Packing

How do you pack up your house for two years? And when do you start?

These are the questions plaguing us as the date of departure draws near. We’ve started packing our life away already, with the first boxes of books and stuff installed in the garage as of yesterday. As well as books there’ll be boxes of clothes, records (yes, we’re keeping them after all), nostalgia, photos, tax records, you name it. Our whole life will essentially be in that garage. What if it burns down while we’re away?

Departure is only a month and a bit away now. In addition to de-cluttering, we have to get the house looking nice so we can take the photos that will be used for advertising to find the tenants who will pay the rent which will pay back all the money we’ve spent getting the house looking nice so we can…. you see how circuitous life can be. So there’s heaps of little jobs — painting, fixing up holes and cracks, finally getting a new door lock… all those little things you put up with because even though they’re a little bit annoying they’ve never been annoying enough to warrant real action. Until now.

I feel kind of lucky, because you often hear of people who only finally get their houses in order when it’s time to sell up and move on and thus never get to enjoy the fruits of their efforts. Whereas in our case we’ll be back in two years to check out our handiwork.

So Eleni is in charge of filling and painting, and I’ve been doing stuff such as repairing some ridiculous gaping holes I found down the side brick wall  – it’s a wonder the place hasn’t fallen down or developed some serious cracks. The first “repair” I did was the world’s most embarrassing mortar job, with bricks leaning in and out at all angles; the second was a bit better; and the third wasn’t half bad if I do say so myself. This gets rid of the hole problem; now there’s the slight matter of the complete absence of mortar in the bottom ten or so rows of bricks around most of the outside of the house. Tragically, and although I was just starting to get the hang of this mortaring caper, I think I’ll have to leave the rest until 2012, because soon Christmas will be upon us and there’ll be no time left for anything because we’ll be too busy buying presents and cooking food and eating it.