Alan's nemesis, aka the basement flat!

Ok, so what has kept me so busy that I haven't updated my blog since June? Well, the biggest thing that has happened is the purchase of a house in Campbelltown, which is in one of Sydney's southwestern suburbs. The house is a large 5 bedroom property with separate granny flat in the basement. The house hasn't been well looked after and I imagine it's been 30 plus years since any major work was carried out. Nonetheless, we saw great potential and, in the space of 12 to 15 months, we hope to totally renovate and modernise the property in order to sell it again

The basement has been our first project as we've had a lodger waiting in the wings to move in there.

Below are a few 'before and after' pictures of the flat.



The biggest problem faced with renovating the flat was the poor condition of the floor. The house has, at some point, suffered from subsidence and this has cracked the concrete floor and left it very uneven. After consulting several concreting specialists and being told we would need to dig out the concrete and re-lay it with numerous tons of the stuff with no guarantee it wouldn't crack again, I came up with the idea of installing a floating floor. The frame for the sub-floor is shown in the picture above. The floor levelling and tiling took about six weeks in total but the results have been well worth it.



The picture opposite shows the previous kitchen, which consisted of a sink and a cupboard. The picture on the right is the new kitchen that has been installed.



This is the kitchen and dining area.

Below is the bedroom area of the flat with the bathroom and shower room doors just visible on the left. The whole flat was originally painted in blue although I didn't take pictures until after I had painted the walls. The floor has been laid with wooden parquetry tiling and this was surprisingly easy to lay.









This is the shower room. I have no 'before' pictures. The shower was untiled and was just painted concrete walls and floor.





The above picture is the bathroom. Again, I have no 'before' pictures of this room. Originally this was the laundry room for the house and it had a laundry sink and toilet and presumably a washing machine also lived in here. Where the current window is was originally a door leading to the outside of the flat. We sealed this off and made it into an enclosed bathroom with access from the bedroom only.



This is the lounge area.

The flat was a huge project and now that it's finished I'm looking forward to a week off for Christmas before starting on the next project.

UK visit

The Wedding
I've recently returned from the UK where I had a great three weeks with my family and friends. The weather was awesome nearly every day; blue skies, sunshine and temperatures in the late 20ºc's and even reaching 30ºc on the day of the wedding.
Here are a few pictures of the wedding;






Lincoln

The day after the wedding I drove, with Taras, to take Martin's two children, Callum and Lois, back to Lincoln. On the journey there I was involved in a minor car accident (car drove into the back of me - not my fault!) which brought on a bout of sciatica, which I'm still suffering from a month later!
While in Lincoln I arranged to meet my best friend, Jonathan, for lunch there before staying overnight nearby.
The earliest origins of Lincoln have been dated back to the Iron age. In 48 AD the Romans conquered this part of Britain and named it Colonia Domitiana Lindum, this was later changed to 'Lincoln' by the Anglo-Saxons.
Below are pictures of a local street and the magnificent Cathedral.





The Eden Project

After staying the night in Lincoln, and paying Taras' relatives in Loughborough a visit, we headed down to Torquay which was our base for the remainder of our visit.
For my Mum's birthday we visited the Eden Project in St Austell, Cornwall. The project is built in an old china clay quarry and was as one of the landmark millenium projects for the year 2000. Today, the project is a charity aimed at educating us on our dependence on the natural world. It shows how we are slowly destroying our planet and, with minor changes, we can each make a huge difference. If that sounds boring, and I assure you it isn't, go along just for the sheer beauty of the place and see why we must change our habits.
There are two huge interconnecting biomes (conservatories), one housing a tropical rainforest with fauna and flora from Malaysia, West Africa and South America. In different parts of the biome the temperature ranges from 18ºc to 35ºc with humidity of 90%. To give you some idea of the size of the biome the tallest tree inside it is 30 metres tall and was grown from seed!! The other biome houses a mediterranean collection of plants and is a more comfortable 25ºc.









A great day was had by all and we finished the day off by going out for a meal overlooking the harbour in Torquay

Torquay

We had many trips out during our few weeks in the UK. Here are just a few pictures of places we visited around Torquay.



Above is a thatched cottage in Cockington Village and below is the Manor House in the Village, Cockington Court.



Parts of the current Manor date back to 1375 although a manor has existed on this site since 1130. The village is set in 460 acres of beautiful park and woodland. Today, the Manor is home to several craft shops and the restaurant here does amazing Devonshire cream teas!

Below is a pictures of Thatcher's Rock, one of several rocks or islands off this part of the coast. Stunningly beautiful!



