The Consistent Gardner

There's nothing quite like a well-manicured lawn to set the day off right. And there’s equally nothing better than seeing someone going to the time and effort of cutting a lawn. Now, have all that happen, and someone has cut your lawn, and you didn't expect it, the day becomes so good, it’ll have tweety birds and everything. This is in the same mythical universe where someone will turn up and magically cut your lawn, for no obvious or apparent reason than they feel like it. Welcome to my world.

For some unknown reason, some person or persons unknown have turned up, mown the lawn, trimmed the hedge, swept up the leaves, and even neatly cut the edging around the bricks on the edge of now neatly cut lawn. It’s better than a kick in the teeth by a blind horse

Who are these people? Is this in some way connected to the theory that for every force, there is an equally and opposite force? Just as the lawn grows, so someone will want to come in and trim it? It’s all most curious.

A partial answer has come from the chap who has sold us the hovel. He says that for the past 15 years, ever since they built the town houses, someone has consistently turned up religiously to do the garden. They’ve never asked for money, no bill have ever been produced, and no one has ever spoken to, nor least seen, these people.

It remains a mystery as deep as UFOs, Telekinesis, the Bermuda Triangle, and the Loch Ness Monster.

Brave Newt World

Another day of turning perfectly good furniture into firewood. Today, the huge reception desk in, errr, reception, bit the dust. It was this lovely, custom made thing, that weights close on 100 stone (or, if you prefer that in Roman Catholic, 250kg) with a desktop you can disassemble cars on, and which is thicker than an office block. It’s also like one of those Chinese puzzles, with screws hidden behind false walls that are glued on, with trim stuck around them. At one stage I got so desperate I was on the stage of getting the axe from Aldi, and turning it into kindling for next winter. No fear, it eventually gave way under the weight of a yard long crowbar.

Meanwhile – as they say – out in the garden, which is growing ever more rampant and luxurious as the growing season ends (in Australia, things tend to grow wild in the winter, and then turn into a dry husk in the summer – never let it be said that it’s not a topsy turvey world Down Under, where even the seasons are reversed) I’ve been hearing this strange rustle in the bushes. What is this strange beast that lurks, undetected, in the shrubbery. Mice? Snakes? Snakes eating the mice? Another night parrot? No… it’s a family of newts that live down the well.

However, just at the moment, I can't really deal with them - I have too many irons in the air, and balls in the fire.

The Thirty Nine Stops

What a quite extraordinary system Sydney has for renting houses. Instead of the agents earning a living and, you know, showing you around, they just organise one open day when in half an hour everyone who wants to see the place can, and then they take in applications – on the day – and decide who they would like to rent to. Quite bizarre – and also, a huge pain if you want to rent a place, as you can go weeks without having an application accepted. But it’s a boon if you’re living in the house that is being let out – as we are – because you only get disturbed once, for half an hour, as an endless queue of people poke their noses into your house. Few of whom, it seems, actually want to rent it: it was fascinating seeing our neighbours trot around just for what the Aussies call a “sticky beak” (or, if you prefer that in English, a “Rubber Neck”). Others are on the continual hunt for a pot of gold – or, as it’s known in Sydney, a cheap decent place to rent. One couple at the viewing had seen 39 different places.

At least, once that is done and dusted, I can get on with the business of moving into the hovel, which will be the delightful abode while I’m renovating it.

Of course it’s only when you move into a place do you start to find the little quirks that leave you scratching your head, asking “why? Just... why?”

How, for example, did they get the dining room table – which has been left in the house – into the dining room? It’s just way too big to get through the door in any direction. I did think of either a) leaving it there, and it will, forever more, be the dining room. Or b) chopping it up for firewood. However, since it is sitting in the room that will become the main bedroom, and which is therefore destined to become the first room I’ll work on, I had to get the blasted thing out of there. Which entailed taking the whole thing to pieces. And of course, it wasn’t just screwed together. Oh no, they’ve glued and nailed it for good measure.

I’ve also started a list. It’s sort of leaning to one side, rather like my house at the moment. It’s a huge long list of jobs, including everything from as basic to removing the wasp nest around the security light, to sanding down acres – miles! – of ancient weatherboards.

The road less gravelled

If we didn’t complete today we'll be up a gum tree without a paddle. After all, the hopelessly awful townhouse we’re renting is back on the rental market, and indeed the open day is scheduled for tomorrow.

