Go East young man

OK, so the song is actually called 'Go West young man', but this doesn't fit this blog posting so you get what you're given!
Anyways, a little while back we booked a weekend away to Swansea on Tassie's East Coast, definitely not in Wales. Drove up Friday after work and was on the beach Saturday morning - fantastic. Bit crowded though, as there were about 6 or 7 other people on the nine mile stretch of sand; barefaced cheek!
Weather on Sat was fab (high of 18 deg C, or mid 60's in old money) despite it still being late Winter. Not so good on Sunday so got up late, went for Japanese lunch, and baked cup cakes in the evening for RSPCA campaign (see new web-link on right hand side in the link 'u' like section). Plenty more to explore in the area, so we will go back maybe next year and camp.

Another new job for Jules

You may remember my first job at Australian Red Cross was in Emergency Services and my contract ended in June. The job finished, but my passion for the area didn't. Soooo, last month I applied for and got a new job working full time for the National Emergency Services team (as opposed to the Tassie team) on a project to develop a national framework for the use of spontaneous volunteers in an emergency. As before I'm on a contract until the end of June, the Oz end of financial year. Do you spot a pattern here! So far I'm loving it. Part of the project includes holding stakeholder consultations in every state/territory in Oz, so in Sept/Oct I will be jetting off around the country. How lucky am I???!!!

Shiver me timbers!

Things moving on in the house building. It's hardly 'Grand Designs', more 'Little house on the Paddock'.
Anyway, we have a garage (or shed in Aussie lingo) base with some timber framing.
And we have supporting stumps and floor for the house. More wall framing happening this week.

Snow on the Welly

High winds and rain overnight, but further up - lots of lovely snow!

Saturday sunshine

Took a quick trip to the 'building site' to see how the driveway was progressing.
Pleased to find it all done, along with the removal of top-soil and sub-soil where the carport and garage will go.
Some pics below: -
1. View up the drive
2. Clearing for carport and garage (2 pics)
3. View down the drive

Road to nowhere

Yes, after months of discussions and planning and furrowed brows, we have finally got started with our house building. Woohoo!!

Here is our 'road to nowhere' (at the moment anyway).

Farewell to Tasha

Maybe old news to some, but unfortunately it's RIP Tasha.
She suffered either a stroke or brain tumour but, either way, she was no longer enjoying a good quality of life so we had to make the call :(
We buried her in a good spot in our garden.