Packing Part 2

Our house used to resemble Aladdin's cave. Dirt on the floors, chests everywhere and loaded with treasures (if only you could find them). And don't even get me started on the storage warehouse called the garage that looked less like a place in which a car had ever been parked and more like Ground Zero in New York City. And enough spiders to make Shelob's lair look like a haven for arachnophobes.

We have cleaned, polished, tidied, gardened and most of all disposed of the accreta of several decades. Our neighbours unknowingly allowed us to fill up their bins on garbage night, and still it comes. We have not yet begun to pack. Just Add Water's passport has not been issued yet and I'm pretty irritated since we paid over $100 more than a week ago for priority processing.

Other things are progressing. I've signed my contract, we're flying out in less than two weeks. We don't know where we are staying, but that will sort itself out. I hear that One More Bar in Dili has closed, which is a pity as the proprietor not only ran a decent bar but was a qualified butcher and served up some pretty good tucker.

We're getting tradies in to fix everything we should have done long ago. Just Add Water is putting in a sterling effort and Three Strokes has been of assistance.

And of course we're leaving Canberra just as the weather starts to improve.

Packing - part 1 of many.

We are getting ready for the move, which is less than 3 weeks. It's been a salutatory lesson on how much you can get done if you have to, rather than if you vaguely want to. My study, a source of personal shame and disgrace, will be tidy and ready to vacuum today. Fidget's bedroom is already done. He saw it on Skype and was gobsmacked. For the first time I actually believe that we can do this. Things are moving quickly and stars are falling into alignment.

Even the weather is cooperating. It's spring in Canberra and it isn't pouring with rain and sleet.

We had a mild disaster last night when a shelf gave way and dropped onto my computer chair. It was about 100 kilos of shelf and papers. However, I was downstairs and it somehow missed everything of value, including my main computer. Just Add Water was terrified that I'd been injured, only to find me arriving and asking what the blazes was going on. Picked up all the mess and got ready to continue, but I decided it was bedtime.

There are going to be a few time consuming things, and the question will be whether to address the problem now or do a Pablo Picasso. Picasso was notorious for crating everything up when he moved house, and never uncrating, but simply accumulating more possessions. By nature, I am very minimalist (with a couple of exceptions, mainly T-shirts), but Just Add Water gets sentimentally attached, particularly to books. It's a question of approach - I ask "Will I ever read this again?", whereas she asks "Will I feel comfortable getting rid of this?".

We still have a long way to go, however, and the question of our trio of pets is very much unresolved.