What an interesting day ...

Peter had been hassling asking me nicely to take the boys up to meet him at the block so we could have our first overnight stay in the shed as a family. Once I figured out that it wouldn't be hotter than Hades out there, I agreed to pack Peter's other car, the Pajero 4WD, full of the necessary stuff, the children and the dog and make the 2.5 hour drive, hopefully arriving in time for a late lunch. (I wasn't sure how my new car would go with the car fridge drawing on the battery for the whole trip, so I decided to take the car that had already done the trip numerous times.)

He sent me a text message at dark o'clock (aka 5:30am!) and then rang me at please-leave-me-alone-to-sleep o'clock (aka 7:20am), to say that he had finished work early and would be at the block a lot earlier than originally expected so, once I woke up a bit more, I tried to hurry the packing along.

We managed to leave the house and be on the road to the block a full hour and a half ahead of the original schedule, which I thought was pretty good considering that I didn't even have to go back to the house for any last-minute bits and pieces. I had remembered to check the oil and water in the car, put petrol in it so we wouldn't get stranded on the side of the road with no fuel, pack almost everything asked for (except the camera .. some scrapbooker I am!) and still managed to be nice to the children and the dog.

We were about 1.25 hours into the trip (roughly 100kms from home) and having a lovely drive, singing long to the music on my iPod because the radio station had just started to drop out, when the car started making a funny rattling noise. I thought it was just struggling a bit to get up the hill in cruise control and was reaching to turn the cruise control off when the car decided to save me the trouble and turned itself off.

So there we were trying to use the momentum to keep going as far as we could so I could pull off at a safe point, when Alex asks from the back seat, "Did you check if the battery was connected this morning Mum?" After wrestling the car to the side of the road (no power steering without power!), I turned and yelled smiled sweetly and explained that the blasted piece of crap car wouldn't have gotten us this far without the battery connected.

I popped the bonnet (hood for the Americans/Canadians) and had a quick look around the engine bay to see if anything obvious jumped out and screamed "Here I am!! I'm your problem right here!! Yoohoo!! Over here!!" and when nothing did, I rang Peter and said "Your car's broken. Come and fix it." After talking to him for a few minutes, I tried to start it and it worked so we limped along a bit further before the horrible rattling noise suddenly got drastically worse and the Pajero drove itself to the side of the road, threw up its metaphorical hands in defeat and cried "Rrrrr - rrrr - rrr - rr - r - ..... "(insert silence here), which I believe means, loosely translated of course, "Get out and walk 'cos I give up!"

I rang Peter again and he said he would come and pick us up but it would take approximately 1.5 hours for him to get to us. Biting down on the urge to scream at the world, I once again popped the bonnet and when, once again, nothing jumped out at me, I got the kids out of the car to stretch their legs by taking the dog for a little jaunt into the roadside vegetation for a potty stop. This little jaunt also afforded me the opportunity to curse, quite profusely, whatever gremlin had decided to pick this day and this particular long-range trip to befoul my best laid plans.

It was at this point that my subconscious piped up the reminder that I had recently rejoined the RAC roadside assistance service and also furnished me with the phone number. (All I can say is that as much as I curse our phone provider for so many of the mindless things they do, at least they provide coverage in the areas I need it.)

I managed to get through to a real person the third time I phoned and after explaining that I did indeed have a membership and have the $190 scar on my credit card to prove it, she finally accepted that a) I was a member, b) I was in fact a premium member and c) I was stuck on the side of the highway far from home with three kids and a dog. I then had to explain numerous times that I didn't know exactly where I was, apart from on the side of the main east-west highway across the state somewhere not too far past a turnoff to Irishtown (yes it's a real place). Then we got to the real doozy ... she asked what the problem was.

Being a non-mechanically minded person, my description of the problem was limited to some very poor imitations of the rattly noise along with a very weak follow-up of "it just won't go". Her response was "So it's not a flat tyre or battery then?"

Deep breath ... "No. No it's not."

