Tuesday, January 01, 2008
Getting Personal
Happy 2008 to our three regular readers out there. Excuse me for writing a totally personal life blog. I usually base my posts on something that has given me the shits but I'll allow myself one for the year...
Pretty uneventful night for yours truly. I think I am at that stage in my life where my parents have more fun at New Years than I do thanks to having a one year old. I'd say the next decade will basically be more of the same. My parents are down at my uncle and aunts holiday home in the Hawkes Bay perched on a hill with 360 degree views by all accounts. My wife went to a midnight mass at her local Korean church while I was left reading Pillars of the Earth as the new year came in. I then sat down to watch the demolition of Bangladesh replayed on Prime. It was briefly interupted by our neighbour goping off his tit at some other 'neighbours' through the bush out the back of our houses. It's about 30 metres of pine infested low quality, 'rejuventaing native' bush with some houses on the otherside. Our neighbour had let off some fucken big banging fireworks at about quarter past 12 which they must have called out about. He then began abusing the shit out of them and threw an empty beer bottle in their general direction. This is one dude you don't want to fuck with when he's had a few. And the only other moment of 'interest' was near 2am when a party going a couple of hundred metres up the road had most of the woman folk singing a certain song from Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle album which you would not expect women to be singing. If you know the album you'll know the song I mean and if you don't it's probably just as well. I'd hate living next door to that crowd. Though their parties are usually few and far between. By and large our area is pretty deathly silent 350 days out of the year after dark.
I've nearly finished my retaining wall out the front of our house. It's the curse of buying a steeply sloping property that it needs a wall out the front and at least one big one out the back which I'm not going to build. Thankfully the wall is only about 75cm tall so wasn't a major. I do have major design issues with how to get some kind of flow from the steps up the path towards the road and the paved bbq area that it runs next too. It smells of an impending fuckup unless I devote about 5 hours thought to it and twice that much sweat. Still not a bad holiday so far. Have built two gates that will keep the one year old away from the road at least. Now she can just fall down the rotten death trap stairs at the side of the house or off the driveway retaining wall. On the to do list remains: smash up the remainder of the existing pathway, finish ends of retianing wall, fill in retaining wall and plant up, build deck out to retaining wall, design and build steps up to letterbox and paved area, paint 30 metres of fence and gates, paint new deck area and jack up some kind of pole system to get our shade sail up. It's 3.6m by 3.6m and our deck is about 6m by 3m so not sure exactly how I will jerry-rig that, and that will about do it for these holidays. I still have to fix the rest of our deck and remove and replace those bloody rotting stairs though. Then I can move back inside to the tiling in the bathroom and kitchen, and installation of a dishwasher and cupboards and then blow me down if that won't be about when we put the house on the market. Straight after we get the fucker finished. Mind you, I would probably get bored living in a house that had more or less reached it's potential.
Oh yeah, going up north for a week as well. Should be interesting. Hope the car survives so then we do too. Spots I am really looking forward to are Dargaville and Kaitaia.
Pretty uneventful night for yours truly. I think I am at that stage in my life where my parents have more fun at New Years than I do thanks to having a one year old. I'd say the next decade will basically be more of the same. My parents are down at my uncle and aunts holiday home in the Hawkes Bay perched on a hill with 360 degree views by all accounts. My wife went to a midnight mass at her local Korean church while I was left reading Pillars of the Earth as the new year came in. I then sat down to watch the demolition of Bangladesh replayed on Prime. It was briefly interupted by our neighbour goping off his tit at some other 'neighbours' through the bush out the back of our houses. It's about 30 metres of pine infested low quality, 'rejuventaing native' bush with some houses on the otherside. Our neighbour had let off some fucken big banging fireworks at about quarter past 12 which they must have called out about. He then began abusing the shit out of them and threw an empty beer bottle in their general direction. This is one dude you don't want to fuck with when he's had a few. And the only other moment of 'interest' was near 2am when a party going a couple of hundred metres up the road had most of the woman folk singing a certain song from Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle album which you would not expect women to be singing. If you know the album you'll know the song I mean and if you don't it's probably just as well. I'd hate living next door to that crowd. Though their parties are usually few and far between. By and large our area is pretty deathly silent 350 days out of the year after dark.
I've nearly finished my retaining wall out the front of our house. It's the curse of buying a steeply sloping property that it needs a wall out the front and at least one big one out the back which I'm not going to build. Thankfully the wall is only about 75cm tall so wasn't a major. I do have major design issues with how to get some kind of flow from the steps up the path towards the road and the paved bbq area that it runs next too. It smells of an impending fuckup unless I devote about 5 hours thought to it and twice that much sweat. Still not a bad holiday so far. Have built two gates that will keep the one year old away from the road at least. Now she can just fall down the rotten death trap stairs at the side of the house or off the driveway retaining wall. On the to do list remains: smash up the remainder of the existing pathway, finish ends of retianing wall, fill in retaining wall and plant up, build deck out to retaining wall, design and build steps up to letterbox and paved area, paint 30 metres of fence and gates, paint new deck area and jack up some kind of pole system to get our shade sail up. It's 3.6m by 3.6m and our deck is about 6m by 3m so not sure exactly how I will jerry-rig that, and that will about do it for these holidays. I still have to fix the rest of our deck and remove and replace those bloody rotting stairs though. Then I can move back inside to the tiling in the bathroom and kitchen, and installation of a dishwasher and cupboards and then blow me down if that won't be about when we put the house on the market. Straight after we get the fucker finished. Mind you, I would probably get bored living in a house that had more or less reached it's potential.
Oh yeah, going up north for a week as well. Should be interesting. Hope the car survives so then we do too. Spots I am really looking forward to are Dargaville and Kaitaia.
Labels: diy, holidays, neighbours, new years
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