Another year draws to a close. Last year we wrote:
Like the years before it, this year has had its excitement. The big thing is our new house, of course... We're now hoping to be able to move in by the end of March.
No surprise, of course, that we didn't make that date either. We finally moved in on 8 May, still not quite finished:
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The final months of building were a race between finishing our house and Chris Bahlo's new house. She had signed a contract with a guaranteed 14 week completion time, a far cry from our timing. And of course the builders didn't keep it, not least because they managed to put down the foundations at 45° from the plan. Chris moved in with us for the first week or so while the builders finally finished her house, roughly 9 weeks late.
And what's the new house like? Parts of it are excellent. We're still not done, but the front of the house does look better (as well it might after 7 months):
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On the other hand, we're not much further with the plans for the north-west side of the house. In Kleins Road we had a verandah with creepers all around, but it was open to the elements, which severely limited the occasions on which we could use it. This time we want to be able to seal it from all sides, keeping out wind, rain, cold and flies, a kind of winter garden. Outside is a trough to be kept full of water with plants and fish.
But how do we do that? It's not an idea that is well established in Australia. We're still waiting for a quote from the one company that thought it could do it. At the moment it looks like this:
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This is incidentally where we took our photos for last year's letter.
We're still wrangling with the builders, who have produced a relatively well-built house with some notable deficiencies, notably the baroque fittings they have chosen. We paid extra for a high-performance range hood, which I suspect moves about 10% of the amount of air claimed in the specifications. They sent two different technicians along, both of whom had clearly not seen the specs, and thought that the purpose of the hood was to hold a piece of A4 paper against the filter. They found that it met their requirements without ever mentioning air flow.
The other half of building the new house was, of course, selling the old house. It took forever! For whatever reason, the estate agent came up with no interest at all. We tried a couple of alternatives, particularly online advertising. That brought some interest, but nothing useful. Finally we changed our estate agent and significantly lowered our asking price. One or the other worked, and we finally sold (got the money for) the house on 3 December, fully 360 days after putting it on the market. So after over two years, from 28 November 2013 to 3 December 2015, the saga is over and done with.
Gradually we're finding time for our hobbies. Yvonne revived an interest in classical dressage in early 2015, gradually improving her skills and enjoying teaching her horses (and herself) lateral work and better balance. It will be a long journey, but she finds it fascinating and very rewarding.
Greg has come to realize that he's really happiest tinkering with something technical, and has increased his activities with computers and cameras. In a forlorn attempt to keep things tidier, he has moved his camera equipment into the same room as the computers:
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One day he'll get beyond the technology and learn to take good photos.
Along with moving house came downsizing our property. We had 8 ha in the old property. Here we only have 2 ha, though the Mariotts next door, who sold us the property, allow us to use over half their 2 ha property for grazing, so the total is closer to 3.3 ha. But Yvonne promised Greg years ago to downsize the number of horses, and when we moved in we were down to three. One of them, Bjoska (half Icelandic, quarter Paso Peruano and quarter Saddlebred) was in danger of being neglected, and we were happy when a friend took a liking to her and bought her.
So after over nearly 25 years, we're back to “only” 2 horses again: Keldan, a pure-bred Icelandic gelding, and Carlotta, a Paso fino-Andalusian cross, whom Yvonne has had since she was a weanling. She and Keldan make an interesting couple, as they are very different from each other, but both lovely in their own way. Here's Keldan taken a year ago, and Carlotta with Zhivago over 3 years ago:
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Apart from that, Yvonne spends a lot of time helping out at Chris Bahlo's Narrawin Stud, both training and just going riding.
Our cats and dogs have also had a bit of a shaking up. Ron Frolley, our friend and breeder of our Borzois, finally succumbed to cancer and died in early August. And shortly later Zhivago, our oldest Borzoi and Ron's former personal dog, got sick. On 10 August we took him along to the vet for an X-ray and discovered that he, too, had cancer. From the tumours in his lungs it was clear that there was nothing we could do. With much sadness we had him put down.
As if that wasn't enough, we had brought Lilac, our 18 year old cat, along for a checkup. Kidney failure. She, too, didn't come home.
So then we had one cat and two dogs. Plenty, when you think of it, though we were planning to buy a new cat when the house was sold. But two big dogs are enough, and we had only bought two in the first place so that we would have them when Zhivago died. But then we heard that there was one last dog available from the Zoloto kennel: Ron's partner Steve Zuideveld does not intend to continue breeding. What should we do? As usual, Greg gave in to Yvonne, and so we got four-month-old Sasha, who as a result of the miracles of artificial insemination, is both uncle and nephew of Nikolai and Leonid.
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Piccola has had a hard time of it this year. She didn't take at all well to moving house. As usual on such occasions we kept her indoors for a good 3 days before we let her out to inspect her new surroundings. But she didn't come back. In the evening Chris Bahlo saw her a few hundred metres away, but that was all.
We were gradually getting used to the idea that she wouldn't come back when Yvonne found her after 2½ days: outside the old house, 3 km away. She didn't look hungry: clearly she knew where to find food.
Since she's been back, she hasn't been happy. She changed her behaviour completely, maybe because the garden isn't to her liking. For a month or two she literally tore out her hair:
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It's stopped now, we hope, but it was disconcerting. She has also become much quieter, and she put on a lot of weight until we drastically reduced her feed.
We were worried how she would react to Lilac's disappearance, since they were always together, but in fact it didn't seem to worry her. About the only change was that she spends much more time with us now, and in the evenings while watching TV she's usually on somebody's lap.
Best wishes for the coming 12 months from Carlotta, Greg, Keldan, Leonid, Nikolai, Piccola, Sasha and Yvonne.
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