10 days to go!

If time ever seemed to go by quickly, it's certainly doing so at the moment! The last time we sat and wrote anything on the blog was more than a week ago and it feels like a couple of days at the most! In any event, what really counts is that the things that need doing before we head off into the wild blue yonder, get done with the least amount of stress and hassle.
Since we are waiting to be sure about the sale of the various vehicles, we haven't actually appointed the removal company yet - I guess this will have to happen tomorrow regardless of anything else since we know that it will take at least four or five days to pack up all our worldly goods and then pack them into the container.
The one piece of really good news is that it looks as though we have finally sold the house - of course not for what it is really worth and of course a little less than we were hoping for, but nonetheless, enough to be able to cover the bond with a bit left over.That little bit left over should help with the funds required for the container - the buyer has said that it will be a cash deal and so they won't be having to wait for bonds to be approved. This is a very good thing, although it could be that the funds won't go through until the transfer of the property is done!
Everything has been a little like this - a sort of domino effect where we need one thing to happen before the next one can be tackled - often this has meant 'wasting' a whole lot of time. (the unabridged birth certificate saga is a case in point!)
The bakkie was sold according to the dealer in Johannesburg and so we got the papers up to them, only to hear a couple of days later on inquiring where the actual money was, that the buyer's application for finance, has been turned down! The idea initially was that the money from the sale of the bakkie would pay for the container! So back we go to the drawing board on that one!

We have managed to arrange for a couple of guys from the office to spend a whole week in the garage cleaning and sorting out things that are going to NZ - we realised that they had taken the task seriously when we found one of them painting the large toolbox a beautiful blue!
Pretty much everything we have has been either painted or varnished or scrubbed or treated in some way over the past weeks, so why not the things in the garage!
The last of the needlework has been completed so the machines can be thoroughly cleaned and packed away too.
There are still a couple of things that have to be distributed amongst family and friends but for the most part, everything in the house presently is ready to be packed.
We had a little look on a website this morning which was recommended by a lass in NZ who will be dealing with our arrival. It appears that although housing is pricey, availability is not an issue and there doesn't seem to be a shortage of houses to choose from, whether we want to rent or buy. Obviously, we will rent for a while and probably in a different area from wherever we land up, but we didn't have any nasty surprises when viewing the website.
Lots of the homes are wooden and although some are smallish, they don't appear to be ridiculously small - some folks have intimated that we will find them too small for comfort, but looking at what's available at the moment, we are really sure to find something that we both like, in the right area, with enough garaging for all the woodworking equipment and which is convenient to the office and so on.
Since we no longer have to consider the extremely large four poster bed which has always been an issue in the past, our requirements are not that out of the ordinary!
Last weekend, we passed on the last of the furniture that the kids will eventually inherit - the four poster, the Edison gramaphone and the woodwork models that Jo made at school - telephone table and so on.
The house really does have a couple of 'holes' where all this furniture used to stand, but it's just more practical for these items to stay in SA where they eventually will end up anyway.
The list of things to do doesn't seem to be getting any shorter - as soon as we cross something off, something else pops up that needs to be added! However, it can't be too long now before we start eliminating things permanently and find that the list does indeed get shorter!
For anyone who is interested I have managed to get myself onto the Skype scene and had a little chat with Jo-anne and Janet last week - it will be a whole lot better (and cheaper for that matter) once we are settled in NZ - here it's still a dial up situation in our little town and Skype tends to get pricey!

Hope you had a good birthday in NZ Andrew - a pity you can't hang around to meet us at the airport! I look forward to hearing your opinion of the country! And of course, now you have proved that you can do the trip from Canada to New Zealand - next time you will have free accommodation!
Surprisingly, I have stuff to do so that's all.