They want it when they want it!!

I am now battling the movers! We had a super guy, who came to quote, so I thought he would mastermind our great trek. Right. The moment we decided which movers to use, he went on leave, and his assistant wanted forms I couldn't print out, (because the computer was reading the wrong printer). I managed to fax them to her finally, and she then passed me on to a third person, who failed to reply to most of my frantic emails, sent on random days between other happenings.

Now a fourth person has phoned to say that she is going to coordinate our move, and needs 4 forms completed NOW. I have managed 2 out of 4, and was quite proud of myself, but she feels this is not good enough. So on I go, trying to work out how much it is will cost to replace any of our furniture they manage to break on the way over. I am almost at the point of desperation, ready to say, just smash it all now, and I will buy new in Australia. But some Dave and I grew up with, and some we have bought with love over the years, we can't just abandon it all!

So back to work with forms and prices, hold onto my sanity by a thin string!

Weather training

Well, it's cold enough out there for your average male polar bear to have to look down twice to make sure he really is a male polar bear. And to add insult to injury (and hopefully not lice. I am still troubled by these mental images of ship lice - mechanical beasties with jaws to suck oil?) it's raining again. Storms and torrential downpours last night - our other self-sufficiency friends (the rabbit-warders) called this morning with a tragic tale of drowned baby bunnies. Today, mizzle, drizzle and cold-run-down-your-neck rain, and I've just heard more deep vibrations. I love the the thunder... I love the rain (to Jackson Browne on you) but right now I have some writing to do (ergo, thunder very bad), and I have to cut some tree-branches to get the container truck in to cut (ergo a wet tree to climb up, and probably fall out of.) I had already decided that I need to do this with my bow-saw rather than a chainsaw. Falling with a chainsaw seems even more fraught. And now I have rain.

So I looked up Flinders weather. We're expecting it to be colder and wetter than here.

For today, anyway... wrong.

Revenge of the Beaurocrapcy

To process the sale of the house, the lawyers need a rates certificate from the local municipality. Unfortunately that's on computer. Which is bust. And while told us it would be fixed by Friday... (last Friday) it wasn't. So... funeral Monday, and Tuesday B went in and begged, harrassed - and gave them a cheque for another 6 months - so they cannot claim we are in arrears, and they promised to send it off. We're out of pocket, of course, but if we don't get it all in to deeds office by friday, we won't be paid in time for the movers, and then everything falls apart. I love a little extra stress, and relying on other people who haven't shown themselves models of competancy in the past. It makes me SO relaxed...

The Ferry saga... continuetheth too

I see the Southern Condor - due to sail at 3 AM with cargo and passengers for Flinders... has been suspended from servce until the oil leaks are rectified. And the Matthew Flinders (the other vessel) - Bass Greens MHA Kim Booth, released a MAST report and maintenance document, which stated that it was a dangerous, lice-infested vessel.

Hmm. Interesting vessels we will be relying on!

anonymous parcels

Farewells are always hard. The funeral saw the kids come home for a last time, with their Godfather Pete and his wife Nicola, and their little ultra-bright precocious blond daughters (our Godchildren) It was bittersweet. Great to see them all, great to see my six foot tall sons brought under small thumbs and used as jungle-gyms, horses and well-trained mixtures between x-boxes and wii s with FAR more features. Sad because they all love Finnegan's Wake (the farm) and it is full of memories for all of them. Of course the emotion and remembering of my mother's funeral woven into it all made it more poignant. My son Paddy and his cousin KC gave a great Eulogy, fitting of my mum. It was a brave and hard thing that they volunteered to do.

Anyway... last night I had what can only be called a nightmare. We were camped at the coast with an unfamiliar party. My son James and I had gone for a walk along the cliffs - too stormswept and wild to fish. We returned to camp to find it all neatly packed up into into many, many depressing square canvas wrapped parcels - anonymous ones that could have had anything in them. And the keys for the vehicle - which we needed to get home in - were NOT in my pocket... but presumably in one or other of the parcels.

I hope this is not my subconcious giving me nasty messages!

Out bright Candle

Well thank heavens I went to dentist on Thursday -It was a grim enough day without a toothache. My mother died early on Friday morning. She was a few days short of 93 and had lived a full rich life, and was active - well close to hyperactive - right until she went to hospital. I am just so grateful that it was fairly quick. She was begining to get rather vicariously excited about our mad island adventure, and was relieved that we were going. I'm glad she knew and sad that she won't be around for me to tell about it.

I loved her very much and will miss her terribly.

It was a LOOOONG day

Dave woke with tooth ache.

So we started the day by trying to get a rates document, essential for our house sale - No, the computer is broken, hardware due tomorrow, come back on Monday!

Then we fetched the post, which had been collecting for a while, and discovered the pest certificate, we had stupidly assumed to be with the lawyers.

The vehicle was making a knocking noise, so I dropped Dave at the dentist, to wait for a gap in his patient load, and went to a wonderful garage. They replaced two missing rubbers to rehang the exhaust, and welded it back onto a metal bracket it should have been attached to, and repaired 2 holes in it! All in half an hour, with a very small bill at the end.

Dave had an abcess treated at the dentist, unfortunately as he was slipped in as an extra his mouth only really went numb in the car on the way out of town! Still at least it was treated in time before it really became rotten!

The next stop was to the lawyer to drop off the pest cert, which meant driving into the middle of town, with manic taxi's etc. Then another hour down the road to visit the hospital. Dave's Mom was not as well as she has been, but improved a bit while we were there.

An hour back towards home, we stopped with Carl, Dave's brother, at his wonderful restaurant and had a meal while we brought him up to date with Mom, before we set off for the last drive home in the mist.

Now, if this does not read fluently, please blame it on the long day, and not on the glass of red wine I had with supper!