Heavenly Beverley

Friday, 12 February 2016

Keeping Cool in a Blast Furnace.

I haven't written that much during the last few days. Along with the rest of the Wheatbelt, we have endured a protracted heat wave. Last Saturday and Sunday, we were given a taste of the approaching scorching. Temperatures just below 40 degrees Celcius ( about 102 Fahrenheit) were, frankly unpleasant. In hindsight, that was the good news. Between Monday and Thursday, the temperature gravitated between 41 and 45 (106 and 113). Today is a tad cooler; the forecast a moderately cooler 37. Supposedly. At five in the afternoon, the temperature is 37.5 and going up!

Yesterday I travelled to the dietician, visited the library and survived the supermarket. The dietician was easy. I have lost weight - a whopping 2 kilos in three months. So I'm still fat, I still drink copious amounts of vino and I have not felt like exercising for quite some time. At least, Shenae has a sense of humour. I resolved to reduce my consumption of vino to 2 standards drinks a day. I think I may have told a fib...

Feeling slightly guilty, I decided to park Goldie at the library in the shade and walk down Fitzgerald Street. In 44 degree heat...My cheap little metal earrings became so superheated, one burnt the side of my neck! Ouch.

The library was an oasis of cool and quiet. My legs had gone wobbly, so I sat hastily in a corner on the floor. Once my core temperature had dropped, I enjoyed a very pleasant half hour or so choosing new books.

The supermarket was busy. Naturally, management chose to close all but one checkout. I actually didn't care. I stood in the air conditioning, lowered a cone of silence over me and waited for the lass in front of me to pay a King's ransom for her enormous trolley piled with her groceries.

I cooled down considerably during the drive home. I unpacked and tried to charge my laptop with the new charging gizmo. Frustrated I drove to York for a scheduled doctor's appointment. All the elderly ladies in the waiting room were comparing how hot the temperature had been on their verandahs. The first liar didn't stand a chance!

I arrived home about fifteen minutes before our friend Larissa, her step-son Mac and their Weimaraner Shiloh drove into the shade of our front eucalyptus. The heat was still outrageous. They had already stayed one night and gratefully accepted the offer to gatecrash for a second night. Their sea container home had no air conditioning...

Larissa brought enough food to feed the Fifth Batallion. At dusk, we sat outside for a while. The intense fierceness of the day had subsided and I went for a swim. Bliss. However, once the mozzies returned, we all retired inside the House that Rocks for the rest of the night. Shiloh thoroughly enjoyed her stay. She slept on the bed next to Larissa, her Weimaraner head contentedly on the other pillow.

And so, in no particular order, are my tips for staying as cool as possible during the bloody hot weather -

hibernate during the day, if possible. Only come out after dark.
seek air conditioning. If you don't have it, go somewhere that does.
cold showers, baths or a swim are a must. Play with the hose whilst watering the gasping garden.
do NOT wear metal earrings outside.
fire up the BBQ to reduce heat and mess and crankiness.
Make sure to alternate a glass of water with a glass of vino!
do not expect miracles from anyone. You may be asking to have your head bitten off.
Fantasise about Hobart.
And remember, we will all be whinging about the cold in a few months.

What an awesome thought!

Michael back to his usual state working in the East End Gallery...

the thermometer in Northam was broken...

Mike's dash cam melted in his car...in the shade...

never wear metal earrings on a really hot day...

pretty accurate...

Sascha and Shiloh both sit like this..

Shiloh enjoying the comforts of the House that Rocks.

Monday, 8 February 2016

A Slob Day

I'm sitting here in the delight of the air-conditioning, sipping a glass of extremely pleasant semillon sauvignon blanc from Victoria. At six-thirty in the evening, with the temperature hovering still around the old century (37.3 Celcius), I am wearing nothing but a beach towel. Michael is more formally clad. He's in his pyjama bottoms.

Today is the first Slob Day I've had in a while. As the day became a scorcher, there was no point in planning very much at all. I watered the delicates, the seedlings and the pots this morning. At eight-thirty, it was a positively chilly 34. Michael had been going to rise, but had suffered from a complete Failure to Launch. I didn't mind. He made me an exquisite morning cup of tea when I entered the House that Rocks.

