Christmas Party Bankwest Style

The bankwest christmas party was held last Friday. It was inthe convention centre in Perth and there were thousands of people there. The theme was a Winter Wonderland. On the way in the door, it was snowing, with a photographer catching all the reactions. Oh, and the Santa hats are orange to match the Bankwest logo.

There were 2 rooms for the party. One had a giant chocolate fondu area, loads of food and drink, and a stage with live bands playing all night. The bands were all brilliant.

Then in the other room there were old school arcade games, wii consoles. air hockey tables, lots of things like that. And on stage they had fire jugglers. They were awesome! They started with little fire things and progressed to bigger and bigger flaming accessories and finished with one of the girls coming out with a massive flamethrower. Cool! This is the lead guy a flaming samurai sword. Later in the night he had 2.

And this is my team. We were up near the stage in the first room, taking frequent visits to the fondu. On the top right of the picture you can just about see the ceiling snowflake decorations. They were enormous. Clearly australians don't see snow that often, they were more like spiky weapons than snowflakes.

The Sanding Process

So this is how we sanded the floor in the living room. First we got a drum sander in and used a rough sandpaper roll to give the first run. It's about grit 60, which is harsh enough to strip up the old varnish. You can get grade 30 if you need to get old glue off and stuff like that.

The first pass leaves lot of white marks on the floor, where the old varnish is only half taken off. This is what the drum sander looks like. A big lawnmower type thing. It has a button to start it, and a handle for lowering the sandpaper inside to the floor. So you start it with the paper in the air, then lower it very carefully to the ground. Then the machine starts moving itself forwards, so you simply make sure you walk at an even pace, and lift the paper up again before you reach the skirting. It clears around a single floor board with each go. You can see the extra sandpaper rolls in the area we have yet to do here.

Also it's important to cover any open areas with plastic sheets so dust doesn't go all over the house. We also covered the grills of the fireplace and the air conditioner. The place looks like Mars when you're finished with everything covered in red dust.

It is important to hoover carefully after each pass of the sanding machine. This removes the piles of dust and lets you see what is really happening with the floor.

This picture above is after the second pass, with 80 grit paper. It isn't so rough with the floor, but smoothes out the surface a bit. Note still though there are lots of white bits and a few tiny bits of varnish left at the edges of the floorboards. Another pass is needed. Actually, I think we did 2 passes with each grit of paper. It is quite a large room so the paper was getting worn out.

This is the difference between the 80 grit and 120 grit passes. The second picture shows very few white marks. This means it is ready for washing and varnishing. But not at the edge. The belt sander can only reach to within a few inches from the wall, as the sandpaper turns around in the middle of the machine, not the very edge.

This is how close it gets. See there is a foorprint worth of old varnish left. We used an edge sander to clear this up. I got no pictures of it though, so I'll get that when we sand the spare bedroom, which should be pretty soon now!

King's Park

Here is Hugh, lord of Perth. This is on the tree top walk in King's Park. There are great views of the city and river all around. 

There are really nice birds everywhere too. There were a few Kookaburras but they were too high up in the trees to catch any photos.

This is  kangaroo paw plant. I think it looks like a vile spider. Definitely not one for the garden.

The Wizards!

Meet Gandald the White. She is a 5 week old silkie chick. These birds are awesomely cute. They are not fantastic layers, but are totally adorable enough to make up for it. They are littler than other birds, and stay really fluffy all their lives. They even have a big afro of feathers on their heads when fully grown. Gas!

And this is Merlin. She is a silkie too but is a mix of black, grey and ginger. These two girls are the smallest of our chickens by far.

This is Dumbledore. She is an araucana chick. Also 5 weeks old. Araucana's aren't the best looking birds, but they are good layers, and they lay a turquoise coloured egg - cool! Dumbledore is the tamest of our new chicks and is quite happy for us to pick her up, unlike the other who scatter whenever we get near.

And last but not least, this is Zabulon (the lead vampire wizard of the forces of darkness in the Night Watch series). She hates being picked up the most. She is also losing her feathers at the moment so looks a bit rough. I think it's because she's starting to get her adult feathers.

