Moving Update

Am having trouble keeping up with reading blogs let alone writing anything. Actually I seem to be awake half the night but am trying to resist actually getting out of bed, a few chapters of a book sometimes help. The doctor gave me some tablets but they were only enough for 12 days so have been taking them half strength. They do some good as before I started I was awake before midnight, now it is nearer 3am.

My sister always complains that I inherited my Mother's thick hair while she got Dad's stringy hair but she does not understand that I also inherited Mum's ability to worry about everything.

Really I am so lucky, all my worries have been needless but try telling my body that.
The house and land sold 4 weeks after going on the market for the top price I expected. The only problem is the purchasers wanted to be in by 14 Jan, a bit quicker than usual and, of course, across the holiday season.

I had 2 garage sales and both were lovely fine days after a week of rain. I do not have an actual garage, just a sort of carport so rain would have been disaster. They were moderately successful.

I was not able to sell my dining and lounge chairs but they were collected by Vinnies last Wednesday. I now only have a lounge, a high kitchen stool and a computer chair on which to sit. Some other chairs went in the garage sale.

I was worried about selling the car, needing it until I move out on Wednesday. Put an advert in the local paper last Wednesday and was inundated with calls so perhaps I offered it too cheaply but the guy who has lived across the road from me for 28 years offered to buy it (I just happened to mention I was selling it when he stopped to chat) and has paid me cash while allowing me to keep it until Wednesday.

The 33 year old refrigerator, 20 year old washing machine, 15 year old freezer and pre war filing cabinet are being picked up free on Tuesday. The same day all my goods are being packed and taken for shipping. Unfortunately moving overseas does not allow one to throw some odds and ends in a box in the car to take to a new house.

As I will not see the goods until I have purchased a new house (it could be 3 months) I have packed some suitcases with bed linen, blanket, towels and clothes to be sent by air as unaccompanied luggage (a bit expensive). I should be packing the bag I will be taking now so as to see what has to either be put in the shipping container or the unaccompanied bags.

A large skip is to be delivered tomorrow to take all the remaining junk (the detritus of my life).

My sister has spent 2 days here organising me (she has done that all her life) and will be back on Tuesday. We have booked into a motel for Tuesday and Wednesday nights then will hand over the keys and I will stay a week with her before the flight. I was going to stay in a motel near her but that little unpleasant scam last month convinced me to accept her offer to save some money and stay at her home. There is not a lot of room there.

My final worry is about accommodation in Dunedin. I have booked into a motel for 10 nights but will need to find something cheaper, at least partly furnished until I am able to buy a house. I have rented a car for 10 days but will have to buy one for after that.

At least the weather is reinforcing my decision to move. We have had a lot of rain which is good to prevent bushfires but the weeds have run amok. Am a bit ashamed of the condition I am leaving the garden.

Now the rain has gone, the temperatures are in the mid 30'sC and the humidity is horrendous. It is very unlikely we will have bushfires now as we would need the dry north westers to blow for a week or more and that has always been unlikely after January.
While the temperatures up here in the mountains, (while higher and colder in winter, we do not get the seabreezes in summer) are forecast to be around 30' C until Thursday when it will cool down to 21'C, in Dunedin it is forecast to range from 14'C up to 20'C next week.