It was almost exactly this time in 2007 that we pulled up stumps in Victoria and moved to Hervey Bay in Queensland, about 2,00km away. It was a hell of a time. We had a big house and although we’d only been together for ten years, Peter and I had managed to accumulate a lot of Stuff. So, we decluttered, sold big items, and had a car boot sale at the local park. Looking back, there were a few things we wished we’d kept; the excellent Rover ride-on mower (the John Deere is okay but not in the same class), the stack of vinyl records – Beatles, Rolling Stones, Deep Purple etc etc which we flogged off for a buck each.
But our furniture and most of the non-fragile items had to go into a big truck for the long haul to Queensland, and there was only so much we could get into our two cars.
As explained previously, we’ve decided to downsize. We’ve sold our current house and bought another and we’ll be moving some time in late September. We’ve been here for 17 years and accumulated more stuff to take the place of what we got rid of in Victoria, and then some. I’m sure you can empathise. The new place is still a fair-sized house but even so, we still have to declutter. The rooms are different and we need to work out what will go where. And what we want to pay to move. Three sets of golf clubs are gone and a bunch of machines that haven’t been used in years. We’ve still got stacks of books although we got rid of piles of paperbacks when Peter finally recognised the beauty of ebooks. And we have stacks of music CDs, VHS tapes, movie CDs, DVDs, all acquired as technology changed. Even the second-hand shops aren’t too interested in those, what with streaming TV.
We’ve also accumulated things like back packs, water bottles, and toiletry packs, acquired as gifts from travel companies on our annual overseas holidays. Seems to me they are ideal for anyone giving assistance to the homeless. We should have done that earlier but it’s so much easier to shove things in a cupboard and close the door, isn’t it? And there are glasses we haven’t used in years, pictures that were never hung, bits and bobs stuck in a cupboard and forgotten about. It’s quite exciting finding objects you didn’t know you owned.
Then there’s the logistics of moving house. There are three parties involved – us, our buyers, and the sellers of the house we’re moving to. And it all happens on the same day. So, we have to be out of our house and have it clean for our buyers and move into our new place all at about the same time. At the moment we’re talking to removalists, comparing prices, considering the logistics.
And the packing. Oh Lord, the packing. Sigh. I think we’ll pay for some of it but even so… It’s about 5 weeks from now. And counting…
17 years. We made some changes in that time.
And I’ll finish the rest next week. Ah, the memories.