It's almost over.....

One more day to go and then it's back onto the big bird (hopefully minus the wind shear) for home. This trip seems to have raced away, oh well time to start planning the next one.

We went to the outer islands for snorkeling and once you made it past the regular tourist area the coral and fish life was fantastic. We did have to convince our guide that we knew what we were doing and that it was ok to allow us to go out to the diving zone. Once this was done the day just flowed. The next day was the expected "Ouch toooooooo much sun at the reef " so we had a quiet one just chilling by the pool with a book. Today will be quiet, we have finally reached the "resort" state of mind and everything just happens in slow motion so we will just kick back and enjoy. Only one more "All you can eat" buffet to go and yes Hans I have been watching the waist line very closely because it seems to be getting closer to the ground, don't know how that happened.

Good morning from Sabah

Aaaaaaaaaaaaah 35 degrees, steamy, large pool, calm blue China Sea, what more could you ask for. Our return to Nexus was always a bit of a worry - "Will it be as good as the first time?" well in a word answer no. But having said that the resort is now 10 years older and they have built another large complex about 32 klms down the road and all their attention has been on that. The main resort is still fantastic, the pools are wonderful, the staff great and the laidback feel to everything is just as we remember.

The A group of staff have moved onto the latest and best, and this happens all over the world, but the replacements are very good. The food has also suffered a weeee bit but there is nothing to complain about, it's just not at the same amazingly high level as when it first opened. Yesterday we went into the seafood restaurant in Kota which was fab. Lobby and scallops fresh from the tank all for $80 oh and that included lots of beer. LOL.

Tomorrow off to the outer islands for some snorkeling and today ? well let's just say our place is marked out at the pool and at some stage we will fall into the "all you can eat buffet".

Singapore in seconds

Shopping, food, shopping, food, shopping, food, shopping, food, Zoo, food, shopping, food, Night Safari, food, China town, food, walking, food, shopping, food I think by now you get the point.

Off to Sabah tomorrow for some food, pool, food, pool, cocktails, food, - until then.......................

Bruce I hope you are safe and sound and things dont spread south. Keeping a close eye on the news.

Good Morning from wet and wild Singapore

Well at last we are on our way, and it has to be said that we always find new ways to keep things interesting.  Firstly there will be no pics as I don't have my laptop and the computers here at the hotel don't have card readers so it will be all text until we get home.

Our first flight on the A380 was stimulating if nothing else. To begin we were quite impressed with the layout and leg room in economy. (It's still not business or first but getting better) On the Singapore Airlines layout you don't even get to see the other side of travel. The cattle class is totally isolated from the others - dam.

The flight itself is pretty much like any flight , long and generally boring especially when you appear to be the only person whose  entertainment centre is not working. The best I could get out of a movie was 5 minutes before my screen froze. That said I did manage to beat living daylights out of the backgammon game. The plane is very big and behaves like something very big, it sort of wallows around the sky - odd feeling. In turbulence it drops and slides spooky.

The landing

We were about 10 minutes out and everyone was looking forward to getting off and stretching their legs when the captain announced that they were experiencing some very strong winds at Changi and that all runways other than the north/south had been closed so there would be a delay while we queued. That was ok and nothing we hadn't done before. On final approach we flew straight into this massive thunerstrom, lightening, massive amounts of rain and lots and lots of wind. We were about 200 feet off the ground and definitely committed to landing when we got hit with "Wind Shear". The captain applied full power to stop us going down and we were not sure whether he was trying to do a fly around or what, but as it turned out he was just trying to get us onto the runway. The only problem with applying lots of power at this stage was that we speeded up and overflew the beginning of the runway and landed half way along. Still in torretial rain and wind, we slid all over the place. It is the first time that Ron and I have grabbed the seat in front to stop from being thrown around the cabin - yes we did have our seat belts on. VeryVery scary. As we taxied to the terminal we kept an eye on the runway and we were the only ones to have attempted the landing.

Weather 35 and wet

Rockface

It seems like ages since I have posted a painting. This is painting no 20 in the Whiteman Dreaming series and is inspired from a walk through the Beechworth Gorge just before Christmas 2009. We came across a waterfall and inbeded in the wall was this face with just a trickle of water coming down the rockface. Couldn't resist it, hope you like it as well.

