Anzac weekend! Sounded like a good idea at the time!!! It all started when we finally watched the last workman packing up his goods and chattels. Our nice new slab had been finally finished off in readiness for us to start building our new house. As we went to shake hands with the concreter, as well as hand over the customary slab of beer, he informs us that the slab (the concrete one) required 4 weeks to cure before anything could be done to it. We looked at each other and realized that our waiting game was far from over! For those who don’t know the saga about us waiting, allow me to recap!
We started by selling our home in Evanston and moving to Clare in September 2007 to build a house and be there for my parents as they aged gracefully in their own home in their twilight years. Great idea at the time. We chose an American Barn style shed as our house, and a level, clear spot in which to build. We paid our deposit on the shed and Dad put in 400 metres of electricity cabling to the building site with the help of our Electrician son. Just need to build the house now, simple, hey? One would think so.We bought a 36 foot caravan to live in for the duration and had it delivered. John towed the caravan up our large hill to the building site with our Delica quite easily. Unfortunately while he was re-positioning the caravan for permanent use, it came unhitched and headed down the hill toward a waiting gum tree! With 5 feet now missing from the caravan, (in real terms the bed and bedroom), we got the caravan back to where it was meant to be, covered the busted bit up from the rain and set it up.
Filled out the building application in October 2008, and lodged it. First building hurdle is that every application for building, must include one for septic as well, so we included that. Septic system was easily approved in a month, but house approval was a different matter. Eventually John got the nerve to fix 'that' end of the van and we now have a lovely open-end room with a clear blind for viewing.
We finally received an answer in March 2008, asking for extra details. A normal request, just not usually that long in coming. So I answered that one with what they needed. In May 2008 the shed people informed us that the price of steel was to rise by 17% in 1 month and if we didn’t want to pay the price rise we needed to pay the 2nd of 3 installments by then. The Council building inspector informed me over the phone to go ahead with the purchase as all seemed ok. The finalisation just needed to be written out properly and posted to us. On this say-so we paid the money, so they could start building our house.
I also contacted my mate Fred to see whether he knew a good Surveyor that could help with the land split. Strangely enough, once a firm like Lester Franks was involved, and we had started paying money out to the process, the Council decided all was well, and we received a letter in September 2008, informing us that all was looking good and approval was imminent. Just a few more minor things answered, again, and we would be ok.Yeah, I know, heard it all before! And you are right. The letter never arrived, even though we saw the concreter and got things started for planning the slab. We also realized that the approval on the septic system was coming up for 12 months. After that apparently it’s easy to get the Council to approve an extension, but you may understand that, by now, we didn’t believe in things being that easy. So, we decided to take control of at least on thing in our lives and go ahead putting in the septic system.
Back to the start of this article now, and we were looking at each other, counted on 4 weeks. Perfect timing really, just on Anzac weekend. This is always a long weekend, isn’t it? Our boys decided that rather than having a slab party, and erection party would more interesting. So we let everyone know that Anzac weekend would be our time to start and party at night. Someone then pointed out that there was no long weekend, and closer to the date the weather bureau informs us that there will be lots of rain and huge winds. A few braved the weekend anyway, to chat and party at least, if not work. We found ourselves snuggly together in the caravan while the storm raged around. Next thing a huge thump form above us, as the caravan shook. We all sat staring at each other, wondering what to do next.
The men folk went outside to check the situation, only to find the verandah had upended itself and landed above our heads on top of the caravan. While the guys were trying to tie the verandah to the top of the caravan, it was picked up in the next gust of wind, which blew it so that it was leaning against the caravan. Us girls finally decided to leave the caravan after the second huge noise, taking the camera with us, so you can see what we saw as we emerged. With a large hole in the caravan roof now, and rain coming down quite fast, we decided to cover what we could quickly and to all evacuate the area to Mum and Dad’s until the storm died down. So you can see that on our erection weekend, we ended up raising the roof!
Kym
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