Mortgage madness or "pressure, what pressure?"

Two photographs from slightly different angles, showing you the strip footings of the main house with, at left, more or less of the concrete pad that will form the floor of the lounge/TV room! The roughly circular patches of grey in the photos are crusher dust, laid as a foundation for two 34,000 litre rainwater tanks that will sit behind the main house. They, combined with a tank off the office/studio roof and one off the shed at the bottom of the block, will give us over 100,000 litres of rainwater stored on site - hopefully plenty to cope with drought conditions and/or top up a swimming pool, if we can ever afford one. Plus there will be a header tank up the hill behind the house of 20,000 litres, for use by the Rural Fire Service in the event of a bush fire on the block.





























And two more photos showing the reinforcing that's going into the concrete pad for the office/studio building. Isn't that a great view? That's what Michael and I will see from our work spaces once it's all finished - what you can't see because it was hazy this morning is that there's a view of the ocean along the horizon. Fantastic!

Meanwhile, the mortgage... The second mortgage company has finally managed to get the correct valuer up to the block and complete a very satisfactory valuation. This now has to be sent to Head Office and approved, then there's paperwork to sign and Title Deeds to hand over. All this can - allegedly - be wrapped up before I go away in 10 days' time. Or at least, that's the plan.

It would be good if it all went well because today I got the sit-down-while-you-read-it invoice for the second stage payment: all $138,000.00 of it and unless we get that mortgage sorted out, I can't pay the invoice! (Warren, if you're reading this, don't worry...)

I'm doing something very unusual for me: I'm trusting that everything's going to be OK instead of worrying myself into an anxious frenzy. After watching what, 7?, series of Grand Designs I am inurred to the thought that building anything is an extremely stressful activity and I'm trying to ameliorate the rising levels of stress hormones by practicing calmness and my Zen 'beginner's mind' techniques. I'll let you know how I go.

While I'm meditating Warren is just getting on with the job. When I asked today how far he thought he'd have got by the time I get back he thought for a moment and then said that he reckoned he'd have got everything to lock-up by then. WOW! At this rate we could be in the house by my birthday, never mind Michael's.