It’s been a while (even by my slack standards!) since our last update.
As you can see, I’ve been a little busy with our other project – Newbie arrived on Christmas Eve.
He gave us a scare by getting a nasty infection a week later that saw him in hospital for a week on IV antibiotics – and me bedding down next to him (being a food supply is a 24/7 job!).
But he’s got the all clear now, and has been spending time on site trying to sleep through the noise.

Yes, enjoy it while you can, Newbie. As soon as you can walk, we’re putting you to work like your sister.
And it’s pretty noisy – the boys have been busy! We’ve got steel beams going in…
bathrooms being tiled….

We’re recycling the old doors where we can – I love that where they’ve been sanded back, you can see all the colours they’ve been painted over the last 104 years.
The Big Ass fan has arrived…
So we’re beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Although we’d hoped to be in by Christmas, clearly that wasn’t to be. We’re still getting a sense of what it’ll be like living here. We’ve had lots of extremely casual, fush and chups dinners here over the holidays.
And I’m sure our friends and family will be happy to know that eventually they will be able to eat off a table, instead of their knees – we’ve just bought a 4 metre long table off Trade Me. Looks a bit rough at the moment, but we love the history behind it: it used to be the boardroom table for the Lyttleton port stevedores union.
We’ve also been spending a lot of time getting to know our new front yard. Pugs absolutely loves the water, and we’ve learned that we need to pack her bathing suit and a few towels every time we head out to the house, because she is sure to demand “Beach! Swim!”.
Luckily for Midge, her version of “swim” involves paddling in to her knees, and so he usually manages to avoid hypothermia. Can’t wait to get the little grommet onto a board in a few years time though!
Make that, both little grommets. This is looking like a great place for them to grow up.