A large blue spaceship has landed in the front garden. It is the kit for our new house - all the posts and beams and roofing materials which is hunkered down under a garish blue tarpaulin against the unseasonal rains we've been enjoying the last few weeks. It will probably stay in its makeshift tent for another month or so - until the weather dries up and the builders finish their extended festivities over Christmas and New Year.

The day the kit arrived saw P and me hauling bricks around to make room. In fact we calculated P did 400 squats holding two bricks at a time (he turned into a hobbling, grunting monster for the rest of the weekend). I had it easy as I only had to pick up the bricks and push them down the PVC pipe we'd set up to move the bricks from A to B. We'd been trying to contact the builder all morning but to no avail - he was apparently (and very conveniently) out of range, even though he was a mere two suburbs away. Finally I told P to ring the builder's father and dob on him - he is still part of the business, but semi-retired due to eye trouble. He said he'd come over as fast as he could. Later we found out that the builder-son had decided to take off to Brisbane for a business freebie that day!

The interstate semi-trailer with the kit arrived just before the builder came, so P and my father had to direct traffic on our busy street while the over size truck manouvered itself into our battleaxe driveway. They waved bits of cardboard around and prayed that the cars would stop. Luckily there were no road rage incidents over this sudden and most spontaneous traffic jam. As soon as the semi trailer made it down the driveway (amazingly, no scrapes!) my dad jumped on the back and started hooking up the loads on the crane like a pro. He got a real kick out of this he told us later. In fact we got a shot of him doing a sort of victory salute (think boxing champion) when the crane lifted a particularly heavy load - you might be able to see him in the photo here...

Every time I walk past the kit pile I take a deep breath in - the smell of the cypress pine posts is just lovely - and they're not as square as I thought they'd be - they are actually quite wavery in places and have lots of interesting knots sprinkled over them. We'll be sealing them with a natural oil, but hopefully the nice woodsy smell will stay around...

I didn't tell you about another near disaster we averted by dint of being on the spot when it matters - we were able to measure all the holes the concrete guys dug for the piers that support the slab. Just as well - because when the invoice came through they wanted to charge us double the price. It is very rare for anyone to double check these holes and so the concretors usually get away with it. Luckily we were on the ball and our builder backed us up - he told us he was sick of dealing with shady cement men.

So we're still waiting for the rain to stop and it is now the middle of January. Sigh... oh well, its good to have the rain for the garden and I guess... Speaking of gardens we've purchased our first lot of greenery for our property - a handful of potted lilly pillies and lemon myrtle (another beautiful scent). We visited Parklea markets and grabbed ourselves a bargain in S's trailer and hauled the load home on the hottest day you can imagine. We've now plonked the pots along the western fence to appease our neighbour who told P we'd completely ruined her outlook. These plants will fill in the gaps along the boundary and eventually create a great screen and shade for our house - not to mention some lovely jams!