And then the craziness hit!!

I had booked our storage with a pod/container storage firm who assured me they would be open every day over Christmas “except the public holidays”. We had loaded half a pod already to de-clutter the house before the real estate photos and it was booked for return on packing day - 8am on the 28th. I rang to confirm before Christmas, but had to leave a message. When I finally got through (DURING Angus’ party on the 27th) they had lost/forgotten our booking!!! ARGH!!!

As a consequence, the firm wanted to load 2 pods on the 27th and 2 pods on the 28th - from 7.30 instead of from 8am. Eeeeeek!! I had to deliver our cats to a cattery on the afternoon of the 27th, right when the pod was due to arrive. We were suddenly faced with losing HOURS and HOURS of packing time (which we had admittedly left til the last minute). I feel like I packed constantly since finishing work on the 13th, but 11 years of stuff takes a fair bit to sort out! We still needed to sort / pack our clothes and I had to do the office and Dunc had to finish his garage. Everything else was done. We were living on only what was coming on Bertha - melamine plates and limited clothing.

The end result was a plea for help and our WONDERFUL brother-in-law riding in to the rescue. Billy and Dunc worked their butts off and loaded every packed box and most of the furniture into 2 pods. When I got back from the (long) drive out to the cattery and back, they were just about done. 

But instead of packing up our stuff, Dunc had spent hours loading the pods. Add to that the fact that we were already behind, and so we were up unitl 3.30am. The children were sleeping on their mattresses on the floor, but our bed still had to be flat packed on the morning of packing day - it was too covered in our clothes to do anything about! Another plea for help had rustled up Doug at 7am, who arrived to see Dunc and I staggering around like zombies after only 3.5 hours sleep. I spent the day doing something I NEVER thought I would - packing boxes on moving day! How did I ever get so behind myself?!? My mum and dad came to help and our AMAZING neighbours just kept joining in. Why are we leaving that neighbourhood??? I was seriously concerned about fitting all the ‘stuff’ from Dunc’s garage in, but he is an incredible packer and with the guidance of Junior from the storage company, they got his WHOLE 2 car garage full of cr@p into half a pod! (Mind you he did get rid of a lot). 

Dunc’s mum arrived with sustenance right after the containers left and after lunch Dunc and I collapsed and slept for an hour or so. Katie had kindly taken the kids for the day - and also taken my washing to do - bless her!! What incredible friends we have. Why are we leaving them??? After some sleep we went to get Bertha and parked out the front for the last time. 

My panic packing didn't end there though! Junior, the guy from the storage company, had bought our fridge and couches and we had arranged for him to collect them the following day. At 5pm he rang and asked if he could pick them up right now, so it was a rush job to move all the food from the home fridge to the motorhome fridge and we’ve ended up with all sorts of things I wasn’t really planning to bring to Tassie - like Mum’s glass plate of Huzarensla! Whoops.

Then Katie turned up with children and pizza, and the couches had just been collected, so it was a picnic on the floor for our final meal in Blackburn South. 

We had our first night sleeping on board Bertha - on the street and on a slight lean as the levelling system chose right then to play up! Argh. It wasn't a big problem, though I was somewhat concerned that Angus might roll out of bed. Dunc and I were VERY comfortable in our bed though - just as well! We are in if for at least a year!!