The new bathroom unveiled 12 & 13 January 2018

Well, we were itching to see the new bathroom, and the polished floors in person.  Sure, Ben had sent us photos - but we wanted to see them for ourselves.

So, I persuaded Justin to work from home (in this case Inglewood) on the Friday (I have Fridays off), so we drove up on Thursday night.

Got there after 10pm - and had a look.  The floors and bathroom looked great!  The boys had also put all of the furniture and fittings back, made up the beds etc  - which was also great.  As Justin said, it was starting to look like a "real house" - without all of that awful lino etc.  Now we just need to fix up the walls...

Unfortunately, the light in the downstairs green bedroom now doesn't work - the pull cord won't pull.  Justin will investigate that later - at least the lamps are ok.

Another curious thing is that the upstairs Lime Parfait room floor was not done.  We wondered if they thought it was done (when we'd taken up the lino in that room the floorboards were in pretty good nick, and had been stained, but the stain was worn, and no longer uniform.  I subsequently spoke to Ben, and he basically said that they'd run out of time/room.  ie some of the floor boards needed replacing in that room, and I think they may have used it for storage also.  No matter,  Justin said he might do it himself at a later stage.

I went to bed after the inspection and read for a little while.  Justin stayed up a bit longer.

I let Justin sleep in a little on Friday, and went out and watered the plants.  Unfortunately it didn't look as though my asparagus (either the Maile berries, or the transplanted plants) survived.  The new citrus trees were also looking very parched, but at least the trunks were still green.

So of course I went out and watered, and also found about 10 bindi eyes which I disposed of 

We then had a late breakfast on the back deck.

Given that it was a work day for Justin, he stayed and worked there.  And I pottered around, tidying/cleaning etc.  I also found a curtain for the upstairs bathroom, as Ben hadn't replaced the clear window with an etched one

I saw that the Royal was finally open (still no Liquor license though), so went there for lunch- which was pretty good.  Justin had the chicken schnitzel sanga, and I had the burger with the lot.

More tootling around in the afternoon, and also a few visits to the IGA.  Met Maile and David there, and invited them over the have a look - they thought it was all pretty good also.

And given that it was by this stage late afternoon, we rustled up some bubbles and nibbles and had them together on the back deck - very nice.

Although I had bought some ingredients for an easy dinner (tuna. tomatoes, fetta, salad mix) - we didn't end up having it - thought we'd eaten enough with the nibbles.

Watched While we're Young on Netflix on my laptop in the dining room.  The TV etc was not replugged in - and would have been a bit complicated to do.  Incidentally, neither was the washing machine and dishwasher, and the boys unfortunately put them back the wrong way  - ie the dishwasher on the right hand side.  This meant that it couldn't open, as the door banged into the scullery bench.  (We dealt with that later)

So, the movie was good, pretty funny  Naomi Watts and Ben Stiller two x 40 somethings who befriended 2 x twenty somethings.  And of course the twenty somethings had an agenda...

About 1/2 way through, we got a bit hungry, so had a sandwich each.

Given that we had started early, we started another movie - Larry David's :- Whatever Works. But we were a bit too ambitious, and started to feel tired about 1/4 of the way through, so went to bed.

Saturday, and it was a bit cold and rainy at times, so I obviously didn't have to water the garden.

Read The Age online again while I waited for Justin to get up.

Had my first shower upstairs - and washed my hair.  Was so nice to be in the brand new clean bathroom with no cracks, dust etc.  Was great, except the hot water seemed to run out and was replaced with cool, not cold water.  I wondered if the gas tank (for the hot water) had finished.  However after a little while the hot water came back, which I thought was very strange. (the same thing happened to Justin) It then did it again....I spoke to Ben about this later, and he said that Gary the plumber would investigate.

More tidying up/cleaning, and Justin attempted to reconnect the washing machine and dishwasher.  But first we had to swap their positions, which was a little challenging.

But we made it, and moved them successfully

The same could not be said for the reconnection, Justin was having a few problems, and in the end wrecked the connector piece (was very difficult to reconnect, he know what to do/not do for the next time)  - so no dishwasher or washing machine for a little while.  I went to Bunnings later in the week and bought 2 x replacements (just in case)

Damo and Nicole also dropped by to say hello, so we showed them around too.

Left for Durham Lead around 2.45 - for Chris' 50th.  Took almost 2 hours to get there - via what seemed to be a very circuitous route (lots of left and right turns). We used the GPS as opposed to Google maps on a phone.  I've just looked at Google Maps directions, and it looks a lot simpler