Romance is not dead! It doth flourish and grow sweet under the tropical sun of Agnes Water like as to a mango ripening on the bough. Scared witless of fruit bats - true - but oh so sweet! Which leads me into my Christmas present to Tom - a new road!

What? - you don't find the gift of a road to be accompanied by violin strings and perfumed connotations? Where is your soul? You try walking around 4 acres without barely 2 square metres of ground free of surface stones and rocks to hobble your steps and twist your knees! The new road offers wide avenues of firm even stone-free access to all sections of Greenland. So Christmas came two weeks early and no one could be happier than Tom.

It has taken some time to get the road project off the ground (as referred to in November issue of the Sea Change House). First we had to wait for our preferred operator to get a hole in his diary as this village is a hive of development construction for the hordes that will never come. And then by the time he became available, we had to wait in a long queue for a good grader driver and last but not least getting a roller booked to suit the other operators. Then came The Quest for the Gravel.

Should we select the mechanically graded Gladstone variety of blue grey metal or the local stomp-it-and-see greenish-grey type? Initally in the quest, I was driven very close the borders of insanity by one chap who kept giving me prices for Gladstone gravel per cubic meter to compare with prices for local gravel in tonnes but refused even under pain of having his water cut off, to give both prices in either tonnes or cubic meters. He has since had the wisdom to leave town and sculk back to the denizen of the deep from which he originally hailed.

We scoured the local environs and inspected every hill road built with either of the two gravels. In the end the local gravel won as providing it was well laid (and we had now secured the team to do that) it lasted just as long as the Gladstone metal and at less than half the price. Plus it was a nicer finished colour.

Eventually (expressed in the Spanish sense of a long time during which much patience is required but not a word of angst may be uttered) every one and their respective machinery come together along with the water truck and the gravel delivery system, such that within five days we were the proud owners of a wondrous road.

God, not wishing to be left out of the project, ensured we had a couple of good downpours to settle the surface, prove the drainage routes and wash away the slippery clay. I never did get my armoured drains but I half suspected I wouldn't anyway but instead have swales across the road at the salient points and they are working brilliantly - thanks Lyndsay. At times it did look like the Dance of the Giant Dragonflies as the excavator prepared and the grader finished. Actually, its a joy to watch two professionals at work on such big machines - handled like they were Formula Ones!

So now we are onto the pool deck project. This is actually our third attempt at the deck project. Initally we hoped to have a builder acquaintance construct the deck but we could have built a small house for the price he quoted. Just on the materials, his price was double what we could buy exactly the same items and quantities for and we obviously don't have a trade card! Sadly, it pays to check on everybody here.

Impossible to get tradesmen in Agnes Water 1770 between September and Christmas (and maybe beyond - I will know this week) due to the development construction frenzy underway plus some new Council works (must be an election coming soon?). Initially we gave up trying to engage professionals and engaged a retired chappie part time. That didn't work out as neither Tom nor I can live with poor workmanship so we paid him off and went back to sourcing some skilled workmen. Meanwhile, I had been getting the plans drawn up for Council approval - OneSteel were just excellent and even though many an eye brow was raised at the concept of a steel frame with timber deck, they came to the party and by design version 5, we had exactly what was required. So then the materials were ordered and delivered and now sitting waiting patiently for someone to turn them into a deck.

Was really impressed with the delivery guys - Red Dog Steel (named after, you guessed it, this red dog which came along to supervise). The steel beams weighed a tonne (well two infact) but that crane was handled as though it was a hair comb and not a scratch on our shed after the unloading of the steel and the timber. So it pays to have a good supervisor!