We have been away in Canberra sans children, exploring different areas to consider living in. We hired a car and drove all over exploring our options for housing and schools.
What a beautiful city- I didn't take any photos in the built up areas at all, because my nose was firmly glued to the pages of the hire car's maps navigating DH's route. We combed the city and surrounding suburbs for available rental properties that may suit our needs and looked at all manner of things- from cramped and overpriced "accommodation" that despite descriptions from agents turned out to be total dives not fit to accommodate an animal, replete with all manner of foul odours, stains and mould for astronomical rental prices, yet lacking basics like heating of any kind, in a Sub Alpine climate. Unbelievably disgusting places that really should be condemned. On the other hand we found horribly expensive down to almost affordable, clean family homes a variety of distances from both our work in lovely established areas with a great range of services to hand. Rental prices are shockingly high driven by heavy demand and real shortage of available properties, and purchasing prices are even worse in nice areas reasonably close to where DH will work. Landlords can and do charge what they like and there is always someone prepared to pay what they ask. We have narrowed down a few areas we would like to live and have applied for one place, as it was the only place suited to our needs currently available. We found loads of quite nice apartments or villa units with tiny rooms not suitable for families with cats or families with more than one child, or nice houses that were simply too far out. I had been warned by a friend who lives in Canberra, about the accommodation nightmare, finding her descriptions to be completely accurate.
On the last day on our way to another suburb, we drove up Black Mountain with its communications tower, covered in satellite dishes. There is a viewing deck we will come back to enjoy with the children when we have more time, along with some nice nature walking trails from the look of it. There are native orchids in the area to watch for at certain times of the year.
Something I really liked is that to and from some suburbs there are really pretty spots with stunning views of the Brindabellas that form part of the Great Dividing Range, as well as some lovely lakes and pasture lands.
Most lakes seem to have BBQ areas for picnics.. One turns out to be nearby my husband's work- Lake Ginninderra.We had lunch here one day en route to another region.
Romantic lake side lunches accompanied by native hens and ducks, sounds great doesn't it, but somewhat marred by the hum of major high ways. Another is on the way to and from DH's work and our ideal location for living...if we get very lucky.
Its nice so far inland to have large bodies of water so easily accessible. Perhaps it is as a result of growing up on a small island, but I have noticed I get twitchy if I cannot access water with reasonable ease or am denied it.
In our prowling we were sure to also checked out available services in each area and in one area, I came across a nice little newsagent that went straight onto my A list for stocking this!
Just a shame it is a bit further out from work that we would like ideally to be, but potentially worth the drive to score a Burda Style if the issue has patterns of interest to me. The things we will do in pursuit of creating... this is the August 2011 issue. I am sure other places would also stock it or order it in though. It made for nice late evening airplane reading on the way home.I haven't been able to quilt or sew much lately with everything going on, but just before I left for Canberra, I did cut and sew up a Barcelona Skirt from Amy Butler.
The pattern is simple to sew and well explained in her pattern. But, being between sizes, along with losing some weight with frantic renovations, plus being in a big hurry, and with a degree of frazzled exhaustion not thinking straight, I cut the skirt too big and then had to do some major reduction in the waist area so it would hang properly and not fall off. This was after I pin fitted and I concluded it was partially to do with the way the fabric appeared to stretch due to the weave. It is not an even weave fabric and is like nothing I've seen before. So, next time its a size smaller for me and adjust the waist out if needed. But, for the first trial attempt I have a cotton skirt lined with cotton homespun of an exceptionally high quality, exterior fabric sourced from Tricia's Discount Warehouse from a trip to Adelaide in 2009, with the homespun sourced from my beloved Frangipani Fabrics. The lining doesn't show, but it is hot pink, just for fun! I would have preferred to use a nice dark red but there wasn't enough left on the bolt. Ironically the weather turned out not to be really quite warm enough to wear it, but I enjoyed a little indulgent sewing anway! Forgive the green top in the photo, it is not what I would normally wear with the skirt, but was on when I finished the garment, and had DH snap an image for my records. I have big plans for this skirt with a white linen blouse.
The skirt is a nice shape though, and easy to sew. I stitched it with the recently found 1000+ machine, now cleaned of grime from around the dials and body of the machine, really to test how it handled a variety of stages of construction. I think this girl was built for garment sewers particularly in mind, it hammers through bulkier areas no problems with nice even stitching. And it has over 1000 stitches per minute, a little faster than my modern Berninas even. Nice when finishing edges... Bella thinks it is a good find, since it almost matches her fur!
And where did we stay on our trip? We were accommodated by hubby's organisation in a really nice self contained apartment - Clifton on Northbourne Ave in Braddon. Friendly, helpful staff. When we checked in we were super lucky and were offered, wait for it..... THE PENTHOUSE!! Nice! This is the sort of thing that happens to other people we know but rarely ever to us.
We came home to discover there is an offer in the pipeline on our home and perhaps a second imminent as well, less than three weeks since listing the property- so things are moving on fast! Moving days are set and we know when we arrive in Canberra we are going to love living there- so much to offer in many different aspects, all the conveniences of a planned and well developed city but easy access to nature- just how we like it! We just need to find a home to move into from temporary accommodation.
Now all I have to do is finish the quilting on a commission for an interstate company, and apply the binding, and drive the cats to their
Happy Quilting,
Stephanie
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