deck

well i'm pretty tired so excuse any spelling mistakes! This past week has been so full on, it has been crazy. We have finally started building the back deck. It started last Saturday with the bobcat com ing to excavate the ground. It was supposed to take 2 hours and it ended up taking 8!!!!! Bloody hell! Of course there are pipes all over the frigging place, aren;t there? And did anyone think to perhaps put these pipes on some kind of a plan when the house was built? Nooooooo.

Anyway.

So hundreds of dollars later and several broken pipes (whoops! that was the sewer!) we had an almost excavated yard. Except all along the back wall of the house where the bobcat couldn't get to because of above mentioned pipes. Sunday morning saw Brett and me out there in the 38 degree heat digging it all up with mattocks and shovels. Our ground is basically clay. I mean you could actually dig a lump out of the ground and make a lovely vase. So it took aaaages. My boots weighed about 3000 tonnes at the end because of course the clay has become mud where the pipes burst. We were out there again on Monday and Tuesday, marking out the string lines and then digging the post holes. Did I mention we had to dig TWENTY FIVE holes? After digging 3, which took about an hour, with Brett using the crow bar thingy (think solid iron bar taller than a person) and me scooping the dirt out with a tin can, and then swapping (my biceps looking freaking fantastic, btw) we decided to hire a post hole digger from Kennards, which was the most dangerous and loud machine I have ever seen. Luckily I wasn't operating it.

So the holes are now dug, and today the plumber came to repair and reroute the pipes. So it is coming together. Just in time for Brett to go back to work next week... I think we'll be working on this deck every evening for the next couple of weeks. Luckily it's daylight saving.

Last night we had a BBQ at bianca's place which was very nice. The kids mucked around outside and then we chucked them all in the bath. The water turned dark brown immediately. Eww! Tomorrow is Australia Day, so we will head down to Wollongong Harbour in the evening for the fireworks.

goodnight! My pillow is calling me......