Eleventh Hour

This past week has been pretty frenetic & we're just about done in. And we desperately need a holiday. Oh wait, we are on holiday. For the next two plus years come this Friday!

We've been packing up the house & packing out the fifth-wheeler in readiness for Friday when our house settlement is finalised & we finally "hit the road", a whole two & half years since we started the ball rolling on our little adventure.

Even though the fifth-wheeler was about 80% packed already with our gear, I found deciding on the other 20% much harder than I'd imagined. It was a case of needs & wants and once decided on, where it was to go. I have packed a separate suitcase of our winter clothes which we'll get sent down to wherever we are at the beginning of next winter. Although I have included a few warm pieces should the weather not play ball & who knows we may just have enough to see us through. We also have the option of buying warm clothes if need be. After all we're not totally abandoning civilization.

As I'm sure everyone who has lived briefly or permanently in a boat or a RV of some sort knows, the key to keeping things in order in such a small space, is to put things back in their home once you have finished with it. And in our case this is going to be doubly important because it'll soon turn to chaos with so much stashed inside. I can honestly say that the van is packed to gunwales & then some. Every inch of every bit of available space is filled. I think we must be borderline on our weight but I know some of this will go as we eat our way through the surplus food. For the last few weeks we've been eating as much as possible out of the pantry to try & get the food store down & as some of you know I was not one to have a few bits & pieces. My pantry has always been overflowing. And now the van's pantry is overflowing & so is some of the space under the bed. I guess I'm going to have to learn new ways. We also have quite a few extra toiletries & half finished bottles of different liquids plus two of things that were in the van already; plastic wrap, kitchen towel etc. I'm sure once we work our way through all the extras we'll have a little more space to spread things about.

Not only have we been dealing with packing & sorting this week but we've both had heavy colds and have been feeling very miserable with little sleep because of our hacking coughs. Luckily the movers were delayed by a day because there would have been no way I'd have had everything ready for them yesterday. They arrived bright & early this morning and quickly had the truck loaded to the max. It wasn't so quick at the other end though. We are putting our gear into storage at a lock up facility for however long we are away. We had to combine the house load with a smaller unit of gear that we've had in storage since our shift from our original home a year ago.

"Hmm....now I wonder where I can fit this..."

It was one huge jigsaw puzzle trying to fit everything into & up to the roof of the new bigger unit. It was touch & go a few times & at one stage it looked like we might have needed an extra smaller unit to take the overflow. But the moving guys worked their magic & filled every available space although I had to look away a few times when I saw what was going where & what was going on top of it. And how they deftly threw my fragile boxes about! I'm sure my precious furniture & keepsakes will be fine & if by chance something has been damaged or broken I'll put it down to collateral damage.

We heaved a big sigh of relief when we pulled the roller door down & snapped the padlock. It's a huge weight off our minds knowing that everything is "safe & sound" tucked away in a monitored lock up for the foreseeable future.  

And then to top off the day just as we arrived home we got some more good news. We had sold David's Subaru a few months ago & I've had my VW Golf on Trade Me for the last month or so with no luck. In the last 2 or 3 weeks we've had plenty of inquiry especially when we dropped the price a good deal but nothing had come to fruition. One of the interested people had been planning to come & see the car last weekend when he was down in Hamilton from Whangarei but his wife had got ill & they had to return home without  a visit to Tauranga. He had kept in touch & managed to get his brother who lives at the Mount to come and check it over today. The brother took one look & said sold! So at the eleventh hour we now have no need to pay for storage on the car & it too is being delivered on Friday. All in all a very good outcome! I will be very sad to say goodbye to my beloved Golf, it has been a awesome car to drive, it was NZ new & is in immaculate condition with very low kilometres & if storage fees weren't so expensive I would have definitely kept it for when we return.

Saying goodbye to more than my car :)

So tomorrow we have just to clean the house which shouldn't be too much trouble being empty, take the last of the gear to the lock-up (& find a spot for it) & then I have a final appointment with my surgeon who will take one look at my poor feet & demand to know why they are so swollen! Perhaps I should have asked him to come help me this past week. :)

And then after one last night camping in our driveway we shall hitch the fifth-wheeler up & head across the bridge to The Mount camp ground for the next 2-3 weeks while we tie up all the loose ends with lawyers, accountants & banks & attend all the appointments we've made with Drs, dentists, optometrists & hair salons. Phew! And then we'll definitely need a holiday. And a mortgage to take care of the bills!