Our house...is a very, very, very fine house

Now that I've left you with that earworm, I'll tell you about where we're living.

Frankston is a fairly large (think: Western Communities in both population and geographical area) and it has an Uplands style area in the south and East End Vancouver-like area in the north. We live in the south.

The front of the house and the cute little echo I get to drive for the year.

Our street, Plummer Ave., has only one way in and involves making either a hard left up a hill from a major highway, or a death defying right hand u-ey at the bottom of the hill. Which can be a bit daunting when you're driving on the wrong side of the road and have just learned to drive stick with your left hand.

Plummer Ave is where the white car is pulling out. The grey car is about to pull a u-ey

Once you're actually on the street, it's nice and quiet and there are some beautiful old homes here.
Many of you have already seen a picture of the east facing kitchen. There are a kazillion windows and they all open up so I can enjoy the beautiful morning sun and the laughing of the kookaburras.

The back garden is jungle-like and I have yet to figure out what kind of trees and bushes are there. I was cutting back some shrubs and tried to brush a spider web out of the way -  it was as strong as fishing line, no exaggeration. Behind the back gate, there's an extremely precipitous hill that leads to the Sweetwater Creek Nature Reserve and a lovely ambling trail along the creek.

The view from the upper deck. Yes, upper. We also have a mid and a lower deck.

There are a few differences between Canadian and Australian houses. All electrical plugs have switches on them so you don't have to worry about sucking phantom power. However, more than once, I assumed something wasn't working when, in fact, I hadn't turned it on.

You can imagine the conversation: "Rob, the &$%# washer isn't working!" DH: "Have you flipped the switch?"

The other major difference is that Australians don't do dryers - everything is line dried. I'm ok with this because I LOVE crunchy towels, but laundry requires more foresight than I'm used to. On the plus side, I've already relegated all laundry duties to the child labour. After all, it is a year of learning life skills. I think I'll assign toilet scrubbing and oven cleaning next.