Not quite Snakes on a Plane. But close.
The Dreamy family are all together once again, not just in the same state, but now in the same dwelling. Hurrah!
Well, obviously not at this exact moment as Himself has to go to work to earn giant pennies to pay for the two houses we now own. At least the Queensland house is finally on the market, even if the real estate blokey had to use old internal pictures cos the feckarse cleaners hadn’t finished cleaning when he went to take them! Hopefully they’ve completed the job today and he can take some of our decor rather than the ‘lovely’ green and blue that was there before. Hey ho.
So yes, I am sat here in me new study, looking out at New South Wales trees and wondering where the mountain breezes are that I promised the kids. The house is as lovely as I remembered it and it still looks lovely even with all our crap in it! Dogs, cats and kids have all settled in, so all is right with the world.
The move went off remarkably well (despite an escape attempt by LukeDini the cat). They came and packed everything up last Monday, then came back on the Tuesday to load the containers, which would then travel down to NSW by train. The plan was that I’d grab some sleep on my faithful blow up bed and drive down with the dogs and the cats early on Wednesday morning. I think Igot about 2 hours before I gave up. Part of the problem was that Ellie really really liked sleeping on the blow up bed. Really REALLY liked it. And didn’t want to share any of it with me. In the end, I loaded the car up early and set off about 9.15pm Qld time.
No real dramas on the way. The dogs were great, mostly just lay in the back and slept (alright for some!) The roads weren’t too busy – mostly trucks coming the other way. Some fog settled in about an hour over the border but it wasn’t too bad. I drove until about 5am and then pulled into a rest area and had an hour’s sleep. Unfortunately, when I let the dogs out for a wee I was attacked by 3 billion mozzies – all up my arm and legs and a couple on my face and neck. Luckily only 3 of them swelled up excessively, but they’ve all gone down now.
I drove on a bit further and about 8am NSW time (they have daylight saving here, which they don’t in Qld) I rang his Lordship. ‘Guess how much further I have to travel’ .. ‘about 500km?’… ‘nopes, only 270km left to go!’ Not bad for a journey of about 1100km 
I only had one slight scenic detour when my directions let me down. But Parramatta wasn’t that bad to drive through, honest We were all glad to get here and stretch our legs, and the boys and Kev had arrived at the house after picking up the keys from the agent.
I went and grabbed a couple of hours sleep and felt half way human again. Although to be fair, I don’t usually feel more than 3/4 human at the best of times Thursday morning dawned, bright and hot. Thank God for ducted air con! We got a bit of shopping but not having a fridge limits what you can buy. We did manage though and the furniture was due to arrive on Friday. Unfortunately, there is absolutely NO signal for my virgin mobile, which was the only number anyone had for me, so I had no idea if everything was going to plan.
There was one weird incident sometime Thursday night/Friday morning. We were asleep on the blow up bed and I woke up, having had this really weird dream involving rabid cats. I lay there, wondering why I could hear a cat collar (they have bells on their collars) and also wondering what the hell the strange popping, tearing noise was. In our wardrobe, there’s an access hole for the air con, which is stuffed with a plastic thingy at the top (in the floor of the wardrobe) I realise that doesn’t sound very clear, lol, but its hard to describe it. I woke Himself up and told him there was something in the wardrobe. We both sprang off the mattress (well, ok, I sort of rolled off it in a direction opposite from the wardrobe – it was early in the blooming morning) and he was sent to investigate. His investigations mostly involved sliding the door shut, which had to suffice. Needless to say I didn’t sleep very well for the rest of the night.
Next morning, we were up bright and early to wait for the removals men to come. I opened the bedroom door. Only one cat was there. Went downstairs to sort out the dogs and make pet related breakfasts. Still only one cat. Realisation dawned the bell noises and nightly shenanigans might be connected. We went back up to the bedroom – definitely cat claw marks on the plastic. Rahhhhhhhh!!! We tried moving the plastic to one side – no good. Then we tried to work out where he might be (for yes, it was Lukedini once more – Leia is far too sensible to get herself into trouble) What was worrying me the most was that there was a distinct absence of mewing noises. We took a hatch off in the hallway which seemed to lead to the air con ducts. However, we had no furniture, so nothing to stand on and have a look. No torch so we couldn’t even have seen much even if we DID have something to stand on.
I was in tears by this point, convinced the SFC (stoopid fecking cat) was dead somewhere in the ceiling. James went out on the deck to see to the dogs and, thank God, heard mewing coming from the eaves. Back we all went to the open hatch. Himself hoisted James onto his shoulders and we did the ‘lukkkkkee…’ thing, whilst shaking a box of cat biscuits. No sign.
Out once more on the deck – the mewing seemed to have moved further inside. Hurrah! It must be working. Back to the hatch again – eventually, his grimy little face appeared. James tried to lift him down. No, he wasn’t having any of it. More encouragement was needed with cat biscuits until James could grab hold of him. Finally he was rescued – James has a lovely big scratch along his forehead but we’ve told him it’ll make an interesting scar.
It was decided to put SFC aka Tom Cruise straight into his cat carrier ready for the removals men coming. Little shit promptly escaped. Cat carrier was taped up with the grill bit facing a wall, just in time as the containers arrived. Himself went into the kitchen – SFC had escaped AGAIN and was hiding in a kitchen cupboard. He was finally deposited in a bathroom, although concerns were raised that he might do a mission impossible down the bath plug or something.
So finally, as mentioned at the beginning of this lengthy post, we are all together again. Furniture is all in. Boxes are ALL unpacked. I can hardly believe this last fact, I think its the first time since 1995 that I haven’t had any packing boxes in the house! Boys are happy with their Warhammer painting workshop in the basement. Dogs love the undergrowth in the garden. I’m in heaven with the kitchen. Himself loves his study. And the SFC can stay out of the flipping air con!
December 5th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Gosh, I is exhausted reading that lol
Glad it all went reasonably well for you