Camping In

After seeing the house bedded in, Denise got it into her head that we should go up to the property and camp out. Being the good-natured and amiable soul that I am, I agreed. My next weekend off was Saturday 26 September, and as the long range forecast kicked in during the week, I gave the gloomy predictions. 'Not looking good - strong north westerlies, rain - oh my gosh - sleet!' Denise then had the nerve to suggest we call it off, but after we had already spent a small fortune buying necessities such as packs of LED touch lights, collapsible water bottles, small gas ring, gas lantern, 2 new flashlights, air bed pump and the like, I wasn't backing down.

The new ute (well, old, really - in fact, more like vintage) bought off Trade Me in 10 mins flat in the dark for under $2K, was duly loaded with all necessities including the brazier and firewood and we set off over the hill in miserable weather. A brief stop in Greytown where we loaded on six outdoors chairs and table kindly donated by Wendy (who has a beautiful B&B cottage in Greytown called 'Mole End').

Things didn't improve once over the hill and on the property, compounded by the fact that all three doors were firmly locked or nailed secure. Oh dear. We packed everything but a tent. I discovered that the two pink glass strips each side of the front door were missing, but was able to get us inside by reaching around and unlocking the door. At least we had an entry and enough large bits of wood to make a step up. We realised final work and tying-down on the piles had not been completed as we found a compressor in a wardrobe, part of the kitchen was shored up, and the place was filthy. And we had not thought to bring a broom ...

First things first. Cleared a space in the back bedroom and set up the bed. Put out the table and chairs. Unpacked the necessaries including the wine, and Denise started on getting all the other essentials to function.


First priority. Denise has just tuned in our $20 power/battery operated 5" TV off Trade Me, and has started to mess with the gas ring. Note all the mud on the floor.



Third accomplishment. The gas lantern works. Another wine to celebrate. I learned about a mantle. Note the back-up LED lantern - Denise is always organised and prepared.



The bedroom. Note the 2 duvets, hotties, extra blanket and flanelette sheets. Tansy all snug next to a couple of bags of concrete.


And I know you're all dying to know - here was the temporary bathroom. If your eyes aren't good - the bag says 'Cat Litter' and it's made from paper products. And yes, it was emptied and dug in 'somewhere out there' before we left.

After we got everything organised and finished the bottle of wine, we went for a walk around all the fencelines and the property. We found quite a few trees planted we didn't even know we had, and a lot of rubbish in one spot including barbed wire that I am a little cross about. Denise then came out with the sobering opinion that we shouldn't even be there in the house, as we hadn't yet fully paid for the it and it's delivery. (Well, we thought they would be well and truly finished by then, but we learned there had been weather hold-ups). That sort of put a dampener on things just for a little while, but no way was I going to pack up and head home, so we sampled a liqueur or two while we waited to see what the weather would do. Fortunately, the wind died right away, the rain stopped and all was good. We got the brazier fired up, salads made, and I grilled two of my best steaks ever over the brazier. A nice bottle of red, more liqueurs, watching telly all bundled up and warm (with plenty of lanterns and firewood) - what could be better?


Chilling out while camping out

Next morning, a breakfast fry-up on the new little gas ring, then we packed everything up late morning and headed home, leaving very little evidence of our visit.

Note : Work hadn't been completed on the house, but was done to satisfaction, and we paid in full by the end of the following week

The House Gets Settled

We were up at the site in Carterton by 9am next morning, Thursday 17 September. This is what we saw ... the pictures tell it all

The house starting to get manouevred into place. Most of the roofing iron has been removed

The hallway gets an airing ...

Let's ventilate the rest of the place while we're at it ...

Just about got it all lined up.

Amazing stuff to watch. Three blokes plus the driver of the truck and they all have a specific job.

The House goes over The Hill ...

Great excitement! We got a phone call on Tues. 15 September to say the house was moving the next night. Came Wednesday 16th, and I was languishing in bed feeling very crook from a nasty little bout of gastroenteritis. Denise was hugely excited and insisted on hauling me out in the rain and we drove up to the house yard, about 20 mins drive north of us here in Lower Hutt.

Pretty interesting to see how they cut the house in half lengthwise. Denise was a bit shocked, especially when she saw a lone bare bulb on a long flex swinging gaily in the breeze. (It arrived unshattered). At least they took out the lovely rose textured glass panels from each side of the front door.

At 7.30pm sharp, the rig pulled out with half our house on it and roared off up SH2 at 80 kmh. We had absolutely no doubt that they would be as good as their word and be back and off with the second half of the house at 10pm. We went home and set the alarms for super-early to get over the hill and see the rebirth.




Denise giving her blessing for a safe journey over the hill for the first, smaller part of our house move

First Bit of Hard Work on the Land

The new 5lb mallet is put to good use along with the jemmy bar. Here am I on a beautiful Wairarapa spring day earlier this month, down to my thermal vest and starting a suntan, jemmying off the fence palings at our proposed new entrance.

The ground has dried out a lot, and we have been up with our three 8 metre tape measures and measured out the house and hammered in corner pegs after multiple checks that we are far enough back from the boundary fence to satisfy the Council. We have met with 5 driveway contractors and learned heaps about fill and lime chip; selected one for the job, and we are removing the fence palings in order to both save money and hopefully, with care, salvage most of the palings. (We did split the odd one or two). We leave the hard work of removing the posts to the contractor.