I had turned off the air-conditioning during the early hours of the morning and flung the windows open. I could tell that the night was warm as we had a Weimaraner lying on the toilet floor, a Beagle in our bedroom behind a chair and the Jack Russell stretched out next to our bed. During the night, all three took great delight in playing musical rooms. One of the few downsides of wooden floors is that dogs' toenails click... Michael was aware of every manoeuvre and did not sleep well.

The air-conditioning was resumed at nine-thirty. The pace at the House that Rocks was gentle. Dishes, removal of insect corpses from the benches, dusting and vacuuming (by my beloved husband) took up the majority of the day. Michael retired for an early afternoon nap and only woke because some idiot call centre rang our landline.

We watched a suitably unintellectual DVD this afternoon. Lots of action, comedy and an evil lunatic who received his comeuppance. And our hero got the girl. Excellent.

This evening we ventured outside. The pool is clean. And wonderfully refreshing. Not cold at all. We then sauntered around the property, admiring the deceased ants' nests and calthrop - an exceedingly nasty weed with very sharp prickly thorns. It was most unwell.

Back inside. My second glass of vino. We are both on our computers, dogs stretched around us, comfortable with air-conditioning. Down to 36.5. Tomorrow we look forward to 43...then two days of 44...Friday will see a cool change - down to 40. Saturday I will need a cardigan - the forecast is currently for only 33.

And we brought the pirate parrot inside too. He gravitates from being extremely rude to making a dreadful mess.

Wish Western Australia luck for the next few days!

Saturday, 6 February 2016

Failure to Launch...

This week, spare a kind thought for us here in Heavenly Beverley. Whilst we melt. We are looking at the next five days above 40 degrees, with a "cool" change on Friday - currently, the forecast is for 39 degrees. What a relief.

Today, I was in the East End Gallery. I turned on our sophisticated air-conditioning system - two ceiling fans, one floor fan and a portable air cooler. I had all sorts of plans to complete a whole heap of marketing tasks promoting our Expansion Exhibition, which opens on 19 March. After all, the day was going to be a relatively mild 38...

I was going to produce a poster, a media release for the Avon's newspapers and radio, a local notice for the Beverley Bulletin and Blarney and a notification to our artists and the public. Well, guess what? I started none of these tasks. By early afternoon, I was a damp sponge of sweat, trying to look fresh and animated in my curator's frock. I failed miserably.

Our only visitors today were - one lady travelling in a convoy of camper trailers, an artist from York and a local family buying ice creams (I think) from the Country Kitchen.

By three o'clock, I'd had enough. I packed my bat and ball and scurried home. The steering wheel and gear lever in Goldie were almost too hot to touch. I opened all her windows, cranked up the air-conditioning and waited until I could hold the wheel and change gears.

Once home in the glorious coolness of the House that Rocks, I prepared Osso Bucco to lub-dub on the stove for a few hours and retired to our bedroom. I slept. I even had to pull up the covers. Absolute bliss!

I watered parts of our gasping garden around dusk. This will be a job I will have to repeat often over the next few days. I filled every one of our birdbaths and bowls around the front garden. I hope we don't have too many casualties if the birds can drink and bathe. Last summer, we had a 28 parrot submerge itself in one of our baths. I was tempted to offer it a snorkel...

So, after last week's rain and an influx of B52 mosquitoes, we are lurching to the opposite extreme. Ye Gods. I actually found myself longing for winter clothes and hot chocolate.

Back in the Gallery tomorrow. I will try to open earlier and shut up earlier. Michael will attempt a paint job repair of the back door tomorrow night. The first undercoat was a disaster. The paint blistered as he was slapping it on.

I hope he has better luck the second time...

And that we survive this week in reasonable nick...

Wednesday, 3 February 2016

Celebration Time...Come On!

On 6 July 2012, the Forbes Building became ours. In the middle of winter, we had a BBQ in Shop 4 with our friends. They thought we were mad. I thought Michael was mad.

The building was a disaster. It leaked like a sieve. It stank to high heaven. The power was a joke. Plumbing was restricted to the old commercial kitchen, which had been gutted. The colour scheme was the stuff of nightmares and the walls had cracks we could see daylight through. Fretting brickwork and rising damp just added to the fun.

Slowly, we renovated. Think "Grand Designs" without any money. Michael tackled the majority of the restoration himself, with help from second-in-command Gary. When we could afford to pay him.The rewiring was completed shop by shop by Dave the Brave, our electrician. Plumbing was undertaken by local contractors. We couldn't afford to re-roof, so Michael used silicone and bitumen paint, repaired valleys and cleared the gutters of rubbish. This may sound relatively minor, but the building was 390 square metres under the main roof.

