Er... 4 weeks 2 days

I am only supposed to post weekly, but I received an email today advising I should pay the next progress payment - which is at frame. I was like - but we were there on Sunday - and if you see the pics in my previous post - 2 days ago - well it didn't look like they would be up till next week. Well .... see below. This builder - hy vat nie kak van kabouters nie! It is difficult to try and navigate through the house on a post like this but if you refer to the plan, it helps. Here goes.

Front looking up driveway into garage

From front left

From rear left

From back right - vertical windows are diningroom windows

Ok inside now - view from front door.

Standing in kitchen looking towards lounge left and alfresco (patio) - there will be no pillar in the middle.

Looking in from patio across to kitchen - diningroom on left, lounge on right.

Outside view across patio

From patio down hallway towards front of the house

From edge of lounge looking into kitchen - diningroom area on left

Dining area - you can just see the step down to Alfresco / patio on left.

I hope you can follow all of that!
PS: the windows aren't blue - it is just plastic protective covering.
C u later.

Week 4. Trusses delivered

Well no advance on the building front, as the slab lay to cure, but at least the frame and trusses are there, so hopefully next week we'll be able to show you some progress. Till then. Bye!

From front right looking up the driveway

Midway from the front

From the left front

From right at rear

From left rear

Tumut

A couple of weeks ago, I had to go to a little place in the South West of New South Wales called Tumut - about 4.5 hours from Sydney, West of Canberra. It is a really pretty little place and is at the foothills of the snowy mountains where you can go skiing in winter. Our truck driver, Pete told me that it is where the legend, The Man from Snowy River originated. I never had my camera so apologies for no pics. I got the picture above from another website, http://www.australiantraveller.com/ When I go back there in a couple of weeks, I will take my camera with. Anyway, Pete was telling me that he took a large street sweeper out there for a demonstration with my predecessor - this is only about 2 years ago and while they were busy with the demonstration in the main road of the town, a hearse turned into the road followed by a funeral procession. The rough, unshaven council guys asked Pete to turn off the noisy machine and they stood quietly on the side of the road out of respect as the funeral cortege passed. Once it was safely out of sight, they indicated that Pete and the salesman could proceed with the demo.

Pete, thinking it was somebody important, asked him: 'Who's funeral was that?'

The council guy shrugged - 'I don't know.'

The people of Tumut and so many other little places in the more rural areas here in Aus still pay their respects to the ones of their communities who pass away. Regardless of their status in the community, their loss is felt. It is just so poignant and .... I don't know... civilised. What it must mean to the grieving family to see the people of the town / village pausing in such a visible way to mark the passing of their loved one. This country is not without its faults, but there is so much to appreciate here.

No man is an island, Entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, A part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own Or of thine friend's were. Each man's death diminishes me, For I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee. (John Donne)

Week 3 Slab laid

From right front looking up 'driveway' into garage

From Left front

From left rear - the step down at the back slab - is the covered braai area - called an Alfresco.

From the right rear

Today we went to check on progress and the slab was laid. The last photo - across the slab -looks impossibly small until I asked Carmen to walk towards me and pace it out. Not huge but confident we can now at least fit our bed in the bedroom! If you look at the last photo again on the left bottom you see the slab ends and then the concrete ledge one brick wide - this is for the external wall - you have the external brick and internal timber frame, insulation and Gyprock. No double brick walls here - well there are, but it is not common. We have the thickest insulation possible in walls and roof to keep aircon bills down. C u next week!

Week 2 - foundations dug

Weird humps -looks like a whole lot of graves - creeped me out! A foam of some sort gets poured on this and then the slab. We have mines within 50km so certificates have to be issued for all builds by the mine subsidence board. Slabs cannot be over a certain size so that is why some people have garages separate to their houses. Luckily ours is small enough not to worry about that!

From the front right looking up driveway

View from left front

View from left back corner

View from right back corner

Week 1 - Cut and fill

View from front left of plot

Also front left

Left of plot near rear

From left rear

We arrived on the Saturday after the commencement of the build and the guys were hard at work - 6pm on a Saturday evening cutting and filling - finally we are underway! No labourers - just the operator and the surveyor. Yes this is a big unit but all their smaller units were apparently busy - the operator handled the big beast very gently though- reckon the neighbours must have been a bit nervous :-).

Week prior to commencement of Build

Apologies for the technical glitch on the previous post which has now being deleted. This will only really be of interest to those who know us - or maybe to somebody contemplating a build in Aus. We are building a rather modest house on a golf estate near Wilton, South West of Sydney. We have had outstanding service from Rodney (good name :-) Macdraft http://www.macdraft.com.au who made numerous amendments etc. without any issues. And then on numerous recommendations decided to build with Hilton Homes http://www.hiltonhomes.com.au though would also have been happy to go with Urbanstyle homes as well: http://www.urbanstylehomes.com.au All the other large companies have huge numbers of complaints against them. My advice would be to search whatever service or product you are contemplating at the site: http://www.productreview.com.au Makes for very interesting reading...

As soon as the guys were ready to commence building the heavens opened and we had quite a bit of rain - Murphy's law. But some progress has been made:

Below is an overview plan and shots from the site ptior to start and then week by week - I will try and post updates on a weekly basis:
Quick specs: Plot 450m2, House 261.65m2 Building expected to take 5 months.

The plan of our little house in a quaint town called Wilton outside of Sydney.

View from front left of plot

From rear left of plot

From rear right of plot

Going 'Home'

Feeling a bit random tonite...

