Remembering Our Earlwood Home
We moved into our home in Earlwood in February of 2007 and moved out in March of 2009. We spent two years there. This is just some of the highlights.
We had lots of visitors to our home in Earlwood
First to visit was Laura Mott from Greenfield Indiana. Laura is a long time friend of mine, she came all by herself and stayed in our guest room for 6 days. I took her on a fun filled tour of Sydney, and my Mum In-Law Karen even took us to some great winery's south of Sydney where Laura got to see the real Australian Bush!
My Mom and Dad, Hank and Pat, came to visit us in November of 2007. We had them for almost 3 weeks. We took them all over Sydney and even spent a week up North in South West Rocks with Graham's Nan and Pa. In our Earlwood home Mom and Dad enjoyed sitting out on our deck over looking the park and bush land, and every night could watch as 5,000 bats came flying over the house as the sun went down. That was pretty cool. Mom helped me organize our front garden and our back "grotto"where I could hang out our washing. Dad even fixed up the cloths air-er in the back for me with new rope. It was a great visit, and I was sad to see them go home.
In May of 2008 we had Sarah and Kurtis visit from Indianapolis, Indiana. Sarah and Kurtis are long time friends. I went to High school with Kurtis, and I met Sarah in college. Little did Sarah know Kurtis brought along an engagement ring on their trip to visit us. Kurtis gave Graham and I the ring for safe keeping until the time was right. Boy where we nervous hauling that ring around Sydney. We took Sarah and Kurtis to the Hunter Valley for a few nights of wine tasting, on a walk in the Bush Kurtis popped the question and Sarah said yes!! They where married in June of 2009. We had a great time with these two, and where so sad to see them go!!
In September of 2008 my Mom, Pat, came out for a visit on her own. She stayed almost a month. We had a great time with Mom. We went to Canberra to see the spring flower show with Karen my Mum in-law and had a good girls get away. We took the train down and had fun seeing the roo's jumping along with the train and the baby lambs out in the fields with their Mothers. Mom got to see our normal life from day to day. I took her to see my favorite place in New Town, the Cat Protection Society of NSW (http://www.catprotection.org.au/) and had fun meeting all the cats looking for homes. We also did what Mom and I do best, and that is shopping and sight seeing together. I loved having her with us!!
Life at Home
Our little home in Earlwood was an apartment built on the ground floor of a house, so the top floor was another apartment. Our apartment was 2 bedrooms, One BIG, one tiny, a small living room, a long kitchen with a huge amount of counter space, and only a couple of cabinets above, and no drawers. There was also no oven but we did have a small potable toaster oven, and hot plate. Some how I made it work with a hot plate and toaster oven. We did have a large back deck and a cozy front garden. The apartment was on a battle axe property, which means in our case that the house was built on a cliff face, we had great views of the valley, parks, and bush land bellow us, but we also had 89 steps down to the property and thats correct 89 steps back up to the street! It was beautiful though, green trees and bush land all around. Our back yard was bush land, we did not go back there because there where lots of Red Belly Black Snakes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red-bellied_Black_Snake) living back there. Actually the big hill we lived on was the site of the first in depth study of the snakes mating habits, and it was still a popular spot with the snakes. We never worried about them getting into the house though..
We had lots of wild visitors though, many BIG spiders. I am talking HUGE. Like the size of a tennis ball. Graham would catch them and put them back outside. By the time we moved out I was catching them too. All of witch where piousness, and if they did not kill you, they would warrant a trip to hospital. We used the jar technique to catch them. http://www.wikihow.com/Catch-a-Spider
Last summer (usa winter) we had a lizard make a nice home for itself under our book case in the living room. I tried to shoo him out many times, but he was happy there. He would sneak in and out from under the back door. Often if I was in another room I would hear nails running on the hard floors, at first it freaked me out, but soon it was normal, it was just our lizard house mate coming and going. After we got our cat he still did not move out, and the cat did not mind having him in the book case. The cat would just sit and watch.
One of my favorite memories of creatures in our home was in the Spring (usa fall) of 2008 we had the bogong moths (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogong_moth) swarm into Sydney. We had lots of big glass sliding doors in the apartment and big windows. I would get in the morning as the sun was coming up and look out the windows to see these big brown moths swarming at our windows. I think they could see the reflection of the sky in the glass and thought they where flying away...... like birds do.... It went on every morning for a few weeks, and then they where gone.
We also had a possum and her baby that loved to steal de-thawing meat off the back porch. In the warm summer evenings the possum would climb down from off the roof onto the deck (with baby on her back) and scamper away into the night. It was great, we got to see her baby grow up and soon we had two possums to watch. They did not seem afraid of us, or our cat, the cat loved to watch them and would get so excited to see the possums!! We always knew the possum was on the back deck because the cat would run from room to room to watch!
In June of 2008 Graham let me get a cat. FINALLY. I had been donating my time at the Cat Protection Society, and saw Kit Cat come in. He stole my heart right away. I got the okay from the land lord and it was a deal. Kit got a new home with us! He is a silly boy, it took him a while to warm up to us. But will now sit on our laps and cuddle. He loves his food, although he does not like human food. He likes his food in pellet form, but will take a lick or two of milk if you offer. Kit loves to eat spider webs but leaves the spider. I have never seen him go after anything (hunting style) he will watch bugs and other animals, but is not a killer. He seems to make friends with other animals easily, and loves dogs!
Extra's
- Mary started her own business called Wolfla Stage and Events
- Graham got a job working with 3M and made lots of friends there.
- Mary made some new friends in Sydney. Her good Buddy Melinda!
- Graham and Mary took up fly fishing, and took a few trips to fish in the Snowy Mountains.
- Graham took up the hobby of radio controlled airplanes, but it was short lived.
- Graham became a active member of the Wolli Creek Preservation Society ( http://www.wollicreek.org.au/) Mary and Graham planted hundreds of plants in the park bellow their house with this group, and came to love all the members!!
- Mary spent time learning to garden, thanks to her Mom.
Goodbye Earlwood
In January of 2009 Graham made up his mind and decide to give Medical School a try. But that meant up rooting and moving to Australia's western coast to Perth. So on the last day of April in 2009 we packed up the house put everything on a sea container and shipped it to Perth. We flew with the cat, and Debi (Mary's cousin) and her husband Keith welcomed us to Perth. It was sad leaving Sydney as we had many friends and family we where going to miss. But when opportunities come, one must take them and not look back for too long. For a last goodbye to our home we canoed down the Cooks river and wolli creek that flows past our old home on the cliff side. It was a fitting goodbye!
No comments:
Post a Comment