“Children can safely travel unaccompanied by air”

Just watch out for strange women trying to give you comics.

I hope our flight attendants wear such wonderful hats!

We are staying at the Novotel in Glen Waverley after an extremely busy day.

Allied Pickfords arrived this morning to wrap the furniture and they remained for most of the day. I dropped Orlando off at Dr John’s (sad) and we also did a lot of cleaning, last minute errands and packing of suitcases. Mark had to relabel many of the boxes as Allied Pickfords didn’t give us the right information (grrr).

Twenty-four hours from now we’ll be on our way to the airport.

Here is Orlando’s luggage:

Note the David Jones bag. It contains: Food, medications,  a cushion and blanket for the plane, a bed and blanket for his stay at Dr John’s, and some litter for Dr John’s. We are donating his travel cage to a needy cat as Jetpets has their own official cages. Orlando has, unknowingly, spent his last day in the garden at Murrumbeena. He will need some lap-time with Mark this evening.

This is Doris in her Kate Spade urn, she will be travelling by air freight as you know what happened when I considered scattering her ashes:

Hey Doris!

Today I said goodbye to Mum, and it was the first time I cried. Leaving feels very real now. Hi Mum! We’ll Skype and text and you will visit in the middle of next year, so we’ll see you soon!

Tomorrow the packers arrive to wrap the furniture, and Orlando will go to Dr John’s for a few days.

I’ve finished the gin!

Today we made a list of the things that we need to do before Wednesday night. Mark has done a smashing job of the packing and we’ve worked out what items are coming with us in suitcases and the air freight boxes. There seems to be quite a lot for air freight, so we’ll what happens when they come to pack it. I’m still determined that we’ll fit Doris’s ashes in the air freight because I think she would get rather weary of a six week sea voyage.

We had a lovely Christmas at Pam’s parents’ place. It was nice just to relax, enjoy good company and eat good food – and not a moving box in sight!

Today Dimitra came by to say farewell, and then Louise and John dropped in. Everyone who visits leaves with household items – Louise took the Drambuie and John the Stone Benchtop Cleaning spray. I think all Dimitra ended up with was our updated wills, oh, and also a Scott’s Christmas Collection CD of course.

Mum will be coming over tomorrow, and Monday night will be our last night in this house. Tuesday Alllied Pickfords comes to wrap the furniture, and I will take Orlando for his stay at Chez Dr John’s. We then move into the Novotel. Wednesday Pam will drop over to collect anything else from the house that’s not moving with us, we drop off the car to the lady who bought it from me, and we go back to the hotel to get ready for the flight. The Qantas Club Lounge seems a long way off, but I’m sure it will come soon enough.

Meanwhile, we’re desperately trying to finish off all of the alcohol in the house. I’m doing OK on the red wine, but Mark has far too much Rose and White left. At the moment I’m having a large gin and tonic, perfect for a summer’s evening such as this.

This is a photo from Christmas day of the delightful, but timid, Jasper.

And this is the wonderfully friendly Claude, who is 16!

Orlando was certainly wary of strange dog smells that we brought back with us that night!

Orlando wishes all of his admirers a wonderful festive season.

Note Orlando in the lower left searching for his Christmas stocking.

Here’s a more festive Christmas shot from 2006:

Merry Christmas!

Santa’s probably putting his boots on about now…

Orlando. No idea what the next two weeks have in store.

It all looks so delicious – who could say no to a Cold Meat Mould recommended by the Canned Foods Advisory Board? The Forgotten Dessert looks pretty good though…

Busy, busy, busy with only nine days until we leave the country. Today we went to the computer recycler to drop off the last of the old iMacs – this one was a Ruby red one, which was once my pride and joy. We also visited the dump to get rid of last-minute rubbish, and we picked up my new laptop (a lovely MacBook Pro). I’ve been confirming arrangements with JetPets and Dr John about Orlando’s travels.

On top of that we also had our offer on the Liverpool house accepted by the vendor! We followed all of Phil and Kirstie’s advice from Location, Location, Location, making sure we haggled. I’ve now darted an email off to a UK conveyancer asking him to represent us. The offer, however, is only the very first step in a very convoluted process in UK property buying.

Like being in the fridge! Yay!

I’ve posted this one before, but I think it deserves a second viewing with the Christmas season upon us.

Finished work yesterday. Made an offer on a house today…