Firstly, we moved in on the Monday after I blogged. It was an incredibly hot, humid day, and there was no electricity. The house was UNBEARABLY hot inside, and what made it worse was the presence of ceiling fans and an aircon, tauntingly sitting motionless while we melted. Thankfully the electricity guy arrived in the early hours of the afternoon, so we were hooked up and relieved almost instantly.
Afterwards, we went back to G&E&E's place to fetch our stuff (we'd gone straight to the house without any bags/etc after signing the lease so the electricity could be hooked up), and we were caught in the beginning of a thunderstorm. We managed to get to our place ok, and into the garage (I see now why people have remote-controlled garage doors!!!), we were home, safe and dry. And more than a little relieved: peace, quiet, our own space.
And boy do we have space now. I'm going to attach a couple of pics (they are from the rental agents' listing hence the emptiness of the house), just to give you a view into our as yet not fully furnished world.
Above is a different pic of the front of the house. On the other side of the fence you can see is a bicycle path - this place is a maze of walking/cycle tracks, so G and I are going to get nice and fit I'm sure!
This is a view of the back garden. It's half grass, half weeds, and G has taken on the task of weeding it over the months. The grass that is growing there is very nice though, so it should be rewarding once it's done. I just hope the rental agency doesn't restrict us to a '6 months lease only' so we'd have to move out!
This is a view of from the front of the lounge looking towards the back of the house. You can see the patio, half-circled by the windows/sliding door, and to the left is the dining area and the passageway into the bedrooms/bathroom/loo area. Off the left of the picture are the garage door and the main bedroom (which has an en-suite).
This is what you see if you walk across the lounge and stand where the carpet and tiles meet. The semi-circle windows/sliding door onto the patio are on the right. This is the kitchen (and you can just see the laundry through there), plus the passageway and bedroom 2.
This is the dining area, with the semi-circle windows/sliding door onto the patio on the right (you can just see one of them).
This is the view from the windows/sliding door, across the patio. That's the same fence seen in the first pic - bike track on the other side.
This is the view looking back towards the house - in the direction of the lounge/to the front of the house. I'm looking forward to having a set of outdoor chairs + table to have evening drinks out there!
The kitchen, across from the semi-circle windows/sliding door. The place came with the dishwasher + oven/stove, plus the blind + faded curtain LOL.
Another view of the kitchen.
The view back down the side of the house, if you step out the laundry door. The window down there is the en-suite.
And lastly, 'my' bathroom. Mine, by virtue of having a bath shower, not simply a shower!
Ok, so that's the house. I really love it, it's so spacious and new (obviously not brand new but that makes it cosier). It's just... tempting to buy all new things to complete it, even though WE HAVE stuff which is arriving any day now! But it's not NEW shiny stuff... such a compulsion!
We so far have a pet spider, who I've named Hurry-Scurry. I've watched this thing move around the house, it obviously moves mostly during the night cos every morning I do a head count and try find it and it's always somewhere totally different from where it was the previous night. I've grown 'accustomed' to it being here, because it doesn't run like hell now. I don't know if it's sickly or what, but it doesn't run away anymore... I've decided I am going to try become acquainted with it, because apparently they live 2 years and grow huge (10cm leg-span), so by the time this thing gets that big I'll be used to it... here's hoping! I've just been thrown a wobbly though as ANOTHER one has come into the house (from the garage, I think), and this one is NOT used to us and runs like hell and generally acts scarily! Watch this space.
Here is a pic of Hurry-Scurry:
Apart from these happenings, so far we have also: received a speeding fine which isn't actually for us (the system is obviously automated, and linked to the numberplate, because the transgression occurred before we even testdrove the car!), had a smelly car cos it rained in the day we moved in (gotta get that seen to, luckily it's covered by both statutory and manufacturer's warranty), bought couches, bought a dining room table + chairs, and also, fallen in love.
While window shopping and finding our way around G&E&E's neighbouring suburbs (which contain a good-sized mall), we of COURSE had to pop into any pet stores we found. In one was a batch of cute budgies, one particular one unbearably cute. Needless to say I fell hugely in love, but couldn't buy the bird because we didn't have a home of our own at that stage, and once we did we had to wait to hear from the rental agents whether it was ok for us to have a budgie. In the interim, I bought a birdcage+accessories, for 'in case' we got the go ahead - it's not like the bird cage would pass an expiry date or anything!
Finally, we got a 'yes', and almost race through to buy the bird but had too many things to do before we could go to the petshop. Eventually we got there and YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, the birdie was still there!
She/he came home in a small little box:
As soon as we got home, the cage was set up and the little fluffball was released into the cage. A sleepy little budgie after the strangeness of a car drive in the dark!
The next morning, someone was looking a lot more perky:
So far he/she doesn't have a name yet, nor are we sure of his/her gender. For now, the name is Bird (or Birdalird, or Pie Pie, or Piebird, etc), and it's possibly a boy. With this colour combination, it might be that if it's a boy the cere won't go blue but will stay mauve, and it'd go whitish-pink/brown if it's a female. We will have to wait and see.
I've been taking Bird out of the cage every now and then, getting it used to hands/sitting on a finger, and he/she is very timid, much like Tsiek. I think it's a trait of this colour combination (recessed pied), but hopefully I can show Bird over time that NOT EVERYTHING IS SCARY! At least he/she is happy enough for now, and sings away merrily when we play music.
And finally, a pic of Bird, on finger:
Other exciting things that are exciting here:
We have free TV which we can watch on my laptop by plugging into the jack in the wall (26 stations!)
Delivery people phone the day before, the morning before and 20mins before delivery to confirm... so refreshing after SA delivery people's absolute disinterest and slackness.
Self-service checkouts ROCK!
The dirt trucks here are automatic. There's just one person - the driver - and he manoeuvres the truck so that he can activate the 'arm' which picks up and tips the bin and puts it back. None of SA's dirty, noisy trucks squealing to a stop by a pile of bins, with about 7 guys jumping off the back, wrangling the bins into position so the truck can tip them, then wheeling them back quickly, jumping back up and clinging to the truck and whistling to let the driver know he can drive off. No neighbourhoodfuls of dogs barking their heads off at the commotion, just one single, quiet truck going about its business. Ahhhhhh! First world!
On every second bin-day, they pick up recycling... yes, recycling is established and functioning here, and I'm amazed daily by just how much packaging is used for things and just discarded. We've had an extra share though, what with new furniture etc!
Apart from infrastructure stuff, I'm loving it here because the weather is lovely. It can get humid and muggy, but it's such a welcome change from the CT weather where the second the Southeaster blows you need to pull on a poloneck etc. And because they have fly-screen gauze over the windows, you can have the windows open and not get munched to death by mosquitoes! Yippee!!
Ok lemme sign off for now, this blogpost is plenty long enough!!
Ciao!
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