It has been 3 weeks since our last update and it has been another packed full 3 weeks. Since our first 7 day stint living in Blackball we have returned to Coalgate on Friday after work and then returned to Blackball on Monday afternoon and worked during the week before heading off again. Basically flipping our life over 🙂
Two weeks ago we transported Sammy and our 5 Orpington chickees. Sammy was on the front passenger seat in the falcon and the chickees in the back in a dog crate. We didn’t think that quite through as we had to turn the dog crate on it’s side to fit into the falcon but the holes are bigger on the bottom. So when we stopped on the way we discovered Ruby had got out of the crate and was perched amongst all the other stuff. Greta, her best friend, was halfway through the crate checking on her. Anyway long story short we left Ruby where she was as she was comfortable and made sure nothing could fall on her and drove the last 45 mins to Blackball. The previous week Al had built a temporary chicken coop for them and we connected to what had been the dog run, so they have a great sheltered area, the odd weka has ventured over to see them but they are big chickens and the weka’s are pretty wary. Sammy has adapted well also, over the last nearly 3 weeks he has been an inside cat and has also stayed home alone twice over the weekends, and when we have come back he has been as happy as Larry, happy to see us but not overly perturbed. The fish and corals are also all good and apart from a power cut the weekend before last that was a little stressful being stuck 2.5 hrs away. And when the power cut did occur we had the Blackball fire brigade all ready to help out if needed to make sure the generator was all up and going to our house. Once again cementing our decision to move to this great wee town.
Neil & Dianne have helping us out in Coalgate and staying in the barn for most of the last 3 weeks and working away while we have been back in Blackball. Neil has been busy staining, fixing lights, waterblasting and Dianne weeding and tidying the gardens and helping with the spring cleaning inside.
While in Blackball, in between work, we have put up a clothes drying rack and built the cupboards that went with the kitchen bench set, so now we have a bit more storage. We have some blinds ordered and the fire should be installed shortly and firewood delivered soon. We also have brought over as much as we can each time we return and either taken it to Bluespur to store (our wee 3×6 cabin is getting full) or have it stored somewhere here. We have sorted through all the rooms in the house and are getting it ready for sale but over the years we have accumulated a lot of “stuff”. Its a bit of conundrum as we have to leave enough things there to stage the house.
The last few weekends for us have been tidying the house and garden, finishing all the odd jobs such as fencing repairs and doing a big section tidy to remove unwanted gorse from fence lines. When the weather has been unkind we spend the time touching up the paint work, cleaning walls and a deep clean of all the tile grout, which Neil and Dianne also helped with thankfully. Hopefully this weekend will be the final push and our home of 9 years will be on the market for someone else to enjoy.
