Wakool

My next selection from the photo challenge list is 'the outside of your house'.

Anyone who has ever received an email from my personal address might have wondered what the 'wakool' part of the address is. It's the name of our house, just next to the door on our front verandah.

I mean, how freakin' cool is that? It's way cool, that's how cool. I always say it's one of the main reasons we bought the house.

The original part of our house was built around 1925. A lot of old bungalows of a similar age have names. Across the street is 'Peshawar'. Curious. Perhaps the names meant something to the builder at the time.

Wakool is the name of a district in New South Wales, and sounds like it could be of Aboriginal origin. But to us, it means home.

Sandstone is quarried in the hills that frame our city to the east. When we built our extension we incorporated some more local sandstone to echo the front of the house. It was put together by a very grumpy stonemason. Here you can see it around our 'side front door' which is now our main entrance. Our front verandah tends to be a bit of a dumping ground now and is frankly fairly unwelcoming. Friends, you can come down here.

Door from Adelaide and Rural Salvage again. I was rather delighted to visit the house of one of Jasper's friends nearby and discover their front door (original to their villa) is very similar, with a central handle almost identical. Maybe this door came from a house demolished nearby?

The next picture is a wall I am really rather fond of. It's outside our laundry and shall we say... rustic. I took to it quite some years back with a bunch of sample pots of exterior limewash from Porters Paints and no particular plan. I really like the way it has aged. Crappy-pretty.

This pot catches the rainwater runoff from our back room and the overflow goes down a pipe in the centre and into a hole-full-of-rocks to sink into the ground. In our city, built up areas channel rainwater into gutters and out to sea. It originally would have, for the most part, been absorbed by the land. In our dry climate this has badly affected the water table. Local governments has been making some positive changes: wetlands have been popping up in strategic locations to filter water and allow it to soak down. This is our small backyard contribution. Goldfish live in there to keep the mozzies from breeding.

We have solar panels on the roof. This device apparently tells us about what they're doing but I have no idea what it's saying. I'm happy though that it is meant to supply about one third of our household electricity needs.

The ole classic tyre swan on our front verandah. Background is some plants Andy christened 'uppy downy plants' since we have forgotten what they are, but they are native and were originally one small pot. Being incredibly hardy and multiplying wonderfully under extreme neglect, we have dug up and divided them and spread them all around our house and also at our community childcare centre.

Yet another of our old doors. We have a lot of doors. This is the outside view of part of a set of double doors that came from the old Advertiser Newspaper building in our city. The plywood panel covers glass that in the summer lets in too much hot sun. We need more shade sails.

 I heart succulents and corrugated iron.

The end: the pointy back of our house.

- Jane x