Around Our House

By popular request (thanks Herbert!), here are some pictures of and around our house at 14 Buchanan Street. Note that we ended up on a street with the same name as the only U.S. president from Pennsylvania (James Buchanan, also the only bachelor president), and the house has four too-pruned maple trees in the front (the sickest one is not shown). Good old Pittsburgh-type trees, but they don't seem to be doing very well in dry and hot Australia.

The house was about six months old when we moved in the third week of January. It turns out that furnished rental houses are few and far between in Newcastle, so we were lucky to get this one. A young doctor, her husband and their baby, who have temporarily relocated to Africa for work, are the owners. The doctor's Mom and Dad live in town and are very friendly landlord agents.

Hamilton is a trendy neighborhood formerly filled with Greek and Italian families who are aging and moving out or passing on. Many blocks feature a house or two like ours, modern two-story lot fillers that have replaced more traditional one-story bungalows with backyards. Hamilton was seriously damaged by a 1989 earthquake that killed 6 or so people in Newcastle. Fortunately, from what I understand, reconstruction money poured in and the earthquake had the unintended consequence of contributing to Hamilton's revitalization.

The pictures include two aerial views from the master bedroom of our enclosed back deck, and another shot from the master bedroom east, over the back alley rooftops toward the tree tops in Gregson Park. There are also perspectives from our front gate, down the back alley, and along the front walk, which is lined with bottlebrush trees that bloom with bright red flowers shaped like ... bottlebrushes! And how about that New Orleans-style pink house with the tall palms down the block?