At last the time has come that we can move in.  By one way of looking at it, this is after a six-month delay: it has taken us that long to sell the house at 33 Blackbutt Circle.  However, by holding on, even in a market said to be going down, we have settled for a price only a little less than we asked.  $1.27M as you asked.

We had to leave all, or nearly all, the furniture in 33BBC in order to make it easier to sell, which in turn meant that we couldn’t move into 47 Park Street (well, we don’t have two sets of furniture).

So, when we eventually had the OK to move, it was a major exercise.  It was odd to see our home for more than 20 years become empty of furniture.

Bedrooms with no beds.

Our main bedroom with no furniture.

It was all a little sad, really.  Until, that is, we set foot in the new house.

Then it was wonderful.  The first day made us realise what a good decision it was, to move.  We sat under out covered balcony roof and could easily have been in a Cotswold village in England, complete with blackbirds chirping, the (relatively) long evening, and the perfect temperature (it is still very early summer here in NSW).  Yet we still have all the benefits of living in Australia (see the special section in The Economist from last week).

We even have a peacock in the back garden, courtesy of the builder, who came to visit on Saturday, bringing us a present.

Glenbrook is a lovely village, quiet but well-supplied with services such as doctors, a pharmacy, a (very small) supermarket, and several places to eat out.

We aim to grow old here.

It has been a while since I updated our ‘blog.  Remiss of me, I accept.

Especially as the house is coming on well, with the garden becoming steadily more beautiful.

This is our Acer Japonicum Acantifolium tree, which we’ve put in the front corner of our garden.  The predecessor to this tree featured in “Landscaping (2)” blog, when it broke off.  This is the replacement tree.  It has blossomed and started to produce leaves – vivid green at the moment, with beautiful little dangling flowers.  It will change colours through spring, summer and autumn, ending up with rich red coloured leaves in autumn.  The Crimson Sentry maples in the grass outside the front wall are also growing beautiful red leaves, but we will leave those pictures for the next ‘blog.

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Next is a picture of Nick and his good friends at the Western Sydney University Medicine Annual Ball this year.  They will all be graduating this December, so early 2019 there will be a third Dr Coulshed on the wards of a hospital in NSW.

Nick has been allocated Liverpool Hospital.  It’s altogether a little of a coincidence (only in name of course, this is a completely different “Liverpool”).  I (David) suspect that he will have a similar experience to mine when I worked in Walton Hospital in Liverpool, UK: a very busy job, in a relatively poor area of the city.  Hopefully with the great camaraderie which I experienced at Walton – this is the sort of thing which helps you get through.

Andrew, meanwhile, is doing his research year at UNSW, and seems to be doing well.  That is, when he’s not going round the country as UNSW “AMSA Rep.” – representative for his med. school at the Australian Medical Students Association.  Yes the students have their own Australia-wide society, complete with conferences, dinners, competitions, political agendae, etc.  He went to a committee meeting in Melbourne recently.  He flew down for a long weekend, which included the rewards of going out to trendy wine bars (see picture) including one called “Naked for Satan” !!!!

Unfortunately the AMSA weekend coincided with a final rehearsal for Medshow 2018, in which Andrew had a central part.  No problem.  He flew from Melbourne to Sydney for the rehearsal on the Saturday evening, then flew back to Melbourne for the rest of the committee meeting.

It was all worthwhile.  The production was a triumph (even if Andrew and we thought the Medshow last year was even better).  The dancing was superb, with amazingly good choreography, acrobatics, music.  All from a group of medical students.  The picture is of the final bows being taken.  Andrew is in the centre, in blue “scrubs”.  He played a boofy orthopaedic surgeon.  I’ll add a link to the video if one is released (sadly it wasn’t good enough quality recording last year).

Sue?  Well all our energy has been taken up with trying to sell this house, before moving into our new one.  Not easy, with the housing marking falling, trying to sell the best and most expensive house in the suburb.  
Sue has been fighting a battle to keep the garden in good condition to have a favourable impression on the viewing parties.  Not helped by the lyrebird.  One particular lyrebird – it has an injured leg, which makes it identifiable.  This is a not very good picture of the battle in progress.  In terms of deterrence, Sue has been on the losing side.  In terms of making the garden look good, despite Fred the Lyrebird digging it up every day to look for juicy morsels, Sue has won.  I’m afraid to say David Nick and Andrew found it very entertaining, even as we helped with the Lyrebird Defences.

