And then the rain came down ...

... pouring down and wet everything so thoroughly that

the brickies haven't been able to do anything yet.

Even the birds were complaining and hiding in the trees:


I know we need the rain (desperately) but it would have been nice to
have been able to report a little bit of progress.

Oh well.

These things are sent to try us and patience is a virtue ...

yada, yada, yada ....

I want my house built!! Waaahhhhh!

We have bricks ...

... sitting on the pad! They're all from Austral Bricks (got to keep myself in a job!). The red ones are Sandfire; the cream ones are Prevelly and the rest are Armaclay internals (the ones we make at my plant).

We also have window frames and a front door frame:And they have filled in the 'swimming pool' with all the extra dirt:They should start actually building in the next week or so ... woohoo!! I'm loving all this progress!!

We have concrete!

At long last we have a concrete house pad!!

Now all we have to do is wait about two weeks for it to dry/cure and then they can start building. Woohoo!!!

We have footings and the beginnings of a house pad!

Looking in the front door:

From the alfresco:

From the other back corner:

Now we just need concrete!

We officially have a sand pad

No real progress but I took the boys out to have a look. they had a great time walking around trying to figure out where things were going to go:



Couldn't work out why they dug this 'swimming pool' though.


I'm sure it will become clearer as time goes on....

And we've started ...

On my way back to work from a visit to another plant, I took a detour past the block on Wednesday on the off chance that there would have been some progress. There was!

I pulled up, jumped out of the car and started snapping pictures like there was no tomorrow. Meanwhile the loader guy kept shooting me dirty looks as if I was some sort of industrial spy trying to get him in trouble. I didn't care though ... I was just so happy that we can finally see something happening.

We have a water meter:

and a power box:
The difference in the level at the back of the block is huge. You can't really see it in these pictures but you can see almost two whole blocks high of the retaining wall instead of the half a one you could see before. That will make putting in the gardens and lawn so much easier (and cheaper!)


I will be making weekly visits from now on to take heaps of photos keep Peter updated as he is only able to visit once every three weeks. I may even get to meet the neighbours and their massive Rottweiler dog that is already trying to dig under the fence to get out ...

What a load of rubbish ...

Brad, Drew and I took a drive out to the block on Saturday to have a look at what we thought would be the beginning of the earthworks. The horrendously expensive bobcat man hadn't yet been so we got to see the 'huge amounts' of rubbish and sand left on our block by other people instead.

It doesn't look like there's much rubbish here until you take a walk over the whole block.
Even then, it doesn't seem like there's much to be removed until you realise how much higher the back of the block is when compared to the front.

The earthworks people reckon there's about 20 cubic metres of sand to be removed and after looking at the block again, I can see where they get that amount from. I'm just thanking my lucky stars that I don't have to move it all with a shovel and wheelbarrow.

Hopefully next time we visit the block there will be some proper progress.