We made it!

This is really a ‘brain dump’ to catch everyone up on the last month, and advise that yes, we made it. 

But to get you all up to speed….

The container was picked up on time all to plan on the Friday 28 August, and the Android dropped me at the airport on Saturday morning for my flight to Tasmania.

I arrived at the house at about 4:30pm on Saturday 29 August, by which stage it was raining and absolutely freezing. The tenant had not only used all the firewood, but failed to mention that the underfloor heating controls had melted... which meant no underfloor heating. Of course, I hadn't packed a portable heater in my carry-on luggage.  

So my first night was spent in a mad scramble to find anything dry and combustible, then sleeping on an inflatable mattress, wearing a pair of track pants, 2 pairs of socks, Ugg boots, 2 T-shirts, a beanie, woollen gloves, a jumper and a jacket on top of my Superman onesie. 

I spent most of the night trying to convince myself that we had not just made the biggest mistake of our lives.

The next day I had no end of willing locals keen to tell me this was the coldest winter in 30 years. 

But at least I ended up with some firewood.

On Monday, having waved off the cats in the care of the lovely people from Dogtainers, the Android was able to start the long drive from Queensland to Tasmania (2,433.4 kilometres in total).

The Android drove from Queensland to Tasmania (plus a ferry ride)

The cats flew in (with a dog for company) later that day, and were remarkably well adjusted for 2 little furry grandmas (they celebrated their 12th birthday in September). By the time I picked them up from the airport and brought them home I had at least been able to shop for kitty litter, cat food, a heater and an electric blanket (not looking forward to the first electricity bill…).

Naturally, during that first week alone, the crazy hours & stress from work caught up with me. By Tuesday I was coughing up my lungs and alternating between being freezing and walking around in a T-shirt. I definitely did not want anything to go wrong or would probably have lost my few remaining marbles too.

The container arrived on time and in one piece as planned that Thursday.

There was, however, a moment of panic when the guy delivering it said he didn’t think he would be able to get it in the driveway. I think I willed him into it by repeating “It’s going to fit. It’s going to fit.” over and over. 

It fit. 

The guy was a genius. Though he was very keen to point out (frowning) that we had over 10 tonne in the container. Oops.

Andy arrived on Friday having spent 3 days driving down the East coast of Australia, and a night on the ferry from Melbourne to Devonport. He took one look at me while I coughed and spluttered, and dragged me to the doctor.

I told him that not all the gurgling noises were me, and that I thought the water pump (which supplies our house with water from underground) was about to die. 

It died on Sunday. 

We had it replaced Monday. 

The suddenly efficient water pressure made a pipe under the slab blow. We got that fixed Tuesday (by redirecting the pipes, not by digging up a foot thick concrete slab). Fixing that pipe then made another pipe blow on Wednesday. By which time we were considering adopting one of the plumbers. Especially when we found out that the septic hadn’t been pumped out in about 15 years. 

It was also about that time that the roller door fell off the garage.

Okay, let’s be honest, nothing has been done on the house in about 15 years. We have to spend a lot of money on fixing the boring things before we can start doing the things we actually want to do!

On the plus side, all of the nice people who have fixed our various ‘issues’ have collectively said that the house is really solid, so we have in fact been really lucky that these (so far) are the only things years of neglect has produced. 

Though ‘really solid’ can also translate into ‘really annoying’… like all the door frames are actually steel which has been back-filled with concrete (we just thought that they were timber like on a normal house…) which is going to made changing anything a little challenging.

But really, we were expecting a lot of the above to happen, knowing that the house had stood empty for so long and that no-one had really cared for it. The only disappointment has been that the kitchen really isn’t as serviceable as we had hoped (the Android obviously had his “man eyes” in when he decided it just needed a coat of paint) and will need to be replaced rather than revamped.

Eventually.

The fuzzies are still settling in as a result of the continuous stream of tradies (the complete fun with the plumbing deserves its own entry later). They also saw their first horse a couple of weeks ago and that confused them! But they are now getting on better with each other, so obviously they like having the larger space (than the basement flat they spent a year in) and the peace and quiet

We are settling into the routine of the mountain… 4pm is when the neighbouring cows get fresh hay (that’s when they start moo-ing) and 10am the old man from the forest walks with his dog down the road outside our house... backwards.

Feels like home.