This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

Category Archives: 2018 Travels


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2018 Travels December 26

DECEMBER 2018 (2)     PLAYING BIN LADY

Spring and the first part of summer, up here north of the Divide, had been hotter and drier than we were used to. I had been watering the garden daily, virtually since we arrived here. Xmas Day itself had been really hot. The family was definitely looking forward to their annual month long caravan holiday at coastal Narrawong, for which they would be leaving very early on the day after Xmas.

As just about all the extended Bendigo family of daughter’s partner made the annual pilgrimage to the coast, I had been co-opted to go around to their place every few days and water their plants in tubs and any other part of their place that looked like it needed water.

I was somewhat envious of them heading off from baking Bendigo. Had it not been for Couey, we could have taken Bus and joined them – although the area of the caravan park where they have a number of adjoining sites booked, from year to year, is unpowered, and John would not have liked being deprived of his nightly TV. But the lovely caravan park at Narrawong is not pet friendly, so not for us.

On 26/12, I had done my early morning garden water and was having a late breakfast when a phone call came from daughter. They had reached Ararat and stopped to refuel. At that point, they realized that neither of them had the envelope of saved-up cash that was to be their funds for the trip – a couple of thousand dollars. Panic ensued. They knew it hadn’t been in the customary place on the bench when they were checking last minute before departure. Each had assumed the other had it. So, there was the question of where it had gone.  I was asked to go round there and do a money hunt. Fortunately I held a spare key to the house.

So off I went. Did a visual check of the bench and table tops, in case. Nup. Next, I’d been directed to go through the laundry basket, in case it was in a pocket of clothes discarded after their final packup and hitch up of van. No envelopes in the dirty clothes…

Daughter thought the envelope might have been swept up in Xmas present wrapping paper, or in the general rubbish of the pre-Xmas preparation, so I was to check the bins, too.

So out I went, to the area beside the front driveway where the bins were stored. I tackled the recycling bin first, as perhaps the most likely – and certainly the least unpleasant. No joy.

That left the general rubbish and the green recycling bin. Given the prevailing heat wave conditions, and the fact that food remnants, including delights such as prawn shells, had been therein for a few days, less said the better! Sorting through bin contents upended onto a tarp I’d brought from home, in full view of anyone walking or driving past, did earn me some strange looks. I wondered if I actually looked desperate enough to be scavenging in bins!

In plain sight…

Had to text daughter that, despite my best efforts – for which she would owe me, big time – no envelope of cash was found. Perhaps they had packed it somewhere after all?

It remained a mystery for the duration of their holiday and for a couple of weeks after they returned home, late in January. Then partner found the missing envelope and cash – tucked away in a corner of the pantry cupboard. They could only assume it had been put there in a hurry, during the episode of the exploding soft drink, when the bench was awash.

So it all ended well – though it did take quite a while for the memory of those prawn shells to fade…


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2018 Travels December 25

DECEMBER 25 2018     THE SOCIAL WHIRL

The first couple of months of our tree change had seen a steady stream of family and friends coming from afar to inspect our new abode, and reassure themselves that we had not departed from common sense in what we had done. The majority seemed impressed and satisfied that we had, in fact, improved our lifestyle.

There was a house for sale further along our street. Rather smaller than ours, though of a similar vintage, John and I decided it would be ideal for friend M. All we had to do was convince her to follow our exodus from the big smoke. She seemed slightly interested. We would continue with the campaign…

My birthday fell on a Sunday in December. The weekend seemed a great opportunity to have a party and for the family to get together, pre-Xmas. Our outdoor living area was still a great novelty for us, and this would be a chance to put it to the sort of use for which it was intended. My son and his family would come from Melbourne, as would one step daughter, holidaying there from Broken Hill, as well as M. It had been at least a decade since we had all been together at that time of year, family gatherings on Xmas Day having fallen casualty to separations, both familial and geographic. Melbourne grandson completed primary school this month, so that was something else to celebrate, although to me those seven years had passed too quickly.

