This is the first post on our brand new blog. I hope that his blog will provide a diary of experiences and impressions of Cottage Point for our family and for our visitors. This week I am staying in the house on my own - a most unusual and strange state for a busy Mum cum professional cum student. My dear mother is looking after the children whilst I do some intensive thesis and paper writing. We have been here since Saturday and I've been alone since Monday morning. Yesterday was the first really hot, humid day of the Summer. One of those days when you don't feel like wearing ANYTHING. I heard the first cicadas of the season tentatively exercise their voices and was woken to the screeching of the cuckoos who come down from Papua New Guinea for the Summer season. I must find out more about them. One of the purposes to which I would like to put this blog is to document the wildlife that we encounter whilst here. Over the past few days we have seen 1 echidna, 1 lyre bird (racing across the road as we drove up Cottage Point Rd on our way to dinner in Terry Hills on Sunday Night and 1 goanna, which helpfully agreed to pose for several would be artists. It climbed the almost dead casuarina in front of the kitchen and sat there, resplendent in its spotty glory whilst it was admired by several adults and children armed with their respective sketchbooks.
Today, Tuesday has been a very pleasant cooler day marred (but made quite interesting) by the first burn off of the season. At about 1pm the sky began to fill with thick greyish-red smoke and the smell of burning bush filled the air. The flames were visible across the water on West Head and although I had received prior warning from the local residents' association, it was still a little alarming. I hoped that they had made their meteorological predictions accurately. They had. The afternoon has been very smoky and it is now very windy and I am even wearing a cardigan.
Even up at Cottage Point there are many, mostly nice interruptions. There have been a few maintenance jobs to attend to: the garden, the retaining wall, which we suspected and now have confirmed, is about to fall down, the tanks, which need one new top, two new taps and various other things doing to them, the washing and several visits from the neighbours. Grace, who lives next to the yacht club, works at the Inn and has aspirations to greater things when she finishes her arts degree dropped by to warn me about the fires and provided good advice about the garden. Down at the kiosk, where I am having a change of scene, I had a good chat with Geoff Russel, co-owner and manager. There was a long chat with someone from Vodafone to try to get the mobile broadband working - turns out they don't supply ANY of the critical pieces of information for setting it up yourself. No wonder they have long phone delays. Appalling customer service. Then there was Michael the retaining wall man who shook his head and looked very serious when he looked at our splaying dry stone wall at the bottom of the garden. He thinks that it will ALL have to be redone. My poor garden. I shall have to try to move everything. Just as it was getting established too. He was, however, extremely impressed with the house and is contemplating a January rental!
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