Moving and Grooving

Hi it’s Tuesday and on Saturday we moved to our new home in Mapleton.

We have had a great time staying at the house in Montville which is about 10 minutes from Mapleton. Our highlights here have included a BBQ on the veranda, having possums, wallabies and goanna’s in the garden, bird watching, cooking on a lovely range, a beautiful spacious bedroom and lovely comfy bed and of course the spectacular views.

We bought a Toyota Prado last week. Thanks to Mike for tracking down one within our budget with good mileage and then giving it a good looking over and test driving it for us. We were able to give the car hire back that we have had for over 4 weeks and now we are on the lookout for a smaller car to run Alex to the station and back.

We packed up our stuff on Friday and did the final bits on Saturday morning. We took down our tree and decorations and Sophia was quite sad that “Christmas is over”.

However, sadness was short lived as by 1pm, we were at our new home and Sophia was in the pool! We went for a dip at about 11pm on Saturday and ended up shooing frogs out as we swam about! The house is fabulous and was built just two years ago by and English couple. It is huge by comparison to houses in the UK and has been built in a clearing of a 4 acre rainforest plot. We are surrounded by high trees, including palms and gums, and a heap of wildlife, hence the frogs. We have been woken to birdsong of a completely different sound to the UK, kookaburras, lorikeets and perhaps a spangled drongo or two!

We have borrowed heaps of stuff from Ed and Nicole, including mattresses, cutlery, sofa and chairs and a tv, so we can comfortably live here until our furniture arrives in a few weeks. My back is aching from the last few days of packing, moving, unpacking and shifting furniture about, hopefully it will recover before we have to pack it all up and give it back!!

Our phone line was reconnected today but we have been given a new number. Our internet won’t be connected until later in the week and once it is all hooked up I can apparantly request my old number back. So please don’t panic if you don’t hear from us for a few days and thank you Nicole for letting me update you all from her PC.

I hear it is -5 in the UK at night and you are going through a cold spell. Just let me know if you want to pop over and warm up!!