So these are the wizards, and they join the ranks of our priests, Ted Jack and Dougal. We are keeping them separate at the moment. The chicks have the cage, and the biggers birds have the garden. The newcomers are too small to mix yet, as chickens fights pretty brutally whenever a new chicken is introduced. We are hoping to keep them separate for a few weeks until the chicks get bigger and can handle a bit of pecking from the others.

Living Room Almost There!

For the last 2 weeks we have put in loads of work to the living room. We pulled up the carpets, with Deborah's help, we painted it, took off the curtains and blinds, sanded and polished the floor, lots. And now it is very nearly finished. We bought a new suite of couches (well, second hand) and got a tv off a colleague of Hugh's (thanks Sarah!) and this is what it looks like now:

And this is what it used look like.

We still need to fit new blinds and change the light. Also we're not sure what to do with the fire, but we will take out the old electric heater and see what it looks like behind before doing anything drastic. I have some nice pictures of the wooden floor sanding process too to put up soon. It was a lot easier than we thought it would be.

Glamorous Homeowners

Oh yes, being a homeowner is pretty glamorous. Look at this close up of the fabulous carpets we have around the house. The whole house. We have ripped it out of the living room, but it's still in the hall and both bedrooms. It's starting to feature in my nghtmares.

I think this picture is hilarious and captures the spirit of a renovation. I call it "Hugh mops wall".

New Norcia

We went to New Norcia last weekend with Jamil and Deborah. It's an absolutely beautiful Benedictine monastery built in the middle of the outback north of Perth. It used to have a school where aboriginal orphans were taught my the monks, and later also nuns based there. This is us outside the chapel.

Hugh's school is taking a trip there in February for a music camp. All of the ensembles are staying for a week. Last weekend it felt like it was a million degrees there. Come the height of summer, it'll be pretty darn warm.

Buff Orpingtons

 This is what our hens will look like when they are fully grown. Isn't she magnificent? Ours are still teenagers and may end up to be roosters, eek. They are getting braver these days and now follow us around the place. Our neighbour Bill built us a fence last weekend so now we can leave the hens have the run of the garden. They love it. But the first thing they did was to eat all my vegetables. Lesson learned.

Look how great they are when they are chicks though, awwwwwwwwwwww.

Garden Party

These are a few of the people who came to our garden party on Saturday. In the foreground is Nicole, the clarinet teacher and Lynette, the violin teacher from JSR. They are great fun. Deborah and Andrew are lurking around in the background too.

The collection of people in the house really brought to light the fact that we only have 3 chairs, so after some ingenious diy, and using all of our upturned flower pots, we can now officially seat and feed 20 people at a time. It does stress our kitchen resources though, where we only have one working hob. Here's to winning the lotto and getting a new kitchen!

Connies

This is a picture taken last Saturday night when we were out in town. Northbridge in Perth has a terrile reputation and features frequently in the news with reports of fights and all sorts of terouble breaking out in the small hours. To be honest though, we've been thre a few times and have seen no sign of it. Sure people are screaming and shouting and dancing and all that, but it's all normal carry on for a night out. Nothing threatening really.

This is Jamil, Deborah, myself and Hugh. Jamil is the choral director in JSR and Deborah is a German student teacher there. She is the one who helped Hugh get our chickens last week.

Chickens!

We finally got chickens! I've really wanted them for ages, and Hugh started coming around to the idea when we saw some Buff Opringtons in a petting zoo in Wales last year. They are lovely birds, very big and pretty cool looking.

Hugh and Deborah from john Septimus Roe went and collected 3 of them last Thursday. At 14 weeks old they are still teenagers, and it will be a few months before they start laying. They are living in the aviary cage in our back yard. They are seriously scared of us though and run away whenever we get near. Laura says that giving them tasty treats is the key to winning them over, so we'll have a go off giving them watermelon this evening.

The Living Room Begins

We have started to sort out the living room. Hugh and George took all the furniture out and put it in the spare bedroom last weekend. That room is now so full that you have to take a running jump to get in. The living room though is now fine and spaceous.

