Poor Little Poppsy!

Well Poppsy went for her little op today. I don't know poor girl’s still all in a dither with the house being empty! I took her to the vet (guilty to say they were called budget vets!) on my way to work this morning and had to pick her up at 3pm. She was very unsteady on her feet. I had to go and pick Tom up when we got home so I asked Matthew to sit with her until I got back. I had a phone call a little later and Matt wanted me to come straight home as he was off to the pictures with his friend. He didn’t want to leave her alone! When I got back he had somehow taken her upstairs to his bedroom and I had terrible trouble getting her back down! She got stuck halfway down the stairs and she wouldn’t go up or down. I really didn’t want to pick her up but in the end had to.

Toms Birthday - What's with the hat Tom?

Well, Tom turned 10 today. He had a party for his friends at Scallywags and he was lucky that anyone turned up. He forgot to give out the invites! After some frantic ringing around he had enough turn up to have a lovely time.

Later we had a few of the friends round for tea so he could have his Dad there. Ian had been at work during the day and Tom wasn’t very happy that Dad wasn’t around for his “last” birthday! I did tell him that he would have birthdays in New Zealand but I don’t think he was convinced! Everyone had a good time in the empty house.

My New Furniture .....Mmmmm

Well, we have settled into our new way of living. Ian has worked hard today to try and make us a little more comfortable. Not easy but it's a lot better than last night. We have TV, computer and Playstations so we have plenty to do. I picked up a book to read today for the first time in weeks. Bliss!

Bye bye stuff....... see you soon!

Well that’s it, all our things are on their way to New Zealand (Apart for the growing “Oh no, that should have gone in the container” pile!) The move went well, smoother than I thought it would anyway.

It was planned that the shippers would come at 9.30am to do the inventory and the container would arrive mid to late morning, allowing 3 hours to load it. Mmmm, no. The container arrived at 9.45am and there was no sign of the shippers. I had to go and pick up some things and when I came back half an hour later they were hard a work. They intended to write the inventory as they went along. Ian had a detailed inventory already written but they didn’t want it. What a waste of effort that was!

To be fair to Masons (We went through John Masons and this was the firm in Barry South Wales they subcontract to) they were really hard working and the way they packed the container, with no wasted space, meant that we took a lot more of our belongings with us than we had expected to.
The next few weeks are going to be a little hard for everyone, no beds or comfy chairs to sit on. We do have a cooker and a fridge though, so I can still come in from work and get the tea on, instead of getting a take away. Lucky me!!

Total chaos - Don't pack the dog!!

Well the last day of having stuff. Pepper nearly got packed with all the boxes!

2 Days till Shippers

2 days to go. I can't wait now, as we'll be forced to finish messing around with our things. Ian is quite stressed and I can’t remember him being like that before! I said to him last night, this is the first time you have been stressed in the whole process. (Perhaps that’s a reflection on who's done all the hard work so far!!)

I have a lot of paperwork to sort out over the next couple of days. I'm going to leave work a little early so I can go and put some money in the bank to cover all the shopping I’ve done lately. I don’t know about leaving work early tonight I could do with not going back in for a few days!

What a Day!

Well, what a day this has been. I have been writing a shopping list for the last couple of weeks and today was shopping day. Yuk, don't like shopping at the best of times and the end of November isn't the best with all the Christmas shoppers around. I had a big list to get from Argos, bookcases, desks, office chairs for the boys, a pressure cooker new phones etc. I could go on but I'm even sending myself to sleep! Half the things were out of stock and had to be reserved at the Caerphilly store and when I went to pay they declined my card! Great, I know I'm running low on funds but not that low. The lady at the till asked if I had any other way of paying... I have a VISA card but don't know the PIN? Ummm, no that won’t work then. Ahh, I have a long forgotten Argos card in my bag. Success, I can have my shopping. Now to get it all out to the car. By the time I got home I was fed up and really didn't fancy another Argos trip to Caerphilly but I went only to be told that they didn't have all the reserved items. Arrrr. Oh well, that pair of cream curtains just wasn't destined to live in New Zealand!

We have 2 days left to get everything packed before the shippers arrive. We are nearly there and the house is like a bombsite. I have no idea where we are going to sleep after they’ve been. I’ve managed to borrow a put up bed from a friend and I have made it clear to Ian and the boys that this is my bed!! (Only until something better comes along of course!) I can’t wait for them to come and get all our stuff now. We are going round in circles as the vast majority is packed and ready and the rest can’t really be wrapped until the morning they come.

I’m now going to make a start on shredding all our paperwork. I bet that come Monday I will discover I have shredded something vital. Always happens that way….or is it just me?

It's all Happening Now

Well things are really starting to happen for us now. The shippers have been booked for 2 weeks time and Ian has spent the last week packing all our belongings ready for them. If all goes well the house will complete in just over 2 weeks and we will move until the 20 of December when we arrive at mums. The car has been booked (a nice big one for all our stuff!) and we keep that until we get to the airport at the end of December.