The Great Nuriootpa Fiasco

As recently mentioned, Tim and I have bought my grandparent's house in the town of Nuriootpa, in the beautiful Barossa Valley. We settled in May, and decided prior to getting tenants we'd head over, do a bit of work around the place and help my grandparents move out the last of their things.

We decided to drive there, so got to spend a (rather late and boozy) night in Wagga at my sister's new place. We then hit the ten hour drive across south western NSW, across Victoria and to the Barossa. A huge storm hit for the last few hours and it was some rather scary travelling. For cry babies like me, anyway.

We'd heard from the real estate agent who will be managing the property that a bit of work was needed. We weren't sure what this meant and didn't want to make any plans prior to seeing it, so the night of the arrival was also inspection night. In the middle of the night, with tired travel eyes, it was hard to know what to think. Lots of the rooms had bad walls (never actually finished, in one case) and due to the type of board they were made of, looked a lot like one would imagine scary asbestos to look like. As it happens, the internal walls weren't asbestos - that's just the entire outside.

So come daylight, we got working. Three rooms, three sandbacks, re-plaster and fill, paint and in one room, stain the floors.





It may look like Tim did all the work, but I would like to point out that the staining he appears to be doing is token only. I did that room. Stain is all over my iPhone as proof.

We worked super mega hard (not just physically - the trauma of my grandparents moving out for the first time ever is a whole other story). After the fifth day we looked around and were happy - the rooms looked fresh and not dicey and with a good clean we thought it'd be AOK. So much so we took ourselves out to a local winery for dinner and got liquored. Well and truly, soused, liqoured.

The next morning the real estate agent turned up and through the blaze of our hangovers inspected the house. She was very happy with the inside but then, calmly, advised us to paint the outside because although not dangerous, it 'looked too much like asbestos'. Sigh. We tossed it up and (through my gritted teeth and only a few tantrums) decided to paint the outside.

In deference to my grandparents, I asked my grandfather what colour he thought we should paint it. 'Asbestos colour' was the gruff reply. Sigh.





Man oh man. We got the front of the house done that afternoon, and had no choice but to finish it the next day as we had to drive all the way back to Sydney for work on Monday. It got done although I don't think I have ever been so sore or tired. The quality of the outside job was also, ahem, slightly dubious. Especially by the last side. Sadly exhaustion and time poverty had turned us into shonky landlords.

Anyhoo, it was a week of ups and downs. Mainly downs. Downs and pain. But it is done; and the great news is we got a tenant in a few weeks later. My grandparents wasted no time in dropping in to pick up 'something they forgot' (they are the sweetest looking people in the world - for years I had no idea how wily they are!) and it turns out he is a relative. Insert yet another sigh.

The Annual Pumpkin Festival

Leaving Our Nation's Capital, we headed back towards Sydney and passed a small town, Collector. A small town with a big event - the annual pumpkin festival. Driving into the tiny town, cars lined the road and people were flocking towards what I could only assume was the Pumpkin Fun (or a horrific train wreck). Locals had made pumpkin men and pumpkin posters and pumpkin signs - there was pumpkin celebration aplenty!



Excitedly, we wondered what things there could possibly be. Biggest pumpkin, pumpkin scones and pies, pumpkin carving were all ideas we wagered on. All that and more! My favourite was probably the 'make a scarecrow with a pumpkin head' competition. There were about a dozen men stuck on sticks in various states of dress and expression, stretching down the side of a field (a field that had the obligatory vintage car show, baby farm animals and metal work displays).

The main hall held the pumpkin competition - and the winner of largest
pumpkin:


Not to mention the weirdest looking pumpkin:



And the smallest edible pumpkin:



It seemed that Gary Poile and only about 3 other people submitted any entries to any of the comps. I noticed Gary had also busted out the pumpkin pie and scone entry as well as several other pumpkin entries. Go Gaz. I guess Collector doesn't have a huge population to draw entrants from. But huge thumbs up to the efforts of the few that did!

