Month one - the adventure begins....

The excitement was building in that last week of November as we packed up the beachside apartment to start our adventure around Oz. We were madly packing – what we will take, what will stay behind, what will we donate, trying to get the apartment rented – furnished, unfurnished.

In the mist of all of this we also purchased a home in the Albury Wodonga region for reasons which will explain another time – perhaps it was the knives – the property came with a set of knives. As the property was almost derelict we thought it would be fun to spend a couple of weeks “doing it up” before heading off. A lick of paint, some new floor coverings and good to go.

Albury at a glance

We knew it needed a new kitchen and lo and behold our hairdresser had a very expensive one that he would sell very cheaply to us. It had been in his garage for – well let’s say the cobwebs and thick layer of dust…..

Ok to get it down to Albury we had to hire a one way only trailer. So, many phone calls getting this organised because hiring a one-way trailer means you cannot get one close to home, but you had to drive to the wild wild west of Sydney to collect it. Never mind, Maria needed to see her mum and sister prior to departing and trailer collection was nearby, so it fitted.

Don gets sick – a whole 24 hours he is out of action. Too ill to do anything, so Maria had to forge ahead with the packing.

We finally got a great tenant who wanted a furnished apartment, so we waved goodbye to the beachside apartment – heading off in the mobile home (Zingara) which had the one way hire trailer with the expensive kitchen attached and the BMW towing the trailer of tools required to “do up” the new home at the country residence, we set off.

What an adventure!

We arrive at the real estate agent to collect the keys – Rudy from Rudy Yonson Real Estate presents us with not only the keys but also a cold bottle of bubbly – love doing business with country people.

Hmm renovating, extending a home whilst living in it is a true test of relationships. Let’s say tensions ran high - very high - as walls were sanded, paint splatted on walls(a little blood too), trims glossed, kitchen pulled out and new one in, kitchen blinds bought, rubbish sent to tip, cut back the overrun front garden, tempers frayed, quotes for new roof, painting of exterior (or will we clad it?), arborist to cut back branches, trees and bushes, windows cleaned, new floor coverings, oven degreased - seriously do people really live like this? As one task was completed, three more were found – was this ever going to end?

Paint colours were discussed and as much as Don had heard that white is too stark for walls, what did Maria come back with? Not just white, but Vivid white. Don shook his head.

The country property comes with a very large block – handy if you want to agist a couple of horses or run a few head of sheep, but otherwise it needs mowing. Borrowing her son-in-law’s mower and finding it’s out of petrol, Maria proceeds to fill it.

It wouldn’t start, so Don had to step in, then causally asking Maria, so where did you actually put the petrol, then realisation dawning that she had poured petrol where the oil was to go. (Sorry Phil)

Although Maria had been mowing lawns since she was 12, it was always two-stroke – she had never come across a mower where oil and petrol were separate. To fix this problem before heading out to buy son-in-law a new one, the mower was turned over, petrol poured out and time was spent looking for oil and more petrol and after a few frantic hours, the mower worked, and Phil really didn’t need to know about it.

Maria did take to the first week of living out of Zingara and made meals and baked bread, but as more and more work was done and more and more jobs were found, this all went by the wayside as the workload increased and all that was longed for was a hot shower and collapse into bed.

One week ran into two, two into three, dancing was something we began to dream of as we were so exhausted, and bed beckoned more so than the dance floor. We did however manage to get out one night to dance – at the local Commercial Club. The band played good music – though each time the lead singer announced her next song, her Australian drawl made us cringe. The dancers on the floor were partner dancing – great that’s what we do, but they had this funny way of dancing around in a circle and beware if anyone got in their way – they just barrelled thru – they had right of way. Don and I would find a bit of floor to do our slot dancing and they would circle around and pretty much push us out of the way – Don created some clever moves as he saw them head for us and steered us both to another part of the dance floor that they hadn’t invaded.

In those three weeks of renovating there was little time to well… spruce oneself up. Maria had decided to grow out her hair thinking become a silver foxette would be a fun thing to do, however as it grew she wasn’t sure if she could cope with this colour. Add to it fine dust from sanding, paint from the walls, trim and kitchen cupboards and the hair became an interesting colour.

The hat

As there was precious time left for luxuries like colouring hair – Maria bought a stockman’s hat. This was bought with great excitement as Maria usually finds it hard to buy hats that fit – they are always too large, but this one fitted like a glove. This hat is country brown (appropriate for this lifestyle) with a brown leopard print scarf tied around it. This has now become her new signature look and she has strutted the look whilst navigating the aisle at Bunnings.

A week after leaving the beachside apartment a frantic call from one of the neighbours one morning telling us that there was water pouring out of the apartment. Long story short the hot water had burst – probably the night before and the tenant had been away – and consequently water had been gushing out from the hot water overnight at least. 

The prognosis was that when the real estate agent went to investigate the water had reached every room and the carpet was a soggy mess. Hence the round of large exhaust fans to dry it out – apparently before being ripped out as it’s too heavy to lift. It was noted as the remains of the soggy mess of a carpet was eventually hauled over the third-floor balcony that Maria never really liked that carpet. So began a round of talks with insurance companies, the tenant the real estate and the flooring company.

Two weeks after leaving the beachside apartment, Don was drilling into a piece of timber – something he has done thousands of time before, but for unknown reasons, this time slipped and drilled into his thumbnail. There was a loud expletive (or six) but the comical thing was that although blood was pouring from his thumbnail, he was still waving the drill in the other hand. Bandages to stem the blood, a rest and he was back on the job.

That afternoon he set out in the BMW to collect more supplies (not sure if it was for the house or us) when a loud thud was heard. Checking that nothing had been run over, it was soon discovered that the power steering pump had gone.  The to do list was mounting.

Most tend to lose weight when renovating, the case is the opposite for us – eating lots of comfort food and drinking copious amounts of alcohol to numb everything from the growing tensions to the aching bones – renovating was rapidly turning out to be not such a good idea ☹

Then there was the issue of not being heard – Maria felt Don wasn’t listening to her and Don felt Maria wasn’t listening to him, but miraculously with all this no listening going on, the house was starting to take shape. The vivid white was not too vivid after all and blended well with the charcoal grey carpet and roller blinds.

An upside to all this is that Maria is getting to spend a bit of time with her two G-kids who love her home-made gelato and the YouTube video of “baby shark” which apparently only works on Nonna’s phone. There are a few videos in circulation with Maria and g-kids playing out the actions and singing away.

So, four weeks into our trip around Oz and we are still in picturesque Albury/Wodonga with the prospect of returning to Sydney as there are some complications with the beachside apartment and now looks like we must return to Sydney. Apparently to lay new flooring, a built-in wardrobe must be dismantled, then new floor laid and then wardrobe rebuilt.

Though we have only seen the inside of Bunnings and the house, we are hopefully we will come to a stage where it will be fine enough to rent it out (oh and Karen from Zelle Real Estate presented us with a box of chocolates for engaging them to rent out the home – love dealing with country people) and begin the journey.

Stayed tuned for next month to see where we are or rather more importantly if we still together 😉 ……

Dancing decals to remind us to dance!