Pared back retreat

My story on this cute wee bach at Riversdale Beach is published in the Jan/Feb issue of Capital Magazine (click here to read).

Our happy place

My story on this Waikanae bach reno is published in the January issue of Your Home & Garden Magazine (click here to read).

SOLD!!

It took us almost a year to renovate but, in the end, only nine days to sell.

Late last month, we reluctantly put our beloved bach (beach house) on the market. Some arse had bought the empty section next to us (that had been vacant for 30 years!) and plonked an ugly house on there. Which effectively stripped us of our privacy, views and morning sun.

It was time to go. So in late August we put the house on the market and it went under offer nine days later (in a flurry of emails and forms to sign in triplicate the night before we flew to Vietnam).

Yesterday, after the requisite 15 working days, the sale went unconditional. Even better? The buyer bought most of our furniture and big ticket items such as the fridge and beds. Which means we don't have to faff around selling online etc. So it was a big fat win for everyone.

Although I will miss the beach and some of our lovely neighbours (not the ones who've ruined our views, you understand), it feels like the right thing to do. I'll also miss the way my shoulders drop several centimetres every time I see the Welcome to Waitarere Beach sign. For 22 months, that bach was our haven, a quiet little bubble where we got to shuck the worries of the week and recharge for the next. I loved that bach so much I even wrote a story about it in North & South Magazine earlier this year (click here to read).

But, as my mother likes to say, nothing lasts forever. And, just quietly, we made a little bit of cash on it, so that frees us up to look for another rental (and frees me up from having to do some of the horrid bum-on-seat comms roles I was doing). Again, a major win.

So another chapter over. But it was a helluva ride while it lasted

Here for your viewing pleasure for the final time are photos of our former bach...

                    

Chair

Filming on Ghost in the Shell continues apace, with the cast and crew 'weekends' shifted to Thursday and Friday.

So we managed to sneak away to the bach on Wed night after the Animator finished work; again, it was glorious to have the beach mostly to ourselves.

We spent most of Thursday putting together the cover for this raggedy old chair which we inherited with the beach house. A very talented seamstress friend in Welli sewed the new cover and we fitted it, which was no easy task.

But we are thrilled with the end result and it was well worth the effort.

Here's a before pic:

And part-way through the makeover:

 
The end:

Serenity

A line from one of the quirkiest movies ever, The Castle, runs something like, 'How's the serenity?'

It's asked by the father of a loveable Aussie suburban/bogan family at their holiday home, which abuts a huge power pylon.

"How's the serenity," he asks, as the pylon hisses and spits.

If that chap had been at our beach house this week, he wouldn't have had to ask that question.

Somehow the planets aligned and we managed to sneak away to the bach for two days. And it was glorious.

On Thursday and Friday mornings, there was absolutely no-one around. Which is just how we like it.

Here's Bristol the Wonderdog, having the mid-week beach all to himself.

More fruit and vegetable related goodness

This post should really be sponsored by the sort of organic produce chain that charges outrageous sums for knobbly, misshapen fruit and veggies (the kind our mothers would have turned their noses up at).

But the deep-pocketed, Prius-driving customers who frequent such shops would no doubt be salivating at this bounty the Animator harvested at the beach house on Saturday. After this photo was taken, we picked yet another bowl of white-fleshed peaches, whose delicate perfume is now filling the Mt Vic house.

Having exhausted my culinary repertoire of pumpkin, cherry tomato and peach dishes (not together, you understand) I have now started to plunder my vast collection of cookbooks whose main purpose seems to be attracting dust mites (bonus: this morning I discovered two cookbooks I have absolutely no recollection of ever buying).

Despite my best efforts, these photos are hardly Instragrammable, but you get the idea.

Pumpkin

It has come to this, I am now blogging about gourds.

But seeing as it's the first day of autumn, perhaps my vegetable-related rant isn't so inappropriate afterall?

Anyway, this magnificent specimen was grown by the Animator's fair hands at the beach house. It's the first of many, so there will be lots of pumpkin-based dishes in our house in the coming months.

In fact, if you're in the vicinity of Mt Victoria and fancy a three-course pumpkin supper, please make yourself known. We would be overjoyed to divest ourselves of some of our squash-related goodness.    

  

Ode to a Bach

I've written about this before, about the happiest sound in the world being the door shutting on another year of work.

And what bliss it is that for the next few weeks, I will not be required to show up or dress up. There will be no need to engage in a strategic manner, to pretend to care deeply about the subject matter or to write until my brain bleeds (to be fair, there will be some of the latter during the break, given I'm playing catch up with freelance pieces. But it will be stuff I enjoy, so will hardly feel like work).

In the meantime, my story about how we came to buy our simple wooden bach, and why, is one of four pieces of mine in the January issue of North & South Magazine (click here to read).

A weekend of firsts

We managed to sneak away to the bach for three glorious nights and on Saturday, we shovelled down the season's first strawberries (doused in aged balsamic vinegar, icing sugar and cream).

By the time we got home, the first white roses were nudging their creamy heads towards the sun. I am such a floral geek but I ADORE these delicate beauties which, as summer unspools, end up covering almost every surface and spilling out of every possible receptacle. They are, in my humble opinion, the most perfect of flowers (along with my other favourites, Christmas lillies and white peonies).

.

  

Long weekend

Labour Day is an annual holiday held around the globe at different times of the year to celebrate the achievements of workers.

