By request - Marmalade Cottage mulled wine

Essential for any winter party!

You will need:
Two bottles of reasonable red wine
One orange
Half a dozen cloves
A stick of cinnamon
Sugar to taste


Stud the orange with the cloves, and bake it in a 180deg oven for about 20 minutes.

Pour the wine into a saucepan, add the cinnamon, slice the baked orange into fairly small pieces and add to the wine.

Bring to a very gentle simmer for five minutes or so.

Taste and add sugar until it makes you feel warm and cozy.

Share with friends around a fire.

By request - Marmalade Cottage clam chowder

At the creative one's birthday party, the clam chowder was a hit. Which rather surprised the practical one, as she'd never even tasted it before!

This is the recipe, adapted from one found on the internet.

Serves about 8

Ingredients3 medium potatoes cut into 1cm dice
750g clam meat (I could find only frozen meat, but if you get fresh clams, you will need to steam them open in some water or white wine and strain carefully to get rid of any sand or grit.
2 litres fish stock (hot)
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup flour
1 brown onion, chopped finely
2-3 sticks of celery, chopped finely
4-6 cloves garlic finely chopped
600ml light cream
salt and pepper to taste 3 bay leaves
As much fresh dill as you like

Method
Gently melt the butter, and sauté the onions, celery and garlic, but don’t let it get more than pale golden. The soup has to be white.

Stir in the flour quickly with a wooden spoon, then add the hot stock a dribble at a time, stirring as you go until it’s all incorporate and nice and smooth.

Add the bay and half the dill, then the potatoes and three-quarters of the clams, simmer until the potatoes are soft.

Take out the bay leaves.

Whizz with a stick blender, then add cream and adjust your seasoning.

Add the rest of the clams and simmer until they’re cooked. Just before serving add the rest of the dill.

We have growth

The reinventors have been trying to put off working in the garden in favour of getting the house ready.  Which was a good idea, but the weeds and mud and lack of things to eat has gotten to both of them.  So there have been a couple of forays into the soil. 

 The broadbeans have sprouted.

 Marmalade Cottage will have tangeloes, which make superior marmalade.

 The cavalo nero survived being dug up, roughly potted, then replanted.

 Marmalade Cottage will have lemons in a couple of years.  In the meantime the lovely neighbours have been bringing over great bags to keep the reinventors going.

An experiment - a male and female kiwifruit.  One male will, apparently, fertilise up to eight females, but there simply isn't enough space.  Sometime very soon, they will need a strong trellis.

The kitchen comes together

The cooking corner.  No clanging around in too-small drawers trying to find a soup ladle - everything is in reach.

The washing up corner.  Lots of places for dishes to drain.

The inaugural party

So it was the creative one's birthday yesterday, and what better excuse does one need to throw a party?

The reinventors were most pleased that no one went through a floorboard, and nothing attached to the house caught fire.  There does seem to be rather more beer and wine after the party than before, and they are not drawing any conclusions from that.

The free-off-Gumtree stove performed admirably - clam chowder, spiced mushroom and cauliflower soup, baked potatoes, beef stew, braised lentils, broccoli with lemon and almond sauce, and mulled wine. 

It did not cope with pavlova.  But, as any creative cook knows, lots of whipped cream and fruit atop will adequately disguise a flattish meringue.

The reinventors suspect that's the first party Marmalade Cottage has seen in nearly 50 years.  And Marmalade Cottage had a lovely time.

Yes, we still have no internets

But there is progress.

After the practical one cracked the shits at the contractor who wanted to charge $620 a hour to dig a trench, and dug it herself, it then took another two weeks for anything to happen with the trench.

But at last the contractor of the contractor of Telstra showed up to put cable in the trench.  And left without even filling it in.  However we have a plug in the wall that will soon be connected to the outside world.

Which is progress indeed!

In less technical news - the kitchen is all but finished and there are fruit trees planted in the back yard.  The loungeroom sports its first coat of paint, which was not achieved without setback - the creative one (who is a big lad) put his foot through a floorboard.  So the search is now on for matching boards with which to patch.

The Marmalade Cottage family briefly grew to four with the arrival of Susie, a Maltese Terrier-Shitzhu cross.  Except Susie, who is seven and has always had people and other dogs around her, could not cope with being left alone, and destroyed her leash, every cardboard box she could reach and most of the potted herb garden, before climbing a fence and visiting the neighbours.  The reinventors simply aren't able to be with her all the time, so she is looking for new owners.

Lola cat is much relieved at the departure of Susie.

Failure to connect

If you’d thought connecting to the telephone was a simple exercise and considered a basic necessity of modern housing, you’d be most emphatically wrong.

Marmalade Cottage has never been connected to the phone, not even in the days of the Post Master General’s department.

In practical terms, the connection is a matter of digging a trench, running cable from the pit in the footpath to where you want the socket installed inside the house.

In reality it’s insanely complicated and, depending on who you ask, and on which day, quite often conflicting.

