1 week in - being a dad!

Well it's been a very interesting past week or so in our household. Our first child was born, which turned out to be a boy , we had decided not to find out the sex as we wanted it to be a surprise. We thought that as there were few surprises left in life that weren't unpleasant, we would not find out the sex before the birth. Nine months of anticipation was ended when we were handed the little fella - a very emotional moment - especially to find out it was a boy. It was also my birthday a few days prior - definitely the best birthday present I've ever had.

Progress has also been made on the VW projects - to a fashion. I've placed the order for the garage and will submit the plans to council tomorrow. I've also been clearing the garden out to make some room for it. This has also forced us to take a look at the garden in general, we have unfortunately done very little to it since we bought the house a few years back, and it's only since we decided to do the garage that we have bothered to sit down and work out some plans for it. We drafted up a rough layout to figure out how the garden could look - taking into account the position of the garage and planned extension. It was quite good to be a bit creative and run through a few ideas - especially since we also had to consider how the garden would work with our new addition. We also wanted to have some kind of basic pla so that we didn't end up doign everything twice - once for getting the garage up and again for when we redid the garden.

With a basic layout decided, I have made a start on clearing out the garden and have cut in some new beds at the rear in front of the new fence i recently erected, These will get planted out with some native Australian shrubs to hide up the fence a little. I've also started to clear an area to the rear of the proposed extension where I will relay the red brick paving curently sitting where the extension to the garage will go. This has caused me to pot a couple of standards where the bricks will be relayed - not too sure where these will end up, but didn't want to get rid of them as they are lovely when they are in flower. The whole garden is a little like this - a string of smaller jobs that need doing to create the space for the garage extension. The existing shed needs to be moved out of the way but retained to house all of our gardening equipment - until the garage is finished that is. To move the shed I need to relocate the compost heap and a whole bunch of bricks, rocks and pavers... and so on! With the garage extension finally underway, getting to work on the VW projects is just that little bit closer.

I also finally picked up the exhausts for my DKW's. For those of you who have read my other site you will know that I have 2 old Auto Union DKW motorbikes - a 1958 and 1959 RT250 (gotta love German aircooled machinery). About year back I had two new exhausts made up for them - they have only just been finished off - a long time in the coming. The '59 is currently roadworthy but had a non standard exhaust, whilst the '58 is mostly stripped down and had a really battered standard exhaust on it. Fortunately it was suitable enough to make a pattern from. These are yet another 2 projects on the (probably too long) list - getting the garage sorted will allow me to segregate a few areas for the diferent projects - whch will be fantastic.