News update

Last June we bought another house. It's a wee cottage in the hills, just 20 minutes drive from our old place and the beach. We have 6 acres here (that's somewhere around 2.4 hectares I think?), it's mostly wattle regrowth and lantana, which is pretty bad, but we have started cleaning it up. There is also 2 gorgeous rainforest gullies and high ridges dotted with eucalypt. The land closest to the house is cleared and the previous owners have planted hundreds of trees, some native and some exotic. We have jacarandas which were stunningly beautiful in flower in spring and early summer, we have palms and citrus and macadamia and mango. I have 2 vegie gardens, mostly producing zucchinis, pumpkins, watermelons and cucumbers, but also capsicum, eggplant, chillies and various herbs. I haven't done so well with tomatoes and lettuce, or potatoes and carrots but it might just be cooling down enough to try again. Yesterday got 2 new additions to our little family, 2 lovely Rhodesian red hens. They both layed while I was still setting up their coop. We were lucky, as a friend who is moving overseas gave them and the coop to us. I spent a mad frenzied few hours yesterday afternoon getting it all set up and secure before nightfall. I have seen foxes out here so I am very worried they will try and get my hens. Nasty things.
Next week the new semester starts at uni. This will be my third semester, as I studied over the summer as well. I've done really well so far but they have all just been plemininary courses really. This semester I am enrolled to do two Humanities subjects and officially start my Arts degree. I don't really know why I am studying or what I want to get out of it, I just know I am sick of doing everyone elses uni research for them and not getting any recognition for it. I am still helping them all of course, but it's very nice to do something for myself! S enrolled back into his degree course as soon as I started last year, so now the entire family is studying, quite funny really :)
WD got back from Germany last week, she was away in Europe for seven weeks which was a damn long time. She stayed mostly in Berlin but also travelled to Edinburgh, London, Paris, and Provence. Lucky her! She's come back all motivated to complete her degree this year and then move to Europe. It's all she talks about, she loved it over there so much. I knew she would love it but I guess I hoped she wouldn't plan to go so soon. This year will be huge for her though so there's no guarantee she will finish or that she'll still want to move to Europe at the end of it. Wait and see I guess? She split up with her artist boyfriend when in Berlin early in her trip and then met some Irish bloke just before she came home. He's in a band which actually sound really good. My kind of music, I hope she talks him into touring Australia and we get some free tickets :) The band in currently touring the UK and apparently it's going well.
SS starts back at Uni today, he's done really well at Uni so far too. I am so proud of him. He spent most of his holidays up here with us and I felt like crying yesterday, thinking of his absence. He's a good person but I do worry whether he is a happy person, he's so secretive.
Sometimes I miss our old house and being able to walk to the beach. I've been back there a lot though, as we have rented it to friends and they invite us over every few weeks. The house looks far better now than it ever did when we lived there as we did a lot of work on it just before we left. I think that's always the way isn't it? That you only renovate properly when you are selling or moving out? I am so glad we've been able to keep it anyway and perhaps one day we will live there again, who knows.
Anyway I am off to feed the chooks, though I better do some research first, as I actually have no idea how much to feed them? After that I am going to put the yabbie pots out again. I love yabbies, they taste so much nicer than prawns and we have heaps of them in the dam. I am loving living out here :)