Yup, the house was still there and much as we left it. Spent about 90 minutes in the sogging rain doing things in the garden, and decided that it was getting a bit dark and started to head home.

Being wet and dark, and the roads a bit slippery, I decided to take the Merri Creek trail -- a very scenic and relaxing ride. Lots of signs up saying "WARNING - Path subject to flooding", but no actual signs of flood. Sure, the water was high, but it wasn't covering the path.

Nearing St Georges Road, which I would cut through to get home, I passed a cyclist coming the other way. She asked if the path ahead of flooded. I told her that no, it was fine, and we went our seperate ways. Once I got around the corner, I realised that she was telling me that the path was flooded, as the creek had broken its banks and completely covered the path.

"Doesn't look very deep," I think to myself as I cycle into the water. Sure enough, it's only a couple of inches, although it seems to go on for a long way. "I'm surprised that ducks can swim in water this shallow," I think to myself just before I hit the dip in the path and find the water level above the top of my wheels.

I had ducks swimming on either side of me as I continued to cycle, with most of my bicycle underwater. The ducks didn't quite know what to think of me. :)

The rest of the trip home went without mishap, although my bike now has a "high water mark" which makes it quite obvious how deeply it was underwater.

Haven't seen much rain today, so if all goes well I'll check on the house tonight to make sure it's still standing. Our first few things (mainly gardening equipment) will be moved this weekend.

House
Settlement is taking place right this very moment, and I hope to pick up the keys in the next hour or so. I was hoping to lie in the sun at the new house, read a book, plan the garden a bit, and plant some seeds so we'll have something cropping for when we move in. If I felt energetic enough I was also planning on getting some materials to build the chicken coop/run.

Unfortunately, after a beautiful weekend, today's turned out to be very wet and rainy. It was raining when I woke up at 8am this morning (yay for sleeping in), and it's still raining now 5 hours later. No sign of it stopping, either. As such, I think I'll have a very wet ride to pick up the keys, and then spend time wishing I could lie in the sun and read a book.

Over the next month we'll be moving things across to the new house. Passionfruit vines, rhubarb plants, many pots of sunroot, seeds and tools, an avagato^W avacado tree and eventually even furniture. I've got enough friends and family wanting to see the new place that I should be able to get most of the fiddly things over before the big move. Somehow I don't think most removalists have much experience with transporting an 18-month old passionfruit vine. (Mind you, neither do I.)

Chickens
The council is sending me out a big set of local regulations regarding the keeping of chooks. Interestingly enough, the maximum allowed without a permit is five, but I already have six people expecting to have chickens named after them.

I guess I'll worry more about this as I get more chickens. To start with I'm planning on getting two bantam australorp hens, both named "Ian".

House
Settlement on Monday. Yay!

House
Really getting sick of all the stuff going on beforehand. I suspect the first home insurance company who asks me to sign something will get my home insurance for the first year. There should be a loan contract for me to sign on Monday (provided that all goes well), and we're doing a final inspection this weekend to make sure that everything is still there.

Work
Acting very much as a catalyst right now -- helping lots of other people work efficiently but not getting as much done myself as I would like. This is not unusual for me, I seem to have had a hand in just about everything and so I'm a good generic person to go to when questions arise.

Apparently I'm working on a 9-day fortnight, but I'm still waiting to see this in writing. I'm still taking the days off. There's been a bit of poor communication (some of it certainly mine) about the changes to my role, and I'll be much happier once these get cleared up.

Open-Source
Ha! Surely I jest. Unfortunately been too busy to go near any sort of open-source development, and when I haven't been too busy all I've wanted to do is anything but programming.

Dancer
Glad to see that Dancer is surviving the USA without too many problems. I'm missing D's irony and sarcasm, though.

I'm sure that my Mom will be absolutely thrilled when I show her the magazine. :)

House
Settlement in two weeks time. The big stash of documents I sent to the loan company seems to have dissapeared (they're blaming it on the olympics), so I get the fun task of cycling over to their Melbourne office today to drop the documents off in person.

I haven't really even thought of home insurance yet. I'm hoping someone will throw a freebie at me for a few months (not too unlikely).

Chickens
Moving into the new house also means that I can keep chickens, which I've decided to name after my friends (Ian, Sofie, Ben, Tara, Daniel and Sarina). This was going to be a fairly simple operation, but the namesakes appear to have become quite insistant as to which chicken breeds I purchase and name after them. Ben wants a Golden Silkie, Sofie something cute (probably a Pekin), Sarina a Japanese Bantam, Daniel a Polish and Tara a Frizzle. Ian's probably been the best about this and just said he wanted a "brown chook".

Bike
Discovered why biscuit kept getting a flat back tyre. I found a large bulge that was only really visible when inflated to riding pressures. Replaced the tyre and all seems much better.

Work
I now have the position of Software Architect in the stats team. Fun fun fun.