Sunshine washes the troubles away

200715SPJo JO and her garden fork are breaking in the land.

Surprises have been coming thick and fast at our newly relocated villa in Halcombe. One month on we've still got no water, power, heating or sewerage, but all that ceased to matter when the sun came out one day and we could see Mt Ruapehu in the distance and hear tui singing in nearby trees.
Suddenly our pockmarked and slightly broken house seemed more shabby-chic than shabby. The mud seemed somehow less ominous and the newly installed original hallway door shone and sparkled with colour as the light streamed through.
Yes, we have turned a corner. Partner Wayne has been busy removing staples from the outside wood, ready for filling, sanding and painting. The new roof has been ordered, and the matai flooring has arrived, ready to fill in the gaping holes left by the fireplaces that were removed prior to the house shift.
My son has started at his new school in Halcombe, the same school his grandmother went to when she was a girl. When we bought the property we weren't aware that Alex's grandmother's family - the Knofkes - settled in Halcombe as part of a German and Dutch settlement in the 1880s. The Lutheran Church down our road was built by the settlers and the Knofke name appears on articles I've come across about the building of the church. Discovering that family connection has been one of the loveliest surprises throughout this journey.
Now that the house is sited for the sunshine, the house is brighter and warmer than we expected. With the carpet up the floors revealed themselves as matai in beautiful condition. The original fitted kitchen is rimu underneath the false fronts on the cupboards. All of the rimu sash windows are in great condition and the weights still work. Underneath some of the old wallpaper we found a 1930s children's frieze which we have carefully removed and framed. We have frogs, birds, and ducks that visit our pond. All of my big furniture in storage will fit in the house, and the lounge is big enough for a really good party.
Work on the house is well underway, with the sarking and scrim off in most of the rooms, ready for insulation and wiring before new gib is installed. The new roof has been ordered, and wood for the outside boards should arrive next week.
A glorious sunny day got us out into the garden planting the first of the orchard trees, with the pond sparkling away in the background. Serenaded by tui and a lone duck, we planted plum trees, apples and an apricot. The lemon trees will go closer to the house. The soil here is completely different than our sandy free-draining loam in Gonville. Heavy clay needed to be broken up and lightened with birds' nests found in the ceiling, and homemade compost made up of chicken poo, coffee grounds, and seaweed.
Bacon butties cooked on the barbecue overlooking our pond with its graceful willow finished off a lovely weekend of hard graft. If only we had power and could make a cup of tea - or better still, a working toilet.
We still haven't resolved our power battle and a call to Fair Go has gone unanswered and unacknowledged. But I'm gearing up for a fight on this one. For those who missed the previous instalment, despite having a power line, pole, and power cord right up to our house, the power company says our line is "over allocated". They want us to install a transformer - which they will then own - at a personal cost to us of $30,000. Apparently that's how power companies upgrade their infrastructure in rural areas - they charge the consumer for the transformer, and then charge us a line charge and power for the rest of our lives.
Investigations into solar are running into the region of $40,000 depending on what size batteries we need and how much power we will use.
Running a spa pool solely on solar is not recommended apparently...
So the saga continues ... in the meantime the sun shines and the days get longer, and the bleak power battle seems a little lighter. The call has gone out to family to come and help us - brothers are lined up for roofing, gibbing, painting and anything else we can persuade them to do.
The decking has arrived and the front deck should be built and holding up the rather forlorn porch roof by the time we have our first house warming - a somewhat tongue in cheek title - given it's winter, we have no power, heating, or water and the closest toilets are the public ones down the road by the tennis courts.