I am entering it in the Mount Eyre Vineyard Art Prize which is a competition in the Hunter Valley of NSW, so fingers crossed I make it into the final selection of showing.

whitemandreaming.blogspot.com

Sold

We are now officially "Homeless Pensioners". It was a very stressful day and neither of us ever want to do it again, but at the end of it all we sold for 910 which is what we think is a good figure. We were worried about some of the finer things like some wonky floor boards etc but the only request the new owners had was when they could get access for the architect and interior designer, so I guess the ol' place is in for a major refit and face lift.

Last night we took off with Scott, Julie and Bailey for a dinner around at the Stingo pub to celebrate and had the best nights sleep in months. Today is going to be a real kick back - NO making beds, No changing towels, No polishing on hands and knees those dam marble tiles, No sweeping or weeding, actually it's going to be a very sloppy day with dishes in the sink reading Escape in the paper and getting ideas for our next adventure. We are off on a quick holiday on Sunday and have been thinking about a trip to Lake Eyre when we get back, that's if it still has water in it.

Here's one for Hans and Bruce

Remember those great rides down along the coast ending up at the Portsea Pub? well it's still there LOL. Yesterday we decided that we needed to get out of town a little and go have lunch, so the obvious place was a drive along the coast to the Portsea Pub. If you know the pub you can see from the pic that it has continued to grow but in essence it remains the same place. Now it wasn't the "packed to the rafters" place we remember from the bike days and the fact that the temp was a balmy 14 might have had something to do with that LOL. I have forgotten just how quiet Portsea is in winter, no shops open apart from the Dive shop and one bakery, but it is still a wonderful relaxing place to go.

The house saga continues and Saturday is rapidly approaching and the good news is the continuous bed making and cleaning is about to stop LOL. We had our last "Show and tell" last night and it was very quiet, again the 10 degree temp and rain might have had a tad to do with it.

30

and they said we would never make it

It seems like ten years ago not 30 that we met in the Corner Bar at the Surfers Paradise Hotel. Who would have thought we would have come full circle and be planning a return to that corner of the world, be it a couple of hunderd klms further north.

We are planning a quietish night with dinner at Mc B's where a couple of bottles of good wine will be consumed. My liver is very thankful for the flu, as my consumption is dramaticly down and I might even be driving tonight. That said I know someone who is hanging out to crack the bottle of Hill of Grace which he has been hanging onto and I might just have to have a glass of that LOL.

On the house front things are finally moving along and we have now had a couple of requests for contracts and we still have two weeks of show and tell to go. Come on May 8, we are both getting really sick of living in a display home LOL. Beds always made, dishes clean and put away, laundry done, folded and put away and heaven forbid we use the stove and dirty that.  Give me Miss G back LOL LOL LOL.

    Good morning from a balmy Melbourne

The weather is really strange at the moment. The last couple of days have been 27 with a clear blue sky - and this is April ! What happened to the showers, grey and miserable 15 degrees that we were expecting. Not that I wish to put a curse on things as the Lyns are arriving tomorrow for a couple of days and we need the weather to hold up so the garden looks great for the house open days.

On the house sale front we are off and stumbling LOL. Our first day was last Saturday and the numbers were a bit disappointing, but yesterday was even slower. We think that with the great weather, everyone has taken off to enjoy the last blast of sunshine before hibernation sets in LOL. Our first open night is on Wednesday and while we don't expect many people mid week it would be nice to have a few people through to see the lighting at night, the garden looks great under lights.

At Last things are starting to happen with the house sale. All the prep is basically done and now it's up to the market to do its thing. The house is now online at http://www.hockingstuart.com.au/ the suburb is abbotsford, so let us know what you think.

You can take the man out of the South but the food remains the same....

As you can see Blue invited us over to his place to celebrate Good Friday with a good ol' Southern Cook Up and he excelled in everything. A small dinner party of 8 enjoyed the tastes of the deep south complete with Mint Juleps made by Ron, just to make sure everyone got off to a flying start.

The Marquee was set up in the gardens, dining was by candle light and the wine and good times flowed freely.

Thankyou Blue for a great night.

Good Morning from downtown makeover

Sorry we haven't been online often but we seem to be plastering, painting, scrubing etc every day. Tomorrow is photo day so we are in frantic last minute touch ups for that. So far things have gone much slower than expected but we look like everything will come together in the end.

