Had the week "off "this week to draw back and catch my breath and let my soul catch up with my body. Lucky too, as it was a 37C to 41C, in the shade, type week...which I thought I'd escaped from in OZ.
At least there was no humidity and inside I barely noticed it...only suffered snap frying every time I went outside, which wasn't too much, thankfully!
Imre only worked 2 days this week and they were both the cooler days of 37C, so all in all it was OK.
He was completing a few things, like kitchen shelving, making shelves in the tool shed etc and on Monday he'll complete some architraves around the wall niche and doors and then venture outside to begin work on the front of house repairs...at last!
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| Have been Phantomising this week, having lots of chats with POTO phans around the world, enjoyed watching the 2004 POTO movie and the LND movie again. Plus watched all my sister's fabulous efforts at creating DVD's of the progress of work here. A nice slow week indeed. This is the fabulous Ben Lewis, Australia's own super Phantom, at the premier after party in Sydney 2012. So long ago...wow...(The show was so beautiful, I'd cried all my make-up off...urghhh) |
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| Imre finishing off trying to even up the new window wall, prior to painting it in the next few weeks. He has to strip the 4 columns back to bare bricks to get rid of whatever is causing any top coats of cement we apply, to powder and fall off in a pile of sand. Amazing. So, he's going to baby bottom finish them and see if that fixes it! Plus, he can then even them out too, as they are all over the place in shape! Check out the bumple on the pillar's left edge in this pic. |
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| A friend was giving away plums, but as I itch and scratch from eating or touching them, I didn't want any. But thought I'd make some jars for the lady who owns the house my friend is working on. She lives in Holland and will come down in September again to visit. They are a lot bigger than the normal plums around here. I just boiled them all up, no sugar, made a few bottles of stewed plums and put them in the freezer for her. There were a few left over, so I could not resist tasting the luscious, cold, delicious, velvet deep red plum puree...It would be worth 4-5 days of hives and itchy scratching, all over. Nothing happened...no itching. Next
day, I tried a few more...still OK, so the next day I finished the jar
off. ..Still OK, so it seems they are def a different type of plum. |
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| Then I made up bottles of cooked tomatoes and put them in the freezer for winter. Just toss them in the pot and boil up for 5-10 mins in their own juices and freeze, then put the lid on the jar. I'll make some dried toms in the coming weeks. |
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| Now my freezer is almost full of apricot puree, crab apple spread and sauce, plums, tomatoes and chutney somewhere in all of that too. Having a go at freezing chutney, to see how it goes as I haven't mastered the preserving and cool room storage system they have going on over here yet. Next year's tasks. Have all my bumper crops of plums to stew up or make into jam and give away then I only have the Elderberries to have a go at doing some elderberry jelly with and hopefully harvest season will be over. |
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| Have all this wood from the ceilings in the summer kitchen to chop up and store away in the wood shed, then next week, Dirk will paint the shed. I'm having him come in for a few hours a week to do odd jobs as Imre really doesn't like being taken off the big jobs. It's no problem, but I won't let anyone use Imre's tools, so he has to saw up the wood. |
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| Tuesday arvo, in the heat, Imre gets to sawing up the piles of wood, while Dirk broke up the thinner sticks for kindling. |
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| Almost finished...The back wall was piled high with the brush stuff from the ceiling of the summer kitchen. Almost gone now into a very neat pile ... |
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| Then, as I heaved a sigh, grabbed a cuppa and headed for the verandah to luxuriate and gaze at the heat waves pulsating in the yard in the 41C temp in the shade on the verandah...a neighbour brings in a big container of more tomatoes! Hahaha, it is either a glut or a famine over here! |
Can you believe that?
Am very excited now as the next steps in this delicious adventure were just revealed to me this morning.
Was sitting out on the verandah, having breakfast when the entire next steps were revealed.
As you know I have been having a challenge with the floors, colours and style etc. in the house...
Now I know why.
I have always been attracted to the home made thing, the recycled thing, making do with what was around etc.
People say it was because I was a war baby, but I know it is because of an inborn and natural distaste and concern about the waste and disposal of excess rubbish we create daily in our rush to be set free of having to actually do some "dirty"or "menial" work!
Meaning, we have become too lazy and pretentious to save a plastic bread bag for reuse, to fold the foil and use it again, to cut the toothpaste tube in 3 pieces to get an extra few days out of it and so on.
The toss away society has caused massive problems due to our love of creating and then dumping a mess of non organic rubbish...for someone else to get rid of.
Just imagine what goes into making a lowly tube of toothpaste...
If everyone who uses toothpaste...out of 7 billion people in the world, say 2 billion use it.
If everyone of those people cut the tube when they thought it was empty and got an extra 3 days from it...over a year, that is one less tube that needs to be made per person.
That is 2 billion tubes a year, not needing to be created or having to be disposed of.
Wow, that is amazing...not to mention packaging, transporting it etc etc.
With the bread bags...same thing, only much more dramatic!
And so on with all we do. I am very conscious of this and feel very tender towards the environment's ability to break down our visual and non organic pollution. We must become more concerned and vigilant warriors for our own rubbish we create and then place the burden on society to deal with.
So, doing all the recycling here has satisfied my soul and I feel full....but have no flooring, other than whitewashed concrete at the moment and unfinished wood work inside, thus far, causing an unfinished feeling all around, because I hit a virtual design wall.
This was causing me a dilemma, but I knew the correct answer would come at the right time to spur me on.
And, yes it did arrive, not when I wanted, but right on time!
Flooring has now been decided, finally, with confidence, plus entry colours, curtains etc etc.
Am very happy now and can forge ahead in certainty I'm on the right track for the future purposeful use of the place here.
More on all of that later, with some surprising (to me) developments in the works too.
Honeymoon Cottage Update...
Nothing happened again this week,
Zoltan was working away all week, so am now looking for a team to complete the brickwork and put up the roof and mez floor. A friend had a team who built her house and she thinks they can complete this in a few good working days...6-8 days she thinks. So will contact them this coming week
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It must be done in the coming month, so in Sept, Imre can do the insides and then when the windows etc are all in, it can be rendered and painted outside. At least, to me it will mean things are moving on!
Next week Imre finishes most of the trims inside when the hot sun is on the front of the house and starts work on repairs and restoration on the front of the house, verandah and the arched new verandah windows when the sun moves around and out of the work area.
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| The front...same trims will be kept, colours changed, fence replaced, garden remade and probably, an inside gate made to lock off the back of the house. |
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| Arched window to be completed here and some architraves added. |
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| All to be made uniform with the front widow trims on this one too. |
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| A bit of fancy work needed here! We'll probably make all the trims out of wood, seeing as Imre loves woodworking. He can easily make a stencil of the lovely top of window trim and when painted the right colours, will be magic. |
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| Then, at the end August, when Imre has completed renovating and painting the verandah, front of house repairs and painted it, the painter comes in to paint all my lovely doors, trims and bazillion windows, both inside and out. Imre sanded them all back ages ago, but he's not too keen (and neither am I,) to paint the doors or windows. |
Then, hopefully by then, the Honeymoon cottage shell will be almost completed and we can tidy up a bit more of the yard...
again...
for a while!!
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| I have only half completed picking these this morning. It got too hot by 8am, so I'll finish the rest this evening! Hahaha, the invading tomatoes! |
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| OK, the shelves are up, but more questions arise now...For decoration or functional use? Mostly decoration I'm going with after I paint/stain the raw pine. |
That's it for this nice quiet week.
A bit more preserving to do, but that's nice and relaxing, so no hassle there.
Bye and see you again next week,
Cheers and love to all,
M
xxxx
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