The house would be full, all bedrooms occupied, with a couple of grandchildren sleeping on temporary beds in my study. I begged M to bring her Troopy, so she could camp out in the sideway.

Eventually we would have a large wooden table on the patio for such occasions, but John had not yet built same, so we trotted out an assortment of camping tables – our own and those of various family members. It was a case of byo chairs too.

M and I worked hard for a couple of days, preparing a feast of seafood, salads, cold meats, fruit salad and trifle, for the Saturday gathering.

The Sunday morning saw the early breakfast and departure of those who had stayed, with the exception of M. Daughter had planned a special event for us, as my birthday present.

She collected us from home and drove us to the Fortuna Villa, for a tour followed by high tea.

High Tea

I had not heard of Fortuna Villa, and only knew the history of Bendigo in very general terms. The history of the gold rushes in Australia, as taught in schools and universities, seemed to focus almost exclusively on Ballarat, ignoring the rich and often complex histories of places like Bendigo. Today’s tour was to be enlightening. It involved so much, and was so engrossing that it warrants a separate blog entry of its own.

Fortuna Villa

Suffice to say that ,after it, we rebooked to do it all again, around the time of Mothers Day, next year, but to bring John along too as there was much about the place that would interest him.

High Tea at Fortuna Villa

It was quite a wonderful birthday.

We had a very festive Xmas Day lunch at daughter’s place. There were eight of us – daughter, partner, the two boys, partner’s parents and us. Partner and mother had spent the previous day preparing an extensive traditional Xmas feast. Unfortunately, somehow, in the midst of their preparations, they had managed to explode a large bottle of soft drink – over ceiling, benches and their contents, walls. The cleanup had apparently taken some hours!

I contributed, at daughter’s request, one of my trifles.

It was a lovely change from our Xmas lunches in recent times, when there was usually only John and me. We pottered off home in the late afternoon, and only felt like a very light evening meal.


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2018 Travels December 12

DECEMBER 12 2018

An unexpected bonus of the move here was the discovery of a set of friendly neighbours on one side of us. This slightly younger couple had only moved into their home a few weeks before us, so we had that in common for starters. We quickly developed the pattern of going to each others’ places once or twice a week for Happy Hour.

They were caravanners as we had been, owning a rather large and heavy offroad van that they kept at a local storage place. We talked travel and places been.

Another pattern that quickly developed was going out for meals with this couple, almost on a weekly basis. It was definitely new for John to be happy to eat out and within a month or two we’d had more such meals than we’d had in at least two decades in Melbourne!

There was no shortage of wonderful places to dine in Bendigo – and all within less than a twenty minute drive from home. So many pubs doing great counter meals…The one at Marong quickly became a favourite, as did the local Prattys Patch, housed in a wonderful old stone building dating from the gold heyday period. Daughter took us to one of her favourites, the National, on the edge of the CBD.

Historic Prattys Patch

We sampled very good Thai food at a city centre restaurant. The Malayan Orchid also in town, provided excellent meals on special occasions – and between us all, there were going to be plenty of those.

Obviously, with the strong Chinese heritage in Bendigo, dating from the gold rushes, there was no shortage of really good Chinese dining places, so we had some of those we wanted to try.

I soon had a big list of eating venues to trial. Exciting!

John found an online market place site and immediately advertised our lawnmower and whipper snipper, Rather surprisingly, these sold quickly. He was quite gleeful to see them go.

Bus came home from aunty’s place to the new house, where it was driven down the driveway beside the house and parked in front of John’s shed. Some pittosporum hedging had to be heavily trimmed first. There was not a great deal of clearance on either side, and the fact that said driveway was angled around the corner of the garage, made this exercise rather harder than it needed to be.

Had a tradesman come in and measure the area in front of the shed to have a carport extension built onto it. For the first time since we bought it in 2012, Bus would eventually be under shelter. But it would not be built until the new year. The new roof would be gabled, with a central high peak – to accommodate the height of the air-con unit that was so nearly scraped off a few weeks ago.

