19 March 2009

Moving to Moggill

Well hello again!

It's been a busy couple of weeks. The house is kinda feeling like home. I think we've got so used to moving now, that as soon as all our stuff is unpacked, it's home!

Got distracted for a while there... busy watching a kookaburra hunting in the garden.

So where was I... Right, so the move went off without a hitch. We signed the lease on the Saturday morning and I collected the keys on Monday morning. The movers were due to arrive at 7am on Tuesday which meant that I had to be up at 4am to get showered and dressed to be at the house before 7am. Yikes! But it was a relatively easy drive at that time of the morning - except for the torrential rain of course!

The before & after pictures below will pretty much explain what I've been up to over the past week 'n a bit...


The dining room


The kitchen


The lounge facing the front door


The lounge facing the back garden


The main bedroom


The walk-in wardrobe off the main bedroom (notice the snazzy drawers?)


The office/study


The patio

On Saturday morning we decided that we needed some decent drawers for the cupboard last weekend. Or maybe it was Scott's need to build stuff.... We headed off to IKEA for a bit of shopping. The whole IKEA concept is absolutely BRILLIANT!! (Check out my previous post for more.) Dad, go and check out their cool Room Planner!

After thoroughly enjoying our shopping expedition, we headed through to Geoff & Pearl's. So Scott had to wait until Sunday before he could get his building fix!

There was some very important business to attend to..... watching the Sharks vs Reds game at Suncorp Stadium! Now, you may be wondering why we went ALL the way down to Robina to come ALL the way back to Brisbane to the stadium.... Well, there were 8 of us going. The other 6 were all from the Gold Coast (Robina & Helensvale) and were catching the train into Brisbane together. In the interest of comaradary and, hell, just pure adventure, we decided to join them. If we'd known that the whole trip would take nearly 3 hours, we would've considered meeting them at the stadium. As it turned out, we had to swap from train to bus to get to Yoorongpilly (yip there were plenty of cracks about yoorightpilly!). But the real cracker came just as the bus was leaving and one more guy jumped onboard. There was standing room only...


We were nearly rolling on the floor!!! The tears were streaming down my face, I couldn't talk for laughing so much! And then Jason started with the one-liners..... We were all literally cracking up!

So Mr McCracken helped make the journey to Yoorongpilly a little more entertaining - or gross - depends on your point of view.

From Yoorongpilly, we then took another train into the city where we walked to Caxton Street for some highly anticipated beer. The huge bonus is that it's right next to Suncorp Stadium. Think Lower Main Road in Obs in the good old days when there were trendy spots, dives, restaurants & plain old pubs - and no Nigerians. A great night spot with the obligatory greasy kebab takeaways for those late night munchies.


Caxton St during the day. Next time we're there, I promise to take pics.


Geoff, Doug & I taking the LOOOOOONG route to Caxton Street.


The Caxton Hotel converted their car park into a beer garden before and after the game.


Doug, Scott & Jason - with BEER!


Doug, Scott & Geoff - with MORE beer


Scott, Doug, Geoff & I with even MORE beer


Ellie & Jason in their Sharks gear outside the stadium


The fact that we lost the game didn't deter us from going back to Caxton Street


Add ImageAnd drowning our sorrows.....?


And then off back to the station....


GO SHARKS!!!

We got to the station only to find that the next train was only leaving in an hour's time. So it was off for MORE BEER!


The result, when we finally boarded the train...


Boys will be boys......


Yip, beer will do that to you!


After several hours of speculation, the security footage will reveal how the footprints really got onto the roof of the train.....

After the boys all calmed down, we found out that once again we had to swap to a bus. Damn! So after checking for obvious cracks on the bus, we settled in for a loooong trip. The bus would take us all the way to Robina - about a 2 hour journey. There was a need for some loud singing to while away the time - someone's birthday perhaps? Well, there was a very serr-i-us security guarde on the bus who informed us that there was to be "no sin-ging on the bus!". So we all took a nap until we got back to Robina. Pearl's taxi service wasn't too pleased to be called out in the early hours of Sunday morning! (Thanks Pearl!) Scott & I headed straight for bed while Doug & Geoff made toast, more toast and then just another slice of toast while watching the Stormers game on TV (at full blast!).

What an excellent night out!

Sunday saw us having a delicious early breakfast of smoked salmon, egg & avo on toasted muffins. Yummy! And STRONG coffee - not a beer in sight!

Doug left to spend the day working and we headed back up to Brissie so Scott could build stuff.


The box is open and the instructions are out


All laid out... now what goes where?


Nearly done


Easy as pie! IKEA ROCKS!

Sunday was incredibly hot - mid 30's with about 120% humidity! But the pool had SO much chlorine in it from the shock treatment, that the pool guy had told us that if we were going to swim, it was advisable to do it nekkid as our cozzies may bleach! I wasn't sure I wanted to risk my delicate skin in that water. But Scott was all hot 'n bothered from buildin' shit that he decided to go for a skinny dip...


Scott's first dip in the pool - I can confirm that he is intact - nothing eaten away by the chlorine!


The pool as it is today - all clean, swimmable and with it's new Kreepy



Looking up to the patio


Funky Kreepy eating machine! It's tiny but cleaned the entire pool within an hour.


This was my pet project for yesterday. There's a perfect wall in the entrance hall for a photo wall. Now I just need to get some more frames.

Yesterday was our 3rd wedding anniversary. Scott took me off to Sono - a beautiful Japanese restaurant on the banks of the Brisbane River. We shared a sushi platter and had a glass of bubbly each to celebrate. We woulda made it a bottle of bubbly but we had to drive home. We'll open a bottle of something tonight instead.


This sculpture is called "The Bouquet" and was outside the restaurant.... The sign says "Sculpture for Sale or Lease" Any takers......? Scott didn't like the idea of it adourning our front garden!


Hand roll starters...


Yummy sushi platter!

And here's to another year of adventuring!

Chow for now...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mandy, looks like your having an awesome time in Brissy!!!! So your no longer a New South Welshman (or woman) booohooo

love your new place too, looks great, esp like the patio and pool.

thanks for the update

love nat

Anonymous said...

Your new home looks great and so do you! Love the pool. Have a great birthday on the 29th, just in case I forget. Love to you both,
Pat & Reg.

Anonymous said...

Your new home looks magnif. When all else fails, Scott, read the instructions, or call a carpenter. Remember the percolator. Next stop "Alice Springs", ?????. Pity about the Sharks, they played like "wallys", must have been partying with you guys the night before. That guy on the train, talk about the "crack of dawn" !!!. Would love to have been with julle at Caxton Street. Congrats on the anniversary, 3 down, 100 to go. Yooronpilly, what a great name, next one Yoorrightkitty.

Love
Heartless and Hermit

Leon said...

Hi Guys,

I've been following your blog since you left for Sydney, and was sure I recognised you at the Caxton Hotel before the Sharks/Reds game, but though naahh, impossible, they're supposed to be in Sydney.

Leon