MARCH – JUNE 2018   TREE CHANGING IS HARD WORK

If we were really serious about this move, it was time to get really serious!

I was fortunate that a former student who was also a friend now headed up a major local real estate company. He visited, gave us advice and arranged for his stylist to come and add her opinions about what was needed. In some ways it was ironic that improvements I’d wanted for ages now came about – just because we were going.

For years, the pathway outside the back door had been an area where work was needed to improve drainage in heavy rain and then re-pave. Finally, with the help of a friend of John’s, holes and trenches were dug, a drain pit installed, pipes laid and the path put back down.

This had needed doing for years…

Couey thought all this hole digging was a new form of dog games and just had to “help”.

This is a new game…

I chose to use Allied Pickfords as our removal company, mainly because they were used by the government when relocating diplomatic and other official staff overseas. Hence John’s daughter had experienced several moves by them and had been happy with their service. We found their quotes, both for interim storage and ultimate removal, were reasonable. Even more important, they would be able to cope with moving all John’s woodwork machinery, some of which was bulky and heavy – using a specialist sub-contractor. This would be harder than it first sounds as access to the shed was not straightforward.

After the rear landscaping, John got busy repainting the kitchen and living areas. For ages, I’d found the blue walls – not my original choice – rather depressing, and the stylist had agreed. So a warm pale peach colour was applied – big improvement.

Painting the living room

John was not looking forward to the big job of repairing and painting the rather old wooden front fence, whose main uprights had been the targets of cockatoo and galah forays, pulling bits off them, searching for grubs. I wondered if we needed a front fence at all? So we pulled it out and were quite pleased with the fence-less appearance of the place.

Look – no fence!

Completely of his own volition, grandson decided to try to grow us a replacement for our large and prolific lemon tree, to take to our new home. He retrieved some fallen lemons that were starting to sprout shoots, carefully planted and tended these over a period of months. His efforts did not result in a viable tree, but the thought was a wonderful and caring one.

Looking after little lemon trees

Major de-cluttering was needed before our home was ready to display. We had lived here for 27 years after all. It was time to be quite ruthless. No more of “it might come in handy one day”. Would I really need those several very large flower vases that had been wedding presents? All those travel books about places like the Gulf Track and the Kimberley could go to the young man across the road, who was gearing up to go adventuring – we would not be revisiting such places. Grandson received the large and assorted collection of shells that I’d picked up on far-flung beaches, over the years of travel. The clean out was actually quite cathartic – maybe something that should be done every few years?

Sorting through the shell collection

Belongings that we wanted to keep, but which would not enhance a minimalist look in the house, and which we could do without in the short term, were packed and taken off for storage, in Round 1 with the removalists.

De-cluttering

That did not include anything from John’s shed! Boxes and bags of items were taken to local charities and the Diabetes association came and collected a small truckload of our surplus. Some things were good only for the tip.

About to go to storage…

In a sign that the move was meant to be, our long standing, increasingly frail tenant of the granny flat decided that she could no longer manage on her own and gave notice that she intended to go and live full time at the ashram community she had been spending weekends at. So a tenant would not be an issue for any purchaser.

Dog not happy about all this change…

Finally, the place was ready to sell. Photos and a video were taken, the agent brought his local sales team to familiarize themselves with it. The Sale board was erected at the front – I think that was when the reality finally hit us.

After months of hard work