Only a few days after Bus had been parked in front of the shed, John realized it would have to be moved again, in order to extricate the trailer, which had been parked off to one side of it. Admirable forward planning demonstrated here! The trailer still contained several large and very heavy timber slabs that John had moved from Melbourne on it. These were destined to  make large table tops and the like and needed to be stored in the shed. We needed the trailer to collect some mulch for the garden, and take some packing remnants to the tip.

I started the process of reversing Bus back down the driveway, with John directing from outside. This method had worked when our old van had needed reversing, but we’d never quite mastered it with the Bus, as John had usually reversed it in caravan parks. I couldn’t work out which way he wanted me to turn the steering wheel and it didn’t seem he was that sure, either! I did make some progress backwards, very stop and start, but was soon ordered out and John completed the tight reversing through the side gates and around the house corner to the street.

On the cement of the drive at the front of the house, there were now some curvy rubber patterns, which demonstrated how many times Bus had been inched back and forth to get round the angle.

I suggested that we should maybe try reversing Bus back up the drive, when it was time to put it back, after the trailer was unloaded and taken out, which might make it easier to drive out next time. For some totally illogical reason, it did turn out to be easier to do, that way. Couldn’t really work out why – it didn’t change the size of the driveway!

John decided that, to make Bus entry and exit even easier, another task for the new year would be to remove the low brick fence at the front of the block, along with some garden there, and relocate the mailbox, thus creating a straight driveway.

The obstacles to a straight entry to the side driveway…


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2018 Travels November (2)

NOVEMBER     WHERE THE HELL IS 24?

Friend M was anxious to see the new home, so came to visit early in the month. I was hoping we might be able to convince her of the benefits of tree changing, and persuade her to move up here too. We had not seen much of her this year, until a few weeks before our move. After some short domestic trips, she’d gone travelling in Mongolia, China and Hong Kong with a friend, then embarked solo on a 21 day trip on the Trans Siberian Railway, from Vladivostock to Moscow. From there she travelled to Italy and eventually finished up with a cruise around the Mediterranean.  Her emails and photos had kept me engrossed through our boring winter.

M’s photo of the Trans-Siberian train

With her first visit here scheduled, we were expecting M to arrive in time for lunch. Phone rang, caller ID showed it was M. “Where the bloody hell is 24 xyz Road” her voice demanded. I replied “Don’t know, but we are at Number xx”! 24 was our old Melbourne street number.

A few minutes later she arrived, suitably flustered. Seemed she had been cruising around our suburb for ages, looking for 24, which we now realized, did not actually exist. Her GPS had taken her to the local school, so she was convinced we had to be near there.  The lady in the Post Office had not been able to help. Being a relatively new development, the streets in the area twist and wind about, so she’d found herself going round in circles. Due to a couple of child care centres, there are also some one way streets and No Entry zones, just to confuse matters. She’d decided to drive the less manoeuvrable Troopy up here, to give it a run, rather than her little runabout, so that had made her forays into assorted Courts, Drives and dead ends more difficult. Cup of tea definitely needed – too early for anything stronger!

Along with M came the first of what would be my new additions to the garden. Near our old home had been the brilliant Kuranga Native Nursery. I hadn’t yet been here long enough to know where to find a good assortment of native plant stock, so had sent M a wish list. Like me, she needed no urging to visit Kuranga, so the Troopy contained my order of ti-trees, correas and callistemons. Not the best time of year for plantings, but I just couldn’t wait until autumn to start the process. M had enjoyed hunting down my plants for me.

One of the plants I’d loved in my Melbourne garden was a ti-tree with bronze coloured leaves. I was determined to have at least one of those here, so M.s load included one of those.

My favourite red-leafed ti-tree

Now, attention turned to the back garden. M and I wandered about, talking about what plants would be good where, and working out exactly what we already had. There were six small callistemons scattered about. A battling little something – maybe a ti-tree? A row of somewhat scraggly wattles down a side fence. A row of yuccas across the back fence. A couple of not-too-tall eucalypt trees. And fruit trees – a peach and an apricot tree, and five of what the previous owner had said were crab apples. My immediate instinct was to remove these… I mean, why have them? Suppose the blossom could be pretty, but very short lived. John pointed out that anything providing shade was probably worth keeping, with the summer heat coming on. Temporary reprieve for the crab apples. I resolved to add to the two ti-trees that were already planted in front of them, and remove the exotics later, when better replacement plants had grown up.

