After 4 years in the central west, Nigel is out of tenure and, blissfully ignoring Murphy, I’ve been excitedly selling off furniture that won’t be accompanying us on our trip back home. It’s always tricky when you’re trying to condense the contents of two houses into one but this will be our 6th move in 12 years and I like to think that I’ve become good at it.
As well as culling the Cobar furniture, three weeks ago, on annual leave in Paradise, we sold off more furniture in preparation for the removalists. In the past they’ve always struggled to find room to put anything – giving them the perfect excuse for why the beds couldn’t be re-assembled ……… but not this time bahaha!!
Great idea if the transfer had actually eventuated!
Now Nigel is definitely no whinger (that’s my job) so there’ll be no goss about what went wrong or questions about when is a priority transfer not a priority transfer. But let me just fill you in on what the consequences have been.
Firstly, with inventories to be completed, changes of address to be notified as well as packing, sorting, culling and selling to be done, for the first time that I can even remember, I had to decline the AEC’s offer of work on the federal election.
Secondly, and so that our final trip home would be fun – with talk of good and bad times and what the next adventure would hold – we decided to drive a car each to the coast, and then leave the Hyundai behind so that we could come back together in the camper van. Clothes, bedding, an Engel, a gas heater, a chest of drawers, a queen mattress (everything that we couldn’t sell) as well as a rather large dog were all packed into every available space until Elvis had been transformed from a camper van into a furniture truck.
Plus there was our brilliant idea to cancel the holiday letting agreement with our property manager. Knowing Nigel’s mate was leaving on the 20th of May but without a transfer date set in stone, we decided on the last day of April….. just to be safe.
Of course we could just re-advertise for holiday bookings, except that the trip was quite successful and we managed to sell two bedrooms-full of furniture, leaving just one sad queen bed in a house advertised for six people.
With home loan interest rates rising and coming off an investment loan, we were keen to lock in a new loan and, in the months leading up to the expected move, I did a fair bit of ground work to make it happen. But that came to a sudden halt when we discovered that we had to be living there before the bank would agree to convert to an owner / occupier loan and to be honest, we have no idea when that will be. Unfortunately, in the meantime, interest rates have already risen.
And just when it was looking like nothing else could go wrong, the motor bike mechanic accidentally damaged the petrol tank and it’s been in the repair shop ever since we got back. With only one car, I’m stuck at home during the day and Nige gets to go shopping after work.
So there you have it. One stroke of the pen and welcome to planet Limbo.
Married to a Country Cop 