I know! I know! I'm useless...so spank me...

Maybe I should edit the title and change the word 'spank', some Googlers might be mightily disappointed with their search if they end up here. That'll teach 'em; and if you are here after searching for something else you're just dirty pervs! Now go spank yourselves.....
Anyway, enough of that debauchery, how have you been? It's been crazy busy here, one lot of visitors leave and then we prepare for the next.
I hate weeds, I mean like, really hate them. It's a good job there are such people as HelpXers because I don't think I would be able to keep on top of our gardens on my own, not  without their help anyway. Not only do they do a grand job in the garden and the house, they are all such lovely young people. It's such fun having them stay and I'm always sorry to see them go, partly because I can't find things in my kitchen! They help clean up after meals and on the whole most things go back where they are supposed to. Some things don't though and I can spend a lot of time looking for things that have moved. Mind you I should be used to that really, we've been here 9 1/2 years and Joe still can't put things back where he found them. It's a man thing I reckon.
So what have we been up to? Well I'll tell you....
Before our friends from the UK arrived last December, we had two HelpXers help work the garden, tidy the barn and stuff, they did a grand job and everywhere looked great. Here they are..

Alexis and Lena

from France and Germany

 Our friends came and went and the weeds grew, after they left it rained, a lot, and two weeks ago everywhere looked like this....

Somewhere in that lot are trees!

 We had four helpers this time, Joe and Alex a couple from the UK, Courtney from Canada and Lisa from Bavaria, it was quite the United Nations here. Courtney and Lisa were with us for 4 days, Joe & Alex stayed for 10 days. Joe will herein after be called Little Joe. Obviously my Joe is big Joe or Joe the elder.
The gardens now look like this.....

 This border needs more plants.

 There are other areas they worked on to but I haven't taken photos of them, the above were taken from the deck. I shall return to that magnificent erection in a moment. So now everywhere is presentable again and ready for our next lot of visitors, also from the UK. They arrive a week today. One of my bestest friends, Monica, we've know each other since high school, her hubby and their four kids, so we're looking forward to seeing them again, it's been a while.

 Our helpers, gotta keep them fuelled up. 

Michael & Tash came and joined us for Sunday dinner.

 L-R below

 Big Joe, Alex, Courtney, Lisa & me, in the front, Little Joe

I have also been Queen kitchen bitch, harvesting and preserving.

Some seriously hot chillies

 Capsicums/peppers

 Tomatoes, which are all but finished now

My pantry still isn't finished, we've been too busy, 

but when it is I've a few jars to put on the shelves.

Can't wait to put them in the pantry.........one day....sigh!

Are you ready for this? Are you ready for one mighty erection, Joe's biggus deckus?

Oh heck, just thought of the Googlers! PERVS!

So the long awaited deck handrail went up last Saturday. Would you believe they got it up in one day! They worked like hard working, working things. Michael was putting the last battens up in the dark with a miners lamp on his head in the dark. Last batten went up around 9pm Saturday night. We are beyond happy with it and relieved it is finally safe to walk on.

I'll let the photos do the talking.

Isn't it the most beautiful thing you ever saw? 

I think that will do today, I'll try to make sure that these posts aren't just monthly events.

Have a good weekend ya'all

An engagement, a concrete deck and some home improvements

I mentioned in my previous post that we'd had an engagement, well we have. Michael popped the question on the 1st December 2016, a complete surprise for everyone, for him too I think. We thought he'd never get around to it! They've been together 4 years on the 1st so it was high time. They took the dog to Raglan beach and he made Natasha climb up on some big sand dune. They watched the sun go down, then as they were getting up to go he said to Tash, help me get up, as she turned around to pull him up, he was down on one knee holding out a ring! How romantic and lovely is that? We're all chuffed to bits of course, the wedding is going to be here on 1st December 2018, so we have a couple of years to prepare and me to get more plants in the garden. We've still to have the official engagement party. 

Here's the happy couple

 And here's the ring, he did good job that boy of mine.

So what else has been going on? Shitloads! That's what.

If you've been following  my blog for a while you'll know that we like to knock things down, pull things out and put it altogether again a bit different, or in some cases a lot different.

The last updates I posted on the deck are here with the finished (minus a handrail) here

The handrail still isn't finished but it will be soon, hopefully, we just needed to find some funds from somewhere.

We did however get the concrete base down, it was a bit of a push getting it done before our visitors arrived. Also we were battling a very wet spring, which proved to be a bloody pain in the arse on the day.
Michael's good mate Andrew lays concrete for a living so he was there with Michael to help get the job done. As I already mentioned the weather had been appalling but it started off OK and so we took a chance and gave the go ahead to the concrete company.
But first it had to be made ready for concrete to be poured

 

 We were expecting rain the day the concrete was arriving

 

 It's a thing of beauty and is being well used, it's lovely and cool under there too, it get very hot (usually) in our summers.

To add to all the stress getting ready for our visitors we had started on renovations downstairs, I know right, bit fick ain't we? I think the last post on that was here

This is what we managed to get done about a week before our visitors

The frame work for the pantry

 Door into the hallway, behind the pantry

 Framework for new linen cupboard

Door frame going in (leads to bathroom and hallway)

 Linen cupboard

Pantry

 Half wall relocated behind sitting area

Pantry, doorway and sitting area.

ETA I found some more photos
Getting ready for painting

I have pretty much painted downstairs but I really can't find those photos so I will have to take new ones, but in the meantime....

During all the madness I decided I wanted to move some cupboards around in the kitchen.
I hate my kitchen!
I seemed to have rather a lot of stuff in the cupboards!

 Looking better

 We took out the L shaped cupboard that enclosed the kitchen and which also made for difficult acces when the dishwasher drawer was open. we bumped the tall cupboards down the wall and rotated the L cupboard 90% and squeezed in to the right of the oven.

 When we look back into the family room we have so  much more space!

 I managed to persuade Joe to take out the corner cupboard on the left and put in a couple of shelves.
So much more workspace now.

Since this last photo was taken the old window, when the pink frame is, has been closed in, and I threw on a couple of coats of paint on the walls. A bit of a bodge job but it looked a whole lot better than before. I'll take a photo of it painted for next time.

See ya soon