Home, even in the cold.

It is mid April, and the weather has started to turn. The sky is bright and clear, amazingly blue today, and the sun is shining like crazy, but there is a definite chill in the air. Blankets have been put on beds (except Goslings - she still moves around so much that all it would accomplish is either a suffocated baby, or one who wakes all night crying because she is tangled), and I'm keeping my eye out for singlets (tanktops, wifebeaters, whatever you want to call them - sleeveless undershirts) for the kids every time go to the shops. Today is colder than yesterday, and summer clothes have been well and truly abandoned, even by the boy who runs so much I'm amazed he even notices the cold. Critter has tracksuit pants (his only pair) and long sleeves on, and Gosling is wearing tights that don't quite come up past her nappy. I would be sure to overheat if I were to wear a sweater, but I too have given in to long sleeves, and, for once, socks.

This might not seem that strange to anyone else, until you realise that I go barefoot most of the time - including outside in the middle of the night. I keep my feet bare if it is at all possible.

But my toes were slightly numb and looking a little oddly-coloured.

And we do not have a heat source in this house.

There are two gas outlets, one in each of the main rooms. The house however, did not come with gas heaters to go with the outlets, and they are rather expensive to buy. Oil column heaters are cheaper to buy, but they heat less efficiently, and are very expensive to run, especially as electricity prices are set to increase quite a bit.

Normally I would kill two birds with one stone at this time of year, and simply use the oven more. Roast dinners would become more frequent, providing us with good food, incidental heating, and abundant leftovers for quick dinners and lunches. Bread would be started in the morning so the heat from the oven would keep me warm while getting the rest of the day's work sorted. Cookies and muffins would appear on our menu with greater frequency.

But this year, our first cold season in our new very-own-all-ours house, our oven isn't working. The stovetop heats, though the temperature controls leave a lot to be desired (one burner appears to have two settings - veryextrasuperhot and lukewarm - and the other three will take upwards of half an hour to boil a small saucepan of water), and the grill (Americans may be unfamiliar with this term, I think my husband said it is referred to as a broiler?) seems to be in perfect working order (though with a never-stops-running 5 year old and a just-started-walking toddler in the house, I dislike the fact that the grill door has to be left open if it is on), but the heating element in the oven itself has decided to stop doing its job.

The fan and light are still functional, which tricked us the other morning and meant that our breakfast of biscuits and gravy was cooked at the last minute in the BBQ, after discovering that the oven, which should have been preheating for over 20minutes, was stone cold. I don't think we've ever used the BBQ before 10am before.

This house is less drafty than our previous residence, especially now my brilliant husband has boarded up the cracks in the floors of the children's rooms, but it is also only weatherboard and clad construction, not the hefty insulated double-brick of mum's house. The lower ceilings mean less space for hot air to disappear into, but the comparatively flowing openplan living areas, with only one door between front and back of house, mean it is harder to shut up a space and hold that heat where it is needed.

Tomorrow will be worse than today. Today, after a couple of days of slightly upset stomach on Gosling's part, I find I am almost out of nappies, and have tossed the clean, but unusably wet ones into the dryer (a practice I greatly dislike, but am terribly grateful for on days like today), instead of waiting for them to dry outside on the line. With only three left, and nappies taking at least a full day to dry on our line, the only other option was to let all hang loose and simply clean up messes - an option much better reserved for warm summer days, than chilly autumn ones.

A welcome side effect is the hot air being blasted into the house from the dryer - an experience we will have to do without, tomorrow. Tomorrow, everyone will be in long sleeves and wellcovered legs again, and I may even have to pull out a blanket to keep cosy on the couch as night falls and the chill deepens.

Our house is still lacking in many things that help to make a home. Heaters and a functional oven are the most obvious at the moment, but there are many other little things missing. Placemats for the table, paintings for the walls, shelves for Goslings room, shoe-racks for ours. A desk in a corner where I can keep my sewing things (instead of taking up half the dining table). Some sort of cupboard for the laundry-linen-closet, a coffee table and rug for the living room.

But even without these things, even without heat, and even with the curtains that grate on my nerves and sickly-lemon-yellow walls, with drab boring kitchen cupboards and bare lightbulbs, with leaking gutters and taps that only recognise the three annoying temperatures 'cold' 'lukewarm' and 'lava', I'm beginning to really like it here, in my white clad house with the green roof and rosebushes.

I'm beginning to feel at home.

And this would be why I hate summer..

Weatherwise, we don't have it too bad over here in Sydney. We had a couple of shocker days, and had to take iceblocks to bed one night, but its calmed down, and while it's still far hotter than I would like, it's now nothing like the south, where poor Lizzie has been melting away (my mother lives there too, and is still walking over 1km - about 3/4 mile - each way to and from work every day, because there are apparently no taxis).

But we have something Lizzie hasn't mentioned for a while.

As I was putting away the dishes from the drying rack yesterday (we do not have a functional dishwasher, everything is washed by hand and left in the drying rack on the counter to dry), I noticed some movement out of the corner of my eye. There were so many dishes it was hard to see what was going on, but as I cleared more and more away, it became apparent exactly what I was seeing.

The chopping board evidently hadn't been cleaned as thoroughly as we thought, because IT WAS COVERED IN ANTS. They were running around all over it, congregated mostly in one spot, which is where I'm assuming it got washed the least.

So I picked it up and dumped it in the sink, running hot water over it until I couldn't see any little writhing black bodies any more. Then I took everything off the counter, got out my can of bug spray, and I sprayed the heck out of the entire area. And the windowsill, where they all tried to flee to, and where I found another gazillion of the nasty little things.

And then I washed everything. Again. Twice.

I don't care about the water restrictions, THERE WERE ANTS ON MY DISHES!!!!!!!!!

spring has sprung

i know i know, technically its still a couple weeks away, but for me, the first sprig of jasmine in the yard tells me spring has sprung. there have been occasional random single blooms for a while now, but today, i saw the first sprig, and now its making my house smell good.

spring has sprung.