Off to the Shed

I am not one to hoard a lot of ‘things’, in fact I am very conscious of having too much stuff lying around the place and I really hate clutter. However, when it comes to paper work and in particular my Uni stuff… all that hard work that I put in over 4 years, I find it extremely difficult to throw away.

So when we moved back into our newly renovated house (yes, I will get around to showing you), we had a stack of boxes marked ‘O’s Uni stuff, or technical books etc. (I was such a good student!) of which made it into our designated study and that’s where they have stopped, but tonight I started the big throw away and little by little I will consolidate what I think is useful to what is not.

Time elapse…

This has been a very time consuming task and one I have done with great angst, will I use this again? will I at some point, even though I haven’t used it in years need to refer to it one day, these questions keep popping up.

In doing this I have now reduced my original 12 boxes down to a tidy group of folders, a few text books and an interesting refresh of knowledge of the building and construction industry. To answer the question, do I need it again? well Im sure having the resource there is a good back up plan, but most times I need to know something, I do have a library down the road, of which I am not yet a member and there is of course… Google!

Hi there,

It has now nearly been 3 and a bit months since my last blog entry, in that time the work life balance and a number of other things have taken priority to writing blog entries.

As you may well know we now have a beautiful little girl who is just over 5 months old and so life has taken a whole new twist (for the better). Isnt it just amazing how these little ones consume our lives and make you think ‘whatever did I do with out them’ or ‘where have they been all my life’. I am a firm believer that we have children at just the right time and when we are meant to have them. Some people will disagree with me profusely.

We are slowly but surely doing the rounds with our new little person in toe, catching up with friends and family and blending in to the whole parenting thing very nicely. I think in my friendship group I am one of the late bloomers when it comes to children, but I am glad that I have been able to do the things I have done prior to having a child/ren, ie. go to uni (mature age), travel (a little), work, and generally find out a little more about myself without having to put that on hold whilst raising a child. I know it doesn’t work that way for everyone, but I am very lucky to have had the extra time.

Just for the record I have been starting blog entries, but then getting to a point where I think they need a bit of work and then stopping. I have in my ‘drafts’ section 10 unpublished blogs that I will get to in the next week or so.

Another reason for my absence is that I am now SHEDLESS!! I know!! Yes, the old shed is gone and so some of my inspiration. I do have a blog entry coming about when my shed was demolished, which will include a video clip (when I can work out how to load it into this format) So as you can probably appreciate, I feel a bit lost, wandering in the desert in search of a new shed, a place that I can call my own.

I am reading a book at the moment called ‘Manhood’ by Steve Biddulph, which is a really good read about being a man and working out who we are in certain aspects of life. Here is a little excerpt that further condones the reason for a shed and why it is important:

“It’s important for anyone’s sense of self that they have a space to be in that is their own. Many men have no space of their own in the house - clearly from the decor and furnishings, the bedroom is usually the woman’s space. (The shed is a good start, but is still more of a retreat, not really part of the house). Along with having a room of one’s own goes time on one’s own. Setting aside time each day to be yourself and do your thinking means you have a more equal footing in the household and less need to retreat to the office or the pub.

(Insert by Robert Bly’s Iron John)… There is a need for a place. Men feel a loss of home. The male spirit or sould doesn’t fee that it has a home. The man goes to work and deals with that set of responsibilities and difficulties. Then he goes home and deals with that set of responsibilities and difficulties. He doesn’t have a sense of home - as in a dwelling place - where he gets to dwell within himself”.

This can work both ways too, we all need a place to get away from our daily lives and either sit pottering and doing something meaningless, listening to music, sewing, or hammering a nail into a piece of timber, but we do all need a place like this. I for one need this space!
I have been doing things around the house too, but ever so slowly, which will ramp up when the weather starts being a little kinder and I will let you know what i’m doing.

First thing is first… the new shed will be under construction in approximately 3 weeks… watch this space.

Have a wonderful day!

I was driving home last night from a night out with my girls, and we were following a number of taxis that were doing their usual to-ing and fro-ing for a Saturday night with the many people who rely on them for a safe ride home in whatever state.

I have often been a tough critic on taxi drivers for their general road manner, particularly staying in the right lane on a freeway sitting just under the speed limit and not letting anyone pass! Arrrghhh!! But I thought I would focus on this entry about what the taxi drivers have to put up with on a daily basis with their sometimes grossly intoxicated occupants.

I have many times required the services of a taxi ride home after I have had that ‘one too many’ and always got home safely and in the most cases the most direct path to my place of residence. I have seen on the television and first hand what some taxi drivers are put through during a normal day at work and I think it is unfair and wrong, that any person can be treated like that carrying out their daily job to earn a living and support a family.
So today, I just wanted to say a big thank you to all those taxi drivers that work the late shifts and take us all home safely. Please consider the people who work in this tough job and provide us with a service that is a relentless unrewarding task.