Dartmoor

Dartmoor is one of my favourite places to visit while in Devon. Dartmoor is a National Park covering some 954 square kilometres (368sq miles). The moorland is topped with many exposed granite hilltops, or tors, as they are known. It is a beautiful place to go for a walk and the area is rich in archeology.
We found a new part of the moor to discover this visit, the area is known as Fingle's Bridge. As it was so warm and sunny children and dogs were happily splashing around in the stream by the bridge while parents were content to enjoy a pint of proper ale and a pub lunch or cream tea.

Meet King Ogorod

I realise it's been a long time since I last posted a blog so I thought it about time I sat down and updated it.
Ok, so what have I been doing since I got here apart from enjoying the aussie lifestyle, going to the beach and generally having a great time? As some of you will be aware I qualified as a garden designer shortly before leaving the UK and this is hopefully going to be a full-time job for me. I have set up a garden design business called 'Thyme To Design'. A website is kindly being written for me by Xenia, Taras' sister. I'll put a link here once it's up and running.
So far I've only had the one design job, my other jobs consisting mainly of garden maintenance. I've had a few enquiries, including one from my dentist, but no firm commissions as yet. I also sponsored a film festival in Sydney in February/March offering a garden design. This was given as 2nd prize but, as yet, no one has claimed it!
I've had the privilege of designing the rear garden for Taras' parents and now that is nearly completed, I need to go back to the drawing board and come up with some wow-factor designs for the front garden.
Below are just a couple of pictures showing 'now' and 'before'. Double-click on the pictures to make them larger.





My main brief for the rear garden was it had to be low maintenance and have raised vegetable beds. The raised L-shaped beds currently have Brussel sprouts, cauliflower, dwarf peas, snow peas, celery, cabbage, broccoli, strawberries and rosemary. The garden isn't yet complete as it doesn't have the all important 'thyme'. No garden I design will be truly finished without my signature plant, thyme! Also growing in the garden are three types of fig tree, a mango, kiwi, lemon tree and blueberries.
In the inside corner of each bed there is seating made from vertical slices of a red gum tree supported on stumps from a tree we had to chop down from the front garden. It looks great, very rustic and very much in keeping with much of the decor of the house. The raised beds are set in an oval shaped gravel bed inter-planted with sculptural plants such as flap-jacks, ponytail palm, agaves and ornamental grasses. Over the arches is growing honeysuckle, this being salvaged from the philistines next door who relentlessly ripped it out of the ground and put it in their green bin. In spite of this harsh treatment all four plants are flourishing and will soon provide a beautiful scent when walking through the archways.
Ok, so why the blog title? Who is King Ogorod? Those with a keen eye may have noticed a dragon sitting in the centre of the garden overseeing all he rules. His name is Ogorod, which translated from Russian, simply means 'garden'. Ogorod is a water feature with a difference. Once night falls Ogorod magically lights up the overhanging trees above and smoke bubbles over his cauldron. I'll publish a photo of this soon, apologies for not taking one yet!!
In about six months I'll post more pictures of this garden as it will be interesting to see how the plants have matured.
It's not long now until I'm back in the UK for a brief visit. I land on 18th May and will be departing on 8th June. If anyone wants to catch up, let me know in advance so plans can be made.

Melbourne Trip

After 3 days in Melbourne catching up with people and sight-seeing we headed on our way back home. We stopped off at Taras' aunt Judy's in Melton for coffee and a chat before the long road ahead. We drove for 170km (105 miles) before our nights stop over in Bendigo. Our base for the night was a cabin on a campsite. It was beautiful and peaceful and the stars were so bright as there was little light pollution from nearby large cities.

Day 7
After breakfast at the famous 'Beechworth Bakery' we headed towards Nerrandera via Echuca, the only reason for this slight detour being it also had a 'Beechworth Bakery'. Now, I hasten to add I am not advertising for the Beechworth Bakery (even though I've mentioned it three times in the same paragraph) but they make great bakery items. Beechworth Bakery - Australia's Greatest Bakery!! (where's my cheque Tom O'Toole??) Anyway, I'm rambling so I'll shut up. I'm really glad we stopped off in Echuca as it turned out to be a really interesting place. In 1854 after being surveyed it very quickly became Australia's largest inland port and paddle steamers ferried supplies around the interior of Australia along the Murray River. In the early 1900's trains took over and Echuca's main industries were agriculture and tourism.
Step beyond the main road of the modern town and it feels like you're walking on to the film set of an old western movie. The streets have troughs for the horses, the blacksmith is working, although these days he's making tourist items, and the river is still full of paddle steamers.




After lunch at the aforementioned bakery, we carried on our drive and our next stopping point was Jerilderie. A quaint little town, once frequented by the infamous Ned Kelly and his gang. On 10th February 1879 the Kelly gang held up the bank of New South Wales getting away with the princely sum of £2140 and holding thirty towns people hostage and locking the police away in their own cells! How audacious!!