Capital Take 2

We then trekked on to Parliament House for more snaps. I would have included them in the last post however for some reason my computer hates multiple snaps. Perhaps I should take heed.






Tim and I. Even my shadow looks champagne thirsty.

Following all this hard work, we headed out for breaky with J and GSquared. They had found a wee cafe in Belconnen that served a two course champagne breakfast and rightly thought I may be interested. J and I both ordered it - eggs benedict with a chocolate and strawberry crepe and dreamy bubbles. Dreamy bubbles that made me very snoozy all the way home.

Our Nation's Capital

This weekend we had a short sojourn to Canberra. It was my brother's 30th and also my sister would be in town. She'd given my The Best Job Ever a fortnight ago - a wad of cash, a list and basically let me go nuts furnishing her new house! So I shopped, I crammed the car full of homeware goodies, and we headed to Canberra to have some fun.

Our 'one show only' night in town was fun - cold, but fun. The following morning Tim wanted to get up early to get some snaps prior to breakfast so I went along too to get used to the new camera.

The trees this time of year are spectacular and it was a cold, crisp and sunny morning.


Old Parliament House, from across the lake.


A bridge. I was attempting Art.


A cycle rack, and more attempted Art.


This was the underside of one of the buildings. I think Canberra council may have been attempting Art.


Ah pretty trees!

Next stop was new Parliament House...

Tim found this at work. Snigger.

Many mushies pasta

For my birthday, Tim bought me a pasta maker. It is heavenly. It's stainless steel, shiny, solid and a beautiful piece of machinery. It also requires levels of patience that I do not have and sadly were not included in the box. I can stand and stare at it for ages, but when it comes to neatly rolling pasta...aaarrrgggggh!!!! So my job has become to make the dough and patient, calm Tim is the roller of pasta. I have managed lasagne sheets (not without cussing) but to be honest anything more is probably not feasible if a) we want home made nice looking pasta and b) we want to keep the machine in one piece.

So. Following a trip to my new best markets, we had a mountain of mushies (wild pine, those long little ones, swiss brown, those weird white ones, oysters and a few others) with which to make a delicious feast. These little guys are my fave. I reckon you could live under these. But only if they were pink and spotted.



The mushies we cooked really simply, with butter, garlic and thyme from the herb garden, and some stock right at the end. The pasta making happened thanks to Tim:







Isn't it dreamy? There was actually enough pasta for 18 people (I love carbs, but even I have my limits) so the mushies were slightly lost, but the ample wine consumed during the evening of preparation made me completely unconcerned.

Nesting

Recently, I went on a weekend jaunt to Our Nation's Capital with Tim and his folks to see the Degas exhibition at the National Gallery. It was a great weekend - I really enjoyed the exhibition (once Degas got over the awkward portraiture phase!) and also got a chance to catch up with both my brothers as well as J and GSquared (who lives in Canberra).

On our second day there, trapped in a suburb that we seemed to keep winding up in, Tim and I walked into a Chinese antique shop and found some coolie old Mao propaganda posters. As not-very-wealthy decorators, the 25 clams a pop was the right price and the crazy old propaganda cartoons tickled our fancy (particularly the one about the Korean war, with China supporting Korea with money and food, and American planes being shot down in the background). Just before going to Wagga we had them framed, thus ruining the cheap as chips appeal:



Crap photo. I took it.

They are going to be living in the study (which is currently a dumping ground as we're in the middle of merging possessions and finding places for things in the tiny apartment). I had a horrible (but environmentally friendly) light in the study (a 'daylight' energy saver. Do not buy. Go for any other colour), which we have since covered with a Chinese patterned lantern. Go Maz shopping!



Finally here is a picture of some flowers (a better photo, I'm learning!) that we bought at my new number one markets, the Everleigh Markets at The Carriage Works in Redfern. Farmer's markets a few suburbs away with amazing flowers, produce and, well, everything! Hurrah! If I actually ever ride my pushbike there I will be living the dream!