Appearances

Yesterday was the Anzac Day public holiday, a time for Australians to remember those in the military who have sacrificied themselves for their country. And most of us did that, the same way we commemorate all public holidays: through home renovation! I'm sure the ghosts of all our fallen soldiers are proud to know that on their memorial day, the majority of their decendents spend the daylight hours putting up new pergolas or painting their spare rooms.


For myself, I picked up some old railway sleepers that a friend of a friend was throwing out, and used them to tidy up the narrow strip of earth just outside my garden wall.




Before: a messy wasteland and the Shame of the Neighbourhood.




After: neat, tidy and as anal-retentive as any OCD sufferer could wish.


The Car Formerly Known As My Parents' WRX came in very handy for this project. My parents told me not to damage it, but they didn't say anything about not using it to transport six two-metre-long jarrah railway sleepers across three suburbs. The weight pushed the rear suspension so far down that the tyres were almost touching the wheel arches, but since nothing actually broke, it doesn't count. Hooray!