OUR FIRST ANNIVERSARY

On the 3rd of May 2018 I arrived at 6 York Road, Bathurst, after a sixteen hour drive in the little Diahatsu bakkie towing a two-ton trailer full of tools and with four of my team from Cape Town comfortably stashed in the back.  We arrived at 10pm in pouring rain …………… the entire garden was 200mm under water from the York Road stormwater overflow - the lights were dim - it was cold - it was wet …………….. and as we alighted my team looked at me with huge question marks in their eyes. We unloaded and I helped them settle in to what was the then so-called “studio” as best I could before dragging myself up to the comfort of the McCreath’s cottage on their farm, Tiger Springs, and collapsing into bed.

The following day - May 4th - we began work. Knowing that I had exactly 3 weeks before the furniture arrived. The No.1 priority was to re-do the floors which for the most part were collapsing in every room - other than the kitchen that is, where they had collapsed completely. Some bright spark had at some stage decided that old Oregon pine boards were unsightly and had undertaken to paint all the floors with oil paint …………… which had seriously affected their ability to breathe and caused them to warp quite considerably. They would need to be sanded down I knew, but the warping meant that we would weaken the tongue and groove jointing in quite a few areas where the warping was bad.

First things first though: we created trap doors in all of the rooms and spent two weeks on our backs in the crawl space below fitting new joists between the collapsed joists ……….. jacking everything up with car jacks, and replacing joists wherever necessary as well as all of the intermediate support posts - (Those of you who are old enough will remember Charles Bronson digging the tunnel in the Great Escape - that's exactly what it was like). We then treated all of the joists with Nova PCP as well as painting the underside of all the boards with this horrible poison. We now had a relatively even floor …………. and a completely new one in the kitchen. Sanding was the next step, along with cutting out the worst of the T&G disaster boards and fitting new flat SA Pine inserts. We then mixed a clear sealer with a touch of stain and sealed the entire floor - three times - sanding between each application, and astonishingly enough, managed to get both new and old boards all much the same color. We then layed 250 micron plastic throughout and taped down all of the perimeters and thresholds. We were now ready for the furniture ……………. with half a day to spare.

I flew down to Cape Town on the 23rd May and together Pat and I drove up on the 25th to be here when Biddulphs arrived with their truck. Everything was stacked and packed into the centre of all the rooms and covered with plastic, and we proceeded to break and brick and remove and add around the piles of furniture and boxes. The dust was a nightmare, and trying to retain my vision of the end product amidst all of the mess wasn’t easy, but eventually we got there and managed to move in on the 30th of August …………. only a month later than planned for originally - with Pat only getting to see what the floors looked like a week before when we began stripping the plastic off the furniture and placing things where they belonged before lifting all of the plastic off the floors and vacuuming, vacuuming, vacuuming ………………… My God ——— the dust was unbelievable.

We’ve been in for 8 months now, and slowly all of the spaces and places are finally coming together. We only unpacked the last of the boxes a couple of weeks ago, and we still have to find space for quite a few bits and pieces. But ………… its home, and we are probably almost as happy within the space as we eventually were in our Capri house after 25 years of extending and adding on there - so I don’t think we’ve done too badly.

So, one year down the line I have put together a few “before and after” collages to give an idea of where we are now compared with how we began exactly a year ago.

Comments are of course always welcome, and visitors here at the Centre of the Universe even more so - just let us know when you are coming, we'd really love to see you.

THE EAST SIDE AND NORTH (STREET SIDE) OF THE HOUSE - THEN AND NOW

THE ENTRANCE HALL AND BEDROOM 2 (TO THE LEFT IN THE HALLWAY) - THEN AND NOW (See the painted, warping floorboards)

THE LOUNGE AND BREAKTHROUGH EITHER SIDE OF THE FIREPLACE TO THE DINING/KITCHEN - THEN AND NOW (See the painted, warping floorboards)

THE ORIGINAL KITCHEN WITH HOLES IN THE FLOOR - NOW THE DINING/KITCHEN WITH THE SCULLERY OFF TO THE LEFT & ENTIRELY NEW FLOOR

THE MAIN BEDROOM AND EN-SUITE BATHROOM - THEN AND NOW - SEE THE COLLAPSED FLOOR ALONG THE SKIRTING

THE ORIGINAL 'STUDIO' - NOW AN EN-SUITE 3RD BEDROOM AND SEPARATE OFFICE WITH ENTRY OFF THE VERANDAH

SOME SUNDRY SPACES: THE DRESSING ROOM OFF THE MAIN BEDROOM - THE EN-SUITE SHOWER / BASIN AND WC ATTACHED TO BEDROOM 2 & THE GUEST LOO OFF THE PASSAGE

