A New View

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I have finally resurfaced after a crazy few days which culminated on Friday in the removalists loading all of our possessions in the container ready to be transported by rail freight to Victoria. They will be held in storage until the purchase of our new home is finalised in the second week of May.

In the meantime we are spending the next 4 weeks housesitting.

We are only 2 blocks from the main street yet this is the view from the back deck.

There is also a view of the western horizon which is quite a novelty for us as we have spent the past 17 years in a house tucked against the base of an escarpment on our south-western boundary so there have been no sunset views.

If the weather behaves nicely I may have some sunsets to share in the next couple of weeks.

My Life in Boxes

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I think the title says it all.

I started packing boxes about 6 weeks ago – a little bit at a time but the effort has really ramped up in the last week as the removalist deadline approaches – Friday is the big day.

Today we loaded the final few things onto the ute and took it to a friend’s place to store it until we are ready to leave Queensland in about 6 weeks.

Meanwhile, back to the boxes. We had packed boxes stacked up in no fewer than 4 different rooms so this afternoon GMan decided that it would be a good idea to put them all together downstairs in the garage.

This is the result!

And another view.

In other news, I received a notification from WordPress overnight to let me know that this is the 12th anniversary of Organised Castle. I must admit that I never imagined I would still be writing this 12 years later. My sincere thanks to all of my readers over the years. I have made some really special friends through the blog, too. Don’t forget to join the Facebook group of the same name if you would like to interact more and meet other like-minded readers.

My blog has been with me through some interesting times and probably none more so than our impending relocation. So, strap yourself in and come along for the ride.

A Week Later

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The last week has slipped by while we have been occupied with packing.

Our primary focus has been sorting, cleaning and packing up the contents of the garage and workshop.

Most of the big items will be moved by the removalists but GMan has packed quite a bit into the ute as we will be driving both cars to our destination and it seems somewhat pointless to take an empty vehicle.

Although we will not be leaving Queensland for about 6 weeks, the packing of the ute need to be finalised before the beginning of next week as it will all be relocated to a friend’s carport when we leave this house.

An important consideration was making sure that everything was covered and secured for the impending trip. After careful consideration, we decided to buy a new waterproof tarpaulin to cover the contents. There is no risk of it flapping or blowing off as it is securely tucked under the heavy boxes at both ends as well as being tied to itself with the ropes going right underneath the entire contents of the ute. The tie-down straps over the tarpaulin then anchor everything.

Seen Better Days

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There are days when even I must admit defeat and today is one of them.

I have written before about a pair of shorts which I have modified and mended over a period of close to 30 years. You can read a bit more detail here.

Yesterday was the death knell for this much-loved garment. GMan and I went to the dump with a load of garden waste for a friend and I managed one final rip to my gardening shorts and I have to confess that they are now simply beyond any type of further repair.

If you are in any doubt here are some final photos before they go in the bin.

Front view.

Back view, including the final rip.

The inside showing multiple patches.

There is one more thing to do though. There is a perfectly good zip and button which can be salvaged.

Countdown – Cooking

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Removalist day (17th March) is fast approaching and it is time I gave some serious consideration to the kitchen and food.

It will be almost 8 weeks between the date that everything is moved and when we actually move into our new home in Victoria. In that time we will be housesitting near our existing home, spending a few days with family and then house-sitting for a week in Brisbane before spending 5 days driving to Victoria and another 10 days in an Air BnB before our final relocation. All of this means that although I will have the capacity to cook meals, my access to a full range of ingredients and implements will be somewhat limited.

So, this morning a made a list of some of the major ingredients I have. The next step is to create as many meals as possible that can be frozen and fairly easily reheated or finished off with the minimum of ingredients.

The first cab off the rank was a batch of chilli con carne using up diced onion, mince, kidney beans and refried beans from the freezer. It made 5 serves.

Ingredients

1 large onion, diced
250g mince
500g kidney beans
1 cup refried beans
1 can crushed tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 cup water
2 teaspoons beef stock powder
1 teaspoon cumin
2 teaspoons smoky paprika
1 teaspoon powdered chilli
Tabasco sauce – to taste

Method

Gently saute the onion in a little olive oil, add the mince and stir until fully browned. Add the remining ingredients, combine and simmer gently for about 30 minutes. This will allow the flavours to combine and thicken slightly to a spicy, rich sauce.

