So we set a date for leaving the country for the beginning of May.  The first Tuesday or Wednesday in May.  The 3rd or 4th of May.  We could get everything organised for then couldn’t we.  The visas would have been valid for a month by then.  How much work was there to get done in that time frame?  Oh and it’s a bank holiday week as well.  What could possibly go wrong with that?

• Arranging time to see both sets of families?
• Arranging time for family living further afield to come and see us?
• Arranging the international removal company?
• Arranging time to clean everything in time for the removers’ arrival?
• Arranging the flights and ticket upgrades?
• Sorting through all of your belongings?
• Getting rid of what wasn’t being taken/stored/sold?
• Getting rid of the white goods?
• Selling the car?

You get the idea…

As it turned out, the date of us flying out wasn’t really a factor.  It was how quickly I could get everything ready for the international removal company to come in and take away what was going.  Which meant I needed to sort out what was going from what was not going…

Discussions with a couple of international removal companies and investigations into the wonderfully strict Australian biosecurity controls soon put pay to the idea of the first week of May. Too much cleaning to get done.  Not only did a whole load of stuff need to washed, dried and thoroughly checked over for any trace of anything and everything but then there was the dirt and oil on 7 bikes to deal with but to top it off Stuart was to spend most of his time away from home for the next 5 weeks or so with work tying up or handing over various contracts he was working on.  Not his fault, but it meant he was only really home at the weekends and Saturday’s were usually rather busy and he was rather tired from all the driving he was doing.

The date had to slip.  We needed to set something more sensible.

Let’s start with the day of the week shall we?

What about a Thursday?  That would have us arriving in Australia on a Saturday Australian time… starting work on the next Monday morning…. Err no.

A Wednesday would see a Friday arrival, so let’s pick a Monday or Tuesday instead.  That has us with 4 more dates available in May, 9th/10th, 16th/17th, 23rd/24th and 30th/ 31st.

Well the last option 30th/31st was out.  Not only was that another bank holiday weekend, but also half term and ticket prices would be higher, so would the upgrade charges and the flights and airports very busy… not a great idea.  The 9th/10th was ruled out because there was simply too much for me to get done and my back was hurting too much and suddenly we had a choice of 2…

So what about time frame for the international removers.  How quickly can they come?  Well faster than we could actually be ready as it was to transpire.  They could do the end of the next week… let’s leave it a week or so, shall we.  I have too much cleaning and sorting to get through.  What would go with us, what would get recycled and then there was the kitchen to eat our way through!

We set a date of Wednesday 27th April for the removal company.  That was to slide as well.  It soon became Wednesday 4th May.  I simply could not get everything clean and sorted through in time and even meeting the 4th May deadline was to prove hard.