Sixteen days to go…
As it turned out, my favourite eldest daughter didn’t come over today – because she’s got a hairdressing appointment tomorrow, too! So we took advantage of the time available and did the job that we thought we’d cleverly and thankfully put off until Thursday… However…
The professional packers have been booked! We’ll get two of them, this Thursday, arriving at the ungodly hour of 8.00am, and they’ll be here for six hours (plus time extra, if they haven’t finished) Then they’ll come again on August 4th (the day before we move) to pack up the last of the household. And with the kitchen all packed, I guess we’ll just have to have sandwiches for dinner that night, and a cup of coffee for breakfast! 😉 No, we’ll pack, and take with us when we walk out the door, personal effects, kitchen and food items, and any other last-minute items – mind you, we can come back and ferry things over to Stillwater at our leisure – the scintillating Sharron and her re-decorating (sorry, “stylising“!) crew are not descending on the place until around about October 5th (the photos are being taken on October 12th, which will give her about a week to get the place looking suitably like a doll’s house) So… it’s all happenin’! 🙂 This morning we gritted our teeth and girded our loins for the “Attack On The Den Drawers”! We each worked on our own drawers – six each – and it was interesting to note that while my drawers were largely full of papers, both used and brand new desk notebooks (see, I told you I always keep a couple of year’s worth of notebooks handy – “just in case” I needed one of those anonymous phone numbers or something! 😉 ) used stamps, still on their little corner of torn off envelope, pens… markers… odd gloves… a small handbag – and yes, even a pack of cards – complete, for a change! You know, the sort of stuff one usually keeps in one’s drawers… Julian’s, on the other hand, were mostly full of tools… screwdrivers of all sorts of sizes and shapes, pliers, computer components, both large and small, and mostly unusable (but then, you never know with computer bits, do you?! 😉 ) and cables… hundreds of cables! His drawers looked like he’d been cooking black spaghetti – the type made with squid ink? – for several years, and just dished it all up into his drawers! If those cables had been strands of hair, I’m pretty sure he’d have been able to make enough wigs to cover all the bald people in Melbourne! I think he ended up packing them all… There’s still a bit left in here (the Den) to pack, but we’re leaving the rest for the packers, except for the books. All the books are being left behind for the stupendous Sharron to decorate the bookshelves with (we’ll come and collect them when the place is sold, and hopefully, by then we’ll have some bookcases in which to house them all) Poor Flipper is complaining long and loudly about “things disappearing”, and “what are all those boxes doing in my spare room!”, and stamping around the house in a thoroughly bad mood (I think she takes after her mother! 😉 ) I don’t think there’s anything else left of a personal nature that we have to empty out – we’ve done the bathrooms, and the wardrobe, and the chests of drawers and bedside tables in the bedroom, and now these Den drawers – about the only thing left to “tidy out” are the hooks on the wall in the walk through wardrobe, where I hang all my scarves and wraps – I haven’t told Julian yet because 99.9% will have to go to be Dry Cleaned… I finished my drawers first, so I took the opportunity to make a new header for the blog – what do you think? I had to fiddle around a bit because it’s been a very long time since I used shapes, round (circular) gradients, and feathering – also, the space I have to work with isn’t exactly “commodious”. I feel that it’s a bit… “wishy-washy”? I was going to use a background from another of my ancient web sets, but it turned out that it was much too dark, so I decided on something completely different – but by the time I’d decided to do something completely different, it was too late to fiddle around looking for more vibrant colours – so, sorry, but it’ll have to remain wishy-washy until at least Thursday!
Weigh-in this morning. Well, the two anti-fluid tablets helped a bit – I went down two points, from 80.5kg to 80.3kg – so I still haven’t made it back to the 80.2kg that I was before the fluid started to soak into me. Anyway, I took another two anti-fluid tablets today, and I’ll keep on taking two instead of only one for as long as I’m on these other wretched pills, and hopefully they’ll keep my weight going in the right direction…
As I said earlier, my favourite eldest daughter will be over tomorrow – it seems that we both have hairdressing appointments – hers at noon, mine at 1.00pm – and she’s going straight there by bus – Julian isn’t available to pick her up tomorrow morning – so I doubt that we’ll get a chance to watch anything exciting tomorrow – by the time we’re both done, it’ll be almost time for Julian to drive her home! But it’ll be good to see her – and at least we can gossip while we’re being dried! 😉 And of course she’s sure to get a good laugh out of her mother still wearing socks (not the same pair of socks of course, I do have other, clean pairs that I change into occasionally…. like every morning!) after spending all her life listening to my many vehement and quite often strident denunciations of, and tirades against, the wearing of socks… (but the fire escape stairs are so cold!) (and besides, as I said the other day – these socks are loose, and comfortable! 😛 ) I found one fingerless glove in one of my Den drawers this morning – probably the mate to the one I used to use to protect my hand against the rough textured wall of the stair-well, until it well and truly wore out (the glove, not the wall!) So I have press-ganged this solitary fingerless glove into service, this time protecting my left hand against the glacial chill of the stair-rail!
Thursday promises to be a lot of fun (not!) with the packers arriving at the yawn-worthy time of 8.00am – I’ll hardly have my eyes open by then! I think the best thing that I can do to assist in the packing procedure is to lock myself in here, and pretend that I’m not even in the house… I’d only get in the way… (well. that’s my excuse, anyway! 😉 ) Friday, of course, our cleaning lady will be here. Don’t get me wrong – she’s a lovely lady and we love her dearly – but she’s not a very good cleaner! She won’t dust anything except benches because she’s afraid of breaking something, so everything ends up looking as though it hasn’t been cleaned for years – probably because it hasn’t! I remember my mother’s cleaning lady – she was fantastic! She’d arrive at – there you go, 8 o’clock in the morning – and she’d do literally everything! She shifted all the furniture so that she could clean underneath is. She did all the ironing – perfectly! She cleaned and polished the silver! And she dusted everything. By the time she left at around 6 o’clock in the evening, the whole place was spotless! She cleaned for Mum for more than 20 years, and in all that time, she only broke three things! (mind you, those breakages were rather valuable antiques – but these things happen, and you just have to accept it and move on, like Mum did!) We’re hoping – rather guiltily, I’m afraid – that when we move it’ll be too far for her to come – but knowing her, she won’t want to let us down, so she’ll get there, even if she has to walk all the way! 
Anyway, once again that’s about all from me for tonight – but don’t forget to call in again tomorrow night and find out if my favourite eldest daughter did laugh at me for wearing socks, when I’ve always sworn that I wouldn’t, and if we did get to watch any of our favourite shows, and probably more importantly, find out if those two anti-fluid tablets that I’m now taking are still working to get rid of my excess fluid! Find out the answers to all those questions, and more, this time, tomorrow night! 🙂 Until then though, do try to bee good, remember that there is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate; don’t forget to keep warm, to drive carefully, and to look after yourselves – but most importantly, remember to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 