I am working through my list of tasks around the house as mentioned in a previous entry, and one of the things on the list was to hang the curtains in baby M’s room. L has done an amazing job of making some beautiful pink and baby like curtains, and so it was my turn to now hang them; an easy job you may say, but…

I carried out the usual investigation that precedes any ‘little’ project and I tapped around the wall to locate a stud where I could fix the screws into that hold the brackets, but due to a cupboard door needing to open up in the curtain space we had to move the brackets up the wall approximately 100mm. In doing so I could not locate any studs in the area that I could fix into that would allow us to open the curtains all the way, so it was off to the hardware store to buy some plasterboard anchors. Plasterboard is a gypsum product which is not ideal fixing substrate for fixing anything heavy unless it is into a structural component on the other side ie a part of the frame. I purchased some anchors that would support up to 20kg, because as you may already know curtains can be quite heavy and this particular window is about 2.5m wide by 1.8 high.

The anchors are very easy to use, they are self drilling, meaning that all you need to do is insert them into the plaster with a philips head screw driver, you then insert the bracket or whatever you want to fix to the wall and use a screw that is supplied with the anchor, and as you screw it into the wall it ‘butterflies’ out and grips the plasterboard. The idea being of the anchor is to increase the surface area of the fixing which makes it harder to pull out through the weak plasterboard.

Sounds good you say! Unfortunately, it didn’t go that easy for me this time and with much sweat, a bit of colourful language and some serious head scratching, I realised that when I put the screw into the anchor instead of the screw ‘butterflying’ out on the other side of the plasterboard it tangled around the insulation that was in the wall and failed to butterfly!!! Not knowing this until I hung the curtains, I applied the weight and the anchors pulled straight out of the wall!

Following this disaster and with not 2 but 4 holes about the size of a AUD 5 cent piece in our new plasterboard and freshly painted rooms I began tapping around and trying to find another way to fix these curtains. Don’t you just hate it when a little job, something that should have taken 10mins to do, takes more time than some of the larger tasks.

Anyway, I decided to extend the span of the curtain rod and fix the brackets to wherever I could locate a stud just to get the job done. I thought to myself it is better to pre-drill the hole which allows the screws to go in easier. Well, pre-drilling into a 50+ year old house frame with hardwood timber is not as easy as it sounds. First of all, you need to use a power drill and have some decent drill bits. After several attempts at getting the correct depth of hole and two drill bits later, quickly running out of suitable sized drill bits, I had the holes completed. Finally I was on the home stretch, I fixed the brackets to the wall and hung the curtains. Those brackets will be staying there a long time!

A couple of things to remember when buying brackets for curtains and installing them, don’t rely on the size of the screws they provide you with in the packet of brackets, consider the weight of the curtains prior to hanging them, make sure you fix the brackets into adequate supports, and use patience and calm when doing any project…

On the 22.2.08 my/our little girl came into the world and what an amazing day that was and will forever remain. Yes little M was born safe and sound, weighing in at 7 pounds and 10 ounces in the old speak (3.465kg), and so you would be safe to say that the last couple of weeks for L and I have been quite busy, and I am happy to report that we are making the transition of being DINK’s to SIWK’s very nicely. Sorry that is a terrible acronym but if you know the correct term for single income with one child then let me know.

So after a couple of attempts a few mates and I went out for an afternoon lunch to ‘wet the baby’s head’ which means basically that a few of the boys go out on the town and have a few beers to celebrate. However, in an effort to always provide my readers with some education, I managed to find someone who thinks they know what they’re talking about and has provided the following description for your reading pleasure: Since the 1600s, the verb ‘to wet’ has meant to celebrate by drinking, though the earliest use of ‘wet the baby’s head’ as such dates only to the 19th century. When a baby is baptised, its head is literally ‘wetted’ by the priest, so the custom of fathers inviting friends to ‘wet the baby’s head’ is just a sort of secular baptism, as it were.

Well there you have it spoken like a true champion or rather a really good bullsh*t artist who got himself out of another bit of trouble with the missus, very believable, don’t you think?!

So the boys and I headed out for lunch (quite civilized) a few beers and we end up watching some footy and then going to Crown and Casa Del Oro to purchase a cigar each. Casa Del Oro is located in the Crown complex and there is a shop that is a humidor, which means that the cigars are out in the open for close examination. Not being the expert in cigars yet, I stuck to a cigar that I had smoked before the Partagus no.4. There aren’t too many places these days to have a cigar and so we went to a place at Crown that has an outdoor balcony. We continued our conversation and enjoyed a nice glass of scotch to celebrate the occasion. I think the days of having a big night are over for me, but I must say I am glad. An afternoon with a couple of friends, a nice meal, a few beers, a cigar and a scotch, what more can a man want, and what a wonderful occasion! Here’s to M!!

