Have I mentioned moving house is a pain? Well, it is. The countdown is well and truly on. The packers have done their packing and the pick-up (furniture, cartons, boxes, bags etc etc) will happen on Monday. Then on Wednesday we go into reversal when we move into the new house. Last time we moved we still had unpacked boxes six months later. I wonder how it will go this time?
We’ve done about as much as we can getting rid of books, DVDs, clothes, tools, equipment. The rest is in boxes awaiting collection. Everything’s packed except for tea and coffee, a kettle and a toaster, so meals over the next few days will be takeaway. We’ve turned off and defrosted the bar fridge and started doing some of the final cleaning jobs. We’re booked into a motel for the final couple of nights, and teed up the carpet cleaners for when the house is empty.
We’d done such a good job of packing everything we had to ask friends to borrow a sharp knife to cut cheese and ham, and a couple of plates. After all, we’ll be here for the weekend and the fridge still works.
It’s all becoming very real with the house feeling unfamiliar. Finding the kitchen during the night is no longer the automatic stroll through dark passages and rooms, littered as they are with an obstacle course of boxes. It’s a little bit sad, our lives’ belongings in a pile of cardboard cartons.
We’ve loved it here; the space and the bird life. Yesterday the two magpies came running up to me to see if I had anything for them. I did, and one of them followed me a short way into the house when I fetched it from the fridge. I’ll miss the kookaburras and the lorikeets, the garden, the mangoes, the oranges and limes, the pool – even if in the last years it was more for swinging your legs in while sipping wine on a warm summer night. We found some old photos of what the place was like when we bought it 17 years ago. We made a lot of changes, making it ours. The previous owners would barely recognise it. And next week it will be somebody else’s and they’ll make changes and make it theirs.
No regrets. Life goes on and change is inevitable
The new house? There will be changes pretty well immediately. We’ll fit more power points, run ethernet cables into several rooms, fit solar panels, get rid of the curtains, put up a rotary clothesline. And I want to buy an air fryer. Oh, and a couple of bushes are slated to get the chop. All while we get used to having half a dozen chooks.
It’s all going to be happening here. And maybe I’ll be able to get back to that half-finished book. That’ll be after I update my address on the electoral roll, Amazon, my driver’s licence, Paypal etc etc etc.
Speaking of which, have you preordered Pets in Space 9 yet? It publishes on 8 October and it includes a brand new story written by me. Tap the cover to find out more.
My next post will be from my new address. Wow. That really makes it real.