a little bit of this and that

Hi, sorry for being so scarce the last few days, work, renovations, preparing for art exhibitions, kids moving etc have sent blogging a bit low down the "how to fill my next 24 hours" scale. Even sleep has been pretty low down too!

So here is a bit of a mix, first, the progress on the small alteration to our house (which has generated a disproportionately large mess, I might add!) I first mentoned it here.

Our sitting room has been transformed, just by moving the doors outwards about a metre. they now open into the entrance space, instead of taking up half the room.

The new section of wall has also blocked a lot of the afternoon sun which used to pour in and make the room unbearably hot. This change, combined with the ceiling insulation I had installed last week, has made an incredible difference. We have had seriously hot weather in the last week, and for the first time since we lived here, the lounge has been bearable on a summer afternoon!

before, the doors were really in your face.

during..... the doors were moved back, but the room still needed to open out,

so we removed as much of the wall to the left of the opening as possible.

now.... the room is so much more comfortable. There are still a few finishing touches like skirting, ceiling, a board above the front door, but we are getting there!

looking down the passage towards the front door, we now have more privacy from the front.

From the outside, we tried to keep it very much in sympathy to the original style. When you drive past you have to look hard to notice the changes.

floods and fires....

No-one can accuse Port Elizabeth of being boring, like a woman with PMS she is subject to serious mood swings.... last August we experienced the worst floods in 20 years,

this is our neighbour's garden wall, which burst with the pressure of the floods. (sorry, terrible pic snapped on my cellphone)

here are some pictures taken of the Baakens river valley at the time....

here is the aftermath (taken this week after extensive repairs).

Then this week, after a terrible hot dry spell, the bushfires raged, on Friday our firefighters were dealing with 30 seperate fires. One of them, again in the same section of the Baakens Valley, was so bad that a townhouse complex was destroyed.

We got a view of it from the Fort on the hilltop overlooking the harbour, in the oldest part of town called "Central."

While we were there, we photographed a few of the lovely old buildings around the area.

today's pix (sorry, missed the last few days)

since I started this blog and saved as a draft yesterday, and it is now 2.30am on the following day, I might as well give you a couple of bonus daily photos. They are in keeping with the old building thing.