a brass bell

This weekend we invited our neighbours at the beach, Angela and Jo, round for drinks - and they gave us this lovely nautical brass bell which David has hung on the beach deck. I'm thrilled with it and foresee ringing it hard to get the fisherman back on land for lunch.  

The rope across the deck front is to indicate to passersby that this is private property:  we frequently find sandy footprints on the decks that don't belong to us. 

The fisherman returned from the western end of the bay soaked through and freezing cold, having been flattened by a wave - but it was all worth it as he'd caught 19 beautiful big garfish.

virtual walk-through

Now that the blinds have been installed we are almost finished and I will do a guided tour, starting with the west wing:

bedroom 1 formerly bright blue



bedroom 2

hallway - same floor everywhere

toilet 1 formerly part of main bedroom

gorgeous bathroom formerly main bedroom

sitting room formerly purple, pink and yellow bedroom

sitting room has roman blinds

dining area looking out to new deck

dining area for people and cat

kitchen looking towards the road

kitchen with green door

kitchen with scones

stairway to Lookout Room, passage to laundry plus fisherman's shower and toilet 2

bed in corner of Lookout Room

you can make a cup of tea upstairs! toilet 3 behind

a place to sit and look at the sea - calm today

Lookout Room

Lookout Room

bush house becomes brush house

David is well on the way to fitting brush panels to two sides of the moved bush house and one side of the fish-cleaning house. He takes cover during showers of rain then he's back out there again - with supervision from above.

it's really winter

Cold,  wet and windy: nothing to do but read.

The brush walls for the bush house have been delivered but they will have to wait for a fine still day.

more stormy weather

The weather at the beach has been wild and rough.

 

On Wednesday we arrived at Beechwood to find the tide has been right up to the steps of the beach deck, dislodging the tinnie and ripping up the heavy fishing net David put down to stabilise the sand. Sand has been scoured out - ironical considering the front-end loader trundled so much away.

 

 

 

However, further along the beach at both McEwens places things were much more dramatic with half their beach front and all the seawall being removed out to sea - their planks are at our beach.

 

Truckload after truckload during the next three days has been ferrying in loads of soil and rocks in an effort to stabilise the front and prevent further erosion.

 

Pat and David examine the reclaimed front yard

box broccoli

Things do grow at the beach in boxes and we harvested our first broccoli.

open house

 

Sunday was Open House for everyone to inspect the renovations.
Lots of people turned up and I was so busy running tours that I forgot to take any photos, barely had time to grab a cup of tea and one of Barbara L's delicious scones.
The weather was perfect, warm and no wind so we didn't need the fire David had going in the shelter shed until around 4pm when the cold set in.

 

Jan P. arrived with a seaside quilt which she gave me for Beechwood.
It is made from Kaffe Fasset fabrics in the most gorgeous glowing colours and I'm honoured to have it.

 

Jan's quilt hanging over the stair rail in the Lookout Room

 

 

It was terrific to get some feedback on the renovations, all positive, and show people what we have been obsessed with for the last six months. Janelle 's comment was great: 'I don't know how Helen has done it but it looks both light and.bright and.warm and cosy.' The few things that aren't finished don't show but we're hopeful of getting them fixed soon.

 

The house feels different now - well and truly warmed.

 

 

Monday was a public holiday - much colder - which gave us extra time and David a chance to go fishing off our beach where once more he caught 14 lovely garfish. The story is that the big tuna that are being caught way off the coast are full of garfish and those that evade the tuna jaws swim into Cape Douglas Bay (where David catches them.)

 

Willow and I watch David fishing from the warmth of the Lookout Room.
He came in for lunch frozen.