Anthony Malloy

I just overheard Bert asking the nanny “How many husbands do you have?”.

Looks like we have to turn down the volume a bit more when we are watching Big Love.

What a great break, three days of recharging the batteries. Saturday was visitors day. Daniel, Marita and Ren all propped over for afternoon tea and to check out the new house. All made lovely remarks about how lovely the new place is so are welcome back any time. Ren was even brave enough to try the first roast from the oven and after more favourable comments she’s welome back to dinner any time, After dinner it was movie time, Capote, a fantastic film that was made doubly enjoyable as I’ve almost finished In Cold Blood.

Sunday morning we packed the tribe and headed up to Shepp for a visit. Packimg in summer is so much easier,  only having to throw some t-shirts in a bag makes for less space and time. Lunch at mums, afternoon tea and then takeaway at my sister’s place, watching some tennis, drinking some beers, having the kids running around Aunty Helly’s until they literally drop and fall asleep where they lay down – a great way to spend a summer’s day.

This morning it was coffee, paper, kid wrangling, lunch and the drive home along with the thousands of others returning after their break. Rae’s back at work tomorrow, just in time for the heatwave ahead. Thankfuly we’ve now got our blinds installed so between them and wen should have the 38, 39, 40 and 40 degree days covered. We’ll worry about our carbon emissions and elctricity bill later.

Tonight is the end of the beginning for our new home. Rae goes back to work tomorrow, after almost a month off. It seems like an eternity ago we were packing our life in boxes and calling on the help of friends to get us in here.

Now a few weeks after we moved in we can look back and see how far we’ve come. It’s slowly becoming our home after we got the carpet in, survived idiot neighbours on new years eve, had the air conditioning balanced in time for the hot weather, survived on a wireless internet connection for what seemed an eternity, made friends with the guys across the road, got the clothes line and letter box up, unpacked most of the garage and just these past couple of days had our drive poured.

This week it’s just me and the kids again, I hope I haven’t lost the knack, it’s going to be tough as the young un’s have become very accustomed to having their mum around. It’s seems Dad hugs just don’t have the same calming power as a Mum hug. I guess we’ll have to work on the new routine too with different surrounds and no back yard to play in.

While we’re all adjusting we’ll be working around guys installing fly wire screens on sliding door, some extra wiring and (finally) having blinds installed over the next few days. After that the bank balance will be zero and the house will be settled for a long time as we start saving for the next round of development, things like decking, landscaping and some new furniture.

I’m going to miss having Rae home, but at the same time this is really the start of what we’ve been dreaming about and planning for for years, and I can’t wait.

So far this morning :

• Washing is hanging on our newly erected clothes line.
• The guys are here preparing the driveway for the concrete pour later in the week
• The blue lights on my modem flicked on – we have the internet at last!

It seems the meme of the moment is Seven Things You May Not Know About Me. Daniel, Jen, Kathy and Toria have all done it so I thought I may as well too, so here we go.

1. I’m not very good at counting.

Here, children, is a cautionary tale for those considering depending upon Fowles for their carpet or flooring.

This morning I’m sitting in our lovely new house, alone, fuming away. As I have just twittered – there’s no rage like impotent rage. The reason I’m alone is that Rae has taken the kids out for the day. The reason she has taken them out for the day is because they aren’t meant to be around the house today and the reason for that is that our carpet should be being laid today.

You will not the use of the word ‘should’.

Rewind a little, just under two weeks ago when we got the house. Rae spent half a day sitting in here waiting for our hard flooring to arrive. Despite several phone calls it was almost one o’clock before we found out that the layer simply hadn’t turned up and wasn’t answering their phone. I’m still waiting for Fowles to return my calls from that day. So a one day job turned in to me sitting here for two three-quarter days over the weekend to get the floor laid so we could move in.

Then there was the promised phone call. We were promised a phone call on the Tuesday before Christmas to remind us to pay for the carpet (that isn’t being laid today). With packing and Christmas we didn’t realise until Wednesday that the call never came. Never mind, we’ll ring them, as we’d been told they were open every day except for the public holidays. HAH! No answer on Christmas eve, no answer on the 27th, no answer on the 28th, no answer at 8:20am on the 29th – despite the answering machine telling me every time they were open from 8:00am to 5:00pm. We packed up the kids and went in to see what was going on. “Oh, yeah, we took the days off.”. Arggghhhhhh – what’s the point of having an answering machine and not using it properly? Why not put change of hours on your web site? Why not tell your customers the right information? I’m also still waiting for the return phone calls from the messages I left.

So, after making sure all the rooms were clear this morning and organising for the kids to be out and daring to dream we may actually get to sleep in our new bedroom tonight, or maybe watch some television in our new theatre room, my heart sank when, at 9:30 and with no sign of the 8:00-8:30 arrival of the carpet layers, the phone rang.

Yes. It was Fowles. Yes there was a problem. Their carpet layer had ‘hurt his wrist’. I had to let him ramble as the steam slowly leaked from ears. They were trying to find someone else to do it today, “but, you know, at this time of the year…”. I think they must have read between the lines of my silence. Apparently we are ‘garaunteed’ the carpet will be here, first thing tomorrow.

I’ll be waiting, my bet is my phone will ring at 8:30 am…

We’re approaching total exhaustion after two days of non-stop packing with a Christmas break in the middle. We’re about 95% done, but the remaining 5% is stuff lying around that seems to take the longest to finish. We’ve decided to leave the bed up for tonight to try and get a better sleep, that will be dismantled tomorrow. Rob The Wonder Brother In Law not only cleaned up the back yard/dirt pile at the new place today he then came around and whipper-snippered the edges of the gardens in to shape. All that and he’s backing up to help move tomorrow.

It’s back to the final boxes now before collapsing in to bed. Wish us luck for tomorrow, 29 degrees will be a warm move. That beer at the end is going to taste sooooo good.