The Clan of the Cave Bague

At the library getting a net fix. This is just wrong!

Well, we’ve moved – we’ve finally offloaded the dirty great millstone that’s been around our necks for ten years. Crown Removals were extremely professional and I can’t recommend them enough.

The guys came in and got straight down to it – packing and wrapped four hundred cubic feet of posessions and lugging them into the van to be taken into storage. While that was going on, we were packing up the stuff to be taken into our other accomodation while we undertake the last few weeks of chaos before flying out.

The guy buying our house was quite spectacularly ignorant – crowing about his new posession and being generally obnoxious, but I never have to see him again so I don’t really care. He finally signed the missives, one hour before the contract was concluded. Which, incidentally, was some six hours AFTER he turned up on the doorstep with a lorry full of stuff ready to move in.

At one point, I had to send the children over to a neighbour’s house as the new owner and his mates were fighting and bickering over which of the kids bikes was worth taking and which were “rubbish” – obviously we couldn’t take the bikes with us. Overall, they were a bunch of sub-humans, so it was a pretty traumatic experience. All in all, though, we’ve dealt with this kind of crap on our own many times before, so one more experience makes little odds.

Anyhoo, we’re now esconced in our other flat and are enjoying being in the middle of a town for a change, instead of way out in the boondocks. Just waiting on the last couple of bits of paper to arrive to be submitted to the agents, then we’re offski.

Well, we’ve moved (more or less). We have some tidying up still to do at the old place, but we’re pretty much ensconsed in the new place. But there’s no net connection! Oh no!

I’m currently posting this via the GPRS connection on my mobile and I’m charged by the byte so I’ll have to be less verbose than usual for the time being.

I’m already planning strategies for using the wifi connection at the local library for Warcraft

Well, Crown Removals are coming to uplift and store all the stuff we’re shipping over tomorrow. We’re still frantically packing, having to get stuff ready for shipping, deciding what we’re taking to the other house, and working out what to do with all the rest.

We had our chest x-rays done today, so at some point tomorrow we need to drop them off with our doctor, at which point the medicals will be sent to Sydney for processing.

All we really need now are the police checks to arrive from Scotland Yard and the whole lot can go. I’m very nervous about the paperwork being lost in the chaos so we’re keeping a close eye on it.

Our sponsor completed the Centerlink palaver yesterday so there’s really not much more to do.

Those of you who have a certified nelefa habit will be aware of the chequered history we have with this house. Well, I’m delighted to announce that this is the last night we’ll be spending in it. On Friday, the accursed thing passes into the hands of some other poor sod, and good luck to em.

You’re not supposed to feel that way about what is supposed to be the family home, but I’m just desperate to be shot of the dirty great millstone. It will, I feel, be a turning point in our lives and is more likely to mark the beginning of an era than the end of one.

However, I’m getting ahead of myself. First of all we need to finish packing everything. Once that’s done, we can celebrate.

Well, today has been….. interesting. But enough of that. Sponsorship and Assurance of Support has now been lodged with Centerlink in Australia, so it’s just a matter of attending Xrays, waiting for police clearances, and that’s it.

So, we’re pretty much focussing on moving house at the moment. We’re forming two piles – stuff to ship, stuff to take on the plane and stuff to chuck. It’s a shame really – there’s a lot of furniture in very good condition that we’re not taking and will have to be binned. We’d approached a local charity – a furniture bank – and offered to donate it, but they didn’t think we’d given them enough notice. A bit cheeky, if you ask me, but not much we can do about it.

Our buyer is getting a bit ahead of himself – he’s already attempted to have the phones transferred and is trying to browbeat us into exchanging contracts at 9am, but he’s just going to have to wait. We need to move out before he can move in and I’m not moving out before the house is actually sold.

So – madness ensues. Fun, isn’t it?

Well, our assurers have really pulled out all the stops and their end of things is now sorted out. All that’s really remaining is tomorrow’s X-rays and waiting for the police clearances to arrive from Scotland Yard.

We actually have clearances already but they’re dated February which is probably a bit old – I guess we just have to sit tight and wait for them to arrive and hope they don’t get mislaid in the redirection madness while we’re in rented accomodation.

I’ve been very quiet on this blog lately, haven’t I? It’s just I’m run off my feet, panicking and running around like a running about thing doing other stuff.

We’re moving house on Friday, with a week’s notice, so we have 65843268345 things to organise and, well, no time in which to do it. There’s been next to no game playing being done. Come to think of it, I have a nice shiny new copy of Final Fantasy IV currently in my GBA and it’s only been on for a couple of hours.

Anyhoo, I’d like to think things will change after we move at the weekend but I think it might be quite a while before we’re back into the swing of things.

Heyho. Chaos and madness for the lose!

It’s actually gone surprisingly well, really. We’ve got all the really hard stuff (like making sure we have somewhere to live I can commute from) sorted out.

Next week is going to be a lot busier, naturally, but nothing we can’t deal with (assuming I can get a few days of work).

I hate this guy. I’ve never met him, but I hate him nonetheless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hs_OchfmBc8