Renovation - Chaos with Wasps

Dining Room, Kitchen, Laundry stripped bare

We’re almost into week three of the renovations, and nothing much has progressed so far, except for the preparatory stuff. It will all start in earnest this week, with the plasterer and builder creating new walls and floors.

The rest of the house is filled with building materials, appliances and the new bathroom fittings.

Living Room – crammed with building materials

Meanwhile, we’ve been cooking alfresco, outside the backdoor on the patio which has been covered with a tarpaulin to keep the rain out.

It has most of what you need, the coffee machine, fridge, plates and cutlery and a bucket of water.

Alfresco kitchen

The washing up is done in the backyard in the old sink which B cleverly rigged up on trestles. Of course the taps don’t work – we have to boil water and transport it.

You will notice in the following photo how the grass has grown under the sink where the waste water comes out. This is despite the dishwashing detergent. What magical growing properties it seems to possess!


Sink in the backyard

It’s like camping, though surprisingly without many flies. European wasps are the main problem and they no doubt are responsible for the absence of flies. They are attracted to any foodstuffs, particularly cat food, so we have to be careful and keep the area clean and lock everything away from their depredations. B found a nest of them in the front garden (in the ground near the fence) and spent most of yesterday afternoon trying to kill them with insect spray. It didn’t work, and only succeeded in enraging them. He got stung of course, though only once. He’ll try again tonight with proper wasp killing powder and wearing protective clothing.

The cats have been coping well, Willy hardly twitching a whisker and Talya making herself scarce in one of her hiding spots the front yard, emerging, when the builders have left, to beg for food.

Cats find all the building stuff in the house interesting and worth investigating. They walk between the plaster boards leaning up against the wall in the hallway, and can’t resist climbing into the holes cut into the floor for electricity cables.

Talya considering a pile of timber flooring in the living room.

Overall we’re getting used to the limited cooking facilities and eating quite well -  lots of barbeques and salads.

I wash the clothes at the local laundrette. I haven’t been in one for over 30 years and had to ask how it operated. I was surprised at how cheap it was – only $4.00 for a wash. I had expected it to be much more as I think, in the past it was a dollar or so to wash your clothes then. I don’t bother with the dryer, lugging home the wet clothes to hang on the line. While it’s hot and sunny, why use an electric dryer. If it’s raining I may avail myself of the dryer, as there’s bugger all space to hang clothes on a clothes horse in the house.

The renovations will continue for several more weeks I assume, but I can’t wait for it to be finished.

Update Monday

Today, no wasps!

 
B in his comical Rentokil outfit – check out the head gear, a piece of ingenuity made out of  security flywire.

Finally, the wasp nest has been destroyed, or so I assume as I have seen no wasps hovering around today.

B treated the nest with the proper stuff last night, and dressed appropriately this time. He said the wasps were dormant, so he had no trouble at all. And it appears to have worked.

Shadow Cat – Talya Update

The other day – late afternoon – Talya plonked herself down on a patch of sunlight in the living room, as cats are wont to do. Sitting there observing her, I thought that the cat and shadow would make an interesting photo, as indeed it does. Her silvery fur and elegant shape are perfect for the ambient light flooding the picture.

In fact (I realised today-Wednesday) she looks like an Egyptian cat in that pose.

It is now three weeks since we adopted Talya, and things are working out well. She is certainly living a more interesting life, having become an indoor/outdoor cat. As she grows more confident in her new surroundings she gives every indication of being a lively and happy cat.

The politics between her and Willy are still touchy, but they are becoming more tolerant of each other.

It’s the other neighbourhood cats who are causing her more grief. She and Monty had a run in a week ago, and this evening Pickle from up the road took a dislike to her and was seen to be advancing threateningly before we chased her off.

Anyway, it is fortunate that Talya has settled in so well, as stage two of the renovations are due to start early next week.

Yes, chaos is set to resume; with the dining room, kitchen, laundry and back bathroom scheduled for a complete transformation. We’ll be without a washing machine or cooking facilities for three weeks or so. Looks like we’ll be eating a lot of barbeques and salads.  The best way to look at it is to pretend we are camping. At least the computer, bathing and sleeping arrangements will be unaffected, so no squashy camping out in that respect.

Willy coped well with the renovations last year, and Talya knows how to escape excessive noise and disruption having several hiding places in the garden or under the house, so we hope she will not be too distressed by the building works.

Fortunately it’s not cold at the moment in Melbourne, in fact it’s hot and sunny and will probably continue to be so for the next month.

In The Interim…

I have indeed been slack in posting of late. Blame the renovations as they distracted me more than I thought possible and made me disinclined to write.

Anyway the renovations are long completed, all the furniture moved back in and the boxes unpacked.  The new floor is a 100% on the old one – polished boards vs carpet looks far better and is easier to clean.

Here’s a before and after photo of the living room.

The old fire place is gone and a new flame fire gas heater has replaced it.

A large ornate Art Nouveau dresser used to dominate the right hand wall of the living room, but now it stands in the spare (aka computer)room, along with my sweet little escritoire and an antique oak chair I souvenired  from a flat I rented in the 1960s, when the building was about to be demolished. These three items of furniture appear to go together nicely.