This is the large window visible on the front left of the house. There are terriflyingly dirty net curtains over the windows, so when we get a full bio suit, I'll have them down. In the meantime, this is going to be the next room to get the zulu plain treatment. 

And these are the double doors that lead into the living room from the hall. This was taken last weekend when the wall was still white in the corridoor. I'm really bad at getting photos off the camera at the moment. These ones are from George. Soon though we'll have the auld internet in the flat again so will be back in full comms action.

We quite like these doors, but they are going to be impossible to paint around so we must figure some way of taking them down for a while. They are on sliding rollers, hanging from the top, but the complication of unhooking them is that there is a decorative cover over the top which is trapping them in. A new power tool is required no doubt.

Hallway

We finally got the whole house clean, so now we are starting to properly renovate. Step 1 is painting everything. We thought that the hall would be a good place to start as then it would be something nice to look at when we first step into the house. Over the past week we cleaned the place, filled all the cracks with polyfilla and masking taped it, so we could do a proper job of it.

Then on Saturday, me and mom painted the ceiling and walls with 2 coats of white paint while the lads were out at the cricket. We both strangely like painting, so are really enjoying it. We have lots of paint brushes and rollers, and a really great stepladder that has a table top for paint cans to make it as easy as possible.

This is it halfway done, how glary does that look? So then yesterday me and Hugh masked the ceiling and painted the walls a colour called zulu plain, which is a light brown. It sounds nasty, but is actually really nice. I'll get a picture as soon as we can.

Also Hugh and George moved all the furniture from the living room to the spare bedroom so now we can properly tackle that room too.

New House!

Here I am in front of our new house. The chimney is a wonderful example of the bad taste of previous generations. I'm starting to like it though. The fireplace inside is no better. And the carpets are the stuff of nightmares. But it is ours.

We started off this weekend with a massive cleanout of the kitchen and main bedroom. This is still in progress as we got distracted slightly yesterday by some friends coming over for a nosy around the new house.

We received some lovely presents from Hugh's family on the morning we moved in! Excellent timing! This is from Carole and Don, and we have a lovely bunch of flowers too from Mamgu, Janet and David in Swansea. I'll get a picture of them later.

Retro

So this is the mighty retro living room of our new house, which we will get the keys to on Friday, if all goes according to plan. Note the wonder of the 70s clock, sofa and awesome carpet. This is probably going to be the first room in the house that we try to renovate. We will rip up the carpets and sand the floors, possibly put in a few extra sockets, and paint it a nice clean off white colour. The wooden furniture in the room is lovely so we'll keep that, but maybe get a new couch.

Rumour has it that if the gas heater is pre-80s (most definitely) that the gas company will replace it with a new model for free. Sweet! Also a bit of rendering on the fireplace may bring it into the 21st century.

Golf Ho!

I finally got my first game of Australian golf. This was last week with mom and George in their club in Mount Lawley. It's a long course, lots of par 5s, and plenty of bunkers. Everywhere you want to aim your drive, in fact, has a giant bunker. And the committee must be a bit o.c.d. as whenever you use a rake, you have to put it back half in the bunker with the handle perpendicular to the edge. Or else.

I've not gotten into the swing of working here yet well enough to master taking afternoons off for golf, but soon ...

Coode Street!

Myself and Hugh have finally gotten mortgage approval for our very first house! It is north of Perth city in the suburbs. From here I can cycle to work in half an hour (at great non-perspiring leisure) and hugh can drive to work in 12 minutes. There is a bus around the corner that will take us to town in around 15 minutes. Also it is a 10 minute walk from Charlie and Jane at the Strand. Get this though, they have also bought a new house and it is across the road from ours ha ha! 100 metres door to door, and that's if we walk straight across the road. If we take it at a diagonal it's even less.

Our house is in need of some renovations. We were a bit worried looking around as there are water marks on the ceilings of both bedrooms, and there is a slight sag in the big bedroom ceiling. We had an engineer come in to have a good look at everything though and he says that the house, in its day, was built brilliantly. The timbers in the ceiling are as good as the day they went in, and the only problem is that it hasn't been maintained very well. A few small jobs need to be done to raise and dry the ceilings, and the roof needs to be painted with a waterproof coating, but that's it. After that it's all cosmetic, and modernising. Phew! We are looking forward to getting going on painting and redoing the kitchen and bathroom. And installing a cinema, enormous barbecue and a pool.

