Getting the house sorted and everything clean for the 4th May was to prove hard.  Very hard. Almost more than I could manage and some things had to give.

And the only way of getting sorted was to make the existing disaster zone even worse.

Priorities had to be set.  At least 2 bikes a week had to be stripped down to components and cleaned thoroughly.  That even meant the rim tape had be to be removed from the wheels, the spokes had to be cleaned and you know that those bits where the spokes cross over – that had to be cleaned as well… and to top it off, there wasn’t actually enough time to average only 2 a week…

More chaos than normal was to reign.  Plus there was the ongoing issue of our landlady, not unreasonably, wanting to show people around the house.

Where to start?  The cleaning, then the sorting or the sorting and then the cleaning?

It was to be the sorting and the cleaning.  Pull the kit out that we wanted to take to Australia, sorting could sort of happen at the same time.  Boxes were needed: boxes for stuff the be cleaned, boxes for stuff to stay, boxes for stuff to be sold, boxes for stuff to be recycled, boxes for stuff to be thrown.  Oh, we all ready had the 2 latter ones; the recycling boxes and the black wheelie bin!  But we couldn’t actually pack anything – that was the curious part.  Anything in boxes would be unpacked and repacked by the packers so that they could list everything in the boxes.  Ahhhhh.  Talk about making life difficult.

Oh and then there was all the paperwork to sort.  Anything wooden had to be listed.  Anything with alcohol in it had to be listed – do you have any idea on the number of bottles of whisky we found that people had given to us that we had not yet drunk?  Plus there was the case of that magnum of champagne we have been sitting on since our 10th wedding anniversary when we failed to drink it.  What to do with that.  Stuart’s parents had been caretaking it for the past 4 years.  My parent’s prior to that.

Then there was the list of items with natural materials in them: getting the sewing machine serviced.  My head ached by the end the paperwork and the number of revisions that got sent to the poor removal agent assigned to us… that poor woman.  I asked so many questions of her, the curiously I actually reassured her according to her emails!  Apparently she realised I was taking Australia biosecurity controls seriously!  I had just thought I was bombarding her with daft questions and very quickly going mad!

An extract from one of my emails to her: “Page 4, Section 7 – asks about articles subject to quarantine laws.  This may seem like a totally mad question from myself, but it mentions feathers.  Do I need to answer yes or no for my down duvets, down sleeping bags, down jacket, or any woollen products?”

And then I had to find a home for our rather large friend… Grannie’s Christmas Cactus.  Thank you Catherine.  Last time it was different Cathy….  This time she has been temporarily been rehomed in Preston along with rather a lot of food which I also could not take.