So given that we have had a fairly quiet weekend by standards of recent, I though that I would show you some of the views and scenery around our home.  Perhaps I should outline a ‘quiet’ weekend first though?

Saturday was a shopping day.  At the moment, we are still shopping on a Saturday and driving not quite into Canberra but at least to the airport where there is a shopping mall with a Woolworths.  So the morning started off like this.  Up at 6:30am, (1/2 hour lie in!) and out of the house by 8am.  It was a slow out, but shopping lists needed to be written and supplies checked, documents found (this was more important) and ingredients checked for a new (and rather delicious) recipe I was making during the week.
8:40am we were at the Roads and Traffic place in Queanbeyan which although is down as a ‘suburb’ of Canberra is technically in a different territory!  We needed to check various things about registering the car for being in NSW (we get 3 months to do thing after moving into NSW as we handily found out, but we need to get various things done, like a vehicle inspection and obtain both blue and green slips (one is a vehicle road worthiness check, the other mandatory 3rd party insurance), get my mobility badge (blue disabled badge) applied for and Stuart is getting a NSW driving licence.  I’ve decided to stay on my OK one at least for the time being.  There are indications, something I need to check with my doctor, that I may need to get a medical driving licence and have various paper work signed and potentially a series of medical tests done to prove I am fit enough to drive what with my leg and back and everything if I change to a NSW driving licence.  There is actually no reason for me to change, other than it is a useful form of identification in Australia and most things seem to centre around it.
With that done, it was off to Bunnings.  This is a cross between B&Q of old and Kwiksave and if it exists, it is in there somewhere.  It is also always exceptionally cold in the warehouse which is what it is is and having spent far more than planned, got everything on the list, but sadly missed a few things off the list, we headed off into ‘town’ to have lunch at our favourite café.
Sweet Bones is a vegan café come restaurant that was opened via crowdfunding and you will find anyone and everyone in there.  You will literally find the hard core vegan stereotypical type sitting alongside men in very expensive business suits.  But there is one thing you can guarantee and that there are always no tables to be had anywhere around meal times and that there food is always exceptionally good. And Saturday was no different.  Despite arriving at midday (slightly later than planned but…) even the tables outside were all taken, but by the time you get to the front of the queue to order, something has usually appeared and today was no different.  I opted for the special this time around and was no disappointed.  It was as good as every.  One of the dessert items, a raw blueberry chocolate slice was amazing!
Next came IKEA.  We needed some bits like lamp shades for the sitting room, cushions for the sofa (we brought cushion covers, just not the cushions themselves), some bits for the kitchen, a cheap chair and side table for the studio and the list goes on.  After that was another break, IKEA’s restaurant area has a café and the coffee in the café is better that the coffee in the shopping mall coffee shop, so coffee in the café it was and a check of what was left to do and get.
So after the break came the weekly food shopping.  This is something we need to sort.  For one thing, ideally I would like it to be done mid-week and tied into ‘driving home from work’ so that we can save 100km (60 miles) on fuel.  We done have a local supermarket, but IGA is expensive unless you only purchase the ‘specials’ of the week, but that means I can’t plan our meals in advance and only buy what’s on the shopping list.  A new much larger IGA is opening in February which may give more options.  There is also a local farmers’ market.  This is something I need to check out, but Stuart has a strange reluctance to go to farmers’ markets for some reason which I guess is related to the fact that in the UK, this usually means more expensive and often less choice!  I would like to find out but it opens much later that we would have normally set out for the shopping…
Next came a visit to the pet shop.  I needed some reassurance that what I am doing with the 3 goldfish I have found is correct.  I would like to get them some cover and I would like to get some lilies or something in the pond as well.  What I’m doing (very little) is fine.  What I have done for them so far, is correct and they should be fine.  I just need to remove some water from the pond every now and again and top the water up.  I don’t need to bother treating the water because we are using bore water (effectively the creek water) and it obviously hasn’t been treated.  So all was well.
Finally, we baled on looking at the wood burning stove shop, we need to get Hugh’s permission to put a stove into the house anyway, so nothing could be done instantly on that front and there are signs that Spring is on its way now!  One for the Autumn perhaps?
6pm found us home.  Evening meal had been made the night before, so whilst Stuart put the shopping away, I laid and lit the fire.

Sunday was working on the house and garden day.  Plus Stuart had the week’s supply of logs to chop.  The wood typically comes in logs too big to burn in any fire place, so Stuart does the primary chopping (usually spread across the weekend) and I do the secondary chopping (something I should be doing now rather than typing at the keyboard!).  Both of us were to take all day with what was needed but we started on the veg plot and I found one of the many cold drafts in the sitting room.  They were stuffed temporarily and will be added to the builders list!

I think Stuart goes to work for the break personally!

So some of the scenery around our home.

The road to the house and what attracted us to the area.  This was taken back in June I think.  This is the main road (OK track by UK standards, but it’s a typical Aussie dirt road), Gidleigh Road, that leads to Spring Creek Road which leads to our track….

These are Stuart’s Ghost trees.  They are a paler bare trunked Eucalyptus Gum tree and are the main trees in this area.  They line the area at the top of the track and lead most of the way down it.

They form the most wonderful shapes sometimes where they have fallen or become unstable in the very thin soil.  Plus when they are covered in frost and the morning light is just coming through, they look amazing!

From the track, looking East into the morning sun.  We have a mixture of trees including pine of some form down the lower half of the track and leading to the house.

Out in the open, there are these amazing trees.  They are vast.  This one is nearer to the creek which is at the border of the field.

Our view.  Well once you have walked around a couple of the tree which you have to look through at the house.  This was one of the more frosty mornings where fog started to develop once the sun came up.

What I suspect may become a calendar photo if I can get enough pictures together for one this year!  Just a few trees, through more trees!

 

A frosted Eucalyptus tree in the sunlight.

One of those big trees I was talking earlier.

Some more landscape.  There is a creek in that dip and where it meets our creek there is a wombat den.

More frozen, hoar frosted trees.  Don’t let anyone convince you Australia is all hot!

Looking back up the hill into the “Ghost Trees”!