painting in my sleep

well people Katerina della Renovatione has just stuck her head up from 6 weeks of intensive cleaning and scraping and scrubbing and painting to write a post. OMG there is a world out there where people go out and have fun and relax! Who would have thought?? Not in my world of renovation they don't - they paint and paint and paint some more until they can barely move. But this weekend I am going away with my fabulous choir friends to have some fun and relax! yay!!

Well there is much to report.
Pablo the bower bird is now my adopted son - I wish I could adopt him he's so adorable. I put little blue offerings out for him which he promptly takes and add to his stash. Blue plastic pegs and bright blue biro lids, he loves them all ....but a friend and I were wondering what did bower birds do before the invention of plastic, particularly blue plastic??

I am happy to say that the slow combustion heater works brilliantly and there have been some chilly spring nights up here in the mountains.

just like the Swiss Alps! where's the mulled wine and the ski instructor?

And then there is the possum. Years ago in Adelaide there was a stripper called Big Pretzel, who was renowned for her uncanny ability to twirl the tassels on her sequinned bras in opposite directions simultaneously. Unique life skills I know, but what does this have to do with my house? Well I nicknamed the possum living in my roof Big Pretzel due to her delight in indulging in extremely loud dancing on my tin roof at 4am in the morning.  It certainly sounded as if she was wearing high heels and sequins. The dancing was bad enough but Big Pretzel had set up permanent home in my roof sleeping and of course peeing up there. Fantastic! A friend of mine has one that sleeps in the wall cavity of her studio during the day and it startles her from time to time by suddenly snoring loudly!

Well I love possums but there is a limit and peeing in the roof would be it. So Big Pretzel has recently been evicted from her penthouse apartment by the possum man of Faulconbridge. He rocked up in his beaten up old Falcon station wagon and hopped out in khaki overalls. He appeared not unlike a possum himself, with fuzzy ginger hair and a woolly jumper. He said he'd come back the next night at 9.30pm because then he could be sure the possums were out foraging for food. Sure enough he turned up the next night, and while I sat nervously inside, he was outside all ladders and lights and stomping around on the roof, eventually boarding up their entrance. So Big Pretzel no longer sleeps above me in the living room but I know she's okay. I know that because she and her clan continue to dance very loudly on my roof in what sounds like hobnail boots in the wee hours. I think they call it Possum's Revenge!

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and because this blog is also sometimes about music here's  Clairy Browne and the Bangin' Rackettes from Melbourne    
Katerina x