Restoring the Old Girl

We were lucky enough to be invited to watch Riverfire from a City rooftop on Saturday night. The girls had never seen real fireworks, and were most impressed.

There's nothing like maintaining the safety of children running around on a roof top to keep you on your toes.
It was worth it though to see their little faces light up as much as the fireworks.

It's all about the levels when you live on a hillside. This is the area that we (ie, husband) are working on at the moment. It's at the foot of the back stairs, just outside the pool gate.

We plan for it to be paved with a hedge around the outside and a timber fence beyond that. The whole area is actually at the top of a 2m retaining wall, so we have to make sure no one falls off. Then we'll pop some outdoor furniture there and a brolly, and we'll have a top spot to sit and sip Bloody Marys during Summer.
Mim got crafty on Saturday and whipped up these little daisy chains using only weeds and an old pair of scissors. So clever! She even made Eric a flower power necklace, transforming him into a hippy guinea pig from the 60s. He loved every minute of it.

 

Meanwhile on Saturday, I was inside making hoummous. I use tinned chickpeas (I'm not a martyr), tahini, lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper, olive oil and some water to get it the right consistency.
You can also use the twins, cumin and coriander if you have them.

Yesterday we took a trip to the Gold Coast, but by the time we got there the weather had turned a bit foul. It was getting overcast and there was a very cool wind blowing. I think Peaches may have inherited my dislike of the beach. I'm not going to encourage such behaviour, apparently it's very unnatural and it doesn't endear you to others. It's like saying you don't like dogs.  People are immediately suspicious.

On the way home we went via Sovereign Island, which is a very ritzy area of the Gold Coast. Ten and twenty million dollar houses sit shoulder to shoulder.

It is the perfect demonstration of how money cannot buy taste.

We photographed this beauty, but unfortunately because of the angle, you can't really see the gold dogs either side of the front door.
A lot of them are for sale, many unfinished. This underground garage is on the market, byo house.

This mansion, which is probably in the vacinity of $10 million to build,  sits unfinished and deteriorating. Unfortunately, you can't really appreciate the size of it in these photos.

Despite the poor dears at Sovereign Island not having the dough to finish their multi-million dollar houses, I'll scream if I hear anyone else complaining about what hard times we have fallen on.
If you want to know what hard times are find the closest 90 year old, and ask them what it was like to live through the Great Depression, or a World War.
Reigning in blatant extravagance and waste is not falling on 'hard times'. Having to live within your means is not falling on 'hard times'. This is more a period of levelling out, the economy is cyclical and you can't have 'ups' without 'downs'. It's an unfortunate fact, but it's nothing new.