"We'll have someone out to you as soon as possible. It could be up to a 2 hour wait."

I thanked her as politely as I could, then settled back to play the game of waiting to see who would arrive first .. Peter or the RAC man.

It was during this time that I started to wonder about the state of the world today. So many people drove straight past a car with the bonnet up surrounded by 1 woman, 3 children and a dog. Most of them seemed to purposely look in the other direction to avoid getting involved. i suppose they figured that in this age of mobile phones that I had already called for help and given that I wasn't jumping up and down on the side of the road like a woman possessed, that I didn't need their help. Trying to give them the benefit of the doubt here, people!

Anyway the RAC man turned up first, asked a series of questions then got me to start the car. It would still start but wouldn't stay started unless I kept the revs really high. He made the universal symbol for 'kill it' (dragged his thumb across his throat) and then pointed out that there was hardly any water in the radiator. (At this point I would like to remind you that I remembered to check the oil and water in the car and I topped them both up to the correct levels. I had also been keeping an eye on the temperature gauge and it hadn't moved from the halfway point .. at all!) In the process of trying to explain possible causes for the overheating that had caused the water to boil off, he managed to burn himself on the very hot engine not once, but twice .. not a great confidence booster but he was nice enough and he had come to try and rescue me so I let it go.


He couldn't fix it so he arranged for a tow truck to come and get the car (and us) and take it back to Northam to the workshop. I had mentioned that Peter was on his way from the block so he made arrangements for us to wait at the workshop for as long as it took Peter to get there. Then he got into his van and drove away leaving us, once again, on the side of the road in the middle of almost nowhere waiting for the next knight in shining armour to arrive, which he did in his lovely air-conditioned tilt-tray tow-truck with plenty of room for the kids and the dog.


Once we got to the workshop, we settled in for rather a long wait and I would like to say I'm very proud of the boys for the way they just took everything in their stride. There was hardly any fighting or niggling each other, no complaints of 'I'm bored/hungry/tired' and they listened and did as they were told. Thank heavens for small mercies .. and a handbag full of treats and a cold drink machine at the shop across the road!


Peter turned up a while later and we packed as much from the Pajero into the ute as we could and then headed back home. Again, the boys did really well, especially considering we had gone from an airconditioned car with plenty of room to a non-air-conditioned ute with not much leg room, arm room or any other kind of room. Throw the dog into the mix and they all acquitted themselves quite well.

We arrived home at about 5pm so, when all was said and done, it took 6.5 hours for the boys, the dog and myself to travel roughly 200kms. An interesting day out but not one I want to repeat in a hurry!

Dirt, rain and a blue-tongue lizard ..

.. my weekend in a nutshell!

We went up to the block on Sunday to try to work out the official boundaries, let the boys have some fun on the quad and be in Merredin bright and early on Monday to talk to the shed builders. Two out of three ain't bad.

The boys had a great time on the quad bike and were very good about taking it in turns. There was no fighting (about the quad anyway!), they all listened to the rules and they obeyed them! Even Alex had a go this time because "dirt is better to ride on than sand; it's less dusty." Luckily it had rained a bit before we got there or he would have figured out that dirt is just as dusty as sand when it's dry.

Despite the rain, it was quite warm and Peter found a blue-tongue lizard sunning himself in an out-of-the-way spot on the edge of the block. He had gloves on so he picked the lizard up and took him to show the boys. Brad thought it was a snake at first and ran the other way but soon came back to check him out. Once we'd all had a look, but not a touch, Peter put him back where he got him from and we didn't see him again. He also found an inside-out snake skin and lots of rabbit holes. Should be interesting in summer .. yikes!!

The shed plans are being submitted to council this week and I managed to talk Peter into getting the builders to do all the little bits like installing windows, doors and a concrete floor. He had plans to do the doors and windows himself and to try and get a contractor in to do the concrete after the shed was built, but changed his mind once he realised how much longer it was going to take before we could actually use the shed. The concrete would have ended up costing the same, if not more, and there wasn't really any savings to be had by doing the other bits himself.