We carried along the very straight roads with seemingly the same background for hundreds of kilometres. I fell asleep many times during this stretch of the drive, though, thankfully for Taras I wasn't at the wheel at the time!

After 441km (274 miles) we finally arrived in Narrandera where we stayed with Taras' friend Lisa and her husband Mark for the night. I had been told Narrandera was home to two sheep and a post office and very little else but I was pleasantly surprised to find it was quite a sizeable town. We chatted for hours and had a barbecue, that makes four now in my entire time in Australia - where do you Aussies get the reputation for having barbie's every night??

Day 8

Homeward bound. After a walk around the town with Lisa and her adorable border collie, Sam, we left Narrandera and travelled through Gundagai and Goulburn (the one with the big sheep - check last years blog!)

After clocking up a total of 2313km (1437 miles) from door to door we were home again, very tired but glad we'd managed such a trip and seen lots more of Australia than we would have done on a 90 minute flight. As a point of interest, if I had driven around the borders of England and Wales, hugging the coast where possible, I would have covered roughly the same distance.

Melbourne Trip

Day Two. After breakfast we set off early for Tilba. This was my second visit to the area and it really is well worth the visit. Mount Dromedary in Tilba was first named by Captain James Cook in 1770 after him noticing the likeness to the one humped camel. In 1850 gold was discovered in the town and people flocked there. The gold began to peter out around the turn of the century and the land was given over to dairy farming. Today, Tilba is famed for the ABC cheese factory. I have a wedge of cheese with chives in the fridge and it's yummy :)

Leaving Tilba we headed for Bega, our next destination. Recent flooding meant a lot of rivers were higher than normal and a poor turtle had managed to lose his way so I jumped out, picked him up and moved him off the road so he didn't get run over. After Bega we drove to Eden and then on to our motel for the night in Lakes Entrance. We covered 396km (246 miles)

Day Three

We traveled to Melbourne today via Stratford upon the river Avon (sound familiar??), Yarragon and finally arrived in Melbourne.
This is our view of Melbourne city centre from our hotel room. This trip covered a distance of 382km (237 miles)The same view at nightMelbourne still has a great tram network. Not so great for car users though as they have ridiculous rules (in my opinion) whereby a car wanting to turn right has to move to the far left, wait for the lights to change green for the opposing traffic and then continue the manoeuvre. Sounds madness to me, glad I wasn't driving otherwise the car would have been cut in two by a tram! Below is a picture of the free tram which runs around the city. It's mainly frequented by tourists and is packed like the proverbial tin of sardines.
The main purpose for the Melbourne trip was to celebrate Taras' Grandma's 80th birthday. The family gathered at the very swanky Langham hotel in the centre of Melbourne where we had the largest selection of food in one place I've ever seen. It was buffet stlye and every taste was catered for. Below is a small selection of the desserts (most important course!!) that were on offer.










The hotel was situated on the banks of the river Yarra. Below is a picture of Melbourne at night with the river in the foreground.

Melbourne Trip

I got back a few days ago from a week long trip to Melbourne. The flight to Melbourne from Sydney is about 90 minutes but we decided it would be more fun to drive. We got to see lots more of the country and, tiring as it was, it was great!
We took the coastal route to Melbourne and stopped at several places on our way down. On day one our first stop was at Kiama. I love this place, it's only about 40 minutes drive away but it's a must see. I've visited many times and never tire of the place.

Kiama is probably most famous for its 'blowhole'. When the seas are high a flume of water is sent hurtling skyward to around 25 metres (82 feet) through a hole in the rocks. It's an awesome sight!After Kiama we drove to Berry, Batemans Bay and our destination for the night, Narooma. We stayed in a lovely road side motel for the night. We covered 299km (186miles) on the first day.