I was thinking the other day, that now that our house has finished being renovated that for me the work has just begun. I did a bit of walk around the house and started to put together a list of things that had to be done. Very overwhelming! As I put the list together, I kept thinking about the TV show (one of my favorites) ‘My Name is Earl’, and his karma list that he put together to right the wrongs that he had done in his life. Although my list doesn’t really go into the whole karma thing, I thought it might be a good way to present all of the things that I have to do around the house, and for each thing I do, I’ll blog about it…

Here is my list!

Please note, due to finances and time required to complete some of these items this list is in no particular order:

• Remove old shed
• Build new shed
• Connect all down pipes to storm water
• Wire in surround speakers in the ceiling
• Build the side fence (left side)
• Build the side fence (right side)
• Put in a new exposed aggregate driveway
• Walkway over heating unit
• Level the backyard
• Build new front fence
• Install ag drains (to extend around new part of house)
• Install new storm water drains (to extend to the new part of the house as required)
• Fill in pits to provide levels for storm water drainage
• Paint the roof
• Dig out the concrete in the back yard
• Install new letter box
• Build cot - flat pack I think
• Install new path in the front
• Pave the side of the house (narrow side)
• Create a new front garden
• Plant trees front and back
• Do something with the awful nature strip tree!
• Install a new clothes line
• Render and paint the boundary wall (the neighbours shed is on the boundary)
• Clean the gutters (ongoing)
• Plant new grass
• Extend height of back fence - sorry Flo
• Install new curtains in M’s room
• Build attic in the ceiling/roof space for storage
• Build furniture - very exciting
• Make a train table for model trains - its a boy thing!
• Fix L’s sunglasses
• Install floorboard pads on the bottom of the furniture
• Fix things that break… This could be anything, from hair straighteners to chairs and tables, to plumbing items and really anything ‘the wife’ tells me to.

So as you can see I have quite a bit on my plate, to my good friends it’s been nice knowing you, if you need me I will be in the garden or the shed and doing stuff around the house.

Hi there again,

Thanks Coolio for your comment, I too look forward to tasting your wares when I am next in Brisbane, I think it will be in June, in time for a nice glass of port and a romeo and juliet on the deck… hmmm! We men are very simple creatures aren’t we!

I have been looking around for some tips about port and how to get different tastes in the barrel. I came across a good website from another fellow port drinker,so have a look at his link and you might get some ideas. Port link
I think all in all it’s trial and error, but there are several people who will tell you different techniques about how to start a port barrel. Some people say to put brandy in the barrel for a few days prior to adding any port, others will tell you to just rinse the barrel with water and then put the port in.

The thing to remember I guess is that you should plan to have this item of furniture in your house for a long time and you will probably be able to try a few things along the way without it affecting the longevity of the barrel. Mix in some brandy occasionally, some sherry maybe, and some different types of port.

I personally, the novice that I am, have just put about 4 bottles of tawny port about 150ml of french brandy and half a bottle of sherry, and now having waited a couple of days, I am happy to report that it is really tasting good.

Have fun in your trials and let me know how you go!

Last year my wonderful wife bought me a fantastic gift, a thing that I have always wanted but never really been in a place permanent enough to warrant something of this stature, elegance and style… I don’t know whether you have ever read a description about a port barrel like that before, but that’s how much I treasure it.

With any new thing, it is good to gain an understanding of how it should work and sometimes if you’re lucky you might get some instructions, most of which I never read but I hear they are a good read… However when it came to my port barrel, I wanted to know how to ensure that it doesn’t leak and how to be able to appreciate this for many years to come.

Having just moved into our newly renovated house and having still a few unopened boxes around the place, I was impatient to get my port barrel off and running and so I was looking around for the instructions and when I thought that they could not be found, I hopped onto the next place that has all the information you need - the internet and Google! however, it seems that there isn’t a lot of information about port barrels on the net and so I thought that now having found my instructions I would share you what these instructions say so that if you are ever googling port barrel preparation, you could come and visit my blog on the way.

So I don’t infringe any copyright rules - I wish to first provide you with the source of my information - the instructions come from the ‘Cooper Import Company’ they are importers of hand crafted wine barrels and they are located in 23 Nicholson Street, Abbotsford, Victoria Australia.

This is suitable for the storage of Port or Spirits, but unsuitable for red or white wine which has not been fortified.

This is based on brand new barrels that have not been used.

