No? No, me neither. But love 'em or hate 'em, they're ruling our lives at the moment.
Our NUMBER ONE PRIORITY right now, what we're getting up in the morning for, is to be able to move back into our house. No offence Phil (Tom's brother whose house we're staying at), we love you, we just really really really REALLY want to be in our own house again. So we're having conversation after conversation after conversation about what we can do to speed up that process. Obviously the basics would be nice - running water, electricity, maybe a sewerage hook-up... we're willing to wait longer on pretty much everything else, including a kitchen.
But thanks to Christmas and temperamental (to put it mildly) machinery (see here for that saga), we actually don't feel like we're much closer to that goal than we were a month ago.
In a nutshell, we still need to dig all of the holes to become the foundations of our house. We then need to attach steel posts to the steel beams that have been attached to the house, hanging into those holes. Then we need to concrete those posts in with extra-special tough concrete which could then need two weeks to set properly. We need to reattach our old front stairs on the back of the house so we don't have to climb a ladder to get into the house (not particularly practical in heels on a work day). We'll build a proper front staircase later. We need to redo most of the plumbing (including repositioning the kitchen sink) and get it signed off by a plumber. We need to ensure all of the electrical wiring is safe and operational, and get professional sign off on that too. We have to reconnect the toilet (since we'll be using the old existing bathroom until we get our new bathrooms finished).Oh and it would be really nice to have an actual wall on the West side of the kitchen.
And then and only then can we get the power and water reconnected and move back in!
We started seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the house-less tunnel this week when the people that sold us the faulty digger offered us a loan of a different model with which to dig our holes. A very very nice gesture, and very necessary, since our refund of the original one hasn't come through yet, and the new machine we want to buy isn't yet ready. So Tom, Phil and Daniel got to work yesterday afternoon digging holes before our 6:30 noise curfew.
And then started again at 6:30 this morning (very sorry neighbours, but we can't make noise on Sunday so we have to make the most of our allowed time!).
Unfortunately Tom also had to work today, so the house responsibility torch passed to Phil, Daniel and I this morning.
Allie made sure she sniffed out the area.
X marked the spots.
Then what do you know, the hydraulic fluid started leaking (quite profusely I might add) from the hole-digging attachment! Flashbacks of all the issues we had with the first machine (see here) started running through our heads, and we anxiously decided to press on. Still ten more holes to dig!
Thankfully, a worried phonecall to the company that leant us the machine resulted in a visit from a hydraulic fixit man who replaced a few bits and pieces and got it looking airtight once again.
And then.... the machine wouldn't turn on.
Let's have a collective groan from the audience shall we? Yep. Like we haven't had enough digger-related problems! First we have a digger that magically turns itself on whenever it feels like it, now we have one that won't turn on at all. Many phone calls and wasted noise-permitted hours later, it turns out it was our fault. We had put diesel fuel in it instead of unleaded, because the last machine had been a diesel. Embarassed and horrified in equal measure, we called the company up again to find out how to get rid of the diesel. Thus began a very long, slow and frustrating process of first trying to siphon the fuel out into a container.
Phil cleverly positioned himself in one of the holes we had managed to dig at the end of a hose, trying to siphon out the fuel.
Allie kept him company.
And then we gave up and simply letting it drain straight out (only after an extremely lengthy battle with a very tight bolt).
And then? Seriously, you don't want to know.
The spark plug broke. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Daniel went on a pilgrimage to Supercheap and then on to Repco to find a replacement, and came back bearing the not-good-enough feedback that apparently not a single one of either of those Queensland stores stocks the spark plug we need. !!!!!!!! again! Fortunately through the wonder of multitasking I managed to dial Autobarn's number while seeing red, and some lovely mechanically minded guy told me they had five in stock that would match ours, that they only cost $5 each, and that they also had a 20% sale on today, so it would actually only cost $4. I was in my car faster than you can say "#(%$!@#&()$#*^& digger!!!!!!!"
It gives me great sadness (understatement of the year) to report that even a replacement of the spark plug didn't coax our poor machine to life, so I'm praying that Tom can perform some kind of miracle tomorrow and raise it from the dead. Not that that will do us much good tomorrow because we're not allowed to make any noise! GRRRRRR.
So. Our poor priorities are still coming a distant second to dealing with inanimate objects.
Santa (or whoever looks after things post Christmas), please oh please oh please can we have holes soon?!!!
Allie sends her vote for us. She's been a very good girl!
Love Bec
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