Who'll Stop the Rain?

It has been a dreadfully long time since we updated our blog. Please accept our apologies. Part of the reason is certainly that we haven't done too much that is of mass interest in the last couple of weeks. There are two reasons for this:

First, we have been imprisoned by the continuing torrential onslaught. We have just survived the wettest and coldest January in Sydney in over thirty years. Further, we have apparently moved to Sydney in what is the wettest two-year period on record. Unfortunately, the rain shows no sign of abatement. My typing is this very moment drown out by the collision of raindrops with the plastic roof of our patio. Keep in mind, we live in the southern hemisphere, so a January with 26-27 days of rain is equivalent to a July with this much rain in the northern hemisphere!

Second, we have been busy with work and, especially, moving to our new place. Speaking of our new place, that is something to write home about. We are now residents at Robert Menzies College (RMC), an Anglican residential college affiliated with Macquarie University. This is where I (Matt) am working as a Sr. Residential Tutor (a part-time pastoral/residential role). The college consists of four "blocks" (soon to be five), a common building replete with a recreation hall, large dining room, and administration offices, a house for the master, and a chapel. We live on the first floor at the corner of "C block". We have a two bedroom, one bath apartment, with a fairly generous "walled garden" (read: backyard). There is not a lot of natural lighting and the rooms are pretty small--especially the kitchen! We were at first a bit worried about our capacity to make the place comfortable. After a little bit of effort, it is really starting to come together quite nicely. We're pretty much done until our personal goods arrive in a few weeks.

If it ever stops raining, I'll take and post some pictures all around the college. For now, here is a quick tour of the inside of the apartment. (I hope Annie won't mind too much that I made absolutely no effort to clean things up!)

The living room. The sofa to the right has a pull-out bed and will eventually end up in the study/guest room (below). Thanks to our friend Tom for helping me pick it up. The red coffee table is something we found on the side of the road and painted. The black sofa was a find on "Gumtree" (Aussie craigslist), thankfully the owner was willing to deliver. You'll notice the window seats; Annie is responsible for sprucing these up so nicely. The small desk against the wall, will eventually give way to our dining table (which is currently at sea). We'll also put a light-colored rug down when it arrives.

Here is a view to our patio and part of our backyard. As you can see, it's very lush. As you will also notice, it is raining!

View of the hallway and the door out which you just looked.

The study/guest room, which awaits its sofa and the arrival of my books (They won't all fit in here, obviously. This may prove to be a problem. We'll see.) The dresser is another thing we found and painted. It's really nice, other than that the drawers stick quite a bit.

My desk. You can see this blogpost in incipient form if you look closely at the computer screen. I got the desk and chair at Costco--they're great. Also, you can see that I have plenty of reading light, which is essential for staying up late at night.

Here's our kitchen--it's a bit messy at the moment (and what's up with the trashcan lid being left up like that?), but you get the idea. It's pretty tiny. But when you consider the fact that we can eat meals in the dining hall, it's more than enough space for us. You'll notice the large cupboard on the right side of the picture. That is another piece we found on "Gumtree"; thanks to our friend Dean for helping us pick it up!

The view out our bedroom window to the common grass area. As far as I gather, no one ever really goes out on this grass. It looks nice, though.


Our bathroom. Epic.


Little side table/dresser that we found and painted up. This salvage piece came out the best, by far. The red is darker than it looks in this picture.


Our bedroom. I told you I didn't clean up. This will all look quite different when our belongings (including our own bed) arrive in a few weeks. But you get the idea.