Valla Rural

Yesterday I opened the boy's craft cupboard to see what the strange noise was. I found the chook, Ivory, next to the egg she laid. 24 hours locked in there and counting, she got out pretty fast. 

Here are the cows crossing the road on the way to preschool a few days ago. 

And here is a snapshot of the work that took place here at the old schoolhouse over the weekend to install a new water tank and re-plumb the house.

The owners worked so, so hard. We are all so relieved that the set up is now 'concrete' - we should have normal water supply now - and there should be no more bathroom & laundry flooding, and the leak in the ceiling should hopefully be fixed but we'll keep an eye on that one. Plus, the house will stop moving on the foundations in the kitchen corner too. (We've been really worried about some of the stuff we've seen happening to the house during our stay here, but the owners have addressed all the problems now and have sunk a lot of money in to fix problems the previous owners hid.) 

So after a tough first couple of months for the owners and for us as tenants, this week marks the beginning of a new chapter for us here at the schoolhouse - and it's all looking positive.

In other news, last night the Pacific highway had another crash, and for the second time in a fortnight all light vehicles were sent on a lengthy detour around rural Valla. Rural Valla is dirt road through the forest with no street lights and the occasional goat, cow or wild pig. Cars need to drive steady along this road, and most cars took it easy last night, but the occasional cowboy sped through at 80klm/hour nearly wiping out 4 other cars on the tight bend in front of us. Living on the road is usually peaceful so it was unsettling when highway traffic was traveling through stirring up the dust.  Check it out!

I've been run down and Tim's has a bad bout of tonsillitis. We've used up the last of the firewood to boot. Tim needs to take it easy a few more days so we have a delivery of wood coming to us tomorrow. Looking forward to evenings in front of the wood heater again :)

Cold July Days

In between time indoors keeping the fire going, I've been running up klm's on my car checking out every suburb to help us decide whether we will stay 'local' long-term and where we might like to live. (We now know we want to move on from the schoolhouse when our lease ends, after ongoing issues with plumbing and water supply amongst other 'renting' frustrations - even though things are looking up now.) Oh - the properties we've seen, roads we've explored, real estate agents we've met! It's too big a discussion and decision and - getting nowhere but sleep deprived - I'm ready to give up thinking about it now. Phew (brush eyebrows).

Along the way, though, I've visited some stunning headlands and stretches of beach while Maxie has napped in the backseat, with realestate.com app open on the dashboard. The whales are traveling north presently and I think - well it's a stretch of my imagination - but I think I saw a pot of whales. One day, one day I'll get to see them up close!

This area of the NSW coast is described as 'very natural' and there really isn't much to do as far as PROVIDED children's playareas go; and when you are used to the Gold Coast and enormous parks in big supply, it's something to get used to. I'm yet to find a local playground to take the boys to. But who needs provided playgrounds, honestly. There are beachside dirt tracks to ride along, lookouts and lighthouse, quiet beaches to drive on and have a picnic, markets to discover, and shallow creeks to splash in. We are joining in on the occasional local playgroup session. And along with the big gardens at home with fruit trees for Dusty to swing from, there's more for the boys to do than they can keep up with while I chip away at my study and marketing work. 

Dusty has limitless energy these days so we are really grateful for his amazing preschool and the friends he is making there. 

Dusty's short day away gives Maxie a chance, finally, to catch some well earned ZZZ's...

Tim is already flat out with job requests for his excavating & slashing business.

So, having made the last big trip to the GC last weekend, we have no plans to drive the long distance for at least another month. It's really exhausted us driving up and down so frequently ... as much as we've wanted to catch up with friends and fam and collect stuff from m&d's, it's time for us to settle in to Valla, now. :)