We happened to be passing by our township-to-be this afternoon so couldn't resist just driving by the land to see what had happened in the last week. We'd heard our file had been given to our site supervisor on Wednesday but didn't expect to see any changes so soon.
When we arrived at our land we firstly noticed how neat it looks with all the big weeds missing - still lots of weeds but not a patch on what were there!
We got out of the car and Dan suddenly yelped 'there are some new pegs' and we quickly realised the surveyors had been and pegged the four corners of our house!
Yippee! We were sooooo excited that something had happened and it was brilliant to finally see where our house would sit on the land. It was a bit of a shock seeing the size of the garden - after spending the last year gazing at the whole block it's kind of scary to see how much of the land the house will take up! It's going to be fab though!
Where our house will be! View from behind the plot... click to view
I've just had the call to let us know that our Development Approval has been granted! That means we can build a house! Yeay!
Our 'file' will be handed to a site supervisor next Wednesday so building should start in the next couple of weeks. We'll be getting weekly updates from here on in so am feeling very excitable!
So... working on their forecast of it taking 6-8 months to build a house... we might have our very own house sometime around February to April! Yeeee-haaaahhhhhh!
Off to crack open to bubbly... oops, we drank it all already.
Hehehe, even Dan has become remarkably annoyed at the way the aussie media seem to keep going on about the number of gold medals being won by Australia in the olympics... they don't seem to cover the sports they're losing at...
However, we happen to know that Great Britain are beating Australia in the tally with currently 17 golds compared to their 11... or 39 medals compared to their 37...
Even some of the media here are starting to acknowledge the defeat but none better than the good old Sun newspaper in the UK with this headline and photo of some GBR gold medal winners -
But as we all know, I really don't care... but I haven't been able to help getting caught up in the medal count! I love to see the aussies backing down!
We heard today that we now have our building permit! Yeay! That's Planning Approval, check! Building Permit, check!
We thought that would be it and we'd be able to start building but no... another 1-2 week wait now for Development Approval... This stage is apparently for the council to check that the planning approval and building approval have no variation, and all conditions have been met.
How many sorts of approval do we need?!
Anyway, we're feeling very excited as it sounds like they are 'ready to go to site' once that Development Approval comes through!
For those of you wondering about the area we're building our house in, here is a real estate promo video of the region (just ignore the mention of lots of old people... we're going to funk the place up!)
And even better, using the amazingly new Google Street View, here is the entrance to our cul-de-sac.. - use the little arrows to turn around and explore! (you can't go down the street though!)
I've been having a bit of a debate with myself and my aussie aquaintences recently regarding my tendancy to believe that whilst I live in Australia, being English I should not consider supporting Australia in any sport. I have always felt the aussies just take their sport far too seriously and lack that 'it's the taking part that counts' attitude!
My inclinations stem from a certain Rugby World Cup 2003 which, whilst I did get a bit patriotic during it, I didn't get too bothered about the actual sport or country rivalry... Until a post-world cup match when my newly found man (aka Dan) spent some time in a pub in Sydney to watch the first game post the world cup when England consequently got thrashed. My night was ruined. After getting all dolled up for a night at the casino, arriving at the pub to meet Dan and him subsequently retiring to bed at 9pm in the biggest mood I'd ever witnessed without speaking to a single sole. It was at this point that I realised just how serious the whole 'Australia v England' thing had become...
Dan seems to have erased this whole incident from his mind and now believes that as permanent residents of Australia we should support them, with the only exception being when they play England. I (with the scars of that night in Sydney still in my mind) disagree. I recently cheered for New Zealand against Australia in a pub full of aussies. I actually quite enjoyed being the under dog and could never deny my love for those tough guys doing the hakka in their all black outfits...
I was pretty set in my 'Never Support Australia in Any Sport' policy until just a couple of days ago when the Olympics got going. I've never been a particular Olympic fan (just talk to my mum, then you'll see where I get it from) but somehow the whole aussie love for sport has been gnawing at me... How can anyone resist getting behind the country when they give you this kind of advert?
I also felt myself in a bit of a predicament when my friend Philly's brother was representing Australia in the men's beach volleyball on Saturday - how can I not support a friends brother in the Olympics?!
Anyhow, this whole debate (plus a bottle of two of wine) has lead me to creating a protocol for my patriotic support of sporting teams, as follows...
Olympics - Support Great Britain as priority - Support Australia in games where friends brothers are competing (Philly Schact being the friend, Andrew Schact being the brother) - Support Australia if Great Britain is absent from the game to be supported
Rugby- Support England as absolute priority - Dilemmas in rugby – Aus v New Zealand – support NZ as I like the Haka and black team colours Aus v South Africa – A tricky one, and ideal situation is not to support either but if forced will support Australia Aus v Wales – I would go with Wales as it’s close to Gloucester but Dan tells me it is an absolute no no to support Wales Aus v Ireland – Support Ireland as I just love a man with an Irish accent
Football (aka Soccer)- At an international level, don’t support any team as the whole thing is a big pile of commercialised poo - At a local level Dan supports Arsenal and if Becky were interested she would support Liverpool… but to support Dad and Bro it’d be Huddersfield Town I suppose
AFL (aka Football or Aussie Rules)
- Support Port Adelaide (Go the Power) as a priority - I love the teal and black and adore the beards, leather and harleys amongst the fans - Never ever ever support the Adelaide Crows – bunch of middle class twits… the only exception to this rule is if the Adelaide Crows play Geelong – we would support the crows as we don’t like Geelong as they beat the Power in last years Grand Final
The debate will go on I'm sure... but for now, I'm a bit uninspired by the BBC advert for the Olympics... Come on British Broadcasting Association - give me some motivation!
We ventured down to our land yesterday armed with a bottle of weed killer, an 8 litre garden sprayer and a couple of 10 litre boxes of water from Coles (you have to be inventive when there's no water supply) and spent about an hour walking in a backwards fashion up and down and from side to side on our block.
We're not sure how successful it will have been as half way through the heavens really opened and there was quite down pour! We continued nevertheless but have a feeling all of the weedkiller was just washed away... we will return next week for round 2.
On a slightly more exciting note, one of the blocks on our development has started building! The foundations have been dug and the size of the house looks quite small which is making us think it'll be a two story. We will watch with interest!
On an even more exciting note (and also to let you know we do more than just obsess about building our house) we went to see Mamma Mia at the cinema last night and are now dreaming of holidays past in Greece... lovely!