There was also a lot of quite high grass – with nasty spear-like seeds on. Clearly, the prior people had thought that signing the sale contract back in July absolved them of any further need to keep the garden in order. M and I set about removing said grass – which was very easy to pull up, we discovered. This was because the scattered mulch of the back and side garden sat on top of weed mat – as did most of the roots of the existing plants. Shock. Horror. M and I conferred. The weed mat would have to go. In these parts, all moisture needed to be able to get into the soil easily. Plant roots needed to be encouraged to grow deep. Decent mulching should deter weeds, without needing plastic matting to do so.

M set to, with great determination, pulling up great sheets of the horrible plastic stuff and by the time her short visit ended, had made considerable progress.

Another benefit of M’s visit was to remove our heaps of moving cartons and bubble wrap. A friend was soon to also move house, so M took the lot for her. It was a good thing she’d brought the Troopy!


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2018 Travels November (1)

NOVEMBER     SETTLING IN

The month was quite a flurry of activity.

Had work done by an electrician recommended by family – having these local contacts really helps. John wanted some extra power points and a safety cut out in his shed. We had decided to instal some extra ceiling fans in the house; there were already fans out on the patio, and in the main bedroom. We wanted them in every room. Bought the fans online and had the recommended electrician instal them.

Arranged for another recommended local tradesman to instal blockout blinds on sun exposed windows and doors at the back and western side of the house. These would help keep the place cooler in summer and in winter reduce heat loss through the glass expanses.

Had both the air conditioning and the gas heating checked and serviced by yet another tradie, because we had no way of knowing when these were last done.

We both noticed and commented to each other that the tradesmen up here were different to those we’d encountered over the years in Melbourne – much more friendly, obliging, punctual and generally helpful. It made for a really refreshing change. They seemed cheaper too.

I was itching to start work on the gardens, which had potential to be so much nicer. Started research into what native plants grew best in the conditions of Central Victoria, and which would be most bird attracting.

There was already a raised up rectangular garden bed in the yard, which we assumed had been used for vegie growing. A real estate photo I’d found, dating from 2008, showed this already in existence, but fringed with rosemary bushes which were now gone. That was only about four years after the house was built, and whilst the area was still severely drought affected. From this photo, I suspected that the central gravelled area, shown with a garden seat, had originally been meant to contain lawn, but water shortages and restrictions had changed plans.

John soon had this long bed dug over and filled with tomato seedlings.

Back garden as it was in 2008, with raised bed on right

After less than a month here, we were already feeling oriented. Had undertaken the essential task of finding a new GP doctor. Daughter had put our names down at the clinic she attended, but when John discovered that they did not bulk bill, he took himself off to find one that did. Our brilliant Melbourne dentist had given us a recommendation of a Bendigo one. Family recommendations led me to a good podiatrist. Our little village settlement had a Post Office, bakery, chemist, small supermarket and a very good fish and chip shop. John already knew where Bunnings was, from times he’d visited on our travels. A city the size of Bendigo has quite a choice of major supermarkets – no problems there. It was harder, however, to find specialist food retailers – fresh fruit and vegies, fish, in particular. The place where we bought ourselves a new gas barbeque recommended a butcher, who turned out to stock excellent meats. I eventually found a small fresh seafood shop; it opened only a few days each week, but met my needs beautifully.

We visited the central branch of the Goldfields Library – impressive – and took out memberships. I spent some time browsing their local history collection – Bendigo has a much more complex and fascinating history than I had realized.