The whole telephone-connection system is set up for new houses, so working with a 94-year-old house causes throwing of hands in air, and, one suspects, muttering under breath.

The phone has to be connected to the electrical meter box.  Or it doesn’t. 

The cabling has to go in a trench directly to the meter box.  Or it doesn’t.

The trench has to be 350mm deep.  Or 300mm deep.  It has to be 250mm wide.  Or 150mm wide.  Or the width of a spoon.

The trench can cost $341 or $428 to dig.  Or you can dig it yourself.  Provided it’s deep enough and wide enough.  And in the right place.

The reinventors are digging their heels in and demanding a definitive explanation of what’s required and where, and a quote in writing.  The provisioning company is finding this difficult to understand. 

Apparently the Marmalade Cottage situation is unusual to the degree of about one-in-10,000.  Everyone gets the phone connected when they build the house, don’t they?!

Getting there

Here's what you can achieve in a week off work:

• Restring the Hills hoist.  The former owner had strung it sometime back in the 1960s with electrical wiring, which is quite strong, as it's copper.  Unfortunately it's coated in black rubber, which, as it perishes in the sun, leaves nasty black marks on one's washing.  It required big snipper-pliers, a hacksaw and calculated swearing to take it off.
• Seal the kitchen floor.  More hands-and-knees work.  The floor looks appropriately rustic and should stand up to whatever we (literally) throw at it.
• Paint the entrance hall.  The practical one thoroughly detests painting, but can't deny that it makes a very big difference.  Most of the 1940s vintage cream paint (not) enhanced by 50 years of cigarette smoke is now a lovely, snowy white.  Once the skirtings, architraves, window frames and our intricate arch is picked out in foresight blue (that's its real name) it will look quite spectacular.
• Two trips to Ikea.  Much as we'd sworn to foreswear the warehouse of frustration and broken fingernails, it turned out to have exactly the sort of stainless steel shelving and racks we needed.  The second trip secured the perfect stainless steel island bench.  Once the kitchen is painted, we can put up all the shelving and racks and the kitchen will work really well.
• Discover the kitchen mantlepiece is a lovely piece of jarrah.  Underneath cream, white, pale green, darkgreen and yellow paint.  It's nearly stripped clean, and, once sanded and varnished will be gorgeous.
• Move the rainwater tank.  Which had been carefully placed to render the Hills hoist largely useless.  This involved emptying it (about a third full) onto the back yard, then rolling it to the concrete pad that was and will be the chook shed.  Eventually we'll plumb it to the roof of the new shed for which we haven't yet budgeted.

There's more, but it makes my head ache thinking about it.

This weekend we'll fill as many of the holes left by the electricians as we can, then get a lot of painting done, put up blinds in the kitchen and bedroom, shelves and racking in the kitchen.

Baby, it's cold outside

So this is what happens if you're really lucky.

You have the gas connected to your old house for the first time in its 94-year history.  That's the digging up of the footpath to get the gas pipe from the street to your house.  Then you have a heap of copper piping strapped to the side of your house, connecting the meter box to your stove and hot water service.

Then the gasfitter submits some vitally important paperwork to the gas regulator.  Who decides your job needs to be audited and promptly switches the gas supply off.

You, of course don't notice this until 7.30pm on the Saturday of a long weekend.

Several increasingly miffed phone calls ensue to the gas regulator, the gas inspection people and the gas fitter.  Nothing happens.  You manage to cobble together dinner, and you go to bed grubby from a day's scrubbing and moving.

The next day, a gas inspector turns up apropos of nothing.  He looks vaguely at your gas meter box, then announces he can do nothing as he doesn't have the paperwork.  You ask why he's here.  That conversation goes nowhere.

Fortunately, your gasfitter is a compassionate fellow and resends the paperwork to the gas regulator.  Then the gas inspector reappears and approves your gasfitter's work.  But he doesn't turn the gas on.  That's not his job.  That's the gasfitter's job.  The gasfitter can't come, he has small children to supervise and no car that day...

The practical one is furious and has several strongly worded letters half-composed.  Grrrr...

The first weekend

 Our bedroom, with clean walls.

 And again, with the first touches of a shade of blue called Foresight.  Soooo much nicer than the hospital green it's been wearing all these years.

 The loungeroom with clean walls and a clean window.

 The loungeroom fireplace, with partly sanded timber floors.

 Scrubbing 50 years' worth of cigarette smoke off the walls made an enormous difference.

 The creative one is quite pleased at the prospect of an indoor toilet.

 An army of generous friends pitched in to help with the work.

 Some much more deft with a cutting-in brush than we are.

The helper's helpers.  The seven-year-old took the story of the old man who didn't clean his house to school for show-and-tell on Monday morning.  

And now all that cleaning has to be done over - at 7.30 Monday morning the chasers hacked into our walls, cutting grooves for the new wiring.  Shortly after that the electricians crawled into the roof to feed the wires down, and then the plumbers dug up the 1920s era plumbing from under the 1940s concrete.  