The workshop renovation took 4 months. restoring the "residence" (two rooms and a wet area) from a hovel to semi-respectable took another 4 months non-stop. By Easter 2015, we only had the rear of Shop 4 to finish.

Michael was ill with a lingering chest infection over winter 2015. He spat the dummy about rebuilding the fireplace in Shop 4. For about 2 weeks. The fireplace took a month to restore. Then the walls had to be filled, sanded and painted, insulated on the eastern side, and the ceiling fixed and painted. Finally, the separating tin wall came down 2 weeks ago and clad the eastern wall.

We cleaned, dusted, split the Gallery into 2 - the Gallery Giftshop and the East End Gallery - and transported artworks from one side to the other, according to the value of each item. Yesterday I finished the 2 catalogues. Today, I printed the corresponding numbers.

Finally, the building is only awaiting a few cosmetic touches. The glass panels need "boxing in" on the eastern wall. As does the back alcove and the door into the workshop. That is it. End of story.

I left the Gallery this afternoon with a thrill of satisfaction. After 3 years, 6 months and 27 days, we are at the end of an extraordinary journey.

Now we are embarking on a new quest. We are selling our house by the river, the House that Rocks, in order to pay off debt and build a house, Station Cottage, on the block behind the Forbes Building. And we doubt if the building has finished with us quite yet. I expect there will be a few more repairs that we haven't even imagined.

So we are toasting our achievement. I am so proud of Michael's vision, perseverance and grit. True grit.

Onward and upward! Come and visit the East End Gallery and the Gallery Giftshop.

The Gallery Giftshop and the East End Gallery.

Monday, 1 February 2016

Nocturnal Antics at the House that Rocks.

Michael's dreams are somewhat legendary. Some nights I just get annoyed, particularly if I'm woken by him on multiple occasions. He has the extraordinary knack of returning to the same dream and continuing on. The funniest part is when he looks at me with blank confusion in the morning when I regale his latest imaginary adventures. Occasionally, he will have some memory of his dreams and will look suitably appalled and amused at the same time.

The dream featuring the cat, the toast and her suitcase was an absolute corker. I was sure that would be difficult to emulate. I was wrong.

Last night, I was totally shattered and I went to bed at the unusually early hour of nine-thirty. Michael stayed up to watch "Salt". The night was cool so I threw the doona on the bed. I was startled out of a deep sleep the first time when a human ice cube climbed under the covers next to me. What else could I do? I draped my limbs all over him until he thawed and we both fell blissfully asleep.

I woke some time later to see Michael pointing at the ceiling and making buzzing noises...ET phone home? Actually no. Upon demands for an explanation, he explained he was turning the TV off. On the ceiling. Needless to say, he rejected the notion that we were actually in bed and he was not a remote control...

This pointing and buzzing went on for quite a while. Eventually, I convinced him that the TV was off and that he was no longer required to silence it. With a loud sigh of exasperation, Michael turned on his side and farted in my general direction.

This morning, I believe he may have had a tiny glimpse of remembrance. He did not deny my recount of events and even looked slightly embarrassed.

He then asked me if Madame Cat had been in her usual spot next to him on our bed. I replied in the affirmative. That was all the ammunition he needed...

"The Cat made me do it!"

the Fickle Fairweather Feline...

Michael and his mistress in bed...

The ultimate excuse!

Saturday, 30 January 2016

The East End Gallery has become Two!

The last two days have been another mammoth effort by Michael and me. He has finished the aluminium picture rails and the skirting in Shop 4. He was going to install the wooden picture rail along the white plaster wall, but the tremendous effort of the last week or so caught up with him. He went home at two o'clock for a well-deserved shower and afternoon nap.

As for me, I kept plugging away on the updated organisation. What was Shop 3 is now the Gallery Giftshop ( all items under $500). Shop 4 is the East End Gallery (artworks over $500). We have been going backward and forwards moving items from one side to the other.

Tonight, I finished. We just have the last rail to go up and about three other art pieces left to hang. And remove all the work materials - like the scaffolding and other leftover items.

So, without further ado, here are the two sides of the East End Gallery revealed for the very first time. I am posting these photos and then I am going to climb into bed and sooth my aching feet. Night all.

Enjoy.