Austrang-land

Today we met a young friend of our new neighbours - Emily, who is 5 years old. Emily was eager to come over and meet Alex, since the neighbours had told her "he is from Australia". She didn't really understand where or what Australia was and it was a bit of an interesting conversation trying to explain Australia to her. When trying to explain where in the world Australia was, the neighbour -who mustn't own an altas, explained that we "had travelled so far that we had come from tommorow". Then Emily asked me "is Australia cold"? I told her that it was "kind of cold now because it is winter in Australia, but it is not as cold as Canada". Then I added that it was comparably "quite warm in Australia". I watched as her mind tried to process this information. Then she asks "so do you speak Spanish"? "No", I said, thinking her assumption that we might have come from South America somewhere (same continent, long way away, hot most of the time) was a well thought out. Then she asked me, "well what language do you speak then"? I was a bit surprised at this question, but when I said "English - like you", you should have seen her look of disblief "REALLY", came the reply. I guess the Aussie accent must sound a bit odd to a five year old (and perhaps to others too).
Tonight I was trying to get Merlin, the 9 year old from downstairs out of the place so Alex could have tea. I kept saying to him, "it is tea time now Merlin" "then we are going to have tea now ok!!!!!" and he just wouldn't leave. I thought he was being extremely rude, but since we are sharing this house and certain parts of it, I felt a bit helpless in that I could not ask him to please leave - it had not happened before tonight, so I didn't understand why he was not taking the hint, that I would prefer he not be in the room. Then he said something, I can't rememer what, and it finally clicked. They only say tea for the drink. When I kept saying "it is tea time now", he was probably thnking, "well don't let me stop you", or "you don't have to announce it to the whole world". So I curtly said "Alex needs to eat his supper now - his dinner - ok Merlin?" He promply replied "ok, I am going up stairs now, see you". That just goes to prove, while we might all be speaking English, sometimes it just isn't the same language!!!!

The house

We finally took possession of the Ladner house on the 31st July, and we immediately went to work on the place. Ashley ripped down the tumbled down perimetre fence and we have basically stripped all that is ugly and stuffed out of it. Unfortunately that hasn't left too much inside!!!! And of course we have found some nasty surprises too, like a tonne of broken glass strewn all through the back yard, which we had to have scraped and removed with a bob cat. Then today when Ashley was pulling up the blinding and skanky carpet, he found a whole corner of the room with severely rotted floor boards, which will have to be replaced. I dread to think what else is laying in wait for us to find. It is incredible how badly looked after this place has been - you'd think there would be something that had been maintained properly or fitted correctly, but there isn't! The place certainly could use some well deserved TLC and that is where we come in.