A fantastic party

20.7.2011

BUILDING NEWS

Rain, rain, rain. Mud too, so building crawls forward very slowly. Geoff and Glen have now only got two more arches to do and then the inner wall and fireplace. That is only a few days work if it would just stop raining! Edd is still struggling to work out how the front roof goes and we cannot start anything else until these tasks are complete.

Mean while I have found a company making light weight dome shells in Australia that might be suitable and affordable as accommodation replacements for our host farm business. Al left room for domes on the flattened area between our house and the ruin gardens in his master plan.

OTHER NEWS

We were all busy last week helping Al move his home and office into a rented house and then prepare for his 40th birthday party. The house needed quite a lot of cleaning and Al had a huge task trying to get on the phone and Internet for his office up and running. In addition to this he found time to build a pizza oven at the back of the house.

Someone must have the ear of the Gods because on the day of the party it stopped raining and we were able to light a fire pit on the front lawn and the Mexican band could play outdoors under a market gazebo. Bo brought over enough salad to feed all of Warburton and baked a mega birthday cake. India worked hard at making pizza after pizza and Carolina and I danced all night, mainly (on my part anyway) to keep warm!

The party was a huge success and a good way to start life in the new place. Edd and I went back next day to pick up the tables, chairs and beer keg and found that Al and family were absolutely exhausted. They had all slept outside in the tents so that their guests could have the beds! We sent Ti to buy chips to go with the salad for lunch as he still had the energy to walk.

Once the party was over the rain started again. I can see that in some ways Edd and I are well off. Living in one small room at least we can keep it toasty warm where as Al’s house is larger and much harder to keep at a bearable temperature. Our exhaustion is self-inflicted because we have been up late every night watching the Tour de France but, what a way to go.

Finally we have an Australian winner. My next ram will be called Cadell.
Yesterday was pretty miserable but India and I spent most of the day shopping for her school shoes. Then we baked a chocolate cake, as it was the true date of Al’s birthday. We had all planned to have tea at Bo’s restaurant but everyone was too worn out to risk another late night.