The lounge room has seen a lot of family activities over the years. Once it was the music room, with piano, keyboard, and sound system. That got shifted to the family room when we got the second piano as an heirloom. It came from Glenyce's family. Looks good, but repairer quoted $2000 to do up the action. It's apparently worth less than that!

Was lent to an aunt who lent it to a church, contrary to owner's wishes. Aunt's nice church friends pounded the guts out of it, and now apparently it's rooted!

The coffee table always has a bowl of nuts on it, and the coffee table (what else?) books underneath. We bought them especially for there. Visitors never get to read them because everyone talks so much!

The lounge chair has a large teddy bear that Leanne bought to put in a toy car for a Xmas decoration at work, and another rabbit that Glenyce won in a raffle one drizzly day when I played in a jazz band at a house in the Dandenongs.

Near the sliding door is a little doll's bed made up with two baby dolls for our two granddaughters to use.

Near the piano os a pine dresser belonging to their Dad, my son Peter. It is stuffed full of all their other toys to amuse them when they visit.

The crystal cabinet contains china and glass from two families, and the piano has knicknacks on top, but nothing worth stealing. Clock is buggered!

Hohum! Same old room! just shows how you need a large fill-in-flash and low-grain film for such a shot!

Coffee table books are:
Antarctica, by Rob Gell, 1989;
The Art of Annemieke Mein - Wildlife Artist in Textiles, 1992;
Rembrandt to Renoir, 1992;
Rambling in the Dandenongs, David Williams, 1991;
Treasures from the Kingdom of Fungi, Taylor F. Lockwood, 2001.

Turning aside from the lounge room we see the featureless hallway. Before we repainted, I had my three degrees and diplomas hung up along there. One degree broke its glass and frame when it dropped down, which rather matched my depressive opinion of myself so I haven't put anything up again.

I am undecided whether to sully the pristine clarity of the walls, and hope to make up my mind in a year or so.

We had a wedding day photo that did the same thing. That's not up again yet, either. Same thinking, I'm afraid.

One day I must recaulk one of the front door glass panes that tend to rattle with car doors slamming and heavy trucks passing.

The new carpet is light in colour, and marks show up a bit. We have scraps of carpet left over from the renovations, and this one is put to good use as a doormat. One day soon, we'll get the various scrap-carpet doormats to a firm that puts felt underneath and overlocks them around the edges. It's only been since December, 2004 - we don't want to rush into these things!

Here's why Glenyce dislikes the house design; visitors can see straight into the kitchen, especially when we usually come from the kitchen to answer the door.

I personally don't have the same problem with that, because, let's face it, the kitchen is central to the life of a house; it certainly is in ours!

The door chimes in the corner are quite elegant, and are loud enough to be heard out at the Hills Hoist! That is not an advantage if you are sleeping in!!

At the front door we have this wooden column with dried flowers on it. We used to have pot-plants, until it got knocked over one time too many! Fortunately, the original carpet was Westminster (like corduroy), a colour called "Kelp": That means brown. It was excellent for the child-rearing years of food, drink, urine, blood, sweat, tears and potplants!

In the corner is a wooden club we bought at a "custom village" in Vanuatu, in 1990, and a souvenir my son got from Fiji. It is a specialized fork used for eating the brains out of skulls. Not sure of its authenticity nowadays!

The palm is quite old, spiky, and grows slowly, but we like it. Unfortunately it is located in front of the button for the door chimes, and callers have to brave the spikes to get to it.

The other plant is a Jade Plant, and seems to live forever; it always looked jaded to me!

Whenever it rains, Glenyce or I put the plants out into the rain. The plants are on little trolleys with castors which, like supermarket trolleys, seem to have a mind of their own!

Along the front we have azaleas, which bloom much of the year, bright rds and pinks. The leaves get riddled with red spider mite, or something, hard to get rid of, spoiling the look of the leaves.

It's been a battle to keep the wrought iron railings rust-free, nice and white. It's been repainted about 5 times over the years.

Back in 1967 I dug out all the builder's rubble from the soil and tried to conserve the good top-soil. I heaped up the remnants of dug-up red clay mixed with top-soil into a semi-circular pile and levelled it. Basalt rocks from Victoria's Western District completed it.

Here's the close-up of that mound. We've had many plants in there over the years and now need some shrubs for this exposed position.

The south side of the house is in shadow most of the time. Moss and lichens abound on the ground, but the lawn is a dead loss.

The caravan's been in the family since about 1966, and the kids saw much of eastern Australia in it. The 1993 Ford wagon does us very well, and we did a long WA trip in it in 2001.

Yet another view of the Leithhead abode.

The left-hand tree is an ancient Catalpa bignonioides, which is very handsome in summer with all of its big green leaves and large white bunches of blossoms.

The right-hand tree is a flowering Prunus in the nature strip, courtesy of the local council, the City of Monash.

Once more...some remnant green Catalpa leaves are shown from last autumn.

The fence is from 1967, and is made of tea-tree sticks. Not so fashionable nowadays, but screens the garden and house while allowing us to see through a bit.

The mound has many different bulbs and shrubs in it. There are Iris, Lachenalia, daffodils galore, and so on.

We did have strawberries there once and one small plant persists annualy after several decades!

And yet again! There is a venerable flowering crabapple near the white gate in the corner of the house.

And now let's imagine turning back and once more entering the house throught the front door.