LEAVING STREHLOW PLACE

With so much to get done, we negotiated a departure date of 1 December. The final few days of packing up the house in Flynn were a whirlwind that didn’t stop until late the night before we left. The usual chaos of such a move was compounded by a poorly managed storage and uplift and 3 days of pouring rain.  Mark called in Hugh Boulter, family friend & fellow school/guide/scout parent to help out with the things that we just weren’t getting through – we owe you big time Hugh! 
Despite all the cleaning out, donations to charity shops, school fete etc, we still ended up leaving a small mountain of things with our good friends & neighbours Ross & Colleen ( we owe them even more !!) and left more boxes with Lucy and Rachael – we hope at least of it was useful!! It was a strange sight, & an even stranger feeling to see the house totally empty. The kids, who had kept going to school right up until the day before we left, were somewhat awestruck by the emptiness of the place & perhaps it was only really then that the reality of the whole enterprise sank in. 

As we finally drove down the street in the bucketing rain at 9pm on the night before we left, Sally suddenly realised she didn't have her diamond ring on - PANIC!!  She wandered around outside in the car light thinking of all the boxes, the bags of rubbish & recycling she had been through over the past few hours & was convinced we wouldn't see it again.  Mark & the children started searching upstairs in our very empty & dirty house.  Amazingly, within 5 minutes Mark had found the ring on the floor in the kitchen!!!  We all took it as a positive omen for all that lay ahead.  With one last trip to the recycling depot, we then zoomed to our 9.30pm (twice delayed) car sale in the city.  The kids went to bed on a piece of toast while Mark & Sally stayed up till midnight pulling everything together in the suitcases.