Sunday, 25 May 2014

shelter shed gets new floor

Last week while we were at David's tennis wind-up at Middleton,  the concreter laid a new floor in the shelter shed and fish hut. It did have a rough stone and concrete floor which we got the footie boys to jack-hammer out and it's been sand till now. The old beach shelter roof makes a decking bridge between the bush hut and shelter shed with lawn laid by David on Thursday... Have I lost everyone with all these outbuildings?
 
You're looking at the shelter shed, virtually untouched, with the wood heater from inside the house in its rusty and rustic glory.

Taken from the bush hut
The Sprat had another outing and David caught 13 garfish.

 

Sunday, 11 May 2014

the launching of The Sprat

Mother's Day was a magical day at Beechwood. The sun shone brightly if not warmly and David was lured into launching his tinnie The Sprat for the first time. It was harder than he expected to haul it down to the water so now he's planning some wheels to help.
 
 
Once it was 50 metres out on the sea some bailing was required  in between coaxing the garfish to bite  - but he was far too busy and happy to come ashore to greet Alison and Christopher who arrived with pink iced buns for morning tea. At the turn of the tide the fish stopped biting and he returned with seven nice garfish.

 
 
 
Meanwhile Daisy and I  were at work on our net at the top of the stairs where we will hang objets trouves from the beach (all found objects except for the little sea pictures which Rachel and Ben gave us.)
Very soon a problem appeared: Willow thought the net was for her to climb on and all the dangly objects were her playthings. So we had to hang most things up high.
 

Friday, 2 May 2014

a stormy weekend

At one stage I thought the house might blow away as the wind howled and the rain belted down horizontally. The new back door is leaking profusely - not up to the stormy conditions but the new sliding door and upstairs window are performing well. The good news is that the two new large rainwater tanks are almost full. 

It's fascinating to sit in the Lookout Room and watch the many birds fly by: seagulls seem to love the rough weather as they float and swoop like bits of dirty tissue paper,  pacific gulls and blue herons are more determined as they fight against it while flights of chestnut teal flap madly to get wherever they're going. And then they come back again. One stately pelican has sailed by, not many little birds - too much for them - except for the blue wrens who dart around in the comparative shelter of Henrietta"s Hill. The musk duck seem to swim, not fly. Willow has taken refuge inside David's jumper, he's even better than a hot water bottle.

Only inside jobs can be done today including hanging David's photos of orange-bellied parrots. This is the sitting room which used to be a bedroom - can't call it a lounge because it's impossible to lounge in these chairs.