And how complex could it be just to hand a very, very big cheque to a chap who has been trying to offload a tumbledown farmhouse for three – three! years – at the end of what was once a gravelled road, but is now far less gravelled, and is far more a massive tide – ocean, no less – of tar

It's not rocket surgery but I firmly expected something to go wrong... and yet, and yet... it all worked. Whey!

However, against all expectations... 3pm came and went. But at 22 minutes past 3, I got an Email to hear that the hovel is all mine! All mine! Well, it will be in 25 years, when I’ve paid the bank off.

To Kiln a mocking bird

Today, I’ve phoned up and asked someone to remove a dead parrot from INSIDE my stove... only in Australia, as they say. Punch lines on a postcard. Yes, this is an ex-parrot. And it’s in my stove. Not exactly what I expected to say the day before completion, and the day I get my first look inside the prospective purchase since I had a quick 10 minute look around the inside.

Of course, the first hassle was parking. Never mind the 7 – seven! – car park spaces this place, apparently have. After the local residents have been helping themselves, including one cheeky chap who’s been parking his Ute under what will, tomorrow, be my car-port, at the far end of my drive, on my property, in the mistaken apprehension that MY stands for “Mine is Yours” I finally got in the door.

Two thoughts: And the first sight of this wondrous abode – in the dark, on a windy night – was that this place is much bigger than I thought it was. And the second is that it’s falling down faster than a heavily leveraged tower block in Dubai, and that living in a Travelodge would be way more comfortable.

It was so quiet you could hear a mouse drop.

And then, the horror struck. The birds! The birds! Yes, goodness knows how it flew in there, but there’s a Night Parrot. It’s sitting firmly inside what, tomorrow, will be my stove. And it’s also firmly dead. If it wasn’t propped up in the logs, it would be a pushing hup the daises. Goodness knows how it got there. Very pretty it looks too, having a mottled yellowish green belly, and, with a rather squat, fat – overfed – appearance. Maybe that explains by the blasted thing obviously flew down the chimney, and died. Probably in shock at the look of the hovel. It looks a little stunned: maybe it’s pining for the fjords, instead of gone to meet its maker. Sometimes I wish I could just erase parts of my memory. Then when I sit and think about it, I’m glad I saw him. I also would rather someone else went and removed the poor thing, and instead of nailing the deceased to its perch, it would run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

One other fascinating observation. There is hot water! Lots of it! Yes, in an act of almost incredible stupidity, the vendors have kept the 5kW Hot water emersion heater switched on for the past three years, while the building has been abandoned! That’s about $0.25 an hour, $6 a day, $2190 a year, or $6,500 they’ve wasted! Incredible! Unbelievable! I almost feel good about the $4000 I lost changing the deposit from GBP to AUD at the wrong time...

Merchant Bankers

Can I just say – I like HSBC Premier. I’ve never liked banks before, and regarded them as something akin to the Devil incarnate, but yesterday, they shone, going above and beyond the call of duty. And what have they done to increase my estimation? Kept the branch open! I should have transferred the money for the remain deposit yesterday – but due to an almightily cockup, known as a limit on domestic money transfers, it failed. Cue instant panic today – thankfully rectified, when after an anguished phone call to Premier Central, we worked out that the only option is for me to get a bank cheque, and for them to keep the bank open until I could get there at 5. Which they did – and good on them! But a curse on this silly system of banks shutting at 4pm – it’s like going back to the arc!

The pain of paint

Today I walked down to Kensington, and went into the local friendly campus DIY shop. And in turn I nearly died of shock when I saw... the price of paint! Or, as it is now called, the pain of paint. Think UK... think about 10 quid for a tin of ceiling paint. 15 quid if you're really splashing out. Not in Oz... Think about 60 to 70 dollars for 2 litres of the stuff, well over 100 if you want a decent 6 litre tin!

Thankfully they had one tin on "special" which I nabbed at 40$.

I actually went in looking for door bolts, but they don't have any normal ones either. Apparently - and I kid you not - they are illegal. That's why you only get small flimsy ones that the fire brigade can break if they fancy a quick smash and grab job on your house. The nice sold Victorian ones I'm after have to be... flown in from the UK. I'm putting in an order online. IT's either that or ones that will bend in a stiff breeze.

God mews however... I've found some wonderful stuff that is designed for... repairing interior weatherboard suffering from dry rot! It’s curious - and curiously expensive - filler. A huge pot of turpentine and a long extension lead (for fridge) topped off today's purchases. Ah, I know how to live.