Friday, August 30, 2013

Nicky meets Elvis

 
Its true - Elvis is alive....and kicking!! While at supper with Adam and Gerry, Nic had a "moment" with Elvis, who is very cute.

Cats getting used to life back in Australia


After all the trauma of the move back to Oz, the cats are finally settling in. Woodie is very keen on his scratching post, as the photos clearly shows. He hated the one in Bristol, wouldn't touch it, but loves this one. That was until he had a little accident, fell off, got caught in the dangling catnip mouse and got into all sorts of strife. When Nicky went to help he bit her!! At the ripe old age of 50 she had to have her first antibiotics. Bloody mongrel!!

 
The newly reupholstered sofas are a big hit!
 
 
The most popular spot at Cape was the blanket on the pair of dining chairs. We never cease to be amazed at the places the cats chose to sleep.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Big Ro's 40th


Big Rohan is 40. You heard it here first. He is a bit sensitive about this, so I will say it again - BIG RO IS 40!!!

We celebrated in the only right and proper way - we good food, wine and company. Roger cooked up a storm with his metrosexual little Japanese BBQ, which joking aside was just awesome. Stuey and Rog are shot in a beautiful foursome, along with French champers and Giaconda Chardy. Yum.

Chateuneuf-de-pape, great steaks on the BBQ....it was all fantastic.

And we had 3 additional guests, who also clearly like steaks on the BBQ. We were aware we had local possums, as the neighbours have lots of netting covering plants and trees. Also Nickys pot rosemary lasted less than 24 hours. So it wasn't much of a surprise where the BBQ was "cleaned" by some little helpers!!



 
 







Cape wildlife in winter

As well as working on the house over winter, we managed to get out and about and see some wildlife and stuff.


There were angry skies and seas, as the photo of Kilcunda shows.

 
On one of our trips to Venus Bay we saw a young Grey Goshawk, see above. It allowed us to get quite close. It was by the boat ramp, a favourite spot for raptors, as theres lots of fish and stuff to tuck into. Beautiful bird.
 
 
 
And the roos were out, of course. We have been in Australia on and off for 18 years and the thrill of seeing roos in the wild hasn't worn off. I don't think it will. The shot above is taken from the road to the boat ramp, but we can get closer to them a bit further towards stage 5..
 
 
 
 

Winter visitors to Fitzgerald


The first visitors to Cape were the cats, fresh from "prison", aka quarantine in Spotswood. They were not happy about going in the travel box again, carried all the way to cape, but soon settled in. They are shown here trying out the nice new upholstery on the big sofas.


John and Mimi came down for a wet weekend, pictured here on a trip out to Kilcunda. Its was a wild time, lots of rain, with big seas and stormy skies, as the picture shows.

Roy, Kalina and Cleo came down for another weekend, which was fun.

And Matt, Pip and Elsa went down for the MSO week off in August, after the marathon 3x Stravinsky program in a week. We all needed a break after that. To say it was wet would be an understatement - the garden flooded and it ran thro the garage to the drive at the front. No damage was done, but its a good job the house is up higher on stumps. The whole of Cape was waterlogged, and its on sand, which is quite remarkable.






Fitzgerald - maintenance work


Bob (the builder) has got a new toy - a chainsaw. Nicky has been rattling on for ages about trimming the Lilly Pilly, so Bob had to get the manly overalls on and go buy a new manly toy. The tree survived, Bob has all his fingers but it almost killed him!

Its 8 yrs since the big reno, so time for some maintenance work, more serious work that we normally do. We have had the floors revarnished, sofas reupholstered, new leather sofa in the TV room (thanks Lawrie Jacks), revarnished the internal windows, replaced weatherboards, sanded and reundercoated paint bubbles and had a serious go at the garden, as shown above.