Preparing the Barrel

• When you buy a barrel it has often been sitting on the shelf for some time and the oak may have dried out considerably, to give the timber some hydration, fill it with water.
• If the barrel leaks, leave the water in it for the oak to ‘take up’ moisture and stop the leaking.
• Empty the barrel and let it drain completely
• Pour into the barrel a quarter of a bottle of Old Tawny Port, roll it around several times and empty it out
• Fill it with the Port you have selected or blended to be kept in the barrel
• If the barrel still leaks empty the Port out, refill it with water and leave until the leaking stops. In most instances this will not be necessary.
• Remember that patience is necessary at this stage, and is the key to successfully preparing the barrel.
• Never immerse the barrel in water as this will turn it black

So there you have it, pretty simple isn’t it. I don’t know what really happens after that but mine has water sitting into it as I am writing this and I will be getting some Tawny for it tomorrow. Let the years roll on. I have heard that that after a while of putting port into the barrel that it gets a film on the inside of the barrel and assists the new ports that are added over time to have better flavours, even not particularly good ports can improve after being in a matured port barrel.

On the instruction sheet that I was given with the port barrel it has named a couple of port blends that can be used and I dont mind sharing them:

Dry - Fairly alcoholic style

• Three and a half bottles of Tawny port
• One bottle of Fino Sherry (very dry)
• One bottle of St. Agnes Brandy (375ml)

Sweeter, less alcoholic style

• Four bottles of Tawny port
• Half a bottle of Fino Sherry (very dry)
• One bottle of St. Agnes Brandy (175ml)

Please note:

• The blend can be sized up or down depending on taste and the volume of the barrel which does not have to be full
• The blend will take time to marry in and provide a smooth drinking port. Some evaporation of the contents should be encouraged, as this hastens the marrying in process.
• You should also try other blends such as specialised liqueurs, spirits and other suitable liquors.

I think it is just trial and error and time that will put your barrel in good stead. Enjoy your journey. Let me know how you go.

I wish to thank the person who placed a comment on my blog about the flat pack furniture entry. The person made the comment that people are buying IKEA or flat pack furniture because it is cheap and able to be thrown away after a few years of use. The reader made the comment that this has an impact on the resources and the energy used to make the furniture, and that they would prefer ‘proper’ timber to be used to make furniture that lasts for years.

With the comments made, I do agree in part, yes it is difficult living in a throw-away society where things are cheap and not as valued as they ‘used to be’. With this perspective, I would like to point out that generally, furniture made for the market and the likes of IKEA are from plantation timbers and pulped timber products which have been planted specifically for the use in timber products. These trees grow very fast and the WHOLE tree is used in the manufacture of the timber product. This form of timber manufacture does also create a lot of jobs, from growers, to truck drivers, to yard persons, to dock and port workers, to timber manufacturers to retail employees etc etc.

On the other hand, hard wood timbers used for ‘proper’ furniture that lasts a long time, often comes from non-renewable sources, where the tree is cut down and only a portion of the tree can be used and the rest is wasted. These trees are very old and take years to grow back IF there is a replanting regime in place. I am happy to say that I think timber growers are becoming more responsible these days and when they knock over trees for use, they are planting 1 - 10 trees in its place which should assist us to have enough timber for future generations.

Having a keen interest in timber and timber products I think it is good that we have options like flat pack furniture that come from renewable sources and are easy to produce, but we also have the option for good solid (hard wood) timber. Keeping in mind that hard wood timber products are extremely expensive and out of reach for many families.
So thanks to the person who spent the time to not only read my blog but to leave a comment, I hope you come back and read this response too. Timber is a great product and can be enjoyed in many forms.

I’m all about giving credit where credit is due. So today’s award goes to Mini Movers who have provided L & I with great service for the last couple of moves we have done.

Mini Movers are a small but expanding business who basically provide you with a couple of guys/girls (of course) and a truck and you get to run the show. They charge you an hourly rate and so if you are on a small budget for moving and also have some friends available to lend a hand, then this will reduce the time that it takes to move your house and thus the price.
6 months ago, L prepared our house for moving and packed and categorized every single box in the house and then also went to the extreme of coding each box so that when we moved back in we could unpack the box in the actual new location… and this was her at 3 months pregnant! Amazing! She then managed the move from our old house to 2 storage locations and did all this in one load! Mini movers gave her all the help she wanted and I gave her a massage for a good days work… ok and flowers and chocolates, and took her out to a really good restaurant!

So today we moved our things back from the storage locations and into our new home, and it was such a smooth process. The guys from Mini Movers showed up on time (actually beat me) and then wrapped and cared for everything they moved as if it was theirs. Well done Tony and Nathan for a great job.

The Mini movers 4 principles are these:

• Be careful
• Be quick
• Exceed and
• Enjoy

I like these principles and believe that I received the service they wish to provide. So if you’re looking for a good removals company give them a go!