Well, it seems we have Mission Accomplished! FIL's offer on a house was accepted this afternoon.
It is a lovely house—admittedly, it is *way* too much house for his needs, with four bedrooms and oodles of space, but he is so delighted at the thought of being able to live in such a lovely house, it's probably worth it for that alone. Since he spent all his working life in an ordinary semi, and all his retired life so far in a not-particularly-prepossessing bungalow, having a house that is actually really nice is probably something he sorta deserves. And it does have a nice large garden, with apricots growing on three trees, so he'll be able to start preserving fruit this year.
Maybe he'll even get laid-back enough to entertain on the deck, Australian style.
We have a couple more days here to get through a bunch of admin and smooth things along for him, but it is *very* pleasing to have things settled this far.
I am now trying to implant the idea of buying decent furniture instead of second-hand crap—though I'm only standing out for really good-quality bed and easy chair. We went round a pre-owned furniture shop this morning and saw some really lovely wooden stuff—dressers, TV units, tables. He can buy those second-hand. Just not the squishy stuff.
Today, we had a bit of time off, and walked along the Cataract Gorge, which is beautiful. It's impressively steep, probably caused by an earthquake a mere 10,000 years ago, and there are peacocks roaming around in the middle, and a chairlift ride across the river (which we declined in favour of walking). Tomorrow, we're hoping for another bright day, and going to Beauty Point, which is presumably at the seaside. Maybe I can wear my shorts, and get strawberry-coloured legs.
I hadn't realised how comparatively close to the equator we are here—I'd been thinking of Tasmania as like the South of France, but it's more like Spain. It's pretty warm, when the clouds don't cover the sky.
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