We move in in two days.

What we're working with

Despite everyone's warnings, the settlement went through exactly when and how it was supposed to, and Marmalade Cottage is ours.

Since there's so much to do, we got straight into it.  With the help of P and D, we drank a bottle of Moet, then we ripped out the lino.

Over the weekend, there's been a small army of helpers and we've managed to get the walls washed - orange power is brilliant at removing 50 years of cigarette smoke residue.  Most of the floors are sanded and waxed, the furniture we're keeping is stacked out of the way.  We have a functional back door and the revolting old stove is in a skip.

Today the electricians started the rewiring, which involves cutting lots of holes in walls.  Tomorrow the rewiring will be finished, and the plumbers start.  After that the house will be liveable, and that's when we move in. 

Meanwhile here are some before photos.

 What we'll wake up to every day, minus the horrible curtains and the hospital green paint.

 This is the original kitchen.  It seems to have been used as only a dining room.  We'll put in a sink and stove, lots of shelves and good lighting and it will be a kitchen again.

 This is our loungeroom fireplace.  Under that lino are floorboards, they're not great, but they're sanded and waxed now and they'll do. 

 This is truly hideous - cracked and filthy and it doesn't drain properly.  We have a new pedestal basin (one of the few new things we've bought) and taps found at a garage sale for $15.  We'll paint and install a toilet and the bathroom will be transformed!

 This is what will greet us everytime we come in the front door.  We've cleaned off the grime, but it's still rather green. Once we've finished with it, the feature pieces will be glossy blue, a shade called foresight, and the rest white.

 The party toilet.  Not working now due to extreme neglect, the details of which are best not mentioned.  To be fixed shortly.

 This is the old kitchen sink, installed, we think, around the 1940s.  There is no hot water.  It's in the built in verandah bit, you can just see the edge of the old back door on the right. We're leaving it there, as it'll be useful for washing hands from gardening or rinsing off vegies just picked.

This is a horrible room, poky and dark.  Right now it's floor to ceiling with furniture and boxes, but once we've organised the rest of the house it will be the practical one's sewing room.  We have an over-the-top pink glass chandelier for it!

More to come!

The night before

Settlement is tomorrow.  Today we had a hiccup - the bank realised it had miscalculated and suddenly needed another chunk of cash.  The settlement agent rang sounding grim, and so the practical one made a dash to the bank.

And we are once again assured that everything is in place for settlement to proceed without a hitch.

It had better!  The plumber is organised to fix the alarming leak in the outdoor (and only) toilet at 3pm, and the electrician is expected at 4 to do preliminary work.  There is a bottle of champagne chilling.
 

Nearly, nearly there!

At last the SOLD sign has gone up in front of our house.  We had the final pre-settlement inspection this afternoon, and a good laugh with the real estate agent about the ghostly activity in the house.

Our plans are starting to become tangible.  The electrician and plumber are booked and have promised their work will be done within only a couple of days.  We're going to believe them, because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

Our rental was open today to prospective tenants - who looked very suspiciously at the appliances and fittings we've collected in our carport.  So far, we've got a stove, bathroom basin and taps, hot water service, kitchen bench and a toilet.

Settlement is next Friday, and then there will be a flurry of activity.

Completely unexpected nutcasery

The background:  the real estate agent who sold us Marmalade Cottage is sympathetic to the amount of work the place needs, so he's been quietly giving us extra access.  So long as we don't do anything to change the place, he figures it doesn't hurt.  This has meant we've been able to get the place pest-inspected, take a heap of measurements, and get a plumber and an electrician in for a quote.

Since the  place has been empty for so long, and is wearing 50 years of cigarette smoke on its internal walls, we took the opportunity to do some scrubbing.  As an afterthought we scattered some sprigs of bay, growing in the backyard, about the house to help with the smell.

The nutcasery: it turns out the daughters of the deceased owner visited the house.  Two of them are quite reasonable, the other one is mad.  She was, the real estate agent reports, incensed that we'd moved some of the furniture.  She also took the appearance of the bay sprigs as a supernatural sign that her late father was turning in his grave! We believe coniptions were had.  The poor real estate agent got quite an earful.

Annoyingly, it means our quiet and non-destructive access to our house prior to settlement has now abruptly ceased.

Something of a shopping list

The plan has always been to do this renovation in the greenest manner possible.  So we've making a large effort to find second-hand appliances, fittings and furniture.

And, as settlement is in less than two weeks, there's quite a bit of pressure to accumulate rather a lot of things, especially those the plumber and electrician need to fit, very shortly after settlement.

This past weekend, with the help of the trusty Quokka and Gumtree, the reinventors are now in possession of 100m2 of insulation, a toilet (which had never been installed, but since it wasn't bought retail, counts as not new) and a hot water service.

The hunt is on for a kitchen sink and some stainless steel catering benches, towel rails, a toilet roll holder, one or two light fittings, and some doors.