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.
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!
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.
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.
This Adventurous Age 