NOTE: Adjust seasonings to suit your taste.

Building a Box

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Just when you thought that all of our attention would be focused on decluttering and packing for our impending move, you discover that we actually spent some of our time making, or at least repairing something.

Even though my father died over 20 years ago, his legacy lives on. We have 3 boxes which came from his workshop which we have used to store various items. 2 of them had been in our woodshed for several years and we discovered that the base of one of them had completely rotted.

We are planning to use these boxes to pack things from the workshop in and transport them to their new home on the tray of the ute.

The boxes had originally been made by my father from various scraps of masonite and the reinforced with metal angle.

GMan removed the rotted base of the box and metal angle surrounding the base by drilling out all of the existing rivets. He then cut some offcuts of pine to make a frame to fit inside the base and screwed the metal angle back in place.

The final step was to cut a new base. This was cut from a piece of scrap plywood which we sourced from a neighbour. It had been one of the signs for our combined garage sale a week earlier.

The view of the completed base.

A final view of the inside with a reminder of the source of the plywood.

With the plywood in place and secured with nails, the box is as good as ever and I expect it will last for many more years.

Six Months of Searching

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It is actually happening. After six months of searching, we have found a property that ticks all of the boxes for us and we now have a signed contract.

We will be significantly downsizing the land that we have to manage from almost 6000 sq metres (1.5 acres) to just under 1000 sq meters (1/4 acre) in the town. Most importantly, it is essentially a flat block.

The house which is only 2.5 years old is almost identical in area to our current place but quite a different floor plan. It is on a slab with step-free access.

Here are some photos. They are from a couple of years ago and there has been one major change. The double garage is now a large lounge room with big glass doors across the north-facing front.

The floor plan.

Part of the backyard.

While there are some minor tweaks that we are planning, the property is essentially ready to walk in and unpack.

Very exciting!

Kicking Goals

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For several weeks I have felt as though we have been juggling various aspects of our house sale and relocation without making much progress on anything.

That is not entirely true but now everything is beginning to fall into place. I mentioned last week that we have an unconditional contract for the sale of our current home.

We have also made an offer, which has been accepted, to purchase a property in Maldon, Victoria. The contract should be signed within the next couple of days. This will give us a firm date for when we can move into our new home.

Meanwhile, we have done lots of jobs – large and small.

  • Packed more boxes
  • Held a garage sale
  • Bought a tarpaulin to cover the items we will be transporting in the ute
  • Booked a pre-travel service for the ute
  • Bought a lock mechanism for the toolbox
  • Researched a hands-free phone holder for the ute (no bluetooth)
  • Finalised our accommodation arrangements for the remainder of our time in Queensland
  • Planned our road trip from here to Victoria.

Even though the majority of our focus is on the house sale, purchase and relocation, we have still found time to enjoy some recreation. Tomorrow evening we are going to enjoy some live theatre as we attend a production of David Williamson’s play, Family Values. I am really looking forward to that.

Countdown – 4 Weeks

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It is now exactly 4 weeks until the removalists collect our worldly possessions and pack them into a container to be freighted interstate.

This is both exciting and scary as I look around and see what still remains to be done. On the up side there are now 31 cartons packed and sealed. One of today’s projects was packing up the bottles of wine. I collected several cartons from our local bottleshop which made the job fairly easy.

I have also begun to tackle the kitchen. Most of what I have in the kitchen is used fairly regularly so I am loathe to pack too much just yet. However, I di manage to almost fill a carton with plastic storage containers, some platters and random things like icecube trays.

The pile is definitely growing and I even have a couple of completely empty cupboards.

Meanwhile, I am making baked potatoes for dinner. This is fairly unremarkable apart from the fact that I am doing them in the airfryer for the first time whereas I have previously used the slow-cooker. I will let you know how they turn out in a future post.

Progress

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I am excited to share that we are making some progress in the quest to sell our current home and relocate interstate.

We now have an unconditional contract for the sale of our home. This will be finalised in a little less than 6 weeks so the pace of sorting and packing will step up a notch or two in the coming weeks.

On the flip side, we are working on negotiations to purchase a property in our preferred location. There is still more to be worked out before I can discuss that any further.

Tomorrow will be a complete departure from packing issues as we sort out some medical matters. Fear not, GMan and I are both in good health.

I will be back in a couple of days with some updates on our adventures.