and yes, it was hotter today than yesterday. Last night there was no air, not one tiny little bit.

And I don’t care what the official meteorological reports say – 35deg C was our top apparently – we actually got to 40deg C at Sisters Beach … we had the thermometer in a good spot, out of the sun and not in a hot sheltered spot either, so it was pretty accurate. Unbelievably hot~!

The ocean was beautiful at 2pm – tide was in and it was just lovely.

At 6pm almost as good, a little cooler and you had to hike as the tide was almost out – but still beautiful.

And now there’s a cool breeze just starting to come through and a prediction of 23deg C for us tomorrow – yay!

Family onslaught was good, though very tiring, kids all had a great time, mum enjoyed her 60th birthday lunch immensely, and the others are all planning their next trips.

Mum and dad are heading down the West Coast of Tassie for a week from Sunday, doing all sorts of trips, and are enjoying the heatwave at present.

We’re not hitting the news as much as Adelaide and Melbourne, who are in the midst of a horrifying dry/hot spell, but Flinders Island (North East Corner of Tas) hit 41.5C yesterday – hottest Tasmanian temp on record. We got to 30deg or so, which is pretty darned hot for here, and of course it didn’t cool down overnight – I’m just very thankful for an airconditioned office! UPDATE … Scamander (on the East Coast of Tas) broke that record today, just one day later, by hitting 42.2deg C!!!!

The parents helped Mr Tasmania and I fill in our new drain up at the block, which will prevent the house being flooded, which I think is probably a good thing. 2 metres of blue metal carried in buckets – 2 hours later we were all well and truly over it but it was done and looks good!

The man who will be pouring our water tank is meeting Mr Tasmania next week and hopefully that will be done soon – yes, we’re NOT on town water, and we’re NOT on town sewerage – in reality, in Australia, once you get outside the big towns and cities most people aren’t on town supplies – the distances are just too great. Sisters Beach, my little town, has it’s own sewerage system but that only went in 3 years ago, and everyone is reliant on rainfall for drinking water – or paying $200 a load to the water tanker when it runs out.

I’m starting to turn my brain to wall tiles for bathrooms, paint, and carpeting … which is actually quite a lot of fun … and attempting to pay for it all NOT from the mortgage, which is brain bending, but will be of benefit in the long term!

It’s 9:15pm, Friday, and it’s still 30deg C in the house – we don’t have aircon and there is no breeze, so it’s another night of no sheets I reckon!

To Tasmazia – it’s AWESOME, a definite if you ever visit Tassie – mum dad and I are complete failures at finding the middle of any of the mazes, Mr Tasmania found the ‘secret tunnel’ in the main maze and then led us to it eventually : … mum and dad led a man out of one maze (from the observation platform) – poor man had been in there for an hour and was very very lost!

Pancakes were great and it was lots of fun despite the 36deg C temp!

and how did we celebrate it in my family?

weeeellll …. we had australia shaped beef burgers with the BBQ last night ….. and I’ve got a tiny Australian flag that dad bought flying out the front of the house …..

other than that, we slothed about, Mr Tasmania flung himself into the freezing cold current which appears to have rippled along the coast in the last couple of days, the parents walked along the beach, and I did 4 loads of washing ….

I may yet go for a walk on the beach … or I may not …..

they’re almost all gone … 2 brothers, 2 sisters in law, 3 nephews, and a niece have all left today.

mum and dad are still here though. We had a lovely day yesterday for mum’s pre-60th birthday, lunch at Jolly Roger’s Boat Harbour Restaurant – a GORGEOUS blue day, and the kids had a ball fooling about in the kids playground. Food was marvellous, company was fabulous, and the chocolate bailey’s birthday cake was AMAZING!

I’m very tired in the brain now, after organising accommodation, lunch, presents, portacot, sheets, towels, beach toys, meals, shopping for those getting in late, etc etc etc.

was very good to see them but I’d be lying if I said that i wasn’t happy to see them go … will be nice to have them all in individual groups now, for longer stays, and they’re already making plans which is great.

thank goodness for a good man who copes with anything and everything, it does make life easier

by my family of course

very very very VERY nice to see them all at MY place, all at once! Thank goodness we don’t have room for them all though , much as I love them, 6 adults and 4 extremely tired children might be a bit much to take …

They’ve all enjoyed their trips and tripping about, have now all headed off to bed and will hopefully get a good nights sleep so they can have a good day tomorrow!

and by crikey have we had a bit of that!

120km/hr winds in Hobart, much the same on the West Coast (blew Mr Tasmania home from the Pieman River!), and just bedlam in Burnie … was SO much fun driving home in a very small light Japanese car in winds gusting 50 – 80km/hr! And, to finish that drive off, winding down the long road to home under the 40 metre high (no exaggeration) eucalyptus trees …. freaky!

yes, nothing deep and meaningful here … except my deep sense of satisfaction in my lairy purple tartan window seat cushions. They once were tired old (and I mean OLD) brown. and now they’re funky!

Unfortunately, in the light of the contrast, I now see that I need to wash the curtains …. sigh ….

It’s quite fascinating to watch the fascination of the Australian media / people in B*rack Ob*ma … the whole election process has been given far more newspaper time than our own elections I’m sure. Part of that fascination is with the stamina and enthusiasm shown in the whole process – Australian’s are basically well over it by the standard six weeks or so of election campaigning allowed before the election – and I’m sure many of us eventually just vote for the politician or party who has annoyed us the least!

So, it will be very interesting to see how he goes ….

Not that we didn’t know this was coming, but it was in the future, and it will make an enormous change in our lives.

We signed the building contract.

So, we are now the proud owners of a block of land, a shed, and a mortgage.

I guess, at 38 and 42, it’s about time we had our own place. I don’t know if it’s a peculiarly Australian thing? And I have an idea that, with the cost of buying or building rising so rapidly over the last 10 or so years, it’s a completely different thing depending on your ‘generation’. But it seems to me that we grow up with the inbuilt need to own something … whether it be a caravan on a permanent site, a townhouse, a bush block, a California Bungalow, a house on acreage, whatever, we seem to need ‘our spot’. I feel very much like that. I still call mum and dad’s place home, and probably always will, which is not to say that I don’t call here home, and will transfer that to the block once we move in. Mum and dad’s will always be home ’cause they’ve been there thirty years and I did most of my growing up there and it’s pretty much always been there.

I’ve lived in lots of rentals, interspersed with time back home, and I’ve called all of those home too, but with the knowledge that they were temporary, I was biding my time, that eventually I would stop and make somewhere MINE. Maybe not permanently (I was planning on buying a 2 bedroom townhouse in 2006 as a way of getting my toe into the property buying water, but then I met Mr Tasmania and moved into a 2 bedroom shack in a completely different part of the country) but at least something to call my own until I bought something else to call my own.

Mr Tasmania has lived in family houses and rentals and the shack is the old family holiday house so he has roots of his own, but we’re both at a time where we want OUR place. And now we’ve signed the bits of paper so we’re on our way!!

We start building in mid-March … crikey!

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