Getting Sorted

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.

 

Setting a date for flying out of the country

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.

Our Next Big Adventure: Australia