Things are starting to move. At this stage, we were advised because of weather hold-ups, the house would probably not move up until the end of September.

The willow trees are starting to green up. The ground has dried up somewhat, but there are still some areas of surface water. Note, the little building still on the land. Quite a fascinating little structure - the whole length of the roof is a hinge, and apparently it all folds up flat and is transported on the back of a truck.

We found a House ...

So, having secured the land, we went searching on the net for a house, both near and far afield. We found one not too far away from us being put up for sale by a specialist building relocator.

You will agree it doesn't look too bad on site as we saw it ....

Inside, a completely different matter. I think Denise was rather appalled at first, but very quickly (sparked by my fertile imagination) came around to thinking outside (or rather, inside) the box; and the possibilities of more windows, a sunny kitchen, AND a separate laundry became very appealing.

Very high studs; you can see the roofing iron from inside; two holes in the floor where the chimney was removed - to name a few horrors. Flooring in the main front original house (it has been added to at some stage at the back, and we intend to add another room) is native matai, which we would like to maintain and use in some parts of the house.

With the house purchase came the services of an architect, and after a brief meeting with Willem and several emails; we came up with the following for the purposes of submission to the Carterton District Council for building approvals and permits :

So, the plans were churned out in the matter of a few days, then we had to meet with Willem on site so he could place the house on the site plan. We knew the Wairarapa, like Wellington, had had its fair share of rain over the winter, but we were not prepared for the small craters and lakes dotting the pasture right where we had envisaged locating the house, near the south line of willows ... and the locals tell us it wasn't TOO wet a winter ...

Surface water on the proposed relocation site. Google Earth shows a diagonal natural depression. Note the small building from previous owner still on site. Too wet to remove it.

The previous owner had many horses on the land until we bought it; hence the bad pugging.

So, common sense prevailed over disappointment, and we resigned ourselves to the house being positioned at the north end of the property (to the right of the above photos, down near the letterboxes in the photo on the first blog).

The plans were submitted to Council, and after a small hefty fee of around $3,500; the plans were all approved in a remarkably quick three weeks. Then we had to wait until the wet weather stopped and the ground dried up ...

Looks like it's back to Country Living

Wow, SIX MONTHS since I set up this blog. I didn't realise I was THAT sad a correspondent.

Hope to be a bit more regular. Sorry there's been a gap in news for so long.



Just after the initial post, in March; Denise and I, tired of looking at over-inflated small rural properties in the Wairarapa, decided on the alternative option of looking at bare land and then a relocatable dwelling. We found 7 acres in Carterton, which is the town I lived in before I went to the USA.

The Wairarapa is a rural and wine growing area north east of Wellington comprising four main towns, reached by a notoriously windy and winding hill road called 'The Rimutakas' (which, incidentally, was closed by snow and sleet just six days ago - and this in spring!). It's exactly one hour's drive from where we are living now in Lower Hutt, a large city north of Wellington city.



Anyway, at the end of May, we put in a fairly cheap offer on the land and to our delight, it was accepted.

Joined photo of proud joint owners of 7 acres - note - the small building is not part of it and was removed by the prior owners

It really is a very pretty plot, with five paddocks and a water race giving stock direct access to water from all but one paddock. The fencing is not half bad either with a set of small yards needing finishing. Plenty of immediate firewood too. Just 3 minutes' drive (15 mins' by pushbike) to the nearest dairy on the main road south of Carterton. The larger house in the background to the left is a relocatable dwelling on similar acreage. These owners only come up weekends and holidays. Up to the right are a couple more houses on small acreage and we have already met these owners. All the rest is lovely dairy pasture. That road to the left services only two houses, as does the one to the right.

The next step was to find a suitable relocatable house ... watch this space ... but you might like to check in every few days because I actually have more photos ready.

Ageing Great Aunt Succombs to Blog

Well, I've proved it to you all; I'm a hopeless correspondent and I feel my failure is partially due to YOUs out there, who email me for updates, info., etc, all the time but then don't reciprocate. During recent progress over the years (and nothing whatsoever to do with me) , letters became replaced by faxes, became replaced by emails; cell phone texts became all of a sudden too easy; digital cameras and phones with photographic capabilities emerged; blogs were developed and here we are. Why am I/we are here? A lot easier to post a general blog and spread your latest news and views and photos online and then put the blame on all your fading friends for no contact/post,; the least courtesy expected being a minimal post/comment! I like to think a lot of my friends will have down time at work, be able to access this blog, and spend their morning tea times browsing and posting a comment, instead of promising to type an email. Tough if your company doesn't allow access - you'll have to send the URL to yourselves at home. So here we go with my first blog. Don't hold your breath for any mention of frequency. I aint got no time right now (but you never know your luck) to post daily stuff like I had time to floss my teeth for 2 minutes before leaving home at 5.30am today for work. You get the picture. Here's what I suggest - check into this site maybe every 2 weeks.

The other inspirational factor was that folk who blog regularly seem so creative and their writing gets better and better - I guess that's because they are lucky enough to spend hours at work working their blogs. Me, you get what you get, normally like now, late at night, stressed, a couple or more wines/whines under the belt. You all know me well, huh? My creative writing may well improve.

Catcha soon