THE EAST SIDE VERANDA & COLLAPSE - NOW A BUTTRESSED STAIRCASE WITH HERB GARDEN

THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE HOUSE SHOWING THE NEW DECK AND SCULLERY AREA ON THE LEFT (Simply the best washing up station in the world with views that go on forever)

ALMOST A YEAR

I am just 3 weeks away from the anniversary of my arrival in Bathurst to begin work on No.6 York Road, and believe it or not, we finally unpacked the last few boxes just two weeks ago despite having actually “moved in” to the house two weeks short of 8 months ago (30th August, 2018). This final unpacking brought to mind a comment of Jon Peters during a chat with him a couple of months ago when he said that, “……since living in Bathurst there is quite a bit that I might want, but most importantly, I want for nothing.” Jon has been here some 28 years or so, so I do need to take him quite seriously - importantly however, I feel compelled to share that very same sentiment.

During all of the unpacking I became very aware of just how much unnecessary baggage we actually have, yet most of it bears a memory of a moment in time, someone that we know, or reminds us of the generosity of certain individuals who trusted us with one or two of their prized possessions when they made epic moves to distant shores ……….. possessions which have now become “ours”, and which we would find it very difficult not to have in our home as part of our everyday lives. Two or three of these come immediately to mind: Lynda’s beautiful porcelain vase which she entrusted to us along with a most beautiful indoor plant that has become an integral part of our everyday lives. Also entrusted to us was a somewhat special rock with a painting of a Bat-Eared fox on it by Rob - Lynda’s husband, (which I, in a moment of un-thinking, called a jackal in a previous blog), sorry Rob. Said rock however guards our front door daily - welcomes us home when we arrive, and quietly says goodbye when we leave.

Of all our possessions however, and virtually the last thing to be unpacked were the ones I most value: a few pieces of 4000 year-old Minoan pottery artifacts which I excavated at an abandoned dig on a hill close to Kritsa on Crete in 1973, and which I snuck out of Greece wrapped in dirty socks and old underpants deep inside my travel case. The plate too which holds them is very special, but not quite as old - just 48 years or so - and one of the last pieces of pottery that Pat made at her Camden studio in London before Caradoc was born and we moved to the farm between Henley and Oxford.

4000 Year-old Minoan Pottery artifacts

For those of you who have never had the opportunity to  simply sit and hold such old artifacts - feeling their shape and texture between your fingers while allowing your mind to transport you back to some ancient era - in this case that of the Minoans who with their incredible artistic and engineering skills constructed Knossos at Heraklion on the northern shores of Crete - I really do urge you to do so - the imagination transports you to places and experiences that the cinema and TV can never begin to match.

What I was doing on Crete, and how I got there is a story all its own, which I may or may not relate here sometime in the future, suffice simply to say now that it is a canvas of memories which I shall carry with me always.

The Bathurst show has come and gone, and we were really very pleasantly surprised at its size and the diversity of experiences it had to offer. Pat and I were invited by Chrissie Craddock to help out on a couple of occasions with timing at the showjumping events - an experience we thoroughly enjoyed, and which offered the opportunity to become familiar with quite another side of a sport that I have participated in (as a youngster), and watched with interest most of my life.

The stock auctions were mind-blowing and something everyone should endeavor to attend just once in their lives - again, it offered insights into aspects of farming and commerce of which I was entirely unaware. In the same space on the following day was the Chefs’ Cookoff. Six invited chefs asked to think out of the box and come up with something special over the coals using limited ingredients ……… a really great atmosphere, great competition, and ultimately great food that we were lucky enough to taste. Congratulations to Chef Carl Penn from the Pig n Whistle who captured first place with a stunning wild mushroom Risotto topped with rump steak meatballs filled with some very interesting flavours. There are quite a few pictures of the show in and album on my Flickr site - just follow this link: https://www.flickr.com/…/lance_gal…/albums/72157677565706887

As autumn approaches the light begins to change - as it does almost everywhere in the world - and if one is lucky enough to be aware of it, it offers sensory experiences which can really be savoured almost like a good brandy after a special meal - then it is gone; so beware! The early mornings are often the best time to catch this light, and I have been lucky enough to catch a few amazing sunrises that paint the sky in colors I promise to remember on my deathbed one day ………….. life is really so good, we must savor every possible moment, especially when they are this good.

Magic morning sunrise

The birds too have been particularly active, and rather than pick on a special bird for this week, I have decided instead to show a little of the activity that the female Amethyst Sunbirds get up to in their battle to get to our feeder. Enjoy!

Coming in to land

A race for the perch

Where's my food?

At flippen last!

OMG that tastes soooooo good.