So how did we choose to spend Labour Day 2015? With a shed load of hard yakka, of course.
The Animator devoted most of his three-day weekend to the bach garden, weeding and mulching and basically being a good homeowner.

I, on the other hand, spent most of it lashed to the laptop doing the third of seven stories from the recent USA media trip.

We did, however, get to down tools: our neighbours came over Saturday afternoon for a drink and ended up leaving five hours later. But it was lovely to sit in the glorious sunshine, drink cold white wine and catch up.

Sunday night we had our first barbie of the season at our friends' Jo and Jonathan's bach about two streets away from us. There was gin and bubbles in the sunshine and all manner of food and fun.

Today, back in Welli, we fired up our barbie and greedily gobbled down the first asparagus of the season. Summer, you are so close we can almost reach out and touch you.

A long weekend

By pulling every string available, we were able to spend three glorious nights at the bach.

On Friday, in the time it took me to write an 800 word piece for an interiors magazine, the Animator knocked up this wee number for the back-yard. I am truly in awe of his many and varied skills, particularly because if I had to make something out of spare bits of timber and a few nails, it most certainly would not look like this.

Here it is mid construction:

And the finished product:

A weekend at the beach - and an interiors interview

My first weekend at the bach for three weeks - and although it was glorious to be back, it was also kind of surreal because of the tragic events of last week.

On the plus side, it was a weekend of firsts: the sun umbrella was dusted off for the first alfresco meal since winter and I had my first long run along the beach in ages (I can barely walk today).

On the way home, I popped into this Waikanae bach for a story for a national interiors magazine. It was gorgeous - and the beach was so close you could almost reach out and touch it.

 
(Pic credit: Paul McCredie) 

A long weekend at the beach

We skived off Thursday to the beach house for three glorious nights. And the sun shone and we topped up with the Vitamin E we have been cruelly denied for so long.

There were leisurely walks on the beach and the first G&Ts of the season, taken on a patch of scrabbly lawn we have christened the gin lawn. Thanks to our duty free booty of Bombay Sapphire, I am planning to be a frequent visitor to the gin lawn this coming summer.

On Friday lunchtime while the Animator went into Levin to buy manly things at the hardware store, Bristol and I went for a long run along the smooth sweep of sand, my first run in ages. And it was fabulous - not another human or canine in sight.

Friday afternoon a kindly man in an enormous truck dumped this load of mulch over the fence for our garden (the reason we had to be there Friday as they only deliver on weekdays). Both the Animator and I have the blisters to show for shovelling this lot into wheelbarrows and onto our garden. That's the last time I volunteer my services.

  
In between digging mulch and complaining about digging said mulch, I started - and finished - a 1500 word article that's due before I go overseas next week, as well as completing a book review and starting research on another story, so go me.

Best laugh of the weekend happened this afternoon when two kids came to the door selling raffle tickets for their hockey club or some such thing. The first prize was a side of dead cow and the second was a meat pack. The look on their faces when I told them that, as vegetarians, the prizes were of little use to us, was priceless. You could almost see them thinking, 'What is this vegetarianism you speak of?' Bet they've never met one in their lives.

Oh that this blog had Smell-O-Vision

Then you could get a whiff of these gorgeous freisas from the beach house. Now tell me Spring hasn't sprung.

Today was also the first day I wore my jandals to the beach for months. Admittedly the water was freezing but summer is definitely hovering on the margins.

In other weekend news, the Animator found this little green chap in the garden - as you can tell, Bristol isn't terribly bothered about sharing his territory with the visitor.

         

Orange ISN'T the new black

Last weekend, the beach house's nasty 70s orange bench-top was finally laid to rest.

Or rather, covered with a couple of layers of sticky, smelly gunk that eventually turned it black. Thank the sweet Baby Jesus for that.

Now all we have to do is paint the horrid cupboards below and hello, we have nudged the kitchen slightly closer to the 21st Century.

BEFORE:

     DURING AND AFTER:

We also finally got around to doing something creative with the chalk-board wall. Well, the Animator did, I merely persuaded him to get up on the ladder and scribble my favourite Oscar Wilde quote onto the wall.

Getting my Martha Stewart on

A few years ago, I read an interview with one of my favourite authors, Zadie Smith, who admitted she employed special software that blocked internet access, allowing her to write without distractions.

I should probably do the same, given how much time I spend tootling around cyberspace - especially when I'm supposed to be working.

But all that time sucked by interior design blogs (I justify it because I write for four interior magazines, so surely I should be up with the play on design trends, etc?) does sometimes prove useful.

Last night, while watching the rugby at the bach,  I spent hours rolling the pages of an old book into cones in preparation for the making of a cool paper wreath. Those who know me know that I've never been into the craft scene; home made stuff brings me out in hives and reminds me too much of a relative who spends her life producing ill advised stuff with a hot glue gun and far too many sparkles.        
But when I spotted this wreath on an American design blog I was smitten. And, having inherited several yellowing books when we bought the beach house nine months ago, it seemed like a good way to use them.

It took two hours this morning to throw this puppy together and I am loving it. Not so enamoured by the hot glue gun bizzo (I swear, the first and last time I shall ever use one) so rest assured you won't have to endure any more tedious crafting posts. But overall, it was pretty easy to put this wreath together and I found the perfect spot for it in the living room wall, so go me.

The paper cones from last night's marathon rolling session, ready to be transformed (note the Animator's cute sketch of Bristol on the chalkboard cupboard):

The final product - apologies for the dodgy photo quality but the sun was streaming in and it seemed criminal to close the curtains.