Also, there is a very large sleepout room at the back of the house, which we are going to turn into a third bedroom as soon as possible, so we can fit millions of guests in lavish comfort (hint hint).

We get the keys on Friday 29th and we will move in on Saturday. First house yay!

Hugh's Tuba Gig

Hugh has just started playing for a bout of shows in subiaco. He is the solo tuba (only tuba) for the Sound of Music for a few shows covering for our friend Bill who is off doing an iron man competition. We thought that the trombone was a pain in the arse to cart around, look at the size of this thing! (and Hugh says it's only a baby one that he "borrowed" from school)

Veggies

We've all been on holidays for the last 2 weeks, so there's not been much blogging time. I'll try to gather together some pictures soon, but down to business. These are the vegetables I'm growing at the moment, all in pots in Charlie's front garden.

I've got lots of lettuce leaves, peas, potatoes, herbs of various kinds, beans, courgettes and most obscurely, watermelons. They are absolutely thriving in the sun. I've no idea if it's the right time of year or anything for them, but I've got a book now so can troubleshoot the problems when they start baking in their pots. 

Wind Band Rehearsal

Hugh's school are putting on a concert in the Perth Concert Hall this evening with 4 other Anglican schools from the area. This is the combined wind band which has lots and lots of players, including an obscene 31 clarinets.

Hugh is in a blue polo shirt hiding in the trombones. He's just in front of the big bass drum in the picture below. 

The concert tonight should be great and well attended. I'm playing in the school orchestra, hiding at the back pretending to be a student. My stand partner the other day asked me if I was in year 12. Still passing as a 17 year old, excellent.

Giant Baby!

We had a visit yesterday from our nephews Finn and Atticus. They are absolutely adorable. They are Jane's brother's family - Nadine and Adam are their parents.

This is Hugh with Atticus. He is a hefty baby. He's nearly 6 months old now and is already in 1 year old clothes. He's really easy going and is happy to be carried and looked after by all of us. I've never heard him cry! He snores like a demon though, it's hilarious.

And this is Finn. He's deliberating at the moment whether he's going to be a fireman, violinist, spaceman or pro lego master when he grows up.

Honeymoon

Here are a few photos from our honeymoon gallivanting around Europe in August. This is me with an X-Wing in Disneyland Paris. They have a starwars ride where you go to take a shuttle ride to another planet, but accidentally in the middle of it you end up in the fight between the rebels and the Death Star. It's excellent! 

This is Hugh jumping for joy on a German mountain top. We stayed in a little village called Waxweiler for a week while we waited for our camper van to get fixed up. The town was teeny and noone spoke any English, but it was good craic all the same. There were lovely mountain walks and cycle paths to take and we got to see some pretty spectacular scenery. 

And finally this is Hugh doing his impression of a debonair French chef as he cooks us a selection of delicious barbecue food. Note our stylish Emma Bridgewater cup. Fancy eh?

Fat Boys

We've been in Austrlia for just over 2 weeks now and I guess it's time to start a blog. We've been having lots of fun and generally settling in. Hugh has started teaching and it's a great school altogether, spoiling us to dinners out and concerts. 

One of the most important things that has happened though is that Hugh and Charlie finally attempted the fat boy challenge in Novembar, our local burger bar. It is a truly revolting feat, eating a burger with 7 patties, lots of cheese, bacon, egg, salad and buns. It's like a lot burger on steroids. Min, the owner, says that the last time he weighed the burger it was 1.2 kilos. Yikes. 

Note me with my regular sensible sized burger.

It really is a sight to behold. Hugh managed to complete it in 30 minutes, but then had to walk around for half an hour before getting in the car. Charlie struggled through at 44 minutes, even though he had lost hearing in one ear and feeling in both arms. Heroes. The standing record is 12 minutes. The fella must have been a monster.