You need to buy a bidet toilet seat. We have had a Conway BA 13 which was very expensive at $1600 or morr but in our next house bought a Quoss for $500 which does the trick. Great for my elderly mother who lives with us but now I love it too.

We are still building and just had the power cable put in and I insisted on a landline cable to go in at the same time. Living in the country means bad reception or blackspots for mobiles as mentioned earlier and it isn't being fixed none too fast either!! We also have allot of older clients who still prefer to contact us on a landline because they dont all have mobile phones or if they do, they have the isues just mentioned, blackspots etc... and mobiles are still considered by some to be a financially extravagant way to make contact versus a landline!! I guess the young ones don't remember a time when there were local and STD or long distance calls which used to cost an arm or a leg and these STD calls didn't mean you were calling interstate, it could be as simple as being 40km away. I have a fixed landline monthly plan at very little cost which covers all local and STD calls and I could if I chose to, talk for several hours, still at no extra cost compared to a mobile. Mobile plans are at a fixed rate like say getting $300 worth of free calls for $35 but you go over that plan and you can get a fair shock when the bill arrives. Landlines as mentioned earlier are safer to use, always have clearer reception and really are still the cheapest way to keep in touch from home.

Julie, Getting closer by the minute ! Maybe a 'cousin' ? The plant I saw has no berries. but I most certainly like Myoporum insulate. Can grown from cuttings, Yippee !! Thanks

We have already removed a wall. And although this advice isn’t about floors or ceilings, it’s still important. We strongly recommend obtaining advice from a professional engineer, or demanding evidence that your builder has (and insist it’s free of caveats like, “based on information provided by others”). Our builder removed a load bearing wall. He was supposed to get an engineer’s assessment. The cheapsake, cowboy, con artist didn’t do that. He deceived. He had a rough guess at the size of the beam. And he got it wrong. We asked for a copy of the engineer’s assessment. The builder lied about having one. Then finally admitted he guessed. He engaged an engineer. The assessment had caveats. We insisted it be caveat free. The engineers then had to inspect his work. They found the cowboy had lied to them too - and given false info about what was put in. His beam was under-dimensioned and not even braced to the house. The engineers gave the builder simple instructions to rectify his muck up. Three beams later, the idiot got it right. And the engineers could then approve the work. But remember, on paper they had already declared the under dimensioned beam was ok (but with a caveat). Moral of the story - insist on a site inspection by the engineer. Or, just like our roof could have, your roof might cave in! And probably not on top of the idiot builder who would deserve to be buried under it! Btw - hello John Z. Ears burning by any chance? There’s some good people around but it’s hard for a lay person to tell who’s who, so do what you can to protect yourself from cowboys, is our message.