We’re in that awkward part of the moving process where the decision has been made but it’s too early to start packing. So we are twiddling our thumbs, bored out of our tree.
We have made a couple of trips taking things from the shed and from the top cupboards but Jamie has pleaded with us not to bring any more until he and Nera manage to remove all of their stuff. Our original plan was that we would move Jamie and Nera and allow ourselves a week or so to give Dilston a good clean, tidy up some painting, have the carpet shampooed, and so on, before we moved in. But, sadly, those plans have been set aside and any jobs that need to be done will have to happen while we occupy the place.
We tried to be sensible but made the mistake of giving ourselves too much time before we move it. We’ve pulled back two weeks from that original decision, which will help, but it’s still three weeks before the removalist arrives and those weeks are going to be very difficult.
One saving grace is that Robyn is arriving in a week or so and we’ll be busy in that week showing her around. She probably hasn’t realised that she’s going to be pretty involved in our moving. We’ve worked out that there are three cars we can involve in the process so Rob is going to get a set of keys and a selection of stuff to transport. The removalist will take all the big stuff but our clothes, linen and bric a brac will be our responsibility.
We’ve moved too many times in our career to be excited by the process but it is nice to have the idea of going back home. There are some issues with renting which we hadn’t anticipated. Even though we look after the place as if it were our own, there’s always the thought that the landlady might pick us up on some aspect. In fact, the couple of times we’ve had to ring to ask for something to be fixed, the landlady has arrived to have a look. We found that very intrusive. In our own place, a scratch on the skirting board or a chip of paint from a door can be fixed at our leisure without the worry that prying eyes might criticise.
It’s our next movie afternoon tomorrow when two other couples join us to watch one or two movies together with lunch. I have chosen a couple of movies but one of the couples announced to me they have seen both so I have to go back to the drawing board. The movies I chose were Light Between Oceans and Viceroys House. The first is set in Western Australia and is the story of a lighthouse keeper and his wife who find a baby in a wrecked rowing boat. What’s nice about it is that the first half of the story is filmed in Port Chalmers near Dunedin in New Zealand and the second half is filmed at Stanley just up the road from us in Tasmania. Apart from the interesting story it was great to see scenes of two places that we happen to know quite well.
Viceroys House is the history of the partition of India and Pakistan in the 1940s and the terrible violence that followed. The viceroy at the time was Lord Louis Mountbatten. I hadn’t realised what an impressive fellow he was and how important he is to the royal family (assuming that the movie is reasonably accurate and not just a bit of pro-royalist propaganda). I suppose it’s appropriate that the latest addition to the royal family has been called Louis in his honour.
