Snoskred - Life in the Country

There is one book that I never pack when we move.

Back in 1998 or so, I first was introduced to Jane Austen. We were travelling to Sydney the next day and I happened to catch one of the early episodes of Pride and Prejudice - the miniseries with Colin Firth as Mr Darcy - on the ABC. The story drew me in.

The next day we were at the airport, both in Adelaide and in Sydney, and I looked for the book. No joy. Why airport bookstores do not stock the classics, I have no idea.

So that night I went to bed wanting to read the book Pride and Prejudice, but not having it.

The next day we ended up in the main street of Sydney where all the shops are. It was an alien world to me - I knew the city of Adelaide like the back of my hand, where all the shops were, where to go and find what I needed or wanted. So I was completely lost and it was raining and the streets seemed slightly scary.

I can’t remember where or how but I did find a bookstore, and I found this book - The Complete Novels Of Jane Austen. It does not contain Love and Friendship (which I have never read yet) but it does have the 7 other stories that I love and can read over and over again without getting bored.

This book has travelled all over Australia with me. It never leaves my bedside when I am at home, it is the one book that never gets put on the bookshelves. It always stays on my night stand.

On the day where the nightstand gets moved, it will be picked up and placed next to my handbag where it will wait for me/us to leave.

It will travel next to me in the car if I am the driver - on my lap, if I am the passenger.

It will wait be placed next to my handbag in the new house, and once the nightstand is in the new spot, it will be placed on the nightstand.

That night, as my books will not be unpacked yet, I will probably pick it up. If I am not already in the middle of one of the stories, I will allow it to fall open to where it feels like, and then the book will have chosen which of the stories I will read next. I will turn back to the first page of that story and begin to read until I get too sleepy to continue.

You might see more posts from me than you had been previously as moving raises some issues for me.

Yesterday, I began the task of packing up my office. My office has two huge bookshelves which quickly turned into 4 large boxes of books. I then packed up all my art stuff.

For some reason - even though I know I have to downsize because the new place is a little smaller and does not have storage space.. I am finding it difficult to let things go. I thought I was more than ready to de-clutter.

Earlier this year I chose to swap some of my books for new books. I used to be into true crime stories but these days seem to be switching to other kinds of books.

I had several Ann Rule books which are worth quite a bit when you take them in to swap as there is a big demand for them and I decided to let them go and swap them. I read them one final time, and then took them to the book swap. I still have a couple of her books which I wanted to keep, but some of them just no longer seemed relevant to me.

As I was packing my books I began to see a few others which I will want to read one last time and then let them go. And yet..

.. as I was packing up my art things, I found myself holding onto a small plastic container which arrived in this house packed full of cobalt blue beads which I have since transferred into a storage container. Thus the container was empty.

I found myself thinking.. I should keep this.

…

And I actually put it into my art box.

…
An empty plastic container.

…

It is at this point that I began to recognise, maybe I have a problem here. Maybe I am going to find this process of letting go of things - de-cluttering - saying goodbye to things I own - a lot more difficult than I expected.

So I took the empty plastic container out of the art box and put it into the recycling. Then I decided to get rid of some more plastic from that box - a couple of my art sets came encased in plastic - I de-encased, and recycled.

On the inside I want to let things go, but there is some part of me that wants to hang onto things.

Back in September of last year, some new tenants moved into the unit next door. Pretty much straight away we knew this was going to be an issue as they had several (two or three, we still are not certain on the exact number) children under the age of 7.

The first thing we found was a need to move bedrooms. We were not using the master bedroom in this house because we preferred the slightly smaller second bedroom without the ensuite - it tends to wake us up when the other person is in the bathroom and it is the only bathroom in the house other than a small toilet downstairs in the garage.

The reason we had to move bedrooms was because the younger child’s cot was placed up against our bedroom wall, and he was able to bang on our wall until his parents went to get him. They usually left him in there for half an hour or so, from 7am to 7:30am. Not the kind of wake up call we wanted. So, we bit the bullet and moved bedrooms after a couple of weeks.

After they take the children out of that room around 7:30am, they seem to allow them to just run riot. Doors are slammed, there is yelling and screaming, chairs are dragged across the floor, things are dropped onto the floor - and all of this we enjoy because there does not seem to be much furniture in their house soaking up the noise, and the walls are fairly thin.

This is not a problem when you have two adult couples living in the units - we’d managed nicely with the previous tenants. I guess that was because we were not trying to tear the place to pieces without any supervision from our parents.

After a month or so we talked to the real estate agents who told us it would not be a problem as it was a short term lease for 3 months only.

9 months later, one noise complaint from us which achieved nothing, and a complete run around across three months from the real estate people on the installation of an air conditioner.. we are so ready to be out of here. We found a place we liked the look of, and went to see it last weekend. We heard today that our application was accepted, so we will be moving in over the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I am done being nice. The music is up, loud, in every room of the house while I pack. We have tolerated their noise for many, many months. I am extremely hopeful that our noise is as much fun for them as theirs has been for us.

With that said, you won’t see me much for a bit while we’re moving. There is something awesome about the new place but I will save that for once we’re in there.

I’ve seen this many times now and it never fails to completely stop me - and everyone else who happens to be around - in their tracks. We were actually packing our shopping away in Aldi when the truck arrived, and knowing how amusing this can be, I grabbed the I-phone and got a couple of shots.

The drivers of these trucks have to be extremely talented to get into this loading bay. There are always cars parked on both sides of the road and the drivers have to get very close to them! There is a very tight squeeze to get into the loading bay - probably less than a metre on either side of the truck if it were parked exactly in the middle of the bay..