Exploring our new home city, and starting the process of settling in, was great fun in itself. Well, mostly… by the end of November John had changed bowls clubs. Another new uniform…


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2018 Travels October 29

SUNDAY OCTOBER 29     THE FINAL UNPACKING

Last Wednesday was a day of much excitement for John – the truck bearing his wood working machinery arrived. Offloading this and putting it in the shed was so easy, with a cement drive, gravelled solid driveway up to the shed, and two large roller doors to it. Couldn’t be easier.

Arranging and re-arranging shed kept John busy – and tired – for much of the week. He decided to put some of the big machines on little platforms with wheels, so they could be moved around, depending on the latest project.

New shelving was also required and acquired. Was it actually possible that the shed contents had expanded in the move?

Some shed contents

I had somewhat naively assumed there would be a corner of the shed – a considerably larger one than we’d had in Melbourne – for my gardening implements and bit and pieces, maybe even a little potting table. Not so.

A novelty for us was having a built in garage, after only ever having carports, or open air. Not only did it securely house our vehicles, but also provided some very useful extra storage space. However, after a lifetime of not having same, I did make a very firm mental note to self – remember, you must operate the roller door before reversing car out!

A built in garage

John went to bowls practice a couple of times but did not feel at home or particularly welcomed there. I think he had assumed that he would be the “big” new bowler from the big smoke – but he had totally underestimated the quality and standard of the local bowlers. Again, he was relegated to the lowest Saturday pennant side – and again, he did not play well. He did not seem to have established rapport with any fellow bowlers at that club. I suspected he may have been telling some of them how clubs were organised in the city – trying to be helpful, but misjudgement on his part.

With order established in the house, we realized that it was actually bigger than the one we’d left. There was the same number of rooms, but they were larger. So, contrary to some people’s assumptions we hadn’t really downsized, apart from having a bit less land and no pool – and John was so happy to have left both pool and lawns behind us.

To compensate dog for the lack of backyard grass, we had already developed the habit of taking her for a daily walk in a nearby area of bushland and adjacent sporting oval. The bush was great for sniffing stimulation and the fenced oval a secure area for ball chasing games where she could really be stretched out. Who needs a lawn? But I thought I might try growing some grass in a shallow plant container, so she had some to nibble on, if the need struck.


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2018 Travels October 22

SUNDAY OCTOBER 22     ALMOST A DISASTER…

Late morning, daughter arrived to drive John out to the caravan park at Marong, to collect Bus.

The plan was to drive it to a relative’s place a few suburbs away, to be stored in her barn-like shed, along with the caravans of various other family members. I took the Terios and met them there.

The best-laid plans…almost turned into a disaster.

Daughter was directing John as he reversed into the shed, through lovely wide doors. She screamed very loudly, “Stop”. Which he, did, instantly and fortunately.

Shed length and width of doors opening – no problems. But we hadn’t thought of height. Dumb. Just luckily, daughter had been standing at an angle where she could see the Bus air con unit only a few cms from being scraped off if John went any further under the door frame.

So, scrap the shed storage.

For the time being, Bus would just have to stay outdoors, parked under some trees on aunty’s acreage block.

This would not be a permanent solution, as I really wanted it under cover.


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2018 Travels October 21

SATURDAY OCTOBER 21   NOW WHERE DID I PUT THAT?

After two days of solid unpacking and ordering of belongings, John took himself off to bowls, having already sussed out clubs, joined the one of his choice and even bought the uniform.

I continued excavating boxes. It couldn’t possibly take as long to empty these as it had to fill them – just felt that way.

We had amassed impressive piles of flattened boxes and mini mountains of bubble wrap, out on the patio. Would have to work out what to do with all that – be nice to sell it, Had cost me a small fortune to buy in the first place.

We had emptied daughter’s trailer of my pot plants, putting them temporarily in the shade of the largest tree in the back yard. Redistributing them to proper placement was another job waiting in the wings.

