The scaffolding has been removed and you can see the house and what I've been painting for the past few weeks.

More delays with the house, but we are now moving onto the final finishes and we can start to see what we are going to be left with.
Our move in date looks to be moving back....

School holidays, so the kids got to catch up with their friends and do some fun stuff.

Stupidly, I've put my hand up for painting the house... both inside and out. At weekends I'm seen swinging from the scaffolding, like a performing chimp :)

We now have a tentative moving in date, well what really happened was that I've told the builder we are moving in on Friday 21st August, ready or not. I need to get a move on with my paint brush!

Joel has now moved from his wooden bike, lost the training wheels and now loose on his own.
Plus, he is growing at a rate that he now needs a new bike.

OK, so I'm now over this house building lark....

With the house build at the point of everything having to coordinate and come together, work going crazy (no signs of Oracle being in a recession), exams for my Masters and the usual interruptions of life in general, I'm going slightly mad.

The house is moving along, but at a slower pace. The bathroom items finally turned up from the UK, all in tact and so the pace can now pick up again.

And then there was a roof.

The house continues at quite a pace. The brickwork is almost complete and roof next.

I recently attempted my first Triathlon, ok nothing major in terms of distance or effort (1km swim, 12km cycle and 8km run) but I was just outside the first 100 (108th), with 5000 competitors.
All good fun and nobody got eaten by sharks in the harbour, which is always a bonus!

Everything you see on the news of late is nothing but bad. I saw this and had a smile for the rest of the day, so I thought I'd share it.
Enjoy.


Playing For Change | Song Around The World "Stand By Me" from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

The windows have gone in, so the shape of the house is starting to appear.

A sign of the times... Living in a global market.

Who would have thought that Somalian pirates could jeopardise a house build the other side of the world!

In a bid to save some coin, we are buying the bathrooms and kitchen appliances over the internet in the UK and shipping them.
The bathroom pieces are already on their way and will pass through the Gulf of Adan in the next week - fingers crossed our toilets will receive a US Naval escort :/

I am tracking the container ship via satellite and get a little nervous when it stops mid ocean...

Excluding finances, the build is going really well. We are actually two weeks ahead of schedule.
The builders are good fun and really know their stuff, which is actually making it a pleasure albeit lots of work.

Joel has started to play 'soccer' for the Seaforth Zebras.
The offside rules still needs some work as it's more like bees around a honey pot :)

And in their first game they beat the Manly Vale Sharks 11-1, with the 1 being one of our team getting mixed up as to which end to score in!! LOL

So I'm running a little experiment, adding ads to our blog (apologies in advance!). We get a number of people viewing our site from all around the world and so I'm going to see if I can fund the build of our house... ok, maybe fund the purchase of the numbers on the front of the house, so click away and let's see if you can help us.

Coldplay, Sydney.

So we went to see Coldplay's Viva la viva tour. Didn't have the best seats, but still a good concert.
Half way through the performance the band ran to the other end of the stadium and performed an acqustic set just below us, which was good even though we were looking at the back of their heads...

We have bricks!

Finally, the project has moved from pouring money into the ground to actually starting to see something that will resemble our home. Even my Ducati wall is up.

Work continues.

The project is ticking along, actually ahead of schedule - tempting fate I know!
Stress levels are still fairly high, but we are in a controlled panic, which is acceptable.
Concrete floors should be finished later this week.

I've just signed off the purchase of my new Ducati 1098! YAH!




The only problem is that in reality it's not a Ducati I have actually purchased, but a garden retaining wall which costs the same as a Ducati 1098! For a garden wall!!! I could cry...

The start of my Ducati: