Slowly getting nowhere

It feels as if there's constantly people doing stuff at the house but that nothing is actually happening. Either everyone is really good at looking busy or there's a lot of things happening behind the scenes. I sometimes think that the painters carry out all the furniture from the guest suite and then they go home. If the furniture is standing outside, I naturally assume that they are inside painting, but now I'm not so sure. And then just before home-time, they come back and put all the furniture inside again.

The studio doors are going in, but the glass people haven't been here yet to put all the glass in. Once the doors are done, the tiling can be finished and also the painting and then perhaps we can move some of the furniture from the soon-to-be-demolished kitchen into there. The kitchen has to be stripped early next week so that all the preparation for the new kitchen can be done.

The pool is in, but there's no paving yet, or power to the pump or any kind of heating. The solar power installer-guy was trying to get some panels up onto our funny disjointed roof yesterday, and then (out of frustration?) recommended that we get a heatpump instead. So that's where we're at with that --the solar panels are standing on the balcony and we are waiting for a quote for a heatpump.

One of the Manitoka trees had to be removed to make way for the new boundary wall. They managed to pull the last bit out with the truck, leaving a strange abstract tree sculpture standing next to the public walkway. It wouldn't fit on the truck with all the other stuff, so maybe someone will take it home.

The foundation for the wall were dug yesterday and were poured today. We were at a homeschooling get-together all day so it's a bit difficult to tell exactly what everyone did today. It rained from time to time so I guess that also slowed things down. There's a lot of bits and pieces happening at the same time, so hopefully a lot of things will finish at the same time too. Here's hoping.

Jackhammers and sledgehammers before breakfast

The kids and the neighbours woke up to the sound of the builders demolishing the courtyard wall with one noisy jackhammer and one very large sledgehammer. Let's hope none of the tourists had a hangover this morning. The wall is now mostly gone, leaving our poor house looking even more battered than before.

The truck bringing our pool paving broke down on the way from Wellington, and they had to get someone to help out with the delivery. When they had finished offloading the pavers, I couldn't see any pool coping so I marched over to the guy who seemed to be in charge and asked what had happened to the rest of the stuff, but the poor guy took a few steps back and said he's just a farmer, doing a favour for a friend, and that the broken-down truck still had a few tonnes of pavers left on it. The truck couldn't be fixed in time so they had to go back to fetch the rest as well. Clever Oom Jan sent his younger son with the truck and then headed off to the hotel for a beer with his older son. 'n Boer maak 'n plan. The rest of the pavers arrived at about 18:00, and the pool coping was there too.

The pool is now back in after the mix-up with the levels, and they seemed to spend most of the day filling it half-way up, adding a few shovelfuls of sand along the sides and sleeping in wheelbarrows.

Nothing much else happened -- some tiling, some grout here and there, a few switch covers. No sign of a plumber today. Will keep my fingers crossed for tomorrow. It will be such a relief to have the kids' rooms completely finished. I really need to get some stuff out of the dining room. To make room for more stuff. What fun, moving stuff from place to place, getting it all dusty in the process.

Shannon's bedroom

Stewart and Shannon went to collect the rest of Shannon's bedroom furniture in Cape Town on Saturday. Her room is not completely finished yet -- the lights and switch-covers still have to be fitted and the bathroom also still needs work etc. We moved the furniture into place just so that Shannon could see what it looks like, but she just couldn't wait to start 'inhabiting' her room. She's taken up a lot of her stuff already which will probably have to be moved again so that the painters can finish. Now that all the white furniture is in, the colours on the walls look really nice and bright. Even her Barbie (see photo) has found a place.

Building Blues

We've finally started with all our renovations and things, and are now about 2 weeks into the mess. Feels like nothing is really happening, only that everything is all over the place. I'm not really complaining -- we wanted to do all this, and knew it would be an inconvenience.

The girls have been sleeping in the lounge for the last 2 weeks. The novelty has now worn off. They are living out of a washing basket as their room has basically been a no-go zone for a while. There's either always someone painting or tiling there or there's a bath standing in front of the cupboards.

The wooden floor people started with the laminates in Shannon's new room yesterday and now only have to do the skirting boards and the transition strips. They couldn't paint the skirting boards yesterday as it was raining. We've had such nice warm weather lately -- felt like Summer had arrived early -- but today the wind is coming straight off some icebergs. Shannon's room is all painted now. Had some fun and games with the paint: We picked a colour we (Shannon mostly) liked and got a litre of it to try out on the wall. It looked fine but when we got the actual paint, the colour seemed a lot darker and not as nice. I'd picked the wrong type of paint and the same colour looks different in the different types of paint. Lots of head-scratching and hassles later, we gave up on the PearlGlo and bought Luxurious Silk and the painters had to do the whole room over again. It looks a lot better now. Shannon is very excited about moving in to her own room. We should be getting the rest of her new furniture this weekend. Then the hard work of sorting out all her belongings starts! The bath and bathroom fittings also still have to go in, plus the new lights. Not quite there yet. It will be nice to have at least one room finished.

The painters are finishing off Sarah and Daniel's room this morning. The wooden floors will go in then, and then the plumbers just have to reconnect the bath and put the basin and bathroom fittings in. Still have to do the lights and plug covers too. Sarah really likes the colour she picked, but Daniel is insisting on pink and orange. He probably won't be sleeping in the room with Sarah for a while, but it's a start in the right direction.

The carpenter is building a dry wall in the garage to partition off the 3rd garage so that we can turn it into a studio. We had to move all the bedding and stuff out of the huge storage cupboard in the garage yesterday so that they could move the cupboard to make space for the wall. More stuff that had to go somewhere. The dining room is full of things that came out of the kids' rooms, the guest apartment is full of stuff that came out of Shannon's new room, the garage is always full of all kinds of things and the lounge is full of bedding, kids' mattresses and assorted junk. It looks as if we've just moved in, not using boxes. I am not looking forward to all the sorting out that still has to happen.

The hardest part for me is having people in the house and around the house all the time. The kids are also getting grumpy because there's nowhere to hide from all of this. When it's warm they take mattresses out to the trampoline and basically live there for most of the day. It's really unpleasant outside today, so we're stuck in the house. Plus we've had to get up a lot earlier than normal, so that doesn't help the general mood either (mine mostly).

The pool people finished the hole yesterday and dropped the pool shell in this morning. They are busy fiddling with levels and stuff. It actually looks bigger now than I thought it would be. Not quite an Olympic-sized pool, but nice for playing in, I think. The kids are quite excited about this development.

The fireplaces are half in and should be finished next Tuesday. The kitchen is going in the week of the 6th of September. The builders will have to strip the kitchen the week before. That will be fun -- living without a kitchen for 2 weeks. There's only so many sarmies you can eat before you need a warm meal. And we don't have a Mr Delivery in Paternoster!

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Sick kids

I took Sarah to the paediatrician yesterday morning.  She woke me up during the night saying that she couldn't sleep because she was coughing too much.  She had a fever and her chest sounded awfully tight and wheezy.  She's been a bit sick with a cold and a slight cough, but this all seemed to happen so suddenly.  I gave her some cough medicine I found in the cupboard and she went to sleep almost right away.  I didn't.  I lay awake for ages worrying about what could be wrong, and worrying if she will be okay, and wondering if I would be able to get an appointment with the doctor, and hoping that Daniel's cold doesn't go the same way, and beating myself up about 'letting' her get sick in the first place.  I had a knot the size of Australia in my stomach by the time morning came. 

I so HATE having to take any of the kids to the doctor.  Only thing I hate more is having to go to the doctor myself.  Must me a genetic thing: my mother was a nurse and even she would rather try and doctor herself than go to get herself checked out.  My dad is the same.  I remember this one time, my mother cut herself while preparing offal (gross, yes I know) and she got blood-poisoning.  She tried to draw out the poison with a concoction of green Sunlight soap and sugar and who knows what else.  It didn't work, so when the red line started going too far up her arm, she finally had to go to the doctor.  

Poor Sarah hasn't been to the doctor since she had her check-ups as a baby, so she was rather nervous.   She really didn't know what to expect and was a bit tearful by the time we got to the doctor's rooms.  Good thing this doctor has such a good bedside manner, just what you'd hope for in someone who chose to specialize in working with children.  Yeah, right.  First she took Sarah's whole life/medical history:  "How old are you?"  Almost seven.  "Okay.  Are you in school yet?"  Nope, she's home-schooled.  "Hmm." (First of many.)  "In which hospital was she born?"  She was born at home.  "Hmm. Was she breast-fed?  And if so, for how long?"  Yes, for 3 1/2 years. "Hmmm.  Are her immunizations up to date?"  We don't do those.  "Hmmmm."  This woman would be great at poker, her face was giving nothing away.  She could have been thinking -- "Good for them, they think for themselves, they don't just behave like sheep etc", or "What a bunch of wackos!"   More than likely the latter, but maybe that's just my paranoia playing up.

I explained what was happening all through the examination.  Sarah (probably thinking)-- why is she knocking me all over with a little hammer?  "She's only checking your reflexes."  Or why is she strapping that black thing to my arm?  "The doctor's just checking your blood-pressure."  Maybe the doctor's more used to kids who are more used to doctors, and who've had these things done a dozen times.  The lack of bedside manner certainly didn't make a dent in my normal aversion to doctors.  When it was done, Sarah did get a chocolate though.  And I got a bill for R450.  Holy cow.  And I thought it was expensive taking the cats to the vet.  That explains the (to my mind) unnecessary things like the blood-pressure testing  -- had to fill up at least 15 minutes.  

All that being said (and seen through the lens of my doctor-phobia), R450 was cheap for being told that Sarah was okay, her lungs were clear, and she would be okay soon.  And not even a gratuitous prescription for some snake-oil later, we were out of there and the knot in my stomach shrunk to the size of Iceland right away.  

I expect to be able to keep the kids healthy with only my will-power and some vitamin C.  So when it gets to the stage where one of them has to go to the doctor, I see it as a personal failure.  I know no-one ever said it was easy being a mother, but really...   :-/

Paddling on a Sunny Saturday Morning

Stewart and I went paddling this morning as the sea was flat as can be and there was no wind. When it looks like nice paddling weather, you have to go right away because it never lasts for long.  We saw a few dolphins (5), which I thought were Common dolphins but after looking in the sea-life book I think they may have been Dusky dolphins.  They are smaller and the colouring is different, but it's not always that easy to tell as you don't get to see the underside of a swimming dolphin.  We paddled right up to them a few times, which was great -- I'd not gotten that close to dolphins before.  Stewart has had them jumping right over his surfski before and doing somersaults right next to him.  

We also saw 2 or 3 Heaviside dolphins, but we didn't even try to get close to them as they are very skittish and just disappear when you get close.  They have a triangular dorsal fin, so it is easier to tell them apart from other dolphins.

On the rocks we paddled to, we saw lots of penguins this time.  Previously, we'd only counted about 13 or so, but this time there were at least 40 -- many of them were young ones, still light grey in colour.  Must have had a very successful breeding season.  Hope they survive.  There are some sea lions around, and no doubt  -- they like snacking on penguins.

On the way back, we saw a red jellyfish swimming; don't know what type it is.  We normally only see them once they've washed up on the beach.   They sea was so clear but usually there is very little to see.  

Shannon and I went paddling a bit afterwards, but the wind had come up in the time it took Shannon to put on her wetsuit.  It got choppy very quickly so we just paddled in and out a few times.  Didn't even get to ride any swells in, which is really fun and makes Shannon squeal.