This evening I got into my wife's car to park it for her. Carmen is Afrikaans and when I started her car there was a Christmas CD playing and it happened to be Theuns Jordaan, an Afrikaans singer. I was instantly transported back to SA and the times when a whole group of us would go out to Tygervalley or wherever in the MPV for a movie or family gatherings and the comfortable familiarity that was home for us. Though I am not Afrikaans, I missed the nearness of the culture, much as you may miss a neighbour who you live next door to for years and don't know too well, but greet sometimes and then one day see that they have moved out. Do we feel the loss because they have gone, or because we never got to know them and now that they are gone, never will?

In about a week, we head back to SA for our first visit since we moved to Aus 16 months ago. We have settled into our new lives over here, but cannot and probably will never quite leave our 'old' lives behind because our 'old' lives contained and contain so many that we love. There is an ongoing, sometimes heated discussion between expats about the wisdom of immersing yourself in your new life and country on the one side but not forgetting where you came from; and on the other, those that say it is best to cut all ties. Some flock to expat gatherings and buy stuff at the South African shops. Others never look back. There is no easy answer here - some people find that when they give up smoking, cold turkey works; others need to wean themselves off it with patches and the like.

When we moved here, we made a decision that returning to SA (apart from Holidays) was not an option and that has enabled us to be committed through the stresses and difficulties that anyone who has emigrated will know. But the irrevocability of our decision has also meant that as much as all the negatives about South Africa are behind us now and we enjoy levels of freedom and security one could never dream of in SA, the losses are just as real - and in many senses, permanent. Friendships change and it is nobody's fault: experiences shape who and what we are and when you don't share that with somebody, the overlapping circles that bind you to another and strengthen your community, grow smaller. Does it weaken the connection? I can't answer that, but it certainly narrows it. It is an odd phenomenon that those expats who choose to honour the traditions of their mother countries tend to be very true to the historical traditions of those countries - more traditional than the people who live in those countries because in real life, cultures change and morph over time. The celebrations,I guess it could be argued, are fossilised versions of a culture from a particular time. It is why though I do miss the familiarity of home, I tend to avoid expat gatherings - I have fond memories from South Africa, but I want to see it as it really is, not as I remember it.

The Eastern worldview, if I can generalise for a second, appears to me to have far more in keeping with the individualistic view of the world that Western Capitalism espouses as against the traditional Catholic Christian worldview that views community as intrinsic to our nature. When Jiddu Krishnamurti held that 'Truth is a pathless land' he revealed how individualistic, narrow-minded - and ultimately lonely a world of one is. And so now 'communities' are often little more than groups of individuals who happen to share an interest - much akin to Facebook 'friends', shallow and inauthentic.

Our experience of moving here is still an ongoing journey in the sense that until we have moved into our house which we will shortly begin building, we probably won't make any real investments or commitment to the people we meet and engage with, and it leaves one feeling a little lost even 16 months into this journey. We are born in and for community. It is one of the reasons we baptise children who cannot express yet a personal faith. The faith of the community is the soil which both births and into which a child is born and fed - or not. I do not miss South Africa as such. But I do miss the community we left behind and in a way the timing of our visit now is significant for us as when we return, we hope to start our family and build our home. This holiday will be a final farewell. You can - and with Thoreau - I would argue you should look back, often, but know that you cannot go back. It is a comfort and a call at the same time.

Safety first

I know you guys think we exaggerate about the rules here. Well here is an actual sign on a walkway - this is along the scenic walk - i.e. a wooden boardwalk in amongst the trees in the Blue Mountains. Apologies for the quality - I took it on my cellphone and it was an overcast day and in the forest so the light made it difficult. OH&S is a huge industry here:

Woronora Cemetery

I have always wanted to be cremated when I die, but I had to spec some equipment as part of my job the other day and had chance to visit Woronora Cemetery (pictures above). It was so peaceful and beautiful there, that I wondered if I shouldn't change my mind. I know that many Sydneysiders would disagree with me and say that the historical Waverley cemetery (below) which sits on the edge of a cliff is more scenic and perhaps they would technically be correct. All I can say is that Woronora is truly a place of rest. Their motto is apt: Where beauty softens grief.Whilst my colleague and I were waiting at reception for our appointment to arrive, a middle-aged woman who had just lost her mother was in front of us making arrangements for her burial. She told the receptionist that she was an atheist and as she left, she cut a tragic figure. I wanted to tell my colleague to go ahead with the meeting without me and follow the woman out into the parking lot. I wanted to just touch her arm and say... well what would I say to an atheist? I guess, I wanted to say to her:
'I'm not an atheist and I have never doubted the existence of God, but I often struggle with the concept of heaven. And it is irrelevant in some senses because I would still strive to live as a Christian even if there was no heaven because I believe it is the most authentic way to and of Love. You may not believe in God, but you must believe in love because you loved your mom. If you think of the concept of 'God' as even just that and nothing more, we share, however small, a faith in the unseen and unmeasurable. Know that I will be praying for you - to the One I believe to be the Source of that love and through the witness of my Christian vocation that drives me to embrace you in this very painful moment in your life, may you come to know in the first instance that you are loved. And ultimately, loved by Him.'

But I didn't move. She may have, in any case, just dismissed me or rejected my approach out of hand. Even taken offence. But what if all she needed was somebody to reach out to her with a kind word? I am haunted by the vision of her back, as she walked out of the office, into the sunlight, alone and hunched in grief.