A Moving Experience

It does look like it will really happen.

 After false starts, delays and attempts to persuade us to move somewhere else (so that an Important Person could have the house earmarked for us), problems with the maintenance crews and almost everything else, we have a confirmed key-handing over ceremony for next Tuesday morning. 

Prima is flying over to help with the chaos, bring her mother cups of tea and generally make herself useful.  She is in the air as I write this and lands here tomorrow morning at 6, inshallah, as they say here.  Fourteen hours flying, poor wus.

The packers will arrive on Wednesday and do the heavy packing and lifting (especially of the 1000+ books), finishing sometime late Thursday night.

The cats go to the vet for the duration on Tuesday afternoon.

I have devised plans for each room which Marius has printed on A3 for me, and which I will stick on the doors and walls to help the furniture placement.

We will be without internet for a few days (oh, and a little busy!) so I will check back in post-upheaval.

Really though, do you have a spare bed?  Could I come and hide at yours for a few days?  No one would notice me, I'm very quiet, don't eat much ...    why did I ever think this would be a good idea?

Last weekend we found these on the lawn:

Bigger than hens' eggs  -- probably peacocks' eggs I reckon.  The next day they were gone, no sign of broken shell, far too big for a bird to move, so somebody must have pinched them.

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The Other Wall

Downstairs we've painted one wall red - everywhere else is painted a sort of 'almond white', which you can see in the photo.  The rooms downstairs don't have doors (except my study) so you catch glimpses of the red wall but don't see the full expanse unless you are in the hall. If you look at the other walls in the hall you see the reflected rosy glow from the red.

Strong colours have an interesting effect:  people either love them or hate them I find.  This is the first time we've actually been in a position to choose any wall colour in over 12 years.

Our house in Sydney has a central hall that runs from the front door to our bedroom door (a long way, about 20 metres or so) and it is painted 'Egyptian red', a sort of terra cotta colour, to the picture rail and white above it, with skirting boards, picture rails, window frames, doors and architraves in a fresh pea green.  At the time of painting viewers were divided between the head-shakers who said 'how will you sell it?' and the more open-minded who loved it.  In the front of the house (the old part) the walls are 11'6" in the old money (just under 3 metres) and in the back of the house they range from 4 metres to 8.  There is a lot of 'Egyptian red' and we never got tired of it.

I love colour.

Upstairs in the hall we've painted one wall blue in the 'new house':

Shame about the regulation red fire alarm.

We are hoping the blue will be cooling for the bedrooms, and again, apart from passing through the hall, most of the time you will only see glimpses of blue or its reflection through doorways onto the otherwise whitish walls.

It is only paint.  Funny how some folk get so passionate about paint.

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One Wall

I've just been across to our 'new' house to check on progress and the painter has completed the wall in our front hall.  (Don't worry, most of the rest of the house will be pretty boring):

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The Cats at No 4

Curiosity will be satisfied.  Or satiated.  Or piqued. Or ...  well, possibly there is none.  Never mind, I will do my best.

First, this chap:

Ratty in bonnet

Our Ratty.  Remember when he was AWOL in January, and we thought we'd lost him to either the Great Poisoning or to a third 'neurological meltdown', and then he reappeared like a bad penny?  We think during his rambling, he picked up a fungal infection which has caused itching, welts, loss of fur gloss etc.  Actually he was quite poorly with it for a while.  Much expense, special food, nutritional supplements, anti-fungal drugs and ointment has been lavished on this street cat.  He responded well, was out of his bonnet for about a month, coat good, energy and spirit returned and then, (co-incidence?  is it all psychosomatic Ratty?) I went away and he re-lapsed.  So he is back wearing the bonnet and taking the expensive medicine and being made a fuss of.

Mdm Wolfe:

Divine, thanks.  Haven't yet succeeded in evicting that obnoxious Mr Macc, but I am persevering.  I broke a fang last week, which is annoying - not that its loss spoils my looks as you can hardly tell, but when I 'open wide' I don't look quite as fearsome with three-and-a-half fangs, as I did with the full set.  Shame.

Miss Ming &  Mr Macc

 We are both well, thank you for inquiring.  It is a little cooler these days so we are able to take the morning air on the balcony, which we enjoy immensely.  Sometimes we are invaded by young Ratty but he is mostly harmless.  Silly but harmless.  We will not speak of that other creature who is trying to take over our home. 

Of course, the others don't know that their world is about to be upended (they don't understand human-speak as well as we do, of course).  In the next week or so, cardboard boxes will be infiltrating the peace, accompanied by rolls of bubble wrap (what has happened to the wonderfully rippable and crunchy  tissue paper that packers once used?) and then lots of men in big boots.  Mother has organised an hotel for us for a few nights, not that that will compensate for the chaos and confusion, at all.  We have our territory delineated here.  Who knows what mischief that Wolfe will inflict on us in a new house?


I think that is enough cat talk for the time being.  There is much news from the street which I will save for another day.  


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