two rooms behind him at the end of the garage. And lest you think I haven't been

Well, long time, no post. I have to say, I've never been in such a deep hole for so long. So glad to be back among the living after that horrible hiatus, and may it NEVER return! So, what's been going on, you might ask (that's for the 2.3 of you who may have wondered whether I might surface again one day!)? And thanks, QuiltingFitzy and Clare, for rattling my cage and motivating me to get going. We started on our renovation project in September, with the demolition of the garage and outbuildings. It's been a slow process from there, mainly because of the weather: lots of rain, mud, wind, muck. This picture is, I think, worth a thousand words. The garage has looked like this for the last two or three weeks, but today (Saturday, of all days!) there are workmen here putting on the outer "skin" of the garage. The weather is holding so far, today, and I'm hopeful that we'll have more clear weather next week. The cats will have two rooms at the fa

Time for me to take a break from blogging, I think. This long, cold winter is getting me down, and I just don't feel like doing much of anything. Think I'll hibernate for awhile, and hopefully when spring comes I'll resurface. We should be starting our remodeling project soon, and will need to move out of here in a couple of months. Should be back in the house again around January/February of 2008. Best wishes to all...hope to see you again in a few months.

Didn't get a chance to post before we left for the U.S., but we're in California at the moment. DH had a short biz trip to Chicago, but I stayed at the condo and lazed around, went to the movies (saw Waitress and Evening, both very good), and visited the local yarn shops. We were to have returned to Oz yesterday, but extended our trip for a few more days to make a short road trip up the eastern side of California. Here's a shot on the road just north of Lone Pine, looking west toward Kings Canyon National Park and Mt. Whitney. Today we'll meander a bit further north to Mammoth Lakes, June Lake, Mono Lake and Bridgeport. Then we head west into Amador County to visit good friends there, before returning to the Bay Area on Saturday. Here's what I've done on the trip. First socks are plain stockinette, because I felt a pattern would distract from the gorgeous green Koigu variegated yarn. What fun to knit this stuff...it's so soft and fluffy it's a dre

Success! This is almost my first sweater. When DS was five years old (when dinosaurs ruled the earth), I made a little raglan sweater for him, that turned out wonderfully well. He wore it till it wore out. And now, I've made one for myself, only a few decades later! Loved the pattern, loved the yarn, love the fact that it fits! And here's the first completed Monkey Sock. The second one is underway, but as I need to keep track of the pattern rows, this one will be a knit-at-home sock. I've also started a pair of socks to knit on the go, in a self-striping, almost-Fair Isle yarn, that's turning out to be really beautiful. Pics soon. This cold, clear morning deserved a photo, and can you believe the gorgeous protea on the right? I think this is a South African native plant...it seems to be thriving in the frost. The morning this was taken it was minus 3 degrees C. (about 28 degrees F. for your Northern Hemisphere types), so it's pretty impressive that this

So, the rain has stopped, though we've had more than 13 inches (332 mm) of rain in the last two weeks. It was clear this morning, with this stunning sunrise, though extremely windy and cold...2 degrees C., or 34 F....Brrrrrrr! Ross did a wonderful clear-out of the spillway, so the dam hasn't overflowed again. This morning it was so windy we nearly had whitecaps! The cats are absolutely loving being inside. Last night both the big grey fellows were on the bed with Ross, till I booted them out. They spend their nights in the bathroom, to avoid those incidents of World War III on the bed at 2AM! Wonder if Feliway would help them. I actually think it's too much testosterone, even though both brothers have been fixed, long since. The other five, comprised of three females and two males, get along much better and are able to spend the night peacefully in the laundry. The two fat old ladies rarely leave their little cupboard nests and seem happy as clams in there. And here's

As you can see, our dam is overflowing this morning. We're hoping the downhill side of the dam will hold, otherwise there's going to be a big flood of water cascading down our hill! Here's DH trudging out to attempt to improve the capacity of our spillway...my hero! We couldn't leave the cats in their little chicken coop and yard because it's just not weatherproof at all. You can actually see through the mortar holding the bricks together in places, and the roof is a joke. It was freezing, wet and mucky out there, and I wasn't sleeping for worrying about the cats. So, yesterday we moved them into the laundry in the house: During the day, those who want to venture outside have a staging area on this little porch outside the kitchen. As you can see, it isn't weather-proof either. Fortunately the house has remained dry, may THAT continue to be so! And here are the three fat ladies settled into the cupboard in the laundry room. They rarely venture out, p