The One

We started today with four more houses to look at, two in Bundoora and two in Reservoir.  We left early and so we did a drive by of all the properties before we inspected any.  During the drive by we instantly were able to remove two houses from our list of potentials.  One of the houses in Bundoora backed onto the Northern ring road and despite the wall of trees, the noise from the traffic was unavoidable.  The other house we scrapped from our list was in the north of Reservoir and was a little too far from anywhere to be practical.

This left us with two properties to inspect, an older house in Bundoora and a new modern townhouse in Reservoir.  The Bundoora house was open first and we got there a little early so had plenty of time to explore the local surroundings including a nice walk up the Darebin creek.  I instantly had a good feel about the Bundoora house, it is a three bedroom brick house surrounded by a well established garden.  The house is raised and has a large underfloor storage area (a good breeding space for snakes and spiders I am sure) which will be useful.  There were only two negatives I could detect, a cracked window pane in the front and a mark on the wall indicative of damp in one of the bedrooms.

The second house in Reservoir was really a unit, but on land divided in such a way that it escapes the restrictions imposed by a body cooperate.  The location was good being near the station and Edwardes street, but as with all these modern builds the living area is far too small to be practical, and despite Barnadi's enthusiasm for a modern clean lifestyle I can't help feeling they are soulless.

We decided the Bundoora house would defiantly suit our lifestyle better, but we are at a distinct disadvantage as we will be away when the auction is on. Our plan is to put an offer in before we go away.  If an offer is not accepted then we will nominate our friends Rae and Stuart to go to the auction by proxy.  We are feeling quite positive however as we have just had a mortgage pre-approval amount increased, so we have more flexibility than before.  Either way before we make any kind of offer we need to get a building inspector to have a look at the place and insure it is still structurally sound.

Feeling quite excited after our mornings exploits we drove up to visit Rae and Stuart for lunch and share with them our plans.  The weather today was much cooler than it had been and so Rae and Stuart had managed to go back to their home in St Andrews an area that has seen more than its fair share of tragedy from bush fires.  They have not had rain out there in over two months and the usual lush green landscape has turned to a burnt yellow, the dried out brittle grass crunching underfoot.  Bush fires have been raging all across the south and east of Australia as they do every summer, perhaps the most worrying though are those that have been deliberately started by arsonists who seem to get some sort of twisted kick out of causing such massive devastation, the term 'firebug' does nothing to express the pure evil of these individuals.

After dropping Barnadi off at work I then decided it was time to start running again, we weren't in a fit state to do the Melbourne half marathon last year despite our best intentions but we are much more settled now.  Barnadi has already started running again so I needed to catch up.  I managed a nice 5.93km run taking me along the Merri creek, I was quite proud of this as it has been nearly a year since I last went for a run.  My legs were more than a little wobbly when I got home though.

I started my course of isoniazid last night, my liver function tests all came back normal and so there was nothing to hold me back.  I'm pretty certain I can cope with 9 months of not drinking, it is after all nothing more than a pregnant woman has to go through and I don't even have to put up with having a baby at the end of it so there's a bonus.