12th April 2005:

Here I am, arrived at Nonsuch and Cornelian Bay from Victoria. So much work to do! For the moment I have to concentrate on the house - the removalists arrive tomorrow, then in four short weeks' time Martin Coman, the cabinet maker, is to arrive to fit the mahogany and elm cabinets in the library and office, and in the meantime there is electrical work and painting that is desperately needed.

And the cats ... I brought down our cats from Victoria as well, and one of the huge projects for the garden, as special to me as the planting and landscaping, is establishing a magnificent cat run that results not only in super happy and safe cats but also will blend into the background of the garden. Cats in Australia are increasingly controlled by councils in regard to their 'freedom' - in Bendigo we had very strict cat controls - but I love the cat run simply because it keeps the cats safe. For the moment they will get a small temporary run, the larger having to wait until the garden is landscaped.

30th April 2005:

Unpacking - desperate. Lost a mirror. This is really niggling at me. How could I lose a mirror in the move? But lost it I have.

In the meantime I can catch you up on the history of Nonsuch.

Nonsuch is a Victorian house built in the mid 1880s. It is constructed of weatherboard with a timber shingle roof hidden under a rusting tin roof. It is a large, spacious 'gentleman's residence', wrapped about with a huge verandah, studded with open fireplaces, and with high ceilings and decorative cornices. The outside needs painting and the tin roof needs replacing (I am not even going to think about trying to restore the shingle roof), and the verandah is sagging horribly. One of my first repair jobs must be the verandah - in the picture to the right it looks OK, but those floor boards and posts are rotten, and the iron work rusting away.

The garden ... the garden is one of the main reasons I bought this house. It is extensive - almost half an acre of grounds, which is amazing in inner city Hobart. The block slopes down from the back (south) to the front and it shaped rather like an arrowhead - the point at the front of the block. Currently it consists of much weedy lawn, some rotten stumps, a jungle in one corner (matted trees and shrubs, who knows what lies behind there), several old trees, and many overgrown and weedy planting beds. The view to the left looks up the block from a halfway point to the back line of the property where grows an ancient hawthorn hedge. To the left of the picture you can see a huge walnut tree - behind that is The Jungle and the Unknown.

It may not look like it, but there is quite a slope on that lawn area.

The cat run man has been also and fixed up the temporary run for the pusses - you can see part of the aerial walkway leading down to the enclosures under the walnut tree.

There's a dog in the garden behind that hawthorn. I can tell he is going to be trouble ...

And finally a picture of part of the front garden - showing many weeds, a very dead rose, and the ghastly paintwork and roof of the house.