With husband out of the way, I fancied some background music to work to, being in the habit of playing the sounds I prefer when he was at bowls. The big sound system had a rats nest of cables and wires between its components including two independent speakers. When packing in Melbourne, I had labelled each lead and made a careful diagram of which wires went where, so I could set it all back up again. But…where the hell had I put the diagram? It never did resurface. Trial and error over a frustratingly long time saw me eventually get the sound system working again. I was very proud of myself – until a helpful family member commented that it would have been so easy, had I just thought to take photos of the back of it all, on my phone, before dismantling. Nup – didn’t think of that.

Sound system in background

Today’s other great achievement was finally emptying the last box occupying our big dining table. Tonight we could eat without a cardboard wall down the middle between us.

John had not enjoyed his bowls as much as expected. As an unknown quality, he’d been placed in a lower side, which rather affronted him. Then, to rub it in, he hadn’t even played well.


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2018 Travels October 19

THURSDAY 19 0CTOBER     WE HAVE A NEW HOME

Excitement made it impossible to sleep later than 8am.

We breakfasted, packed the camp table and chairs into the back of the Terios, put in the awning, disconnected the water to Bus. It would be staying here without us for a few days.

Our solicitors had said settlements on our old place – and then on the new – were scheduled for 11am. By 10.30 we and dog were in the Terios, parked at the sports ground across the road from the new place, waiting … and waiting. I couldn’t help but worry about some last minute glitch.

John filled in the time by walking the dog on the grassy oval. I watched them, clutching my phone, waiting on notification that all was well.

At 11am, two removal trucks pulled up outside the house. One contained the house contents packed yesterday, the other those from storage. A lot of “stuff”.

Removalists were right on time. The legal processes were not. It was a very long 45 minutes after 11am, when we got the expected phone call. All done, new home was ours.

The removalists were into the place before us!

All the boxes of household goods were well labelled so once they got the hang of the house layout, the trucks were rapidly emptied. Daughter was still on leave from work, so she arrived to help with unpacking. Her priority was to get beds set up and made, so we would have somewhere to collapse at the end of the day.

Couey spent a few hours out on the patio, tethered to a post, still being confused.

John had immediately headed to his new shed, in order to direct the unpacking of the shed boxes that had been shovelled together yesterday morning. He would have time to ponder best layouts before the big stuff arrived next week. At least in this new place, there was a wide straight gravelled driveway right up to the shed.

Easy access to this shed.

The removal trucks were gone by 2pm. I had chosen Allied Pickfords for the job because I knew that firm did all the uplifts, storage and moving for our diplomats and government staff relocating between overseas posts. John’s daughter had been moved by them several times. I was confident in their professionalism. They lived up to my expectations and then some, giving us a seamless transition – packing, storage, moving – and were very pleasant to boot. There was only one damaged item – an ordinary terra cotta garden pot, that had been put in loose at the last minute, and which mattered not at all. I couldn’t fault them – and the overall cost, considering the complexity of it all, was very reasonable.

By the time daughter left to collect the boys from school, we had rooms full of boxes, a place to sleep tonight, and an unbelievable number of “kitchen” and “living room” boxes piled up on our big redgum dining table and any other flat surface in the room. We also had the camp table and chairs set up out on the patio, so at least we had a flat surface on which to rest food and drink.

John suggested he go and buy a cooked chicken from the local  supermarket. There was no way the kitchen was ready for anything other than making tea and coffee, so I gratefully made an exception to my cooked chicken rule.

We sat out on the patio and ate our chook – with our fingers. The overhead fans cooled down the quite hot late afternoon. We discovered there were coloured lights strung around the area, so we turned those on for a festive note.

Poor Couey was discovering that she no longer had any lawn to ablute on – just gravel and pebbles! Her feet would have to toughen up.

We talked about how it was so good to be sitting outside at our home whilst noticing how fresh the air smelled. Just like when we’re travelling away from Melbourne. It was only now we were realising how polluted with vehicle emissions the air had been at our old home, with busy roads nearby. This was bound to be healthier.

Our outlook from the patio featured tall eucalypts in the distance. Good to have trees around us again; over the past few years just about all those that had originally been in the vicinity at the old location had been cut down to make way for development.

