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The House in Sydney 1999 [Me] 5th November 1999 I grew very fond of our house in Sydney. It was comfortable and large and had lots of good things going for it. There were also bad things, including the neighbours from hell. They are probably why I'll never live there again. Here's some photos of the house, just so I can look back with fond remembrance. This is an early photograph of the front of the house. You can see the characteristics - lots of trees and green stuff, and a modest, small, unpreposessing house. In the early days, there was an excessive number of trees. Way too many. There must have been many more before we bought the house, because when we came to remove a few stumps, we found that there were already 30 stumps in our yard that had to be removed. It cost a fortune to get them all ground down. On the left, you can see a liquid ambar, one of the worst trees in existence. They grow very quickly, they grow huge root systems that raise concrete, and they leave hard little prickly balls on the ground for tender feet to encounter. We removed every liquid ambar from our property. It had to be done. From the front, the house looks small. We liked this, because the front showed a modest aspect, but behind the facade, the house was large and voluptuous. Here's the front again, a few years later. Anne's gardening is showing the payoff. The liquid ambar at the left is gone, the trees at the front have been thinned, and the shrubbery is neater. It looks more civilised. With the thinner trees at front, you can see the massive tree that has rapidly grown next door in Joan's yard. When we bought the house, the tree was small and blasted, having recently been smashed with a lightning bolt. Within 3 or 4 years, the tree grew rapidly and passed the 100 foot mark. I wouldn't have minded if it was an annual, but it wasn't. Every winter it dumped almost all its leaves into our yard. It was a nuisance. This photo is taken to the right of the previous photos. It shows the left side of the house which is usally obscured by the trees. That part used to be the master bedroom. When the previous owners built out the back, they built a new master bedroom, and the old one became their computer room. It became our computer room too. The front still belies the interior. This is an early photo of the back of the house. The swimming pool is still there, plus the old narrow and rotting deck, and the tacky fence around the pool. It's also obvious how much vegetation is in the area. This wasn't called Frenchs Forest for nothing. When the swimming pool died, we ripped it all out and rebuilt the back. Read the saga of the deck for the full story. This shows what happened to the area where the swimming pool was. Another shot of the deck, after we replaced the swimming pool.