Not really a spectacular entry this in terms of progress.

This phase, however, is in some respects more interesting on an immediate basis: seeing the grass being laid and the plants going in is really quite satisfying – it certainly makes the house become more like a home, and one which we will be pleased to live in.

Both the front and the back gardens are moving forward.

It is winter here, so not much is growing, and the grass doesn’t grow roots quickly, but so long as we keep everything watered it should live through to springtime.

At the back of the garden will be a line of citrus trees: a Tahitian Lime, a cumquat, a (-n?) Eureka Lemon, two Mandarin Oranges (Imperial and Thorny) and a Yuzu.  This last is a Chinese/Japanese citrus, part-way between a lemon and a grapefruit.  We also have a peach, a nectarine and another Eureka Lemon along the side of the garden.

Yuzu

Eureka Lemon

Imperial Mandarin

We have trees!

There is a line of lilli-pilli trees between us and the neighbours.  There are two sentry maples (“Acer platanoides Crimson Sentry”) planted outside our front wall, and there was supposed to be a Seiryu Maple planted in the corner of our front garden ….

However, I happened to be there when Simon, the landscaper, was trying to plant it, as seen here.

A 3-metre tall tree came with a large root system (in a large bag with handles to help, and getting it into position clearly took a lot of strength and time.

I went to the back of the house, and heard a crack, followed by a loud exclamation along the  lines of “Oh, Bother!”.

This was the scene when I returned to see what was going on.  Simon was not happy, and I had to take the pictures surreptitiously.

Fortunately, knowing that it’s unusual for this to happen (!), Simon spotted a flaw/fault/defect in the trunk of the tree, so we get a new one free from the tree nursery.

Fortunately because this is over $1,000 worth of tree!

If that sounds extravagant, our first choice had been an Acer Palmatum Bloodgood, available as a fully grown tree for >$3,000!

This is the pool area with the paving laid, now.

Here is the front of the house.

The house is fundamentally finished (there are details to go, but they are only details).  The landscaping now has to be done, and firstly it is much more satisfying than I anticipated, and also makes a huge difference!

Here is a picture just showing how something as simple as laying the pavers to provide a path to the front door makes it look much better, and more like a home.

Yes, there is Sue, unloading some of our possessions as they are transferred to the new house.  We are moving in stages, having not sold 33 Blackbutt Circle as yet.

This is a photo. taken today (27th) showing that the front lawn is now laid – making the whole front look much better, I think.

Here is a somewhat autumnal view from the front door.

The pool is now having sandstone pavers laid around it.  Here is the concreting done to provide the base for them.

I also need to claim that I was the first person to hang washing in the new residence (earlier this month) …..

Have I ‘blogged about the garden shed?

I think that I have, but not in it’s final form, as shown here.  This is such a small structure, that it didn’t require planning permission.

After all, it’s just a garden shed.

4m by 3m, sandstone, gable-roofed, slate-tiled, garden shed.

We don’t do things by halves, it seems.

It will be used to house the garden tools, at one end, and the pool pump and filter at the other.

Other developments are the flooring downstairs and the carpet upstairs.

This shows the downstairs living room, with the ironbark floor after polishing, and below is a picture of the kitchen, also with the wooden floor now in place.

In many respect though the most important addition is the granite slab at the entrance of the house.

It is made of “Orinoco” granite, with the amazing copper/gold swirls which naturally occur in this stone.  The picture shows it looking down from the upstairs balcony down to the front door.                    

The carpet has been laid upstairs as well.  This makes it all look close to complete, and I suppose it is – at least the end is in sight!

Progress is mostly outside recently, with a wall being built between ours and the neighbours pools, and a start on the front fence.

This is the first stage of the front fence being built.

The inside of the house is being prepared for painting, with plastic sheeting being put over everything.

Also a picture of the Christmas lights at our current house this year.