30 May 2007

Posting under duress

Sometimes you have to get things down in writing even though it's the last thing you feel like doing. Not that anything has gone disastrously wrong - just that I feel in a state of continuing low-level stressedoutedness which isn't particularly comfortable. Neither of us is sleeping very well and there seem to be innumerable loose ends to tidy up at work and at home that are becoming overpowering at times.

The removal firm is going to be packing our stuff up on Monday and loading it into a 20 foot container. The ship leaves Liverpool on Friday 8th June - the same day that we leave Manchester. The children had their last day at school on Friday and today a man came to take away my little car. :(

I've had trips to the optician, doctor, dentist and blood donor clinic in the last few weeks as I attempt to get up to date with everything. They won't take blood from me in Canada, as I'm obviously riddled with mad cow disease, and to give blood here you need to have been in the UK for 28 days after any trip to Canada, so that might be my last time ever for giving blood. Annoying really. Maybe I'll have to cultivate some leeches...

05 May 2007

Progress

Looks like we've come to some sort of agreement on the price of the property in Canada, so now we've just got to sort out the various things that are the conditions of the sale. This includes getting the water in the well tested, the house surveyed and the minor point of getting the finances in place.

We've had a couple of representatives of international mover firms round to give us quotes for packing up our stuff and sending it off on a boat. It'll take a little over a month for the container to get to our new house. We're hoping to complete on 19th June, so we will for a time be proud owners of a house with absolutely no furniture. It'll be like it was when we bought our first house in Aberdeen, back in December 1988, when we had a truly ghastly lime-green and brown bed-settee and pretty much nothing else. We can't take beds out to Canada anyway, so will be buying new ones as a priority for our first week I should think.

I'm thinking that I'll need to take out a basic set of kitchen utensils/pans/cutlery in our luggage so that I'll be able to prepare simple meals in the new kitchen. There is at least an oven there, so we'll be able to cook. One of the big selling points of the house for me was this lovely woodburning stove, also in the kitchen, which was a really welcoming sight the first time we saw the house (when the snow was coming down horizontally outside!):

Woodburning Stove
Mind you, there was a bird in the chimney when we went back to the property for our second visit, so another priority will be putting a bird-proof cap on the chimney!