What a difference a day makes...

Well, quite a few days, actually...to be truthful, months of sheer agony.  I've never been so stressed or worked so hard in all my life during the finding of and moving into this house.  The day of the move I went to bed about 7pm and my sister had to wake me the following morning at 10!  Been here five days now and have just discovered how to use my laptop as a laptop, and without the mouse!  Tricky.

I'm sitting in my living room (as in the photo) looking out onto the pool.  It's terribly hot outside but I'm as cool as a cucumber in here.  Muffy is asleep on my bed.  Fortunately I've not had to worry about her at all.  She miaowed all the way down in her cage on the front seat of my car, then made a bee-line for the walk-in wardrobe and tiptoed out in the middle of that first night to cuddle Mummy in bed.  She then had a nibble of her bikkies and did a wee in her litter tray, then hopped back onto the bed.  She's only ventured out once or twice and that for only a couple of minutes.  Seems she's become an inside cat overnight.   

Great to hear from you Bianka (Germany), and to know you're reading my blog.  Also great to be back in touch with you Tarja (Finland).  I hope to be more regular now as the worst is behind me and I should soon be getting back to normal.

I didn't move on Monday as mentioned in the last blog.  Philip had workmen pulling out the old ceilings with their dozens of halogen downlights, replacing them with state-of-the-art soundproofing and central lights.  Then he had to paint all the rooms.  So the move was delayed till Thursday.  What an effort he put in!  He went to the old house a few times to help me with the packing, then helped with the unloading here and had to fix up my TV antenna, tune my TV to Sydney channels, connect my washing machine and change my computer server.  Next job will be to get me a phone. Then we have to put in a kitchen. No hurry for that as the upstairs folk are bringing me the most delicious meals on a tray.  Talk about healthy eating!  No wonder the Japanese live so long!

Muffy finds a spot!

This time next Monday the removalist will be here!  The whole process is becoming more and more of a nightmare and I hope I last the distance!

Floods are now in northern NSW and Victoria and I have a friend on the river bank in Echuca.  I rang last night and they've put all their stuff up high.  There are lots of fund raising activities for Queensland, so I hope they have more for the other states.

Hard to believe

I certainly can't complain about my move when thousands of people are putting up with the worst floods in Australia's history.  ABC TV and a commercial channel are running non-stop flood information, as are some radio stations.  It is truly a disaster of monumental proportions and everything else fades into insignificance in comparison.

But I will have a little whinge - the more I throw out or pack, the more stuff there seems to be!!!!!!!!  It's been going on for weeks and still 10 days to go...The paperwork is, of course, the most unpleasant.  Old bills, receipts, cards, letters, photos, articles printed from the internet, etc, etc, are all going out.  Now I have to notify everybody of my new address, even the Companion Animal Register so Muffy will have a new address and phone number if she gets lost.  (It's compulsory to register animals and have them desexed and microchipped.)

When I'm not packing I'm lying on the sofa in front of the fan, watching the tennis.  Still practise the piano and swim early every morning.

Oh dear!

This is becoming an absolute nightmare and three more weeks to go!  Every day I sort, throw out and pack and mysteriously there seems to be ever more junk!!!!!!!!!!  Masses of stuff has gone to charity shops and I've filled two whole garbage bins that were so heavy I didn't think the truck would be able to lift them, but fortunately they were emptied successfully. 

The backdrop to all this is bad news on both a macro and micro level.  Not me personally, but dreadful things have been happening to friends:  a drowning off Cancun in Mexico, husbands abandoning wives, sickness.  And the floods in Queensland are unprecedented, with damage that will take months to fix and prices of fruit and vegetables going through the roof.  Before we know it, we'll be having bushfires!

Somehow in this chaos I manage to practise the piano and swim every morning, and have coffee and meals with friends.  I drive to the new house every couple of weeks with the car loaded up.  Philip and Manami also have boxes everywhere, but are getting new curtains, lamps, and other lovely things for the bedrooms and gradually settling in.  Emma is enjoying the pool and baby Hugo sleeps peacefully through it all!