Puptastic

Over the last five weeks Taras and I have had the pleasure (mostly) of looking after his aunt Ksana's dogs while she was on holiday in Moscow and St Petersburg. Getting up early to take them for walks each day was an adventure and the dogs had us trained pretty well during the time we were looking after them.
The dogs all had their own unique personalities;
Benson - the escape artist. He escaped three times in our five week pup sitting. On one occasion he had the back up of Bobbi and Toby as they managed to dislodge a fence post into the neighbouring property. I thought it was pretty quiet so I went to investigate and found the three of them missing. Not knowing where at this point they were hiding Taras, his dad Bob, and I each took off in separate directions to try and find them. I'd just got to the beach when I received a phonecall to say Taras had found them and they were now safely incarcerated in their own back yard. Little perishers!!!
Toby - the gourmand. There is no limit to how much this little barrel can stuff away and, when he knows we're not looking, tries to eat the other dogs food. Walking on the beach he sniffs everything and occasionally, when I'm off guard, he's wolfed down all manner of things I'd rather not mention.
Bobbi - the gentle soul. This poor little pup was badly abused before being re-homed with Ksana and had a fear of humans, particularly men. I've known him over three years and he has only recently made friends with me. He now eagerly jumps up to greet me and happily lets me stroke him.
Skater - what can I say? This poor little guy fell on his head as a pup and suffered slight brain damage as a result. He's a chihuahua cross and thinks nothing of picking a fight with the biggest dog on the beach. He's a little sweetheart even if he does forget who I am from time to time and yaps at me.
Coco - the only girl in the pack. She's the boss and everyone knows it!! She's a Shih-Tzu and a prim and proper little madam she is too, walking around with her nose in the air.
The photo above is me on the beach. Left to right is Toby, coco, Benson, Skater (in front) and Bobbi (behind)

The Flat

Ok, well, I thought it was time I showed people back home in cold and snowy Blighty where I'm currently living. I'm living in East Corrimal which is in greater Wollongong, about 1hour 20minutes south of Sydney and on the coast. The beach is only about 10 minutes walk from the flat and has beautiful golden sand and is surprisingly not that busy at all.
The picture above is the lounge room with kitchen area. Through the window is the front garden which is my next project after I've completed the rear garden (picture to follow in later blogs)

Below is the bedroom of the flat.

Here's a beautiful sunset picture taken from the back garden a couple of nights ago.

Also this week Taras took me for a drive one evening to Austinmer, a very nice beach-side suburb not far along the coast. While we were there we witnessed an awesome storm miles (suppose I should really say kilometres now for fear of getting into trouble with the locals for using imperial measurements) out to sea. Here's a picture of a cloud with the storm boiling away within it. Nature is mighty powerful!

New Year in Hong Kong

To break up a monotonously long journey Taras and I decided to have a couple of days in Hong Kong and explore the sights. I never imagined I would experience anywhere nearly as busy as London but this place beats it hands down! Walking along some of the streets proved impossible due to the volume of people so we merely shuffled along and hoped we could exit the crowds when we reached our 'stop'!
Our hotel room was on the 17th floor and on looking out of the window my eyes nearly popped out of the sockets when I noticed the scaffolding on the building next door was made entirely out of bamboo canes held together with cable ties. Are you people mad? - this is the 17th floor and the scaffold just kept on going. Health & Safety in the UK would have a fit if they saw it.
Unfortunately none of the pictures we took could pick up the bamboo clearly, you just had to see it to believe it.
Above is Hong Kong island taken from Kowloon, where we were staying.







Here are some of the buildings lit up for New Years Eve.


























A picture of me in a quieter street in Kowloon
Me on the ferry from Kowloon to Hong Kong





We both had a great time and another visit is sure to be on the cards on the many visits to and from the UK.

Christmas in Torquay

After living in London for nearly three years, and having being granted my visa to live in Australia, I decided it would be nice to spend time with my parents in Torquay before emigrating.
Whilst I gained a lot of experience in London and had great work colleagues at the Institution of Civil Engineers in Westminster it was with a sigh of relief that I left London and its stresses behind.

I spent almost two weeks with my parents before moving to Australia and they were two very enjoyable ones. My brother and his family and my sister and her family came down to spend a few days just after Christmas Day to have a small family gathering to say farewell. It was great seeing them all but the family wasn't complete as my other sister couldn't make it as she already had guests for Christmas.


Above is a picture of the Pavilions in Torquay. In its heyday, during the late Victorian era, this place was 'the' place to be and old photo's of the place show just how popular it was. It's a beautiful old building and I pay it a vist each time I'm in town.

Mad dogs and Englishmen


Every Boxing Day the Paignton Lions Club organise a sponsored 'swim' into the sea for charity and takes place by Paignton Pier. This year the weather was unusually mild but the sea was bitterly cold and it was more a case of a quick run into the sea up to the knees and straight back out again for most people. Many swimmers dress up in all manner of costumes to give the event more of a party atmosphere. This year even Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II took the plunge. Maybe one year I may just join in myself..................but then again, maybe not. Brrrr!

An apology!

For those that still follow this blog I apologise for not updating it for the last 16 months. I could use the excuse that I haven't done anything blog-worthy but that's far from the truth. At any point in time I've used the excuse of being either too busy, too tired or just plain lazy.
Now that I've finally moved to Australia I hope to update this blog regularly so that family and friends in the UK can see what I'm up to, where I live etc.