Now the boundaries were a whole other kettle of fish. (On another note, why would you put fish in a kettle? Wouldn't that make the tea taste weird?) We managed to find three survey pegs, all on the same fence line, but there were no others to be found anywhere. Using the measurements on the plan we had, we worked out that, with the exception of the one with the survey pegs, none of the fences are in the right position. In other words, there are seven sections of fence and only two are in the right place. Yes, we are arranging for a surveyor to re-peg the whole block. Apparently, he may be able to fit us in around February of next year, unless he has a cancellation, happens to be in the right area at the time of the cancellation, we can part pay him in advance and his stars are in alignment but only if Mercury is in retrograde with a solar eclipse due exactly 24 hours from the cancellation. I did offer the down payment of a child or alternatively a limb, but surprisingly enough, he seems to prefer Australian currency. Weird people, these country folk! (No lynch mobs please ... I'm just kidding!)

While Peter and I were tearing our hair out trying to work out angles and linear measurements from an infinitesimal copy of a copy of the title plan, Alex and Brad went off to explore the lakes behind the block. 'The lakes' is an overly optimistic term as I believe 'disgustingly goopy clay mud flats' would be more appropriate. I believe the exact words I said to them before they left were "Go and explore around the lakes. Don't step in the bits that have nothing growing on them 'cos you'll probably sink." Of course, in kid-speak that means 'step in every part that doesn't have anything growing on it, sink about 5 inches into the disgustingly goopy clay mud before panicking and running through the only true water puddle for kilometres, thereby drenching yourself, and then come running back to the car expecting to get in, looking like some abominable mud creature threw up on your shoes and the bottom half of your body. Oh and then complain about how you now have no shoes to wear and your feet are cold.' Peter's response? "That's what the block is for .. to get dirty!" Then in the next breath .. "You're not getting in my car looking like that!"

All in all, a great weekend had by all especially the boys. They even voluntarily got wet and dirty riding around in the rain on Sunday and there were no complaints! I did check the back of their necks for marks left by the alien body invaders, but there was too much mud to see clearly. The trip home was uneventful as well but they soon reverted to form this morning with Alex and Brad coming to blows over a Wii game. Some things never change!

Welcome to our new Country Estate ..

.. otherwise known as 'How's the serenity?' (Which movie is that from .. anyone?)

Despite the current economic downturn, we have decided to mortgage ourselves to the hilt (NOT!) to be able to purchase this 'massive' property with many, many features. So many features, in fact, I had to label the photographs just so you wouldn't get confused.

Now for those of you who are not familiar with the metric measurement system, 1 hectare or 10,000 sqm, is roughly equal to 2.5 acres. Therefore class, 1.4492 hectares is roughly equal to 3.6 acres. Thus endeth the maths lesson for today because now my head hurts!

I realise that many of you would not think that this is 'massive' , but considering that it is 14.5 times the size of our suburban block and roughly 25-30 times the size of current blocks for sale, I feel it is massive enough for a country retreat/doghouse for Peter/place to bury the children when they misbehave.

Seriously though, it is a great compromise between moving to the country and staying here. I get to live here and holiday there and Peter has some red dirt he can call his own. When you also consider that Peter was looking at blocks in excess of 150 acres, while I was looking at downsizing the one we have in Perth, this compromise is looking even better.

It's only 2.5 hours drive from home on good roads .. no off-roading required .. and is a dry block with no swampy bits. We will be building a 'shack' on it with all the mod cons .. running water, plumbing, some form of electricity .. and will probably use it every second time Pete is home. (That part is still under negotiation .. lol!)

We took the dog with us when we went up to look at the block last weekend and he was as happy as a pig in mud .. of which there wasn't any .. mud, that is .. luckily for Pete. This is him fast asleep on the backseat of the car on the way home ...

Tres elegant, puppy! Wonder if he's dreaming about all those rabbits he could smell?