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| Sold! |
It's now October and, by the measure of recent years, this year has been manic. Moving house is difficult at the best of times; when you are both well into your senior years, it can seem next to impossible. For a while, our only goal was to survive the next open home - there were ten in all, the last one on 27 July. Then, finally, on 18 September, moving day was upon us. Our movers were great; they came and packed, transported everything and cleaned the empty house. I must admit that paying the bill was significantly less stressful than doing all the work ourselves.
I'm glad that we didn't leave it any longer before selling the castle and downsizing. The last seven months have been exhausting enough, even though we had professionals doing most of the heavy lifting. At our age, taking six months out to work on moving house seems like a significant inroad to our remaining years; another few years, and it feels like the stress could have been terminal. Still, here we are, all in one piece and ready to make the most of the remaining years.
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| Our new 'digs' |
We are now five weeks into our new home, and things are beginning to fall into place. There is still much to do to make it 'our place', but we have made a good start. As the garage slowly emptied of storage boxes, the car finally managed to get undercover last week. A dog-proof gate has been installed on the courtyard entrance, insect screens for doors and windows are being manufactured, and the landscape man is looking at repaving our courtyard out the back.
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| The lounge. |
Our unit is nice, less than half the size of the castle, but warm and comfortable. I have a small office, and Annette has a nice workroom out in the 'Pod'. There's a 5m square living area and a wonderful-looking modern kitchen. About that kitchen … we both liked it when we viewed the unit back in March. It is a modern upmarket design with some very snazzy appliances. After working in it for the last few weeks, we can also confirm that it is an absolute triumph of form over function. I could go on for the rest of this post about the kitchen's shortcomings, but suffice it to say, it is the most inefficient kitchen I have ever tried to work in. Looks, dear reader, aren't everything.
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| Courtyard and 'pod' |
We have a large lawn out front, which someone else takes care of, and a nice-sized private courtyard, which is a bit shabby at the moment but will be made into a nice sunny space for sitting outside when the weather permits. We still have too much stuff (little stuff, not furniture), but we'll work through that in the coming weeks.
Staying in Oxford has been good. If we had to find our feet in a new community as well as a new home, it would have been too much change. Bethany is now just a few meters up the same street, while Katie and her family are just around the corner. All up, this seems to be a good choice as a place to work out our retirement. We feel quite blessed.
Then, on Thursday last week, we had the strongest winds that we have seen for several years. Trees down, power lines down, trucks blown over - it affected everywhere from Southland to the middle of the North Island. Some of the more remote places are probably going to be without power for a week yet. Fortunately, our power went out during breakfast, but was back on in time to cook dinner - one of the advantages of living in a small town, I guess. First power outage in our all-electric home, though!
All this activity has, fortunately, diverted our attention from the fact that the USA continues its seemingly relentless march from world power to bankrupt impotence. There's still a way to go yet, but the direction of travel seems set and, rather than fix the problem, those who can seem to be fleeing the sinking ship. I guess that's what you get when a country puts individuality above community, power above truth, and braggadocio above character. Whatever you think of his predecessors, Trump will at least earn his place in the history books as the president who swung the wrecking ball - both figuratively and literally (goodbye, East Wing). Oh dear, that probably means I am on some administrative blacklist now. C'est la vie.