Despite our exhaustion, I found it hard to sleep soundly that first night. I realised next day this was because it was so quiet. We no longer had the pervasive, background hum of the almost constant traffic, drifting up the hill from the main connector road below. Seemed a bit ridiculous, not being able to sleep because of the silence!


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2018 Travels October 18

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 18     MOVING HOUSE

Thursday October 19 was the day. Settlement was scheduled for 11am and then our new home would be ours.

The removalists would pack up our old house and John’s shed, and a heavy machine moving specialist would come and load up his big woodwork items, and store these for a week before delivery. All this would happen on the Wednesday, as we wanted to be firmly in Bendigo on Thursday morning, at the very moment we could move in.

It had taken some planning, but worked out as I’d hoped – mostly.

I’d packed all the house contents into boxes, except for a couple of items the removalists were to do, like the large TV set. The pot plant collection was all lined up to be put into daughter’s trailer.

These are going with us

We were up very early on Wednesday. The beds we had used last night were stripped and the bedding packed away into the last of the boxes. We’d eaten “out” last night, so I hadn’t needed things for making the evening meal. Our few breakfast needs were soon also packed away.

The moving team – the same ones who had uplifted our storage items earlier in the year – arrived before 7am. As before, they were so efficient. As the furniture was emptied from a room, daughter and I did the final clean of the floor there. Within a couple of hours, the house was emptied.

Was my study

The glitch was, probably predictably, John’s shed. His idea of having packed it up and that of the removal team’s, were poles apart. They certainly had to do a great deal more there than had been anticipated by them. Lots and lots of “stuff” got shovelled into boxes any old how – and that served him right!

In the midst of that chaos, the men arrived to move the big machines. I had been dreading that process because there was no easy access to the shed. Things had to be transported down the sloping side lawn – with the clothes line in the way – then turn a sharp corner through a gate, go across the front lawn and down a grass ramp to the driveway. Past experiences when these machines had been delivered new had been fraught.

Shed access

At one stage earlier in the year, I’d wondered if we would need to hire a crane to take these things out over the back fence! Our removal firm had assured me that their specialist would manage. And they did – with a nifty little bobcat type machine that could manage crazy angles – and that bit all went seamlessly.

Then, John suddenly remembered the other shed – the small one that contained all the gardening implements and “stuff”. I deemed it wise to stay well away and leave him and the removal team to deal with each other. I felt sorry for the latter.

Yes, there are two sheds there!

But all got packed and the truck left late morning. I didn’t know where they would be tonight, but they would be in Bendigo tomorrow.

Daughter and I did the final clean and packing of things like cleaning items, mop and bucket, vacuum cleaner and so on, into the cars.

The last of it all

Friend M arrived, very thoughtfully with a lunch of sandwiches and cakes for us, which we ate sitting out on the patio for the last time. The table and seats there were being left for the new owners.

M would wait at the house through the afternoon, while a man did a final carpet shampoo. Then she would lock up and take the keys to the agent.

Our convoy left after lunch. John in his car, loaded up with aforesaid boxes of cleaning things, vac and so on – plus gardening tools that the removalists had baulked at. Daughter in her car, towing covered trailer with pot plants. I thought I’d been fairly ruthless in clearing these out and only keeping the best, but there still seemed to be a lot more than I’d realized. Me in the Terios, complete with confused and apprehensive dog and her stuff.

So it was goodbye to home of 27 years…

Daughter and I stopped at Maccas in Seymour – not my usual stopping area, but daughter wanted coffee! Then on, the usual route, to Bendigo, where she peeled off to go home and I went on to the caravan park at Marong, arriving at 4pm. John had not long arrived.

Between homes for the night

We were spending the night in Bus. Very handy to have!

Around 6pm, we had an unexpected visitor – the agent who’d sold us our new house. He had decided he would drop the keys to the place around to us, to facilitate an easy transition tomorrow – and assuming settlements all went through as intended. He also gave us a bottle of bubbly – to toast ourselves in the new place, tomorrow. So nice of him.

Despite the excitement, we had an early night. It had been a long and tiring day and we were both exhausted.