We have been sorting and packing with increasing intensity over recent weeks, leading up to spending nearly all of the productive parts of the days sorting and packing this weekend. While initially intending to bring it all along, I have culled and sorted some things, and so have the girls and Steve, so satisfyingly, I took two trips to Vinnies. Our landfill bin is overflowing. I even sorted out many of my papers in the filing cabinet, so the recycling bin is full as well.
We had the bathroom re-tiled because the grout was mouldy and not salvageable. I don’t want to sell a house with broken or missing things that a new owner would have to fix, so I still need to organize to have a cracked glass pane in Lara’s window replaced. Unfortunately the missing leadlight window pane in the shed doesn’t seem to be fixable: it can’t be easily removed due to a pipe being in the way.
Dad has helped us with trailer loads of crushed brick to renew the paths in the garden for the first time since we moved in, and paid for our handyman to build a new front deck, replacing one that was rotting. The painters have finished painting the outside of the house a smart blue and the back deck tanbark-brown. It looks like a charming cottage already, and with a bit more hedge pruning and maintaining the leaf litter with regular raking, the garden is looking inviting too. I pruned the olive hedge in the back garden last weekend, and the weeds are minimal for now. Behind the scenes, Steve has spent about an hour every day for weeks organizing tradespeople, conveyancing, a new home loan, real estate agent arrangements, bills, deliveries and insurance. I am grateful for all of that, as I haven’t had the focus or commitment to project manage it.
Rhea has started a scrap book with some mementos, and has made sure she scheduled in time playing with the neighbours over the back fence. When I suggested that Lara could ask them for some eggs this morning for our scrambled eggs because we had run out, she willingly though with some embarrassment went over and procured some. They have both spent hours packing and gardening, bribed with payment, and are also having fun hiding and playing computer games in the largest packing boxes. We moved in with seventy boxes, we are leaving with around eight six, with the hallway books to be packed later.
The girls and I enjoyed perhaps our last bath together tonight. The new house has a bath and a fireplace, both essentials for my wish-list. I have left out some food in our pantry to see us through for a couple more nights, and we are trying to keep a bag each of essential clothes too.
We are moving on Tuesday, after a busy day working from home, concluding with an hour of intermittent parent-teacher interviews tomorrow. As a friend said, unpacking is more fun than packing. I’m looking forward to hanging my clothes in my new bedroom, which has twice as much built in storage, so I won’t need to store summer and winter clothes on rotation as I currently do. The new kitchen is smaller though, so we have tried to categorise the boxes of kitchen items that can be stored while we consider, choose, engage and complete a kitchen rebuilding project, likely to take many months. My creative outlet for the autumn and winter months.
As we empty out, sort and pack, I think of the refugees locked up in a hotel and living desperate lives on Manus Island who the Government has finally, arbitrarily, allowed to take residence in New Zealand, after up to nine years of incarceration and mental torture, to have a chance at restarting their lives. I think of the more than two million Ukrainian refugees leaving their homes, without any certainty for their future, and mostly travelling with minimal possessions. Tucked away in Australia, it is easy to feel immune from state-level conflict and catastrophe. But with the impacts of climate change increasing here too, floods have been raging in NSW and Queensland. COVID-19 still impacts our lives, and winter is around the corner, which may bring with it more COVID as well as the winter flu season.
An election brings further possibilities of change. I hope so. We need a government skilled and compassionate enough to work for peace, equity, and action against climate change.
In our small patch, we are starting a new chapter, and thinking of those whose new chapters are unfolding.
