As promised, here's the picture of the hole in the ground:

Harrie the Digger did a lovely job of making our hole in the ground..... the pride I feel in it is quite disturbing really. But it represents so much. The beginning of what will probably be one of the most stressful projects of my life.... our very own strawbale dream house.

Anyway, I spoke to Council yesterday and it seems that the Consent is chugging along just fine at this stage and we should expect a result at the end of next week. Dave the Builder sounds happy about that - I think he and his off-sider, the lovely Robbie are getting a little tired of the holding pattern. Bills need to be paid and all that!

This weekend we're off to Mitre 10 Mega to choose some bathroom fittings. Because Nat works there, we get a special staff deal so it's worth us keeping the business there. I tried to do the selections online but the website is woefully short on detail. How can I order a basin if I can't see how big it is? That's right, there are no dimensions shown on the website!

As for the tapware etc, I'm afraid a smallish image just won't give me the information I need. How can an organisation that does so much to create a tempting and convincing sales environment in the stores, make such a dismal attempt to sell online..... if I wasn't so overwhelmed with work right now, I'd call them up and demand they bring me in to help them with their online sales environment.

I've signed up for a series of emails about building with strawbale at http://www.strawbale.com/. Will let you know how those come out.

In the meantime, here's a photo of the smallest person at the beach at Mangawhai.... just so you understand what all the fuss about living here is about!