House Guests, A Flood and ANZAC Day

With all the chaos of the past few weeks, the BA's random comment regarding an invitation to her boyfriend's parents had kind of passed me by.

Here in Australia, it is the 100th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli during the First World War.  The ANZAC spirit was conceived and birthed at Gallipoli and the media is saturated by documentaries, dramas and news reports detailing the preparations for the centenary celebrations on the shore of Turkey, half a world away.

Here in Adelaide, the 7th RAR will march through the city in the commemorative ANZAC Day Parade and the BA's long time boyfriend (an Army man), will be in the thick of it. His parents drove from his home town in the countryside of New South Wales, to watch their son march and the BA thought they may as well stay with us.

The fact that I have only met these people once, for 5 minutes, two years ago, is neither here nor there.

Nevertheless, I was keen to welcome them. The BA and Army Boy have been going out together for over two years now and she has spent a number of holidays over with his family. On the first occasion, she returned in tears. Army Boy's family were the antithesis of our dysfunctional mess. The BA felt very welcomed and loved. So when Baz and Kazza (not their real names) arrived, I was determined to make them welcome.

Here they all are, with a set of grandparents. What a nice family.

They were installed in the downstairs double room, complete with its own ensuite and wardrobe.

At 5.30pm, as they showered and changed ready to meet Army Boy for dinner, Kazza came upstairs to me and  asked somewhat sheepishly,
"Do you have a plunger?"
It turned out that the shower had flooded. When I went downstairs to check things out and decided to flush the toilet for good measure, the water levels rose to the top of the bowl!! Clearly we were in need of a plumber.

The following morning saw a trail of tradesmen. I had already booked the gas repairman and the arborist but here now we had a plumber, and eventually another plumber,  with a camera! Suffice to say the news was all bad. It seems the downside of our beautiful gum trees is invasive roots in the sewers. On a happy (and unrelated) note, the gas wall heater, which has stood unused for 9 years, was repaired easily with a new solenoid costing a third of the quoted price! That was, however,  the only good news of the day. The plumbing quote for repair of the sewer: $4500.00

Nevertheless we had a lovely weekend with our house guests. We walked in the Gorge, cooked together (well, they cooked, I looked on in awe) and ate out in the beautiful Adelaide Hills in Autumn.  Due to another open inspection, I missed the Parade but the rain held off for photos. Back to the battle front of school now....

 He's somewhere in the front few rows...