For tomorrow we have the dining room, bathroom, lounge, one bedroom and the gardens finish (well sort of) LOL. Over the next week we will finish off the weeee bits that we missed on the first time through.

Miss G went to hospital yesterday to get repaird from that vicious attack by the Germans in the Kea, and while she is there we are getting a few little comforts added as well. Must admit I feel like a turtle without my shell at the moment. This is the first time in 18 months that we have been without her LOL.

There's nothing like the good clean smell of country air...........

Well I think I can remember it LOL. This was sunset last night from the top of the Yarra Boulevard. Admittedly it is not just petrochemicals in the air. Since Black Saturday the State Government has been a weeee bit over the top when it comes to burning off and clearing the forests that surround Melbourne. As you can see they were burning on a day that had absolutely NO wind, so everything just settled over us. Made for a great sunset LOL. The painting and plastering continues and we have nearly finished the front half of the house, so that means all the furniture will now be moved from the lounge back to the bedrooms. Apparently there is already strong interest in the house and the "For Sale" sign hasn't gone up yet. There is an overflow from the sale of our neighbours and they have signed up for first up inspections when we finally get it all together. Pics are being taken on the 8th so it has to be fab by then.

Home Sweet Home

Well it used to be Home Sweet Home, now it's much more like a bare and featureless wreck LOL. The Art has all gone into hiding and the books are about to relaunched themselves down at Taralgon.

The bedrooms are in the lounge and the dining room is half in storage and half under the bedrooms LOL.

But the end is in sight. Now that everything is sort of out of the way the real work can begin.

We are finally seeing some results

The back garden is finally coming together with the addition of the bamboo water feature and the positioning of some of the rocks. We still have to move the small rocks from in front of the window up into the garden beds with the mondo grass and then we will fill a free form path just in front of the windows, should look great. The front is also coming along with the dry water course going in today.

Hello from packing central.

Not much news apart from the fact that we are being lethal with our sorting through things and trying desperately to get everything into a small storage shed. So far so good. Work has started on the house and we have revived the Japanese garden both in the front garden and the rear garden. We have worked out a new water feature using old bamboo pipes and it looks really good. Maybe at the end of all this we wont want to move LOL

We had a storm yesterday

Well Melbourne has been beaten and battered to within an inch of her life in the last 24 hours.  I have never seen such rain and hail. This was the pic I took of the weather bureau site before the official warnings cam out. Everything was grounded, no trains, no trams, no transport of any kind. Roofs collapsed at the new Southern Cross railway station, football grounds, casino, Jeffs Shed and lots and lots of smashed windows both in cars and houses. What a day. Still Miss Guided came through without a scratch and the house is ok as well. We just planted a vegie and herb garden and wondered how we were going to keep the water up to it and now we don't have to worry LOL.

Good to see both hans and bruce are at each others throat instead of mine for a change LOL. Hans the port barrel will be up on ebay this weekend, but it's pick up only so unless you are planning a weeeeee trip downunder you will have to do with a pic LOL.

Ebaying to death

The selling has begun and I have spent the last two days madly loading up my ebay account with "Rare and Collectible", "Once in a lifetime" and "Vintage Antiques" all over the place LOL.

Truly there is alot of good stuff up and so far the reaction has been really good. The funniest thing up so far is a complete Library. I tried to sell off all our books to the second hand book shops but couldn't find anyone that was interested in buying 700 odd books. So up on ebay it went complete with the Book shelves, so someone is going to buy a complete library and the interest has been great so far.

This is such a crappy job...............

As you can see by the state of the dining room, the packing has begun. The place is a mess and we are trying to keep it livable as Steve is still living here. We come in each day and do a bit more but with 30 years of stuff it doesn't seem to make any difference. I have started ebaying so hopefully by next weekend some of it will have moved house LOL.

Bruce has set up house in Thailand and seems to be getting a grip on things, at least one of us at least has started the big new adventure LOL.

Di the first of the clarice will be up on ebay tonight, happy bidding, really good set.

Hello from Melbourne

We arrived back here yesterday (Sunday) and checked into the park at Templestowe before heading to the house and see Bailey. Today was the start of the packing and we have launched ourselves into it with much gusto. So far the pub rubbish (records) have left the building and I have started to list some things on ebay as well as sorting through 30 years of drawers.

The builder came around this afternoon for his final instructions on what is needed before the sale. So far everything is going great.