Actually, I’d forgotten what the escritoire looked like, as it had been hidden in the bedroom for years, covered with B’s clothes. So it was a surprise to rediscover it and find it a pleasing and pretty piece.

Art Nouveau Dresser


Chair and escritoire.

So the computer room is a mix of old and new – antique furniture with metal filing cabinets and a computer of course.

Willy the cat coped well with the renovations, hardly stirring a whisker at the turmoil and noise. These days he’s become more sedate in his habits, spending the bulk of the day asleep on the bed or on my lap  (if I let him) pestering me until he gets his way.  Today, while eating his  breakfast he was monstered by a mob of Indian Mynahs, forced by the birds to abandon his plate and flee, and yesterday he caught sight of the feisty young Piccolo in the back yard and slunk back inside, reluctant to tackle her head on.

Here’s a photo I shot of him yesterday evening.

Willy

Despite not writing my usual previews of the Spring racing, I have been following them closely and have attended a few race meetings.  First I went to Caulfield on a soggy day in August for the PB Lawrence Stakes and did manage to get a photo of Heart of Dreams, who has since been retired.

Heart of Dreams

In September I attended Dato Chin Nam Stakes day at Moonee Valley and was interested to see that Linton’s coat has lightened considerably. Here are two photos of him, one taken in February 2010 after he won the Alister Clark Stakes, the other taken this September.

Linton  - February 2010	Linton – September 2012

Most of the horses I planned to follow this spring have resumed  quite a few with wins. More Joyous, now 6 years old, has accounted for her opposition easily in two runs back.

Shoot Out started his Spring campaign in the Group One George Main Stakes with a striking win. He will be contesting the Group One Epsom Handicap this coming Saturday and could well be successful again. He’s the last of the High Chaparral boys of 2010, the others, Descarado, Monaco Consul and So You Think all having retired to stud. 

Star colt Pierro has had two runs this season and won them both. He raced at Moonee Valley last Friday night in the Bill Stutt Stakes. He handled the track as if he’d been racing there for seasons, and blitzed the rest of the field with his stunning turn of foot, winning by 5 lengths. I contemplated going to the meeting, specifically to see Pierro, but the miserable weather put me off. I might attend Caulfield Guineas day in mid October, which is next on Pierro’s agenda. He has now won all eight of his starts and is yet to be beaten.

All Too Hard has been very disappointing this spring, failing to gain a place in his last two runs. Also Mosheen has failed to fire so far, perhaps not fully recovered from a throat operation she underwent mid year. And Manawanui has been banned from racing for three months after bleeding in his first run back.

The good news is that Black Caviar will return to the racetrack next autumn, all going well.

There are five Group One races scheduled this coming Saturday which will no doubt give some early pointers to likely winners of the BIG three – Cox Plate, Caulfield Cup and Melbourne Cup.

And lastly, I’m currently reading (for the second time) Michael Chabon’s new novel Telegraph Avenue, a wonderfully written exuberant novel set in the Berkeley/Oakbank area of California that covers such arcane subjects as 1960s/70s black music, jazz, funk, and blaxploitation movies. The novel is centred around a second hand vinyl record store called Brokebank Records, run by two friends Archy Stalling and Nat Jaffe, which is under threat from a projected giant multimedia development called Dogpile to be built close by.

Telegraph Avenue is replete with dazzling prose and colourful, likeable characters, one of which is a parrot. There is also a cameo appearance by Barack Obama and a 12 page sentence that is quite extraordinary to read. No wonder I felt like reading the book twice in succession.

Home comforts at hand, but somewhat squashed

Pictured above is the remaining living area in the Cat Politics domicile, formerly the dining room. As you can see it has all the home comforts – TV, stereo, computer, bed and booze. All that’s missing is adequate heating, but we are a hardy lot and our habit during winter is to leave the doors open for airing anyway, and only turn the heating on at night. There is a small portable Rinnai gas heater we can use to take edge off in the evenings.

The renovations commenced on Monday morning and as I write, all the carpet has been removed from the front rooms, not to mention the floorboards, and the en suite bathroom is gutted.

Living Room carpet  cleared of furniture	Living Room floorless

Dining  this evening – to take advantage of the wall heater – decadent living in the true sense

I’m staying here this week, then moving two doors up to mind the neighbour’s house and cat for five weeks next Tuesday.  So far B and I have not come to blows coping with the compressed household arrangements, but it does become a trifle irksome, if one party wants to watch TV or play CDs when the other seeks peace and quiet.

Surprisingly Willy, after making himself scarce for most of yesterday, has adapted to the disruption well and barely turned a hair at the racket created by the builders today.

Well may you ask what has happened to the furniture etc. that used to stand in the now denuded rooms.

B very cunningly managed to squeeze the bulk of it into the backyard studio with the other odd item or dozen being stored on the front verandah.

Backyard studio	Front verandah (with Willy cat, centre)

By now of course, I’ve totally forgotten where everything is, so if I suddenly think of something I really need, it’s tough luck. Fortunately I didn’t have to pack up my large bookcase; it’s intact covered with a tarp and still accessible.