A New Home...

Yes, I fell off the planet!  Even bruised my backside & stubbed my toe in the process.  Blogs don't get written when you're off the planet I'm afraid, so my apologies for any inconvenience/withdrawals experienced. 

To recap..  We arrived in Canberra on 15 November '10.  Scott's new company were kind enough to give us the use of the company apartment until we found ourselves a new home.  Our new home is in Barton - a suburb within the Parliamentary Triangle.  It's within walking distance of both Kingston and Manuka (pronounced Maa-nuka - go figure!  I woulda pronounced that Man-ooka.).  Both these suburbs have great cafe's and restaurants, so we're stoked to have found a great apartment in a perfect location.

This is a scale model of Canberra and the Parliamentary Triangle.  If you click on the picture, it will enlarge & you'll see where I've marked our apartment.

On the morning of 24 November '10, I collected the keys from the agents in Kingston and headed HOME to meet the removalists.  I was really lucky and they actually arrived early!  If anyone is looking for removalists in Australia, I can highly recommend BFR Removals - pricing was very competitive, staff were friendly and very helpful.  There were some minor glass breakages, but that was because I did the packing & hadn't put enough padding between the glasses.

So onto the job of making a home for us in this new apartment.  No pressure - just our first house guest the following night! 

 Aside from our suitcases, these few bags were what we traveled down from Brisbane with.  There were a few things which couldn't go into the container for one or other reason.  That's the front door in the background and the kitchen hiding behind the bags.

We have boxes to unpack!

Making progress (or had I just shifted the boxes...?)

 The fridge was just a centimeter too wide for the fridge space - dammit!  Luckily there is this space around the corner from the kitchen.  It's supposed to be a study nook and leads onto the laundry.

All the IKEA boxes in the spare room waiting to be assembled.

 Scott in his element!  Assembling our new spare bed so Julian would have a place to sleep.

Wooohooo!!!  I just love this day-bed!  True IKEA genius with three storage drawers & that whole drawer unit pulls out so that it can be a spare double bed.  The perfect solution for a smaller 2nd bedroom in an apartment.

Drowning in boxes!!!

Excellent progress!  I worked like a demon.

Who knew that I could accumulate so much shit in a bathroom...  And there's not a stitch of make up there.  I'm really not sure what all that is and where it's now hidden.

First night!  Pizza and beer were definitely the order of the day.

 Our 2nd night and our first guest!  Scott & Jules having a chin wag over a beer or 3.  Scott & Jules were at high school together in Port Elizabeth - Grey Boys High.  

 3rd day and time to put my feet up with a well deserved ice cold beer.

 The view from our balcony looking back towards Kingston.

 Scott joining me with feet up & beer.

Remember our trip up Mount Stromlo to the burnt out observatory?   Well these are a couple of pics I took up there.  I was on the lookout for a good frame for them & this is how it turned out.

And now we're all settled in.  I took the following pics this morning.  Yes, I know that that messes up the continuity of this blog (me? anally retentive? never!), but it seemed the best place to put these in.  I'll do separate blogs for the stuff in between.  

 Yes, that's my old surfboard.  It's got plenty of dings along the way and we're a fair distance from the sea, so we found another use for it.  

 It's great to have such a spacious, sociable lounge again after that long narrow space we had in Moggill.

 The kitchen's nice and neat with a surprising amount of cupboard space - half those cupboards are actually empty!  I've gotta be careful not to start accumulating 'stuff' to fill them.

Photo walls!  My bathroom on the left and the spare room at the end.

 The en suite - Scott's bathroom.  And when we've got guests, it's plenty big enough for me to share it without us bumping into each other.

 Our bedroom

 My bathroom - or if we've got guests, their bathroom. 

 The guest bedroom and our study.

 Neat little desks (thanks again IKEA!) - just big enough so they don't end up getting too cluttered.

So this is our new home.  Family & friends - this is an open invitation to come and visit us here in Canberra.  It's a beautiful city and we'd love to show you around.  Please let us know if you're heading our way, we'd love to have you visit!